THE FORMATION OF THE ETHICAL SIKH SUBJECT IN THE ERA OF BRITISH COLONIAL REFORM

† This paper is an expanded and revised version of work previously published in the Conference Proceedings for ‘The Making of Modern Punjab: Education, Science and Social Change in Punjab c. 1850-c. 2000’, Panjab University (Chandigarh), October 24–26, 2013, 69–81.

Abstract

This essay examines Sikh ethical discourses and practices articulated in a tract by Mohan Singh Vaid, originally published in 1919, which argues for the transformative power of parupakār (philanthropy or benevolence) in spiritual and social terms. The essay places this work in a larger context, to trace the contours of Sikh ethical practice in relation to evolving ideas of reform in the colonial period, community mobilization organized around religious identity in that context, and new forms of knowledge production and dissemination with the onset of the wide use of the printing press in the region in the late nineteenth century.

Funding

This work was supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Standard Research Grant (2010–2012) and, in part, a SSHRC Insight Development Grant (2013–2015).

Notes

† This paper is an expanded and revised version of work previously published in the Conference Proceedings for ‘The Making of Modern Punjab: Education, Science and Social Change in Punjab c. 1850-c. 2000’, Panjab University (Chandigarh), October 24–26, 2013, 69–81.

1 Singh (1990) has undertaken a similar study, but focuses little on the dialogical nature of Sikh ethical engagement at this time in a broader context.

2 As Deol (1998, 183) has noted, the dissident group the Mīṇās produced some of the earliest exegetical literature on the Guru Granth Sahib (see also Shackle 2008, 261 ff.); Udasi sources come to the fore in the eighteenth century (Singh 1990; Shackle 2008, 263 ff.). The earliest of such work can be seen in the work of Bhai Gurdas (see discussion, Singh 1990, 238).

3 This is examined in the larger work this essay is drawn from. Singh (1990, 269–270) argues for identity between Singh Sabha exegesis and that of Bhai Gurdas.

4 As Nripinder Singh has observed, this was typical for the period (1990, 267).

5 This theme is widely attested in the literature of the period; see, for example, Bhai Vir Singh's Sundari.