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ABSTRACT
The paper looks at Sikh educational thought along with the development of the religion since 15th century. The emphasis on distinct Sikh identity and its diversity has been written about in detail. The paper argues that the Sikhs viewed education as a key source of marking a distinct identity for the community. In carving their identity as ‘Sikhs’ during colonial times and a minority after Independence, the community imagined its educational institutions as serving the purpose of schooling ‘Sikh’ children into adopting the ‘ideal’ identity. This emphasis has been revived in the post-modern era under changing socio-political circumstances in India.
Acknowledgment
I am extremely grateful to the anonymous reviewer for critical comments. I would like to thank Professor Geetha B. Nambissan, Zakir Husain Centre for Educational Studies (ZHCES), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, who read several drafts of the paper and offered suggestions. Dr. Parimala B. Rao, ZHCES, JNU, gave many helpful comments pertaining to historical context and use of primary sources.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 The research was part of the author’s PhD thesis titled ‘Minority Education, Identity and Opportunity: A Case Study of Two Sikh Schools in Delhi’, under the supervision of Prof. Geetha B. Nambissan, Zakir Husain Centre for Educational Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
2 Bhai Gurdas was closely associated with several Sikh gurus. He lived through the Mughal period and also when the religion was in transition and conflict with the changing political regimes in the country. His texts are highly regarded in Sikhism. He had referred to Sikhs being present in India from north to south. Since he lived through the life of at least three gurus, his verses are considered an important reflection on their times and significance of their teachings (Grewal and Banga Citation1999).
3 These are distinct religious texts of the Sikhs, containing religious and spiritual verses by the gurus.
4 Referred here to Kesh, Kada, Kanga, Kirpan and Kachhera. It is mandatory for baptised Sikhs to carry these five essential markers of their identity, which differentiates them from other Sikhs like the sehajdhari and keshdhari.
5 Maharaja Ranjit Singh is known in the history of the Sikhs as the ruler of the Sikh kingdom. He ruled the Panjab province from 1799–1839, for 40 years in which he brought several provinces from Lahore to Amritsar, Jammu and Kashmir and Kangra, under his rule. His political successes included recovery of Kashmir and parts of the north-west frontier areas which were under the Afghan Empire (Singh Citation1999a). As the British took control of India during mid-1800, Panjab province was the only province which remained out of the colonial rule till as late as 1830s. He died in 1839, soon after which the British annexed the Panjab province and brought it under its control (Singh Citation1999a).
6 Most scholars working on the Singh Sabha movement have taken an instrumentalist approach to the identity assertion started by its leaders. In the instrumentalist approach, it is believed that the elite of a community use symbols and cultural past of the community to rejuvenate it in the present (Shani Citation2008, 4).
7 There were several reasons for this. After the introduction of the Census by the British and listing of people on religious lines, several reform movements had started within the Hindus and Muslims. Dirks (Citation2001) has given the same argument vis-à-vis the development and consolidation of caste boundaries during this time.
8 It is interesting to note here that Hindus had also become a minority in the Panjab province during this time. The province was dominated by the Muslims at 51.3 per cent according to the 1881 census; Hindus at 40.7 per cent and Sikhs at 7.5 per cent (Jaffrelot Citation2010, 74–122). This ‘decline in the socio-economic status of the Brahmins and their new minority status’ gave impetus to the Arya Samaj movement (Jaffrelot Citation2010).
9 See Manchanda (Citation2014).
10 Some of the important texts published for the Sikhs in Gurmukhi and English were Gyani Gyan Singh Panth Prakas and Tawarikh Guru Khalsa and Kahan Singh’s Guru Sabdaratnakar Mahankos. MA Macauliffe’s The Sikh Religion was published by the Oxford University Press in 1909 (Singh Citation1999a, 146).
11 Besides these schools, even vernacular rural schools offering education in Gurmukhi to boys were being started in significant numbers. They increased from 32 to 102 and attendance from 917 to 4067 between 1901 and 1911 (Report, Citation1911–Citation1912).
12 For more works on socio-political thought behind creation of BHU and AMU, see Renold (Citation2005) and Minault and Lelyveld (Citation1974).
13 The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre, Gandhi’s Non-Cooperation Movement and Civil Disobedience Movement had influenced several students at Khalsa College who left their studies and joined the freedom struggle. However, the British continued to support religious education in schools and colleges despite its earlier stand of secular education (see Renold Citation2005).
14 The SGPC remains a statutory body established through legislative enactment. It is also known as the mini parliament of the Sikhs.
15 The idea of educational institutions as offering education in the domain of a specific religious ideology had gained widespread support by the middle of the twentieth century. For instance, the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) was started by Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya in 1915 specifically ‘as a Hindu institution, offering a Hindu education’ (Renold Citation2005). Nonetheless, the establishment of BHU was seen as a major step towards revivalism of Hinduism in the early twentieth century (Renold Citation2005).
16 The Rahit tradition has a long history in Sikhism and sought to impress upon the Khalsa sangat to follow the Rahit. Given diversities among this Khalsa identity, there are many groups which claim that their Rahit is the original, as given by Guru Gobind Singh. Under colonial influence and in order to construct a singular Sikh identity, an official rahitnama was drawn up with the formation of the SGPC (Fenech, Citation2014, 314). For more works on the Rahit tradition in Sikhism, see W.H. Mcleod (Citation1999, Citation2003).