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ABSTRACT
Sikh migration to Canada has been theoretically framed and structured largely through colonial, imperial and diasporic historicized trajectories, articulating tremendous engagement in the Canadian economy. The Great War foregrounds Sikh engagement in the military history of Canada and this article examines the ‘martial race’ ideological construction of Sikhs, the fortuitous sighting of the victory medal of Buckam Singh in a pawn shop in London; and how this unintended discovery warrants engendering of critical academic dialogues. Information on Buckam Singh is predominantly inscribed within the cyberspace, invigorating discussions of relationalities, identity-construction, military and digital diaspora modalities and spatio-temporality through e-diaspora.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
2 Crossing the seas/oceans was a taboo for Indians in ancient times since it suggested notions of ‘pollution’/ ‘contamination’ of one’s identity and religion.
3 The novel Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh (Citation2008) portrays in its narrative the manner in which British imperialism caused forced displacement of Indians, particularly the Bhojpuri and Bengali speaking Indians to Mauritius. Their travelling on the ship Ibis epitomizes the beginnings of the formation of the Indian diasporic configurations.
4 Anita Rau Badami’s (Citation2006) fiction, Can you Hear the Nightbird Call?, suggests the migration of Punjabi Sikhs to Canada, due to poverty; and due to the perception that they could secure their future if they undertook the long voyage.
5 See note 2.
6 For an understanding of the conceptual terrains and the relationalities between diaspora, geoeconomic/geopolitical implications and foreign policy, read Ahuja and Kapur’s (Citation2018) latest article, “India’s geoeconomic strategy” (See bibliography for complete reference).
7 In their critical study of Sikh military, Dorn and Gucciardi (Citation2017) suggest
The Sikh military tradition continues in the Indian Army through the Sikh Regiment and the Sikh Light Infantry, the former being staffed mostly by high-caste Jatts and the latter by lower castes (Indian Army Citation2012a, Citation2012b).4Sikhs are overrepresented within the Indian armed forces, far surpassing their percentage within the overall Indian population of almost 2%.5Though precise ethnic data on the Indian military is hard to come by, there are some clear indicators. In 1963, Sikhs were 10% of recruits, 20% of commissioned officers, 40% of brigadiers, and 45% of Major-Generals (Madra and Singh Citation1999, 166). Thus, Sikhs were especially overrepresented at higher ranks. A 1991 report maintained the 20% estimate for commissioned officers and also claimed that up to 25% of Air Force pilots are Sikhs. (Kundu1994, 49)
8 A search on google with the keyword, ‘Buckam Singh’ gives links of several websites that discuss him. Some websites are: http://www.sikhmuseum.com/buckam/; https://www.cbc.ca/radio/secretlifeofcanada/meet-private-buckam-singh-one-of-the-first-sikh-soldiers-to-serve-canada-1.4894613; http://www.sikhiwiki.org/index.php/Buckam_Singh,_Once_Forgotten_Sikh_Canadian_war_hero; https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=13&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjwx675qdbgAhVGknAKHSTAA8sQFjAMegQIBxAB&url=https%3A%2F%2F; www.sikhnet.com%2Fnews%2Freclaiming-forgotten-hero-pvt-buckam-singh&usg=AOvVaw0HDnlt2zf0V2AZ6Wf7lQhx.
9 The spelling of the name varies greatly: Buckan, Buckham, Buckam and so on. The reference is to the same person.
10 For indepth studies and information on the history and migration of Sikhs read Gill (Citation2014); and Brass (Citation2006). (Complete reference at the end of the article in the Bibliography).
11 This information is from the website, sikhmuseum.com. In the context of e-diaspora, it is necessary to note that web content becomes a unifying factor, since it serves as a record of the collective historical experience of the Sikhs.
13 While this area has been explored to a certain extent with reference to Jewish, Somali and Afghanistani communities, there is tremendous scope for such further studies on the subject with reference to Sikh cultural history.
14 For a study on the theoretical implications on hybridization practices, see "Hackneying hybridity? Fending off ‘foreignness’, Khoja Community and hybridisation in The Magic of Saida" (Citation2019) in the journal of Culture and Religion.
15 It is necessary to mention here that Buchignani did plenty of work on the subject of Punjabi migration and studied the political evolution of the Punjabi Sikhs in British Columbia. He stated:
… as early as September 1904, Vancouver’s city government was protesting to Ottawa about South Asian immigration; at that time there could not have been more than one hundred of them in the whole province … By their exclusion from the provincial voter’s list South Asians were quickly disenfranchised both municipally, provincially, and federally. Moreover, most British Columbian provincial politicians were overtly unsympathetic to South Asian interests; an anti-Asian stance was a pre-requisite to office. (Citation1980, 380)
16 Mulk Raj Anand’s novel Across the Black Waters (Citation2014), delineates the character of Lalu who is a sepoy fighting against the Germans in France; and after the war, returns to his village, only to find that he has lost everything.
17 https://barusahib.org/general/the-only-military-grave-in-canada-of-the-sikh-soldier/.
There are several websites that suggest the relationality between Buckam Singh’s participation in World War I and the globalized migration of Punjabi Sikhs. The link in this footnote is just one instance. A keyword search on the subject indicates the preservation/archiving of the information on the internet.
19 It is interesting to note that Louis Livingstone Seaman, an American surgeon was so fascinated by such imperial practices of Britain that he wrote an article in Citation1900 to suggest to the Americans that they also should follow suit; take a cue from the colonial exercises of the British and likewise take care of the colonial lands. He stated thus in his essay titled ‘Native Troops for Our Colonial Possessions’:
It is on these historic shores that the experiment of transforming the Chinaman into a modern fighting machine has been successfully made by the newcomers, while the military experts of the world are watching the results with increasing interest. And since the policy of our own country to retain permanent possession of our new insular colonies now seems established, we, too, should be especially interested in the experiment from a military as well as an economic point of view. Wherever the flag of England floats, there you will find her defenses maintained by native guardians. The flower of her army is not consumed in colonial garrisons. In India, the Gurkhas and Sikhs, officered by Englishmen, form her military reliance. In West Africa the Houssas are her defenders. In Egypt the Baggaras, transformed by the skill of Kitchener, rout the forces of the Mahdi. In the Windward and Leeward Islands and Jamaica, native regiments (blacks) are employed exclusively; so too, in Australia and Canada, her soldiers are mostly native born, and in South Africa, until the outbreak of the present war, Zulus, supplemented by a small. (849).