IMAGINING SIKHS

Abstract

The images and representations of Sikhs in contemporary Mumbai cinema and popular culture, rife with portrayals of eccentricities that the audience loves to disregard eventually, point to a cultural turn that has become a power-laden strategy to regulate Sikh otherness and consequently, re-present it through a predominant, controlling gaze. In tracing such sense of carnivelesque otherness with which Sikhs have been portrayed in most Bollywood films, this paper aims to explore the configuration and re-configurations of Sikh subjectivity as an Other that remains marginalized by their difference and can only be acknowledged through a Hindu-centric lens of approval. Through depictions of what I call as Bolly Sikhs, a dubious space is created which is filled with contextual disjunctures and inconsistencies, a bricolage where Sikh identities and practices are jumbled up or deliberately misrepresented; sometimes the Sikh is presented only through subtractions and absences. The discursive limits of Sikh representation, presence and absence, when examined in context of cultural analyses offered by cultural critics as Edward Said, Stuart Hall, Frantz Fanon, Foucault and Homi Bhabha, among many others, enable us to understand the neo-Orientalist rhetoric whereby Sikhs can be seen as displaced or assimilated, if not betrayed in creative/visual representations. The Sikh thought/mind is nullified and/or absorbed within the hegemonic implications of Hindu thought and the Sikh body is at times, a fashionable icon of vibrant, colorful excess and at others, an object framed in terms of weaker ethos unable to achieve any accomplishment by itself.

Notes

^†Earlier versions of this article were presented at ‘Sikhs and Public Space Workshop’ at University of Michigan (2011) and the annual South Asian Literature Association conference (2012).

In her article titled, ‘“The turban is not a hat”: Queer diaspora and practices of profiling,’ Puar offers an excellent analysis of turban-profiling in the post-9/11 context as the turban became a marker of terrorist masculinity and an incomprehensible Otherness.

It is one thing to portray a fictional character as a Sikh man with shorn hair but another to show a variety of styles of trimmed beards that Akshay Kumar's character is portrayed with throughout the movie Singh Is Kinng.

The term ‘scopic regime’ was coined by Christian Metz, a French film critic.

A scopic regime imposes a systematicity on the visual field; a structuring effect on who sees, through the constitution of the viewing subject and what is seen, through the production of a space of constructed visibility that allows particular objects to be seen in determinate ways. […] In general, scopic regimes are constituted through grids of power, desire and knowledge, and their visual structures and practices enter intimately into the production of imaginative geographies. (Gregory 2003, 224)

For instance, Wes Anderson's film The Darjeeling Limited (2007) shows Waris Ahluwalia in the role of a turbaned chief steward of the train on which the main characters are traveling. Likewise, Spike Lee's film Inside Man (2006) portrays Waris Ahluwalia in the role of a Sikh man who faces prejudice because of his turban.

This does not imply that Hindi films have never shown remarkable Sikh roles and performances. Govind Nihalani's 1982 film Vijeta, portrayed Kunal Kapoor as a Sikh Indian Air Force pilot, Angad, who comes to terms with his identity. Kapoor's portrayal as a turbaned Sikh was commendable; however, the film did not gain much popularity as perhaps the audience was not ready to see a Sikh protagonist in a serious role.

This question arises from the predominance of Punjabi cultural references, for instance, in Yash Chopra's films and other films produced by Hindu Punjabis.

Said's theories about the West's relation with the Orient have shaped up a large body of work devoted to postcolonial studies and comparative literature. The influence of Foucault is evident in Said's works on examination of the power dynamic and rhetoric of cultural imperialism.

See Dyer (1977). Also discussed by Hall in ‘The Spectacle of the Other.’

Puar comments in one of the notes in ‘The turban is not a hat’: ‘Adult Sikh characters frequently are depicted with the patka, a garment for underneath the turban, which is typically worn by boys until they reach adulthood’ (277).

This point will be illustrated in my subsequent analysis of Nikhil Advani's film Patiala House.

It is reported that after the problems faced by Akshay Kumar from Sikh authorities for sporting trimmed beard in Singh Is Kinng, Akshay Kumar insisted on playing a clean-shaven character in Patiala House. Hence the film shows a scene where young Praghat's hair is cut by a worried mother during the racial attack.

Within Sikh terminology, ‘Singh’ denotes the given name by Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth Sikh Guru, when he initiated the concept of Khalsa in 1469 and instructed all Sikh men to adopt the name ‘Singh’ meaning lion and Sikh women to adopt the name ‘Kaur’ meaning princesses and to maintain unshorn hair. When Sing Is Kinng was released, one of the objections was this secular redefinition of Singh as King. The usurpation of Sikh meaning of ‘Singh’ to suggest a non-Khalsa (a Sikh with shorn hair) has been used as a counter-rhetorical stance in socially mediated response on internet claiming, . Translated, it means, if there is no throne, no crown, then there is no King, if there is no (unshorn) hair, no turban, then there is no Singh.

Thus Kabir Bedi as General Amar Singh Bakshi in ‘Main Hoo Na’ and Amitabh Bachhan as an army General in Ab Tumhare Hawale Watan Saathiyo have performed in military roles as assertive Sikhs.

Thus Rani Mukherjee's character Veeran disguises herself as a Sikh boy so she can play in the cricket team in Dil Bole Hadippa (2009). The juvenile boyish personality performed by Rani Mukherji's character in disguise is a façade and also manipulates her Sikh get-up with beard and without the beard. Another example is Arshad Warsi's role as Ghanta Singh in Double Dhamaal (2011).

My aim in referring to Spivak's essay is not to cause double displacement of Sikh subjects as subaltern in fictional scenarios. It is rather to open up the possibility of highlighting Sikh consciousness in fictional and popular representations.

A similar argument becomes relevant to assessing contemporary Punjabi films whereby Sikh appearances are accommodated in preference to Punjabi culture.