READING WEBER AMONG THE SIKHS: ASCETICISM AND CAPITALISM IN THE 3HO/SIKH DHARMA

Abstract

This paper explores the utility of applying Max Weber's analysis of the unique relationship between the Protestant ethic and capitalism to the 3HO/Sikh Dharma. The diverse Yogi Tea and Akal Security brands – the former a health food enterprise, the latter specializing in prison and other private security contracts – comprise a multi-billion dollar concern founded and operated within the 3HO/Sikh Dharma organization's Khalsa International Industries. Is the success of these businesses a reflection of Weber's notion of capitalist asceticism, in keeping with the central position of white converts from Western religious traditions in 3HO/Sikh Dharma, or, might it reflect uniquely Sikh efforts to refuse a distinction between spiritual and material realms?

Acknowledgement

I am grateful to Michael Stoeber for convening this panel at The Canadian Society for the Study of Religion annual meetings in 2011, and, to Michael Hawley for organizing this special volume.

Notes

Hereafter referred to as the 3HO, an acronym signaling the ‘Healthy, Happy, Holy Organization’.

As with religious texts, issues of translation also arise in the realm of theory (Ghosh 2001; Kaelber 2002).

With regard to the present essay, Weber claimed that the ultimate origins of capitalism were in Judaism (as parent tradition of Catholicism, from which Protestantism developed).

While he observes that Weber's work has been controversial, Forcese in fact argues that most critiques of it are mistaken.

Adair-Toteff goes on to argue that Weber may in fact have been quite deeply concerned with mysticism.

Nevertheless, these aspects act in tandem.

This concept is used in binary fashion, and thus perhaps presages the idea of great/civilizational and little/folk traditions later developed by Redfield (1960 [1956]), who otherwise refers directly only to PESC, and with specific regard to India (Marriott 1955).

While they do not engage with Weber explicitly, Purewal and Kalra (2010) remind us of the failings of a binary model of religion on which concepts such as enchanted−disenchanted rely.

This analysis contributed to a generalized failure to recognize Sikhism as an independent world religion in a considerable number of comparative religion treatments until late in the twentieth century.

And, indeed, Wallace includes it in his shortlist of significant revitalizations.

The idea that the material/temporal or political sphere cannot be dissociated from the religious is of course central to Sikhism.

This idea is expressed in Sikhism in the ‘three pillars’ invocation to vand chako, kirat karo, naam japo.

While this is widely held to be an ideal of the Sikh community, its reality is less well-accepted. Moreover, and significantly, there was no mention in Kapany's list of caste (or class) equality. As with gender, Sikhism is considered to be egalitarian in these areas, although again the real diverges from the ideal; having said this, caste or class equality poses a significant problem for a notion of entrepreneurism as a critical dimension of capitalism, which perhaps explains its omission here.

Most of my fieldwork has been with urban Jat Sikhs who have entered middle-class professions and are wary of entering business or self-employment. Nevertheless, most retain farmland and agricultural interests.

Dusenbery (1988) has noted that the turban is a masculine symbol in Punjabi contexts. The ubiquity of women's dastaar within the 3HO marks a commitment to egalitarianism as well as a distinction from the community at large. However, the growing popularity of the dastaar among Sikh women at large (Mahmood and Brady 2000) is perhaps linked to its prominence among 3HO converts (cf. Jakobsh 2008).

Such as Kamalla Rose Kaur (http://kamallarosekaur.wordpress.com/2007/12/02/love-is-the-victory-kamalla-rose-kaurs-story/).

Neither of these terms is satisfactory, but as 3HO converts are also Sikh, cumbersome shorthands must be utilized to distinguish between them when comparison is in order; elsewhere I refer to Punjabi Sikhs, but this too can be an unsatisfactory gloss.

Such as the Dera Sacha Sauda incident of 2007.

Although, once again, this raises obvious problems of terminology, classification, and identification.

One element of this trend is to invite learned 3HO Sikhs to provide exegesis at Sikh weddings that expect a number of non-Punjabi guests. For instance, Hari Nam Singh Khalsa – host of Canadian cable program Insight Into Sikhism – has been increasingly apparent in this role in Toronto area weddings, as well as in a representative capacity at other community events, at times across the country, over the past decade.

Although widely used, this term is complicated. To refer to ‘white’ Sikhs is racially inappropriate: not all converts are white, and moreover, the distinction is one that Sikhism rejects. On the other hand, the turbans and clothing of 3HO Sikhs are indeed largely white and the term thus becomes a ready indicator.

Obviously this statement has the potential to be highly contentious, but I use it here in the simple sense that there are key features of Sikhism which are understood to be common and uncontested within a range of Indian, diaspora, 3HO, and online Sikh communities.

Other lawsuits by former 3HO members ousted from employment have targeted Akal Security, accusing them of money-laundering and drug trafficking.

Khalsa has suggested that ‘it would seem logical that [3HO members] are fulfilling their middle-class American upbringing by pursuing material goods’ (1986, 240).

‘Security’ in a general sense is viewed as a form of seva on the 3HO website.