Provocation 3: The ecology of Sikh Diasporic Feminisms: Interconnected ethics of seva and sovereignty

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Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Pavan is the wind, air or breath which is equated to the expressive life-force of the Guru, the enlightener, pani is the water, the father that sustains all life and mata dharat mahata is the great mother earth that nourishes us all.

2 Sikhi uses the honorific term ‘ji’ to recognize the equality and unity of all life (jiva, jivan). I offer this gender neutral pronoun to the conversation as an alternative to the binaries and pluralities inherent in the Anglophone categories ‘he, she, them’. By inserting Sikh terminologies into the lexicon opens new psycho-linguistic expressions that no longer operate within a hetero-normative-patriarchal dichotomy. Instead, it offers a dialectic of equality and oneness that allows for and celebrates the expressions of vulnerabilities, marginalities and liminalities, acknowledging their power as sovereign autonomous souls.

3 In 2002 I was honored as the first female exponent of the Sikh percussive tradition, the Amritsaari Baaj on the jori-pakhawaj. Since then I have conducted research throughout Punjab and the diaspora questioning why it is the case that I, a non-Punjabi Sikh, am the first female to seriously study and learn this tradition. My research has recently led to the following conversations and forthcoming publications:

I organized a panel at the Parliament of World's Religions, Salt Lake City, UT, Oct. 19, 2015 on "Sikh Devotional Music: Locating Gender Equality". The conversation began with Dr. Francesca Cassio (via Skype), Chair of Sikh Musicology at Hofstra University, Long Island addressing the history of inequality with the Indian music scene followed by my presentation on the current state of affairs. This was followed by a round-table panel discussion with the panelists including Dr. Cassio and myself as well as Bhai Baldeep Singh and Bhai Kultar Singh, 13th and 12th generation exponents (respectively) of the Gurbani Kirtan parampara tradition whose family was honored to play the Gurus' Kirtan since the time of the fifth Sikh Guru, Guru Arjan Dev Ji (late 16th c.). Their family has remembered and practiced original compositions of the Gurus' court since this time. Dr. Harjot Kaur, a female Punjabi Sikh minister, musician, and medical doctor; Sadasat Simran Singh Khalsa, Non-Punjabi Hazoori Ragi who has regularly played kirtan at Harimandir Sahib for over 10 years. The panel was chaired by Nirvair Kaur Khalsa who has been a student of the Gurbani Kirtan parampara since 1997, plays the taus and is the founder, principal, and owner of Khalsa Montessori School in Tucson, AZ.

Stemming from this panel I presented the paper “Engendering the Female Voice in Sikh Devotional Music” at a conference I organized on The Music and Poetics of Devotion in the Jain and Sikh Traditions at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, Feb. 26, 2016, which is now being published in Sikh Formations.

Gender equality in the Sikh devotional sphere was also the topic of a recent paper I gave “Subversive Power and Symbolic Violence: Ego-Loss as a Feminine Ethic in Sikh Devotional Scripture and Praxis” at the American Academy of Religion Annual Conference on a panel co-sponsored by the Women & Religion and Comparative Theology units in Boston, MA. Nov. 19, 2017.

This topic will be addressed in relation to the 3HO/Sikh Dharma community in a forthcoming chapter “Yogi Bhajan’s Western Sikh Feminism: The Eagle, the Adi Shakti, and the Grace of God” in the book Beacons of Dharma by Lexington Books (2019).