Sikhs in the 21st Century

Remembering the Past, Engaging the Future

Before being named the Sarbjit Singh Aurora Chair of Sikh and Punjabi Studies at the University of California Santa Cruz, Dr. Nirvikar Singh had made a name for himself there as a Professor of Economics. His work in economics had encompassed extensive research on India's economy, including the problems of the Indian state of Punjab, with its majority-Sikh population. He led the Sikh Studies program there for ten years (which included introducing a Punjabi language curriculum, first at UCSC, and then systemwide). And through his teaching and research, he came to recognize a major need: resources for learning about Sikhi.

Dr. Singh took the initiative to start a new video project that would help address this gap, and he recently released the first set of lectures in what he has titled — Sikhs in the 21st Century: Remembering the Past, Engaging the Future.

The first set of lectures, produced by the UCSC Teaching and Learning Center, are as follows.
1. Sikhs, Bhagats and Sants
2. Early Sikh Institutions
3. Sikh Sacred Spaces
4. Sikhs and Colonialism
5. Sikhs in California: Identity and Experience

As someone who cares deeply about the field of Sikh Studies and who sees firsthand how behind we are, I’m thrilled to see these resources come online and to help share them with you. I’m also grateful for the chance to discuss the project with Dr. Singh to understand better what he’s hoping to accomplish with these videos and why.

Simran: Tell us about the inspiration behind this project? How and why did it come to your mind?

Dr. Nirvikar Singh: As someone who was raised in the Sikh tradition, and has become a trained and experienced scholar, I have long been aware of gaps in understanding that tradition, even among scholars. The inspiration for this project comes from observing these gaps, and one method for addressing some of them is to create materials that are based on rigorous scholarship, visually engaging, and freely available. A considerable amount of visually engaging material on the Sikh tradition has been produced, in the form of documentaries, educational videos, and illustrated books. But it seemed to me that these existing efforts did not quite come to grips with some of the core gaps, or even misunderstandings, that persist, even in academia. Some of these materials do not go into enough depth, while others make assumptions that might be subject to scholarly skepticism, but many provided inspiration as well. So, investigating more deeply, and not taking anything for granted – part of being rigorous as a scholar – have also been part of the project goals.

A final inspiration came from an event at UC Santa Cruz. In the Peggy Downes Baskin Ethics Lecture, delivered in February 2023, Joy Connolly, president of the American Council of Learned Societies, spoke on “A Connected Planet: Scholarship for the Global Good,” and she highlighted the need for a more global and inclusive approach to scholarship in the Humanities. At its core, this project aims to address one aspect of that need.

Simran: What are some of the gaps you're trying to address with these videos? Why do they feel important to you at this moment in time?

Dr. Nirvikar Singh: There are several examples. One is the framing of Guru Nanak as part of a medieval Indian “Sant” tradition, which has become conventional academic wisdom, even finding its way on to popular websites. It turns out that not only is the evidence for this framing very weak, but even the idea of a “Sant” tradition is a nineteenth century invention with weak foundations. Another example is the claim that the Sikh tradition was largely amorphous for its first three centuries, and that it was “defined” only as a late nineteenth century response to British colonialism. A related claim is that the tradition did have definition, but that its boundaries or its core principles and meanings were distorted in responding to colonialism. Again, looking at history carefully suggests that this other example of conventional academic wisdom lacks a solid scholarly basis.

Challenges to conventional academic wisdom in the area of studies of religion (or aspects of tradition that can be given that categorization in a qualified manner) are sometimes dismissed as being based on mere “belief.” So, this project seeks to avoid that dismissal by presenting material with scholarly rigor. I think these issues (and others as well) have been a matter of debate for a long time, but the more recent entry of Sikh Studies as a field in North American and European academic institutions, along with the increased importance of the internet and visual communications, make this project important at this moment in time – for me, and hopefully for others as well

.

Simran: What do you hope people will take away from these videos? What do you think they have to offer?

Dr. Nirvikar Singh: The two examples I just gave might be considered controversial, because they come up against academic power structures that are sometimes not acknowledged. But other topics of the videos in the project can be helpful to those who do not want to get too much in the weeds of historical interpretation and academic politics. One video simply traces the trajectory of early Sikh institutions, how they evolved, and how that evolution has implications for the present community. Another delineates an ecology of Sikh sacred spaces, not just as a narrative that might be found in typical documentaries, but tracing and connecting constructs and practices in these spaces to the core aspects of the Sikh tradition. A third video examines the relationship of the labels “Sikh” and “Punjabi,” especially in diasporic contexts, where identity and naming have to be translated or interpreted for new situations.

Often, even with basic topics in Sikh Studies, there are assumptions that are hidden in the work of scholars and of non-academic observers, and the videos aim to make these visible and understandable to wider audiences. So, I think these videos can give everyone who views them new and fresh perspectives, even on what might be familiar topics, or ones that are assumed to be well-understood. My hope is that these videos provide fresh appreciation for the Sikh tradition, among Sikhs and non-Sikhs, academics and non-academics. Besides the videos themselves, we are also cataloguing and checking the images we use, so that the source material for the videos becomes a repository for future scholars who are interested in visual and aural records of the Sikh tradition, in multiple places, time periods and intellectual and social contexts.

Simran: What are some of the challenges you've faced in preparing this material? How have you overcome those challenges?

One major challenge has been underestimating the time that would be required to research the topics for the videos, and to identify and verify suitable visual materials. Because we are trying to approach every topic without presumptions, checking sources has been challenging – even academics reference sources which are sometimes incomplete or even inaccurate. To produce even a short video requires dozens of visual components, and finding them, validating them, and aligning them with the narrative has been more time-consuming than I expected it would be. We also have a very limited budget, so have had to make sure that the visual or aural components we use are available without cost – this has added to the time involved in selecting these materials.

Another challenge goes back to a goal of the project that I haven’t articulated earlier in these responses. My experience has been that the academic playing field is not level, and we wanted to give younger scholars, or scholars outside elite institutions, as much of an opportunity to participate as possible. But these scholars are the most restricted in terms of the time they have available, and the pressures they face to publish in particular outlets. Videos, no matter how rigorous, are certainly not part of the incentive structure of academia. If the topics challenge conventional academic wisdom, that only adds to the hesitation of younger scholars to get involved. I should also note that some of the most knowledgeable scholars of the Sikh tradition are based in Punjab, and they are often marginalized with respect to the Western academy. Identifying some of them, establishing connections, and getting their participation has also taken time. Overcoming all these challenges has taken a lot of time and persistence – the project has made me aware of how those on the margins have to work harder than those who, for one reason or another, occupy the more visible and more dominating “center.”

Simran: Where do you hope the community goes from here? And how about scholars and scholarship?

Dr. Nirvikar Singh: The Sikh community has dealt with marginalization and precarity throughout most of its history. Sometimes that situation produces defensive responses that can have the effect of closing us off. Dealing with diversity within the tradition (which is real, and never denied in the videos we are making for this project), and the pressures of assimilation or erosion that manifest themselves in many different ways, can lead to polarization. While some of the videos may take on topics that have generated controversy, what I hope they actually do is to illuminate a middle path that respects scholarly rigor as well as the values that shape and center the Sikh tradition, thereby working against polarization. In particular, I hope that these videos can become a source of foundational knowledge for young Sikhs, giving them perspectives that avoid being locked into unproductive oppositions of modernity vs tradition or scholarship vs belief (in which modernity and scholarship are assumed or claimed to be superior). Some academics have perpetuated tropes in which Sikhs (or religious people in general) are somehow backward in their understanding of the world, or of their own history. I think that condescension has been a particular challenge for the Sikh tradition, for a variety of reasons.

The current position of the Sikh community with respect to academia is not an inevitable outcome. Talal Asad has been a powerful voice in deconstructing academia and reframing Islamic tradition unapologetically. The late anthropologist Saba Mahmood was even more forthright in considering the intellectual straitjackets that are imposed in some circumstances, titling one of her pieces, “Religious Reason and Secular Affect” to challenge the presumption that being religious implies a deficiency of some sort. But perhaps one goal of these videos is to show that scholars can do a better job, even on their own terms of reason, skepticism, and liberal tolerance.

For the community as well as for scholars, I hope this project also brings attention to an issue made visible by Russell McCutcheon, a professor of Religious Studies. He has cautioned against making categories such as “religion” beyond intellectual inquiry, but has also pointed out the problem of academics who employ “[A] cleverly disguised paternal strategy that enables scholars to portray themselves as being in solidarity with the Other while retaining the right not only to distinguish Others from other Others but also to inform both groups where their stories ought to start and end.” I hope this project contributes to getting away from strategies of that nature: it is conceived in a spirit of increasing learning and understanding for all.

Click on the below link to view the lectures from Dr. Singh:
Sikhs in the 21st Century: Remembering the Past, Engaging the Future.