sikhi on my mind

"Feminism gets bad press not because it's dead, but because it's dangerous."
- the Editorial Collective in this month's issue of Briarpatch

I’ve been thinking a lot about patriarchy lately, for various different reasons, not the least of which is my terribly depressing IWD blog entry. Have also been involved with collectively writing a sort of position paper on patriarchy with some folks as a report to an organization I work with where male domination has been a long-standing issue. We started writing the report after I came back to Singapore earlier this year, though, so I’ve been thinking a lot about the myriads of ways in which patriarchy manifests itself and how context changes everything about the struggle.

I’ve spent most of my free time in the last week helping my mum out with preparing for a Sikh history and prayer competition that she’s organized with her friends for the gurdwara children and teenagers. Since my mum’s computer literacy is fairly low (although I’m really proud of her for having learnt how to check her email on the Internet), she asked me to help her with the Power Point slides (although, if you want my version of it, I was bullied and guilt-tripped into doing it.). So I spent all week looking at questions about the Sikh gurus, Sikh history and Sikh prayer. And I was reminded, once again, of why I am a feminist.

Ofcourse all religions are patriarchal. How can they not reflect the pervasive forces of oppression that already exist in the societies in which they function? The thing that always gets me about Sikhism, though, is its grand claims of ‘non-sexism’, of advocating for women’s rights, of putting women on an equal footing with men, at exactly the same time as it does the complete opposite. Never mind the fact that all the Sikh Gurus were men, and there is only one (yes, read 1) woman in popular Sikh history who is not a wife or mother or sister of a Guru. Her name is Mai Bhago, and she was strong and militant, but she is all we have, and that is not good enough for me.

Ideas about kirt karni (working hard to earn an honest living – doesn’t matter if you’re poor or oppressed, but if you’re a hard worker, you will be rewarded, maybe not in this life but definitely in one of your next lives, trust me), naam japna (meditation – oh, you mean to take time away from organizing for your rights and achieve ‘inner peace’ despite your oppressive material conditions instead?), and wand chakna (sharing with the needy – oh wait, unless of course you are the needy in which case you should be eternally grateful to an all-seeing intangible being for bestowing such good grace upon you and continue to naam japo and kirt karo so that you will receive more blessings. And if you do happen to have enough disposable income to do some charity, then you can go ahead and feel morally superior and rest assured that you will be rewarded, yes you guessed it, maybe not in this life but definitely in one of the next); all these ideas only serve to reinforce the status quo and create unquestioning, content-in-their-place people.

Adhering to these principles didn’t stop Balbir Singh Sodhi from being shot to death four days after 9/11 in an Arizona town by white racists who considered him just another ‘turbaned terrorist’. Adhering to these principles doesn’t stop men from beating their wives, doesn’t stop Sikhs from hating Muslims, and it certainly does not stop capitalism from functioning.

Much of the poetry in the Sri Guru Granth Sahib, written mostly by the Gurus and some other saintly men who were part of the Bhakti movement, uses imagery that positions the devotee as God’s bride – which already sets up a power dynamic that renders femininity inferior and subordinate.

The evolution of Sikhism into a Miri-Piri, warrior-saint, religious ideology has completely distorted what began as a peasant-based struggle for land into a misogynist focus on violence that has been easily co-opted by ruling forces to ease the way into successful recruitment of Sikh men as soldiers and pawns of the state and imperialism.

There are aspects of the ideology that I know I draw from constantly – standing up for social justice, not turning away from a struggle even if outnumbered, the struggle for truth, etc. But for the most part, I am cynical and bitter about this (my?) religion, and that scares me sometimes. In some ways I think it would be easier to believe in a ‘higher power’ who ensures that justice will prevail. Not believing this means facing the idea that justice is our fight, and humanity’s struggle alone.