Banda Singh Bahadur – forthcoming seminar and publication
The Sikh Education Council, UK, is commemorating the tri-centenary of the establishment of the first Khalsa Republic by Baba Banda Singh Bahadur. We are organising a series of national UK seminars to coincide with the tenure in which we propose to highlight the achievements of Banda Singh.
We are planning to edit and publish a book in the United Kingdom in May 2010, “Perspectives on Banda Singh ‘The Brave’”. This will comprise a series of essays by leading academics worldwide.
If you are interested in making a contribution please contact:
Palbinder Singh, Project Manager, Baba Banda Singh Bahadur Seminars
Sikh Education Council, UK
A Ritual Slowly Unravels In India By Rama Lakshmi
Alarm Grows as More Sikh Youths Give Up Turbans
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, March 29, 2009; A11
CHANDIGARH, India — Text messaging with one hand and holding a cup of milky tea in the other, spiky-haired Amandeep Singh Saini, 27, recalled the year-long battle he waged against his traditional Sikh parents to cut his hair.
The act was blasphemous to his father, who tied his long hair in a turban, the most visible marker of Sikh identity.
“I was 14 then. I wanted to jump into the village pool and play in mud. The long hair and the turban were always in the way. It took half an hour to tie the turban every morning,” said Saini, a student pursuing a doctorate in Punjabi literature.
After he cut his hair and discarded the turban, his two brothers followed suit. “My mother wept, my father was angry, but I was stubborn,” he said. “At that age, you don’t think about right and wrong. I look around the campus today, and there are so few turbaned Sikhs.”
Read further: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/28/AR2009032801901.html?referrer=emailarticle
Journal of Punjab Studies Spring-Fall 2008 Vol 15, Nos. 1&2
Table of Contents
Gurinder Singh Mann Editorial
Part I. Guru Gobind Singh: Life and Legacy
J.S. Grewal Guru Gobind Singh: Life and Mission
Indu Banga Raj-Khalsa: Ideology and Praxis
Reeta Grewal Anandpur: The City of Guru Gobind Singh
Part II. Writings Around 1700
Ami P. Shah Liturgical Compositions in the Dasam Granth
John Stratton Hawley Shabad Hazare
Christopher Shackle Zafarnama
Ami P. Shah Ugradanti and the Rise of the Tisar Panth
John Stratton Hawley & Gurinder Singh Mann Mirabai in the Pothi Prem Ambodh
Part III. Additional Reference Materials
Gurinder Singh Mann Sources for the Study of Guru Gobind Singh’s Life and Times
Gurinder Singh Mann Facsimiles of Core Compositions in the Earliest Manuscripts of the Dasam Granth
Further details: http://www.global.ucsb.edu/punjab/jps_vol_15.html
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Musafer – Sikhi is Travelling – A Documentary
A film by Michael Nijhawan & Khushwant Singh Edited by Celeste Diamos
Musafer is a digital, 4:3 format independent documentary film that has been shot in Frankfurt, Paris, London and San Francisco between 2003 and 2008. The film portrays the interconnected life of a younger generation of diasporic Sikhs by giving emphasis to their artistic expressions and in-depth conversations about the meaning of Sikhi in times of political upheaval and social uncertainty. Musafer does not attempt to portray the Sikh tradition in its multifaceted forms, but instead sheds a light on the inner and outer journeys of particular individuals, their homing desires, as well as their boundary crossing endeavors
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Dalits and the Emancipatory Sikh Religion by Raj Kumar Hans
Presented at the University of Pennsylvania Dec 3-5, 2008 Conference
Dalit Challenges to Academic Knowledge: The Great Paradoxes
Dalits constitute about 30 per cent of Punjab population that happens to be largest proportion in the country, when compared with other provinces, but they occupy the lowest share in the ownership of land (2.34 per cent of the cultivated area). Mazhbis and Ramdasias, the two dalit castes among the Sikhs, particularly the Mazhbis, remain the most deprived. Evidence of untouchability against dalit Sikhs is well established. They have been forced to live in separate settlements, contemptuously called thhattis or chamarhlees, located on the western side and away from the main body of the villages. All the Sikh organisations from Sikh temples to the political party are under the control of the Jatt Sikhs. The Jatt Sikhs refuse to consider them equals even after death, by disallowing cremation of their dead in the main cremation ground of the village. Over the years such harsh caste attitude has forced the dalits to establish separate gurdwaras, marriage places and cremation grounds. This seems to be the biggest paradox of Sikhism which theoretically and theologically has been characterized as ‘emancipatory’ and even sociologically as ‘revolutionary’.
Please find attached the full paper: dalits-and-the-emancipatory-sikhism-rajkumarhans-2008
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