Sikh Diaspora

Who are the diaspora Sikhs? Do they know the traumas that shaped them? The known traumas have started to connect the diasporic Sikhs to unknown wounds. The Sikh diaspora have been actively exploring its space in the host countries they found themselves in.

The emergence of the Sikh diaspora during the early twentieth-century was primarily a result of the displacement within the homeland after the British colonized Punjab in 1849. The traumas of colonization were paramount in emergence of the predominantly Sikh Ghadar movement in the newly emerging Sikh diaspora on the Pacific coast. Many of the Ghadarites returned home to organize a revolution against the British colonizers. The psychic displacement, however, was a place of no return.

Since its inception during the late nineteenth-century, the Sikh diaspora has been through many phases. The Sikh diaspora have explored a variety of ways to subsist through abject recurrences of their past traumas. Until 1984, the traumas continued to vindicate the hegemony of the host countries by making the majority of the Sikh communities to yield to cultural maneuvers of the ruling majority. The 1984 Indian army attacks on Sri Darbar Sahib, Amritsar and several other Sikh gurdwaras shattered the trauma-ridden Sikh memories.

The current course will explore the themes surrounding the Sikh experiences with cultural hegemony and religious praxis. The discursive categories we know as religion and culture generally come in conflict with the lived experiences of the newer generations of the Sikhs who have been born and raised in the diaspora. The course will engage in discussion about what religion and culture mean for the younger generations in the diaspora. What is their connection with Punjab, Punjabi, and Punjabiness? What does the idea of homeland mean for the diaspora Sikhs? The course will explore these questions and related themes such as culture, imperialism, diaspora, displacement, hegemony, and the return of religion etc.