This morning, while I was tying my turban, I was thinking about All Mixed Up’s postcard from a few weeks back. In particular, I was trying to figure out why I didn’t understand the basic conundrum that people were wrestling with… that is, why I couldn’t imagine that being white would make me like everybody else.
Let me explain with a Gedankenexperiment. Imagine that I, as a teenager, had awoken one morning to find that myself a person of pallor. I was now pink rather than brown. Who would I be?
I would like to think that I would be the guy on the left. To be honest, I was never as cool as he was. I never dressed like a Nihang, nor did I travel around India at that age. Still, I’d like to think that’s who my white doppleganger in an alternate universe would have been, even if I had been dorkier.
Now imagine that a decade later, the machine that had transformed me reversed polarity, flooding me with extra melanin. Perhaps this is my melanin plus a decade of interest. Or perhaps it is sucked from somewhere else – from some other poor soul who wakes up paler than when they slept. It doesn’t matter.
Now, all of a sudden, I’m not white but black. In this case, I’d like to think that I would be like Sri Chand Singh on the right. Sri Chand is not a convert – he (and his twin brother) have been Sikhs their whole lives. Again, I doubt I’d ever be as cool as either of them [Look at the photo of Laxmi Chand beating the Nagara drum below the fold for a photo of a supercool Sikh], but I hope I would try.
The point is, I’m at a double remove from white society, separated not just by race/ethnicity, but also by religion as well. If I had to choose to abandon one or the other, I think I would probably lose the race before I lost the religion, although both would be wrenching.
The reason is that I’m multicultural but monoreligious. I have little affinity for white mainstream society – I just don’t grok it. I can’t imagine having my parents be Ozzie and Harriet (nor Ozzie and Sharon for that matter). And I really don’t have a desire to “fit in.”
I didn’t grow up in middle America, and even living here now I find it all fairly alien. The closest I could come would be to imagine being Jewish (I grew up in a Jewish neighborhood), but you see how, even in my wildest thoughts of being a white American, I still imagine being an immigrant, an ethnic and an outsider.
p.s. If you read this far, you deserve to know the truth. This was all just an excuse to use these three photos in a post, together. They’re just great images.
tru dat Kritic. tru dat.
HMF said it best,
be excellent….to each other!
Kritic,
It depends on how you define God. Entire philosophies in Hinduism have been devoted to defining that. God is not an old man with a grey beard sitting ‘somewhere up there’. 🙂 See this advaita-ish (Kohum? Aham Brahmasmi) Kabir poem I’ve linked on my blog. Btw, Kabir finds his way into Sikh scriptures too.
Al Mujahid; Absolutely right. Ishq (love) was often used for love for the divine, and ‘beloved’ often referred to the Ultimate Truth/The Supreme Being. Pritchett has written marvellously on that topic.
I think the point he was trying to make is that all gods are actually one.
Quizman –
Kafir, in urdu, means unbeliever. So, I believe, the poet was, wisely and bravely for the era, expressing (camouflaged) agnosticism.
You’re right, I didn’t mean to trivialize the metaphysics. I should have said there is a lot less complexity in the bureaucracy of Sikh practices, which are ideally open to everyone. It’s also because the Sikh tradition is nuclear, unlike the dizzying pluralism of Hinduism. The means and ends in Hinduism are so drastically varied throughout the different traditions and time periods that it does indeed end up being more complex than Sikhism, if only for the fact that there’s just so much crap to cut through in order to figure out what’s what. There’s questionable stuff in the Guru Granth too, but at least there’s a sense of order and finality due to the fact it is the highest tangible authority, and one way or another, the Guru Granth endorses social equality and a general “right” path to a certain goal.
Doesn’t Kafir in these cases refer to an unbeliever in a particular case and not one who is an unbeliever in the divine? Did Ghalib not believe in a transcendence? Is that not what much of his poetry describes, or am I wrong?
It is hard to believe that Ghalib was writing from a rationalist scientific, deductionist point of view. In fact from a rationalist deductive point of view, most of what Ghalib says would often times seem non-sensical itself. Unless I’m mistaken
Shania Twain converted to Sant Dham/Sant Mat (isn’t that a branch of Sikhism) after marrying Mutt Lange who is a convert himself. Entertaining article. Nice to see more whites (and blacks) taking up spirituality from the East.
Quizman –
“It depends on how you define God.”
Besides egomaniacal and inherently divisive, I also define god as a figment of human imagination.
Or just his belief in nirguna. That, along with seeing God as a divine lover and criticizing our concept of God (not necessarily the concept of God itself) was actually the norm for the counterculture of this era. The Sufi and Bhakta era was actually a period of social transition when all previous religious constructs were questioned, esp by the lower castes.
Kabir was all over the place.
Shruti,
Actually in some ways I agree and some ways I don’t. I agree with you that some of what a Sikh is guided to do comes from historical precedent. Given the avaliability of mostly oral history that is pretty recent, there is this source material to draw on. Sikhs are a community that lives within its history to a substantial degree. But on the other hand there is that complexity too. At some point its kind of academic as a discussion though, and more important what happens on a day to day level
Rationalism is not a modern concept, Sahej. And, form what little I can garner, Ghalib seems to me an outright agnostic, If not an atheist.
I would be interested in knowing how rationalism has changed over time. Ghalib was writing during the 1800’s when the British were in India. Yet he was brought up in a feudal tradition. What was the rationalist sentiment in his poetry? I agree that there is a rationalist sentiment there, but also a mystic sentiment that doesn’t correspond.
What was Ghalib an agnostic from? I think here we’re bumping against different notions of the divine.
For example, at the outset Richard Dawkins refers to an anthropomorphized Divine, but that’s only one conception of what you call “god”
I understand what you’re saying and probably agree. I say “probably” because, truth be told, I don’t know enough to carry this discussion any further. And remember that I’m not a Sikh, meaning there are things I simply can’t know or gauge the importance of – things that would come to you intuitively.
Shruti,
I actually agree with you, in that I don’t know enough of what you are saying. I think I would have much to learn from your point of view, but I don’t know that we have enough time to get to that via this kind of dialogue. And keep in mind I have my own ambivalence about how religion helps and hampers!
cheers!
Kritic,
So, I believe, the poet was, wisely and bravely for the era
This is a bit OT and ennis may be pissed off, but I am dying to clarify. 🙂
Why wisely and bravely for that era? Ghalib was quite rebellious! And he, like most poets disliked the symbols of religious authority, whom he felt were hypocrites.
In the same ghazal as above, he writes;
kahaan maikhane ka darwaza Ghalib, aur kahaan waiz par itan jante hain, kal vo jaata tha kih hum nikle
Where is the door to the tavern, Ghalib, and where is the preacher? We only know that yesterday, he was going in as we came out.
Listen to that ghazal here.
Ghalib, btw, was very secular. He had a Hindu as a best friend. There is an interesting anecdote about him. When he was arrested by the Brits in 1857 (as most educated Muslims of Delhi were), he was asked whether he was a Muslim. Ghalib said, “I’m a half muslim” Brit: “What do you mean, half-muslim?” Ghalib: “Well, I drink liqour, but do not eat pork.” The Brit was so amused that he set him free. [Ghalib mentions this anecdote himself.]
Ghalib did not circumvent his strong urges. He often expressed agnostic-like poems, but equally expressed faith. I guess it probably had to do with his personal life (he lost quite a few children in childbirth, and one in infancy. He died without an heir).
bazicha atfal hai duniya mere aage hopta hai shab-e-roz tamasha mere age
The world is merely a children’s playground to me I watch its whirling display all day and night [1]
ik khel hai aurang-e-suleman mere nazadik ik baat hai jaaz-e-masiha mere aage
The throne of Solomon is only a game to me The miracles of Jesus are mere talk to me
juz naam nahin surat-e-aalam mujhe manzur juz vahm nahin hasti-e-ashya mere aage
Except for its name. the existence of the Universe is not acceptable to me Except for an illusion, the existence of things is not a reality to me
[…and…]
imaan mujhe roke hai, jo khainche hai mujhe kufr ka’aba mere piche hai, kalisa mere aage
The belief holds me back, while the disbelief pulls me towards it; The ka’aba is behind me, and the temple before me. [1]
Listen to that ghazal here. More songs here.
See? Anyway, I have hogged more than enough in the comments area. Check out Pritchett’s website on Ghalib for more details (Its a work in progress).
[1] Translation by Dr. Sarfaraz Niazi.
Divinity anthropomorphized, iconized or in any way associated is “saguna”. Mystic poetry usually speaks of experiencing the divine through the concept of a formless supreme divinity – the “nirguna” I mentioned earlier. You could still call this formless divinity “God” if you wanted to. Vahiguru is nirgun, right?
In so much as I can say, I think so.
Shruti,
Perfect. In fact Kabir says likewise in one of his nirguni bhajans (#75). All things are created by the Om; The love-form is His body. He is without form, without quality, without decay: Seek thou union with Him! But that formless God takes a thousand forms in the eyes of His creatures: He is pure and indestructible, His form is infinite and fathomless, He dances in rapture, and waves of form arise from His dance. The body and the mind cannot contain themselves, when they are touched by His great joy. He is immersed in all consciousness, all joys, and all sorrows; He has no beginning and no end; He holds all within His bliss.
and that is a common and recurring theme in other Hindu thought too. [Rig Veda anyone?]
and that is a common and recurring theme in other Hindu thought too. [Rig Veda anyone?]
Tis was a “common recurring theme” in Hindu thought for 2000+ years prior to Kabir. The heterodox nirguna bhakti sants did not invent it.
No, but they brought sexy back 🙂
I’m curious though, was there a particular tradition before Bhakti and Sufism that subscribed to the nirguna concept?
It would be nice to know the history of rationalism in India.
Shruti,
The advaita tradition in Hinduism has the two-level view of Brahman – Nirguna Brahman and Saguna Brahman. Nirguna being formless, unmediated, indivisible/ saguna being nirguna viewed through maya, the antecedents go beyond Sankara and Gaudapada ( the two major exegetes) to the Upanishads, and to Buddhist thought, particularly the Madhyamika school of Nagarjuna, which developed in South India and later Kashmir.
Which reminds me… when are we having the Midwest SM meetup, Ennis??
The history of modern Indian rationalism is pretty accessible, but I was wondering about its existence on the subcontinent before European imperialism.
Risible,
What is the significance to you that the concept of Nirguna was not invented by the Bhakti sants?
It would be nice to know the history of rationalism in India.
Materialism, based on a “rationalist” foundation, is an ancient strand of brown thought. Here is a wikipedia introduction. Here is a more thoroughgoing one by a Marxist scholar who attempted to link the “revolution” to the ancients 😉
Omit the last post about the meetup…I should have scrolled down the page before posting…
What is the significance to you that the concept of Nirguna was not invented by the Bhakti sants?
I’m just pointing it out.
Yeah I’d like to know about pre 1700 or so, just because I know very little about it.
However, to quibble again Shruti, I have some issues with seperating India into pre and post European contact. There was oppression before and after European internvention and I think from a certain perspective Indian history is misjudged by looking at things from that dichotomous perspective.
Especially as we begin to know more about pre-european colonial contact Indian history. I think the task after Independence was and is to gather more history, and by doing so, the european colonial contact becomes less hurtful and more just another part of the history of the region, with outcomes that at times were grey
Appreciate the link
Materialism! You’re right, of course that’s rationalism! Now that I think about it, rationalism in terms of materialism has always existed in the subcontinent – not only in the the ontological sense the Chattopadhyaya essay referrs to, but also in the developmental/urbanization sense. The entire Brahmanic tradition was a dialogue with urbanization and increased wealth. Buddhism couldn’t have developed without it either, because you could consider a reaction to conditions rationalized by materialism.
Thanks for answering my questions, risible.
Right, I referred to European imperialism because that has become the postmodern image of rationalism as a functioning ideology. I asked the question because because I suspected that rationalism existed in the subcontinent by other means – non-European influence, and perhaps even, as risible just confirmed, through internal means.
Ah flawed assumption on my part. my bad
Materialism! You’re right, of course that’s rationalism! Now that I think about it, rationalism in terms of materialism has always existed in the subcontinent – not only in the the ontological sense the Chattopadhyaya essay referrs to, but also in the developmental/urbanization sense. The entire Brahmanic tradition was a dialogue with urbanization and increased wealth. Buddhism couldn’t have developed without it either, because you could consider a reaction to conditions rationalized by materialism.
Yup okay! You are one smart cookie. Now go become an academic and overturn the Eurocentric bias in the academy 🙂
You want me to tell them that we’d been fucking ourselves over long before the goras came and did it? That’s not very nationalist of you, risible 😛
Risible: Tis was a “common recurring theme” in Hindu thought for 2000+ years prior to Kabir. The heterodox nirguna bhakti sants did not invent it.
I know. That is why I mentioned the Rig Veda. Anyway, regarding your other point on the nirguna/saguna link to the Upanishads – obviously, you know that there are interpretations from the dvaita tradition as well. The last para is where I get my blog’s name from!
First of all, a heartfelt thanks to Ennis for writing this article. I though the last photo in particular was excellent — I think he’s playing a santoor, isn’t he ?
I’d also like to thank Shruti for her nice words about Sikhism, especially post #46.
AlMfD,
I actually answered this question on another thread earlier this year, but I’ll try to explain things again. Since this is off-topic, hopefully you’ll understand if I try to keep this brief.
During the time of the 9th Sikh Guru, Tegh Bahadur, Sikhs in general did not wear the 5Ks. It was therefore frequently very difficult to identify a Sikh purely by his/her physical appearance. This was demonstrated profoundly when Guru Tegh Bahadur was executed on the street Chandni Chowk in what is now Old Delhi, as commanded by the Mughal authorities (there is now a gurdwara where he was killed). As you can imagine, a crowd had gathered to observe these events, and they included some Sikhs too. The Mughal authorities challenged any Sikhs who were present to come forward and take the Guru’s body if they had the guts to do so; unfortunately, those Sikhs who were in the vicinity were afraid of what would happen to them if they came forward, and hid amongst the rest of the crowd. Because they looked just like everyone else, it was impossible to identify them.
The 9 year old Gobind Rai, who subsequently became the 10th Guru, Gobind Singh, found out about all this. Therefore, when he created the Khalsa on the first Vaisakhi many years later in 1699, he commanded that baptised (“Amritdhari”) Sikhs should have certain visible symbols so that they could be immediately identified (and so that they could identify each other)*. Non-baptised Sikhs are encouraged to adopt these visible identifiers too. The aim was twofold: So that people in need of help could spot any nearby Sikhs, and — more pertinently in this case — so that committed Sikhs could never again “hide behind a bush” out of fear of the consequences of being identified as Sikhs by hostile parties. It was to inculcate a basic courage in the faith’s adherents, so that they would have the guts to stand up for their religious beliefs (and everything that Sikhism stands for) even in the face of hostile environments.
Ennis may possibly disagree with me here — it’s a long-standing argument within Sikhism — but having the visible symbols is mandatory for Amritdhari Sikhs, not necessarily for others. If other Sikhs choose not to keep Kesh etc, then that choice is left up to them. However, it isn’t the ideal reaction and falls short of the Guru’s expectations of “ideal behaviour” from the faith’s followers; maintaining the outer symbols is regarded as the most desirable course of action and one which all Sikhs are supposed to aspire to, either in this lifetime or any future ones.
In short, it’s about having the courage to “stand up and be counted”, and bravely face any adversaries who have a problem with your religious affiliation.
*The 5Ks do also stand for certain Sikh principles, and they also have some practical uses which are of benefit to the wearer. Off-topic 😉
Hey I learnt alot about Sikhism here — my cousin-sister is married to a sardar so the next time I meet them I’m going to impress his family with my knowledge by memorising and reciting Shruti’s posts 😀
Or you could just show them the photos 😉
Oh yes, of course, I shall mention that just recently I was discussing Sikhism and the influence of the Nagara drums in America amongst African-American Singhs 😉
I have always argued the requirements of 5K as being absolutely neccesary to be a Sikh.
Jai Singh, you bring up some interesting points. Your argument is far more persuasive than what I have heard from people I have spoken with, such as “outdated” or the ever so popular “the inside counts” etc etc. Thanks.
this post seemed to have delved into an (evangelical…esque) sikh love fest.
if any of you are genuinely interested in the history of the sikh religion, it would be prudent, as with any other religion, to seek out some historical/critical writings on the the subject. one good source, in my opinion – konrad elst.
p.s. did you know that gobind singh lived under aurangzeb’s tutelage for a part of his life.
I am not sure if Ghalib was an agnostic. I would put him more in the category of a free spirited Sufi Muslim. I think he definitely was Muslim though nothing like the Wahabi wannabe ‘Deobandi’ Muslims you increasing see in the Urdu speaking North Indian Muslim diaspora in the US.
Ghalib of course loved nothing more than a good drink and I just love this sher from him:
‘ZAHID SHARAAB PEENAY DEY MASJID MEIN BAITH KAR YA WOH JAGAH BATA JAHAN KHUDA NA HO’
Let me drink while sitting inside the mosque or let me know about that place where there is no God’
Jai: Thanks for the information.
This Ghalib sounds like he was a real rebel. How long would he last in todays world without a death threat?
Nothing wrong with a love fest once in a while Kritic! Don’t be such a sour puss.
Quizman
Let me put in a plug for Vinay Dharwadkers “Kabir – The Weaver’s Songs”. It is a much more accessible and transparent translation of Kabir’s work. Rabindra-da was a great guy but english translation wasnt his number one strength.
http://us.penguingroup.com/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780143029687,00.html
Quizman
Let me put in a plug for Vinay Dharwadkers “Kabir – The Weaver’s Songs”. It is a much more accessible and transparent translation of Kabir’s work. Gurudeb was a great guy but english translation wasnt his number one strength.
http://us.penguingroup.com/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780143029687,00.html
From what little I know, Ghalib saved his rebellious thoughts mostly for his poetry, and in his day to day life was not as iconoclastic as his poetry