Sikhs like to talk a big game about gender equality, but most of the time it’s just talk. Patriarchal institutions like dowry are still quite widespread amongst the Sikh community in India, for one thing. And worse: Punjab, as many people will know, has the highest male/female birth ratio in all of India, due to rampant female foeticide. It’s hard to talk about gender equality when that is going on.
Well, this week there is one small but promising reform out of Amritsar, the granting of full inclusion of women in Sikh religious services, according to the IANS:
Sixty-five years after making a demand that they be allowed to take part in two rituals at the holiest of Sikh shrines – the Golden Temple at Amritsar – women will finally be able to enter an arena so far dominated by males. The religious promotion and affairs committee of the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) – the governing body for Sikh shrines – decided Monday that Sikh women would be allowed to perform ‘kirtan’ (singing hymns) and ‘palki sewa’ (carrying the Sikh holy book Guru Granth Sahib in a palanquin) on religious occasions. The decision came when the SGPC has a woman president – Jagir Kaur [pictured right] – at the helm of affairs. The first demand to allow women to do religious service at the Golden Temple was made in 1940 but the male-dominated SGPC never allowed it to happen. Jagir Kaur became SGPC president in 1999 but was unable to get the resolution allowing women to join rituals to be passed. The controversy over women performing voluntary religious service at the Golden Temple erupted in February 2003 when two Sikh women from Britain were prevented from doing religious service there. Till now, women were allowed to participate only in certain activities at the temple, like preparing food at the langar or community kitchen. (link)
You might be thinking, wait, don’t they already have a woman president of the SGPC? Well, the short answer is, she’s no feminist. There’s also a longer answer there, involving Bibi Jagir Kaur’s likely involvement in the murder of her own daughter five years ago. (She was acquitted.) And there’s another issue — Bibi Jagir Kaur was actually just removed from the position three weeks ago (which means the story above is actually mistaken; more on this at the end of this post).
This reform seems like it might be a big deal for religion in the Indian subcontinent, since neither mainstream Hinduism nor Islam currently allow women to lead prayers or conduct ritual observance. In the Hindu tradition, as I understand it, there have been reformers like Vivekananda who have advocated women’s empowerment along the way, but none have gone so far as to advocate women taking on the role of Poojari. (Note: my knowledge of this is very limited; I’m willing to be educated on this by readers.) In Islam, women have been demanding their rights to lead prayers, but it’s mainly radical groups in the U.S. like the Daughters of Hajar that are forcing the issue. As far as I know, no one is talking about this in South Asia itself.
While the novelty of this reform is worth celebrating, it’s hard to believe it took this long for it to happen. Sikhs have long trumpeted the pro-woman qualities of Sikhism, which are inscribed in the Guru Granth Sahib in various passages, and go all the way back to Guru Nanak. And Sikh religious services, which revolve around readings from the Guru Granth Sahib (i.e., the holy book), and the singing of hymns (kirtan) are relatively unspecialized. There is also no official priesthood in the Sikh tradition — technically, any baptized Sikh can lead the singing of kirtan or perform the duties of a Granthi (see here for more). Given those two facts, it’s remarkable that the ban on women leading religious services at the Golden Temple — a flagrant inconsistency — persisted as long as it did.
This reform is going through even as Bibi Jagir Kaur faces a fresh controversy. She has been accused of embezzling 700 million Rupees (70 crores; US $16 million) from the SGPC coffers. In July she was, in fact, expelled from the SGPC for five years as a result.
As to whether there is any connection between the timing of this reform at the Golden Temple and Bibi Jagir Kaur’s (latest) corruption scandal, I can’t say.
Sikh Gurdwara politics reads like an episode of The Godfather sometimes.
In my opinion the current SGPC set up has become the new mahants – corrupt and rotten – we need another clear out but it wont happen because of politics and power trips – sad.
I meant to say The Sopranos instead of The Godfather but I suppose it is the same thing.
Yes, the Godfather is exactly right — though in Bibi Jagir Kaur’s case, “Godmother” might be the phrase to use.
And somehow they are still doing this reform in the middle of everything.
(Not to mention Nanavati, which remains front-page news in India today.)
Too bad Sikhism still isn’t considered its own religion in India.
didnt have the stomach to read the full frontline article. what a ghoul.
I guess that would make Sikhism way more advanced than Catholicism. This is what the Vatican recently put out in a Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic church on the collaboration of men and women in the church and in the world :
Renuka daughterÂ’s Gender Bender puts temple in a spot
Film for BBC on TirupatiÂ’s women barbers raises uncomfortable questions for board chairman and Cong MP
VRINDA GOPINATH
Posted online: Thursday, August 11, 2005 at 0000 hours IST
NEW DELHI, AUGUST 10: Congress MP, ebullient party host and chairperson of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD) Board, T Subbirami Reddy, could have wished it away as just another bad hair day, with the womenÂ’s association of barbers in the temple town of Tirupati sniping at him for permission to practice the trade.
But Reddy may have to face some embarrassing questions from within the Congress, which stresses on womenÂ’s empowerment, with a film that highlights discrimination against women barbers, made by Poojita Chowdhury for the BBC. She also happens to be the daughter of Congress colleague and Tourism Minister Renuka Chowdhury.
The film, Gender Benders, made for the Mumbai-based NGO, Project Smita, follows the trail of unconventional jobs undertaken by women — an all-women houseboat crew in Alleppy, a toddy-tapper in Andhra Pradesh, a cremator in Madurai, a bulldozer driver in Jamshedpur, apart from the barbers of Tirupati. It is part of a BBC series, Snapshots of Change.
Chowdhury is infuriated by the unkind cut given to the women barbers by the TTD Board.‘‘This band of enterprising women have trained hard to qualify as barbers and have petitioned the TTD Board, but it has persistently stalled the move, saying the temple priests have protested on grounds of culture, purity and tradition. I find this ridiculous, considering many progressive states like Maharashtra have trained women priests, who now conduct birth, wedding and even funeral rites,’’ she says.
The barbers of Tirupati have been petitioning the TTD Board for the past few months. As the 33-year-old head of the AP Women’s Tonsurer’s Association, Radha Devi, says in the film, ‘‘Thousands of women devotees have complained that they have had to suffer the lewd looks and touches of the male barbers when they go to tonsure their heads (a sacred ritual). I thought it would be a good idea to train female barbers to quell their unease. We picked about a 100 women and trained them. They will not only earn more but also make women devotees comfortable.’’
Radha Devi runs a beauty parlour, and says proudly, ‘‘I can tonsure a head in 15 minutes.’’
The TTD Board, which comprises three Congress officials and 11 party sympathisers, controls the second-richest religious site after the Vatican, dedicated to Lord Venkateshwara, in Tirumala, in Andhra Pradesh.
Board chairperson Reddy says, ‘‘It is a sensitive, religious and spiritual issue…hiring women barbers is a break from tradition, it is a new concept. It goes against the Vedas, shastras and sanctity.Â’Â’
Reddy, however, adds that the Board had initially accepted the proposal to hire 200 women barbers but later relented, fearing a backlash from the temple priests.
‘‘Perhaps, we approved in a moment of enthusiasm, but now the priests quote from the Agama Shastras that say women cannot conduct such a ritual. Anyway, where in the world have you seen women cutting men’s hair,’’ asks Reddy.
The filmmaker, however, believes true emancipation for women comes from breaking the male occupational supremacy. After Chowdhury’s first film, Sand in my Nostrils, on female foeticide in Punjab, Haryana and Himachal, it became clear to her that it was not only dowry that led to the murder of baby girls, as the highest incidence was among the affluent classes. ‘‘It is the curse of tradition,’’ says Chowdhury, ‘‘girls do not inherit property, their opportunities are limited and they can’t perform any rituals for the salvation of their parent. That’s why parents prefer boys.’’
Reddy says it is not such a ‘‘serious’’ issue and adds, ‘‘We have asked the heads of the 21 peeths (sects) to consider and get back to us. We will see what to do then.’’ Reddy, however, says he will not persuade the 21 priests if they turn the proposal down. ‘‘It is a matter of faith,’’ he says.
And, what if there is pressure from the Congress high command? ‘‘The temple does not belong to the Congress party or any political party, the government only administers it. Even non-political people have a say on temple matters. Personally, I am neutral,’’ he says.
My Comments:
Why are these movies made for BBC? How will the BBC audience relate to this? Should’nt these movies be made for Z-TV, DoorDarshan etc instead to get a wider audience?
M. Nam
Wow, I had no idea that Sikhism also discouraged their women in the relgious arena, and that the Sikh community still practises selective abortions. Sikh women have always seemed like lionesses to me, so it blows my mind that such an injustice is still allowed.
As for Hinduism, the saastras (scriptures) say that women have every right to equal participation in religious rituals; there is no Siva without Shakti, Vishnu without Lakshmi and Brahma without Saraswati. Unfortunately, the androgynous nature of being has been forgotten and the active role of women was severely muted in the heyday of “external threats” like Buddhism and Islam. For instance, child marriage became very popular as a method to ensure the safety of young females, and made it through to modern times.
Some Hindu leaders are actively calling for reform and the inclusion of women in some arenas. Swaminis (female swamis) are increasingly accepted, but I have not heard about women in the role of purohits/pujaris. There is some hope yet: With the help of Swami Dayananda, I plan to receive upanayanam (sacred thread) in much the same ceremony as men.
No faith is to be feared or blamed. The problem lies with the people who purport to be its purveyors.
Sonia,
Thanks for a very interesting link. It’s a really tough problem: ever since the Hindu Marriage Act was put in place (back in the 1860s, believe it or not), Sikhs and Jains have always been subject to it. Parsis, Muslims, and Christians have separate civil codes.
Though I certainly feel strongly that Sikhism should be considered a separate religion, I’m actually quite ambivalent about whether this is a matter for the courts to decide. I’d rather have India move towards a model where everyone was governed by the same laws. I don’t like the proliferation of different minorities — including the weird politics of caste (i.e., the “reservations” system at Indian universities). Further segmenting the population isn’t good for Indian society.
It’s odd, because I used to be involved with a Sikh advocacy group some years ago, and one of their ongoing projects was to get major dictionaries and encyclopedias to agree that Sikhism is a separate religion, and not a ‘sect’ of Hinduism or Islam. I still think that is an important project, but it’s a matter of definitions and public understanding, not so much laws. There are the seeds of a bigger debate here…
And DesiDudeInAustin, thanks for bringing up the comparison to Catholicism. Their ban on women Priests isn’t likely to change for a long time, partly because it has support in the Bible. (Same thing with both Islam and orthodox Judaism.) By that standard, the Sikhs are on the right track.
They still can’t do “Ishnan Seva” at Harmandir Sahib though.
A Hukumnama was actually issued in 1996 stating that women should be allowed to do seva at Harmandir Sahib, but it was never enforced.
I’m pretty sure that women have performed Kirtan at the Golden Temple in the past as well, I think that some of Yogi Bhajan’s chelas did, but I can’t find the link to demonstrate it (I think there is a photo on MrSikhnet.com)
— E
I’m astonished. I didn’t know women couldn’t do kirtan at the Golden Temple. What a shock.
Maitri,
Wow, I had no idea that Sikhism also discouraged their women in the relgious arena, and that the Sikh community still practises selective abortions.
I wanted to clarify that it’s not true everywhere. At many smaller Gurdwaras, women leading kirtan or reading from the GGS is common (I’ve seen it at a number of U.S. Gurdwaras, including “conservative” Gurdwaras). But as long as there was a ban at the Golden Temple/Harmandir Sahib, it was going to remain rare and discouraged.
Also, the female foeticide is utterly unconnected to the religion — it’s a cultural issue in Punjab (and it includes Punjabi Hindus and Muslims as well). It’s also an India-wide problem…
Just wanted to be clear about that.
Incidentally, thanks for mentioning the women Swaminis and your own plans to take the sacred thread. I was wondering: how common is that? Do you know other people who are doing it/have done it? Is it mainly connected with Swami Dayananda?
Yes – it does happen in England, women read Gurbani and lead the readings and perform kirtan too – it seems to have been a Golden Temple thing.
Although despite women leading services and doing kirtan in gurdwaras in England occasionally there are no full time female kirtanis or granthis, which in my opinion there should be.
Here is an article about a Sikh womens organisation in the UK that is struggling to get funds to build a community centre for women of all religions – you will note in the first photograph a Kaur reading from the Holy Guru Granth Sahib.
So it tells you a bit about how women do have equal rights in Sikhi but of course in reality there is much that they are denied and marginalised from – but the equal rights are there in black and white and undeniable.
Its a nice article, read the whole thing, very positive and shows as an example of the direction that Sikhs in the diaspora should be moving in, putting women at the forefront.
Dr. Singh:
On “… women Swaminis and…[women] …tak[ing]…the sacred thread…how common is that?…Is it mainly connected with Swami Dayananda?”
Female pujaris among Hindus are no longer all that rare. A BBC article discussed the development but I don’t have the link at hand.
About upanayanam: I have only anecdotal evidence to offer. I asked my dad and he confirmed that our (Kashmiri Pandit) extended family has performed upanayanam for girls in the last decade or so. So this phenom is wider than Svami Dayanand’s circle.
Given the decentralised nature of Hinduism, I’m sure that such practices will spread slowly. Moreover, even if adopted/accepted by a majority of Hindus I don’t think such practices will be universally accepted. And I’m not sure that’s an altogether bad thing: Even in this case, I do prize the diversity of practice permitted by the decentralised nature of Hinduism.
Kumar
As for Hinduism, the saastras (scriptures) say that women have every right to equal participation in religious rituals; there is no Siva without Shakti, Vishnu without Lakshmi and Brahma without Saraswati. Unfortunately, the androgynous nature of being has been forgotten and the active role of women was severely muted in the heyday of “external threats” like Buddhism and Islam.
first, let me say that i strongly suspect that before the rise of complex city based cultures what you say was almost certainly true. though i am not one who believes in ancient matriarchies, it seems that smaller scale cultures tend to exhibit more gender equity than pre-modern cultures of scale (on average). but, your explanation of hinduism’s change due to external religious prodding strikes me as awfully remiscient of the common muslim excuse that all things not-too-cool in terms of gender are due to exogenous cultural or religious forces. my argument would be that as ‘republics’ and other fragmented polities gave way to monarchs whose power was rooted in their martial prowess and legitimacy validated by brahmanical sanction the role of women in public roles in the religion receded to a vanishing point. the persistence of women in religious roles in places like japan, korea or china tends to be in ‘shamanic’ cults, who are generally considered to be pre-buddhist and pre-confucian holdovers from before larger polities. i would be surprised in the hinterlands of india did not have cognate women. the decline of women in ‘hinduism’ is i would argue a function of its inevitable institutionalization and codification during the period of its assimilation into the toolkit of the centralizing polity.
Also, the female foeticide is utterly unconnected to the religion — it’s a cultural issue in Punjab (and it includes Punjabi Hindus and Muslims as well). It’s also an India-wide problem…
can you elaborate on the issue as relating to punjabi muslims? my impression was that dowery was not usually practiced by muslims, which relieved some of the social pressures leading to sex-selective abortion.
here is the sex ratio (age 0-6) data for the states of punjab and haryana vs. their muslim populations:
793 – 879 870 – 890
seeing as how punjab is more sikh than haryana, it seems to me that religion does have some correlation with the practice. though, it might just be that sikhs tend to be more prosperous, ergo, they can afford abortions. i don’t know.
Well, Amardeep your knowledge about Hinduism is truly limited. There have women priests in Pune for decades now. Today there are women priests all over the country. Recently a Kannada magazine carried a feature about a women Agnihotri, which is pretty high position for it mandates thorough knowledge of Vedas
Amardeep, While I think its great that a woman heading SGPC. But Bibi Jagir Kaur may not be the best example of women leader in Religion. She was at a time prime accused in the MURDER of her own daugther Harpreet Kaur, who was Pregnant at the time and had JUST married a man by the name of Kamaljeet singh.
Amardeep, several women in my family – and not sure what “subsect” of Hinduism we practice… it’s a big mish-mash – perform rites both at home and in the local temple(s). Many of my girl cousins/nieces have had their “thread ceremonies.” From my limited knowledge, it seems pretty widespread both in India and in the diasporic community.
Hey… related question – visited the Golden Temple this past Winter with fiancee – did a dip in the sarovar – my fiancee also wanted to do so but I didnt see any women doing so – and didnt know the protocol – recommended no – she was not happy. Could she have done so? BTW – cute aside – winter 2003 – folks went there praying I’d get hitched – winter 2004 – we went there to say thanks :-/
Yeah, maybe. But he is not afraid to ask. Evidence:
Stop hatin’, start participatin’ 🙂
That first sentence was supposed to be in blockquote. Damn!
there are women priests (pujaris/purohits) in pune, where they have been performing wedding and other rituals for a long time now. there must be other instances as well, since hinduism has no central body or universally accepted doctrine, so there are a lot of regional variations. so you’re never going to see something like women priests officially being ‘allowed’ or ‘not allowed’ as in more structured religions. in the pune case, i recall reading that many women had trianed in the vedas and ritual and were accepted by people as priests. i wonder if the newly-introduced ‘purohit’ courses in university which Murli Manohar Joshi was so excited about are open to both genders, and if so, whether there are any female purohits-in-training. hopefully, thought, that ridiculous idea (a BA in purohitya) died a natural death with the demise of the BJP-led government last year.
i second DDA. no point in criticizing someone for being ignorant when they stipulate that.
RC
Amardeep mentions that in his post – follow the links.
RC, You should read the post as well as the early part of this comments thread — the murder issue was discussed. I for one won’t miss Bibi Jagir Kaur at all (and as I mention in the post, it’s a mistake to link her to the institution of this reform).
Dhaavak, It’s common for women to bathe in the sarovar, but in a separate section. I know at other big Gurdwaras, the women’s section is in a kind of ‘tent’; I don’t remember exactly how it works at the Golden Temple. (Ennis?)
It’s too bad your wife didn’t join you (btw, vadhaiya).
Razib,
I should just retract the word ‘Muslim’ from my earlier comment on female foeticide. I was making assumptions based on the statistics I’d seen showing that female foeticide is a problem throughout Punjab. On the inclusion of Muslims, I wasn’t going from statistics. And I wasn’t thinking about Mehr.
Incidentally, the thing you mention about the cost of an abortion might open the way for a ‘freakonomics’ style correlation, especially if we add in that the (illegal) ultrasounds are not cheap either.
In a freakonomics reading, the male-to-female birth ratio in Punjab might be correlated to the fact that it is (or has historically been) a relatively affluent (but still largely rural) state. It happens more “because” people can afford it.
Well maybe… I’m just speculating…
Everyone else, thanks for giving me the info. Maybe tomorrow or next week I’ll try to do a post on female pujaris! (Hint: feed me more links…)
Sikh women have scritpural and cultural support to be equal, however the culture is male dominated, or i should say, is somewhat dominated by bullies. this is just my opinion. however the sway in these issues tends to go to the most brash, the biggest landowner, the one who intimidates verbally or physically.
i think the source material in our religion is tremendous, but is squandered by our decision-making process.
i also do not care too much what the indian constitution says about sikhism vis a vis a seperate religion. if the gurus needed a mughal court to tell them their religion, we’d never be here.
but i do think its important that by definition, sikhism is not simply considered a sect of hinduism or a merger of religions, because that removes the subtly of what sikhism is as an ideological process.
in its way, its a far-out kind of thing. a community of ideas, and pretty neat ideas at that. gender-wise, race/ethnicity wise, economically, ect. ect.
chardi kala sarai nu
Amardeep,
As Kumar pointed out, Kashmiri Brahmin women have always taken the sacred thread, but it is not practised in South Indian orthodox communities. To break that barrier is a big thing. I don’t think the move forward is limited to Swami Dayananda’s circle; my use of his name is an example of male leaders within the Hindu community growing more open to the re-inclusion of women.
Shashi:
Re: the female purohits of Pune — this is great news! Is there an article or online repository of information on this that you can point us to? Can you give us some names of temples? I’d like to visit them on my next trip to India. Even those of us whose knowledge of Hinduism is not as limited as Amardeep’s don’t know much about this.
Rani:
Females in my Tamil Saivite Brahmin family conduct Hindu rites at home and at the temple, too. In fact, Varalakshmi Puja is conducted only by females. The question is: Are there women in your community in “religious leadership” roles such as purohit, etc.?
razib:
This is why I put “external threats” in quotes. That’s the reason given by Hindu historians and what I have read in books on my religion, be it in Sanskrit, Hindi, Tamil or English. Be it the institutionalization of Hinduism (or “ism”izing, as I like to say) or threats (even perceived ones) from foreign cultures, the sad fallout is the second-class status of woman as my faith is practised today. The scriptures say this is bollocks, and I, for one, would like to see Hinduism practised as the progressive religion that it truly can be.
At least when it comes to Hinduism, there is no need to be concerned about matriarchies. The ancient texts have always encouraged the equality of the sexes in politics, religion and living. However, Kerala stands out as the gem of Hindu matriarchy. We could stand to have more of those around. 😉
it is (or has historically been) a relatively affluent (but still largely rural) state.
this is the common explanation given. i think the assumption is that if UP was as affluent as punjab you’d see abortions of XX fetuses there too.
That sounds like a great idea. You could probably track it against the per capita income of the residents of Punjab and then look for patterns. Although, i suppose you need to control for the declining rates of female foeticide with the national rate. Now where do we get the friggin data?
Fetal sex determination in infants in Punjab, India: correlations and implications: Fetal sex determination was common, especially if the family already had daughters. Sex determination seems to be driven by a desire to have sons, with socioeconomic status and education having little effect. The lower prevalence of fetal sex determinations for girls is likely to be due to abortion of fetuses found to be female.
Maitri- congrats on breaking the barrier. As a South Indian myself, in a very orthodox religious caste/practice, the thread ceremony conducted on a female would be blasphemy. I would love to hear more about how the ceremony is going to be conducted, who will be telling you the Gayatri mantra, etc.
Shashi- I too would love to hear more about women pundits in Pune.
I had NO clue that there were women pundits anywhere, let alone in India. Granted Amma does everything religious-wise in the house, but in the temple it is only men. It NEVER crossed my mind that there could be female poojaris. I’m so excited and mildly in shock.
Maitri, if I went to the temple more often I would know if there were “women in [my] community in ‘religious leadership’ roles” :).
[In fact, I have no idea of my caste affiliation (North Indian, Maharashtra) or my husband’s (South Indian, Kerela).]
My sister-in-law is “president” of a Hindu temple in her suburban town, but that’s more of a “political leadership” role and not a “religious leadership” one. I’ll ask around and see, though. It’s an interesting question.
Razib, great link.
But I have a few problems with the statistical analysis. It only considers people with wages upto Rs 6000 a month. There is a peak at the intermediate level of Rs 1500-2999 but then it does taper off for the higher wages. I guess the ones who earn Rs 6000 or more have had basic schooling and are therefore unlikely to do it, even if they can afford it. The lowest wage earners 0-1499 cannot really afford it.
And that table is for boys. It does not talk about girls, or the rate of female foeticide.
A better idea would be to use the same group against itself. For instance, adjust for inflation and then see if the rate of foeticide has increased/decreased as people have gotten wealthier/more educated.
I have visited several mandirs in Uttar Pradesh which have female pujaris.While female pujaris are not uncommon, there are not as many as male pujaris but I think that will change soon.
The BBC article :
Amardeep, My bad. I just saw Bibi Jagir Kaur’s name and immediately remembered that incident. anyways, I COMPLETELY agree that she shouldnt be linked to the institution, and the institutional reform is VERY positive and progressive.
Note: my knowledge of this is very limited; I’m willing to be educated on this by readers.
One more data point for you : in Gujarat, there are many women priests, particularly among those who follow the Gayatri tradition (their US site : http://www.thoughtpower.org/). They are the ones who carry out rituals like havans, child naming and so on. I also know of friends whose marriages were conducted by Aryasamaj-trained, Sanskrit-educated female priests.
Vidushi,
Thanks for finding that link.
Re: the Beeb article – thank you and YES!! Wonder if I can apprentice here in the States somewhere.
I empathize. My mother and I have been to several events where men dominate the religious ceremony, yet mishandle terms and rites and are not willing to accept help or polite corrections.
Religion is like restaurant chefs: there’s a disconnect between the female-dominated support positions and the top echelon. Anecdotally, since on average women are more religious than men, and since on average more women cook, you’d expect them to rise to the tops of those fields. Since they haven’t, you look for a market distortion.
Manish, this topic aside, I really marvel at your ability to come up with such analogies, eloquently and with a quickness.
What’s the distortion in this case? That a majority of women don’t want to rock the boat for fear of being ostracized?
Thanks! Not sure. May be some interplay between the glass ceiling (men excluding women from high-status positions) and self-selection (not as many women choosing high-stress jobs like executive chef).
With religion I lean to the former theory. Not long ago, feudal lords concocted claims of divine guidance limited to their families, let alone for all male priests.
To the person wondering about ishnaan at Harmandir Sahib for women, there’s a nice little tin room made under Dukh Bhanjani Beri just for us women, to give us some privacy.
A nice little tin room that’s been sitting in the Punjab sun?! That’s gotta be a pleasant experience.
I don’t know what all the fuss about ishnaan is anyway… Have you seen how dirty/polluted that water is? And people drink the stuff!
They cleaned it recently — a big operation, involving thousands of sewadars.
Pretty soon they’ll be installing an automatic filtration system, which means the water will be clean all the time.
Interesting, huh.
I thought my memory failed me since everyone used the term female pujari. But I checked and a female priest is a pujarin.
This may not be relevant anymore unless Amardeep does work on the post on pujarins or it could just be some GK 🙂
About damn time this happened. It’s about 300 years too late (considering how long ago these principles were actually enshrined within Sikhism), but better late than never I guess.
In my opinion, the biggest breakthrough will be when the Jathedar of the Akal Takht is a woman.
It’s very important to have women in such leadership roles, because it emphasises and promotes the fundamental equality of women with men according to Sikhism — which can hopefully filter down into the rest of society too.
(The anomaly of course is the fact that there still hasn’t been a female US President despite the United States being the most progressive nation in the world with regards to male-female equality, but that’s a whole different argument wink).
Kind regards, Jai, London