**2. Results**

#### *Gurus, Sikhs, and the Text*

Nine gurus followed Guru Nanak, the first Guru, and each one built on the previous Guru's work, all of which were enshrined in the Adi Granth as devotional poetic scriptures for Sikhs (Shackle and Singh 2005; Singh 2005, 2007, 2014b; Grewal 2009). After the ten Gurus, the Guru Granth replaced the living Guru as prescribed by the Tenth—Guru Gobind Singh in Sikh consciousness (Singh 2004). As the living Word (*Gurshabad*), (Singh 2011) explains it thus:

"The Sri Guru Granth is the physical body that bonds the Sikhs metaphysically with the Divine One, historically with their ten Gurus, and socially with their community. By attributing the Granth as the person of the historical Gurus, the Tenth intended to allow his Sikhs to imagine unprecedented ways of being in the world. His semantic innovation shatters the tyrannical division between body and mind, temporal and eternal, language and reality; it opens up a space for Sikh men and women to experience the sacred and the sensuous in their daily lives".

> (p. 58)

This experience of the sacred for average Sikhs is foremost assigned within places of worship, at the Sikh gurdwaras (house of the Guru) or in their own homes where the Sri Guru Granth is ceremoniously housed and obeisance is o ffered to it on a daily basis through devotional worship (Singh 2000). Singh (2014b) states that the position of the Granth as the guru has become "the ultimate authority within the Sikh tradition, for a wide range of personal and public conduct" (p. 134). However, a new area of research might be the philosophy of diaspora-born young Sikhs (or Sikhs generally perhaps) who regard the gurdwaras or religious institutions as unimportant on a day to day basis and find their spirituality in other multiple ways.

In keeping with the Guru's tenets, Sikh Gurdwaras are built on the philosophy of an egalitarian space (all that enter are equal) where the *Gurshabad* is invoked from within the Granth (the supreme and everlasting teacher) for learner-centered spiritual guidance, religious instruction, and social direction for all humankind and especially Sikhs (the learner). Considering the religion's particularly theorized commitment to an egalitarian social and religious order (Singh 2014a, 1988; Takhar 2005), it is interesting to note that the institutional leadership has mostly been traditionally patriarchal-bound and male (Singh 1993, 2014a). While the religion is purposely devoid of a priestly class (Singh 2014b), one might assume that men and women would have equal access to the a ffairs of organized institutionalized religion—but these are almost all managed by men, with women being relegated to "female" tasks of food preparation and general cleaning. In direct contrast to the theory of equal access to faith, worship, ritual, and practice, "by and large Sikh women's agency has been ignored, displaced, dislocated and disavowed from the religio-aesthetic matrix in the gurdwara" (Bains 2012).

Furthermore, the formal exegetical task for the Guru Granth has been undertaken (thus far) only by males (Sikh and non-Sikh) who have produced, in all nature of things, particularly patriarchal viewpoints. For example, feminist Sikh scholar (Singh 2011) points out that the interpreters expound all Sikhs to relate to a soul,

"In spite of the fact that the original verse (in the Sri Guru Granth) does not contain any reference to the soul, it is lavishly present in English translations. Its usage dichotomizes the

fullness of the Guru's experience and vision, and sends misogynistic and geophobic messages to readers. New gender-inclusive, female-sensitive translations are urgently needed".

> (p. 118)

Translations, transliterations, and transcreations by female scholars demand a full justification of the spiritual experiences promised within the Guru Granth for all Sikhs. As Singh (2010) suggests,

"The Gurus regarded woman as physically, psychologically and spiritually more refined, adopting a female voice and tone to express their love for the Divine ... In both praxis and poetry, the Sikh Gurus created a window of opportunity for women, an opening through which women could achieve liberty, equality and sorority".

> (pp. 213–14)

However, Sikh women continue to have limited or no access to feminist thought or measure in relation to the translated text or in the hierarchical, patriarchy-bound practice of the faith within religious institutions. While a few feminist organizations have attempted to create female-centred space, in the day-to-day practice of Sikhi, women must actively seek out their sustenance; it is not embedded in everyday life. Reasons for lack of female agency in the halls of Sikh religious institutions are still to be fully researched. While all Sikhs are encouraged to be baptized as *Khalsa* (the pure ones), (Jakobsh 2014) points out that "early texts, for the most part, focus on the male *Khalsa* identity and are either silent about women's inclusion into the order or are highly contradictory" (p. 127).

As global Sikhs living in a diaspora, this limited focus is sharply felt by Sikh feminists, like myself, who are searching for meaning in the texts that inform our practice. Exclusion and contradiction of female access and agency create di fficult pathways in realizing inclusive Sikh thought. Global Sikhs have created a plethora of Sikh organizations that address topics such as gender, environment, philanthropy, international aid, racism, discrimination, business networks, feminism, service, research, etc. These organizations have provided platforms for further discovery. However, one must be tech-savvy and literate to engage within the organizations and find the one (or more) that meets a personal fulfillment target.

## Sikh Feminist Identity

Ideally, a Sikh would be able to self-define the act of knowing by situating oneself within the history of personal experiences with one's faith. However, challenges of gender, power, and privilege place Sikh women outside the realm of shared knowledge and experiences because of the hegemony of androcentric ideology in the practices of the Sikh faith and interpretations of the Sikh scriptures. For example, women are still not welcome to take an active part in the *prakash* (raising and installation of the scriptures in the early morning) of the Guru Granth at most gurdwaras in India. They are not allowed to serve as the *Punj Pyare* (five beloveds who may be called upon for leadership) or carry any of the paraphernalia surrounding the scriptures. With the exception of the 3HO Sikhs (converts to Sikhi who live and practice the faith outside India), and who follow their own egalitarian interpretation of the faith in their gurdwaras abroad (Elsberg 2003), narratives abound of women worshippers being pushed away and verbally-chastised foreven getting too close to the Holy Scriptures, let alone being allowed to lend a shoulder to the *palki* (palanquin that carries the Guru Granth) at the time of the Guru Granth's *prakash* (morning rising) or *sukhasan* (night repose). The 1994 English-translated Sikh *Rahit Maryada* that is posted for public consumption on the Shromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) Amritsar's website states, "When the Guru Granth has to be taken from one place to another, the *Ardas* should be performed. He/she who carries the Guru Granth on his/her head should walk barefoot, but when wearing of shoes is a necessity, no superstitions need be entertained" (Chapter iv, (g)). However, my observations of the daily practices at the Golden Temple in Amritsar show a visually and aggressively male presence with the *prakash* of the Guru Granth, and a woman's close association is further forbidden by male worshipers as well, men who are not even gurdwara workers actually performing the service. Additionally, Sikh women have not been allowed to perform hymns in the inner sanctum of the Golden Temple or other major gurdwaras in India. In the *Times of India* (27 July 2019) Balvinder Kaur Saundh, Chair of the Sikh Women Alliance, UK, is quoted as follows: "I have been saying for the last 20 years that Guru Nanak and our religion gave us equality. It is the men who have interpreted it to control our religious scriptures" (Times of India 2017). She also suggests that women should be allowed to shoulder the palanquin at the early morning *prakash* without interference. The Guru Granth itself does not prescribe a code of conduct for Sikhs (to do with rituals or practices), as it is a devotional text—this code is contained in the *Sikh Rahit Maryada* (Code of Conduct), the rules of conduct to be followed by all Sikhs.

By applying a critical feminist lens to the issues of inclusion, a more nuanced, gendered critique provides a medium to question theories and knowledge by examining that which is within the center. Feminist theorist (Irigaray 1999) states "the ability to enter into relation with one (man or woman) who is other than oneself in the respect of difference(s) is, according to me, what permits the constitution of a proper human subjectivity" (p. xi). This subjectivity must uncover and transform the constructions of subjectivity by de-constructing the patriarchal discourse that has up to now underwritten the interpretive texts and practices for Sikhs. Women are faced with texts that have male-dominant interests, along with the realization that these interpretations are historically and politically-charged. Regardless, there is also an acknowledged realization that ways of knowing that are constructed from hierarchically-favoured forms of knowledge repeatedly perpetuate dominant views. Critical thought does not argue that "all referents for meaning and representation have disappeared: rather, it seeks to make them problematic, and in doing so re-inscribes and rewrites the boundaries for establishing the condition for the production and meaning and subjectivity" (Giroux 1991, p. 227).

Greene (1993) famously questioned how women can work to name their existence if there is so much falsehood around them? In view of this, Sikh feminists work to deliberately create interpretative spaces that introduce, incorporate, and inform the (mis)represented texts and question the false assumptions and assertions of gendered othering (Singh 2011). Deconstructing the politics of power and difference in order to achieve the full potential for those that are relegated to the margins must be undertaken so as to share in the power/knowledge of what Michel Foucault calls truth/untruth (Foucault 1998). New knowledge and truth concomitantly induce effects of power that constitute new objects of inquiry. Judith Butler suggests the following: "If identities were no longer fixed as the premises of a political syllogism, and politics no longer understood as a set of practices derived from the alleged interests that belong to a set of ready-made subjects, a new configuration of politics would surely emerge from the ruins of the old" (Butler 1990, p. 149). It is exactly this promise of a new configuration that motivates the need for inclusion of Sikh feminist thought and practice in both the practices of the faith and its current interpretations.

Five centuries ago, the gurus started theologizing the Guru Granth, for which "there has been no disclosure of feminist possibilities because it has only been the male elites who have served as intermediaries. Their one-sided, androcentric approach has dominated interpretations and commentaries" (Singh 2011, p. 117). Such is the exegesis of the text—Sikh feminist thought has not been debated, argued, or developed in a robust manner in the darbar hall, in discourse, or in text, although in recent times, there is a considerable amount of academic work developing in the field (Singh 1995, 2005, 2011; Jakobsh 2003, 2010). While there is acknowledgement that the entire Guru Granth is derived from a male pen, (Singh 1995) suggests that "the feminine voice speaks for all humanity, Sikh scripture opens out the definition of 'man'. The Sikh view is that a separation between male and female denies the wholeness of human nature" (p. 4). A feminist translation of the text has the promise of knowledge production that hitherto has not been fully explored. However, it is not for the sake of translation by feminists (or others) that we re-signify this work but, rather, for the purpose of giving new meanings to a familiar Sikh scripture with feminist modes of inquiry for all Sikhs. Feminist writer (Butler 2004) suggests the following:

[T]he point is not to assimilate foreign or unfamiliar notions of gender or humanness into our own as if it is simply a matter of incorporation of alienness into an established lexicon. Cultural translation is also a process of yielding our most fundamental categories, that is, seeing how and why they break up, require resignification when they encounter the limits of an available episteme: What is unknown or not ye<sup>t</sup> known.

> (p. 39)

This discursive practice of resignification will produce an ongoing, deeper engagemen<sup>t</sup> with the faith for Sikh women and others who adhere to the faith or want to understand it.
