Home Journal List Journal of the Research Society of Pakistan volume 59 Article Details

Understanding Gender Identity in Sikhism

Abstract

This paper discusses the gender identity in Sikhism with regard to the status of Sikh women in society. The Gender role and its record is always a neglected part in Sikh history. In order to examine gender and its identity within Sikh literature and culture and to understand the construction of gender and its status in Punjabi society, I use references from proverbs and from collective consciousness of the society as well as the sacred Sikh scripture. I will critique status of women in Sikhism to bear witness and to uncover the silence and neglection toward the Sikh women. The shaping and reshaping of identities through gender is a widely accepted phenomenon. In fact, identities are often created under the umbrella of religious boundaries, gender construction, racial and sexual subordination, and national conflicts.1 According to Doris R. Jakobsh, there are four major principles guiding writings on Sikh women and these principles are of silence, negation, accommodation, and idealization in regards to the secondary sources. Although, it has been widely argued that in Sikhism, women and men are equal in all spheres of life but Sikh history offers virtually nothing related to women. So, the question here arises that if women and men are considered equal in the society offered by Sikhism then why women are not being discussed similarly as men in the secondary sources of history. Harjot Oberoi has posited that “the principle of silence and negation are paramount in addressing issues that could be conceived as ambiguous within the tradition”.2 Sikh women were generally neglected during history writing so it seems that they did not have any contribution towards business, war or politics. This was not the case only with Sikh history but in general, history has been written through the viewpoint of male gender. One reason could be that most of the historians were from male gender so they ignored the role of women and tried to glorify only male speciein history. According to some feminist historians, history is not as objective as believed and the will of writer and his choice of events have an important role in the history writing process. According to Oberoi, the second principle towards Sikh gender history is of negation. For example, by and large, the Sikh histories are silent about the wives ofthe Gurus. If someone discussed it, it’s only the behavior of the Gurus towards their wives was focused, not the wives as individuals. The example of the Mata Sundri is subsequent, who was the third wife of the last Guru, Guru Gobind Singh and ruled Khalsa Panth for thirty-five years but she never got as much importance or attention of the historians as she should get. According to Prof. Nikkey Gurinder Kaur Singh, Sikh sacred literature has broken down all the paradigms of the patriarchal idols and isfeminine in its tone and form.3 The thing there needs attention is that human beings are represented in Granth Sahib as a bride who is devoted to her divine husbands so it also gives a lower status to women and dominant status to the men. On the other hand,Doris R. Jakobsh disagreed with Prof. Singh and points out many humiliating coupletsin Granth Sahib regarding women which associated women with Maya.

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