Image above: detail from painting by Ishwar Chitarkar.
Current Events
A Sikh Feminist Journey
HARPREET KAUR GREWAL
I recently spoke at a conference called Our Journeys, which was organised by the Sikh Feminist Research Institute (Safar), and held in Vancouver, Canada.
It was enlightening and inspiring.
I got to hear a whole range of perspectives that root from Sikhism as a culture, history and an experience that I don't usually get to hear. Perspectives that are not just linked to Sikhism's physical religious identity that may initially come to mind - especially after the Wisconsin shootings and Balpreet Kaur standing up to ridicule about her facial hair on Reddit.
The aim of the conference was partly to turn that old patriarchy-dominated identity of Sikhism on its head and present the feminist perspective.
For instance, I presented on the last queen of the Kingdom of Punjab, Jind Kaur. Her struggle included having to deal with British Imperialists but also the infighting of her own people, which helped the British take over the Sikh Kingdom. Jindan, as she was popularly known, tried to stand up to both. Her very actions are stories not told often enough and ones which challenge the common depiction of brown women only as victims of honour killings, forced marriages, domestic violence and foeticide (all serious issues that need to continue to be fought against, of course, and these empowered stories can help).
Other speakers presented on the perception of honour in the west and pioneering Sikh immigrant women in Vancouver, including one who was instrumental in the building of the first and oldest gurdwara in the Americas.
Why do we need conferences like this?
Well, after the whole Caitlin Moran / Twitter storm, it is quite obvious, is it not?
In an interview with the American news website, Salon.com, Moran responded to her controversial Tweet in which she said she "literally couldn't give a shit" about the lack of black or minority women in Lena Dunham's show, Girls, explaining:
I'm bemused by the notion that there should be rules in story-telling that mean you should have to tell everyone's story, all the time. Clearly that's not the case. No one's ever done it, and no one ever will ... I would never presume to speak for 3.3 billion women. There is no 'one voice of feminism.' There is no 'one voice' of anything. We need whole gangs of girls, hundreds of them, thousands of them, all speaking for themselves about their experiences and their truths and their missions.
She's right.
I feel "minority" women do and are creating platforms for themselves to do this. The Our Journeys conference is an example of that. We have to make sure these platforms are visible to the majority just as much as the opinions of the Caitlin Morans of this world are.
A conference like Our Journeys has an important role to play in planting seeds of change within local communities by challenging what people think they know, and also in the larger society, which presumes a lot from the limited information it has.
A lot of what we hear about most religious traditions is the patriarchal interpretation, so it's no surprise that Sikhism has been portrayed in the same way. But it has a huge feminist dimension that has been little explored or revealed in the mainstream -- an important perspective that this conference was committed to bringing out and discussing, despite it not always being easy.
Kirpa Kaur, one of the organizers of Our Journeys, told local Vancouver website, Straight.com, that one of the first teachings of Sikhism by its founder, Guru Nanak, was that men and women are equals. "We come from a history where women were not just uplifted but were treated as equal and given dignity and status," she says. "And so to know where you came from, I think, can give you the inspiration to realise the changes that need to be made today."
This is exactly what the point of Our Journeys was.
Many who organised and took part in the event see it as a collective, empowering a movement for "minority" women, especially those from Asian backgrounds who often get missed out by mainstream feminism. The next step is an Internet journal incorporating the presentations into a readable, accessible online forum, due next year.
It seems the momentum is only just beginning to build.
[Courtesy: The F Word. Edited for sikhchic.com]
December 10, 2012
Conversation about this article
1: Baldev Singh (Bradford, United Kingdom), December 10, 2012, 8:35 AM.
There would be no need to have a new movement labeled 'feminism' if we simply followed the teachings of our Gurus. Max Arthur Macauliffe noted 140 years ago, and J.K. Rowling highlighted it earlier this year: 'It is hard to believe there are no mysteries in Sikhism'!...in Sikhi, "there is complete equality between man and woman at every level of life'!
2: Jasmeet (Melbourne, Australia), December 10, 2012, 11:05 PM.
I wish something like this was held in Australia too. Many people are unaware of the basic tenets of equality and self-respect taught to us Sikhs. It would be good to spread that word in the times that we live in.
3: Bhai Harbans Lal (Dallas, Texas, USA), December 12, 2012, 12:58 AM.
And to imagine that there is even today an obscure gurdwara in Bathinda -- Haji Rattan -- which displays a sign prohibiting women from entering the langar hall! Distant echoes of Hinduism's Manu Simriti?
4: Taruneshwar Singh Bedi (Rome, Italy), April 06, 2013, 7:41 PM.
I am so pleased and grateful to see the portrait of my mother, late Sardarni Avtar Kaur Bedi (09/01/1928 -- 05/08/2004) wife of late Sardar Ishwar Singh Chitarkar (11/12/1910 -- 02/12/1968) with this article. With my warmest wishes and best thoughts to you all.