Violence and the Sikhs

This Element explores a 'post-Western' understanding of violence and non-violence based on indigenous sources in Sikh tradition.

Arvind-Pal S. Mandair (Author)

9781108728218, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 21 April 2022

75 pages
17.7 x 12.8 x 0.6 cm, 0.1 kg

Violence and the Sikhs interrogates conventional typologies of violence and non-violence in Sikhism by rethinking the dominant narrative of Sikhism as a deviation from the ostensibly original pacifist-religious intentions and practices of its founders. This Element highlights competing logics of violence drawn from primary sources of Sikh literature, thereby complicating our understanding of the relationship between spirituality and violence, connecting it to issues of sovereignty and the relationship between Sikhism and the State during the five centuries of its history. By cultivating a non-oppositional understanding of violence and spirituality, this Element provides an innovative method for interpreting events of 'religious violence'. In doing so it provides a novel perspective on familiar themes such as martyrdom, Martial Race theory, warfare and (post)colonial conflicts in the Sikh context.

1. Sikh?(sm) and sui generis Violence
2. Guru N?nak's Sovereign Violence
3. Martyrdom, Militancy & the Kh?ls?
4. 1984: A Clash of Sovereignties?
References.

Subject Areas: Violence in society [JFFE], Aspects of religion [non-Christian HRL], Sikhism [HRKS], Religious issues & debates [HRAM], Religion: general [HRA], Religion & beliefs [HR]