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Sikh Nationalism and Identity in a Global Age Giorgio
Shani Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Giorgio Shani
ISBN(s): 9780415421904, 041542190X
Edition: Kindle
File Details: PDF, 1.37 MB
Year: 2008
Language: english
Sikh Nationalism and Identity in a
Global Age

Sikh Nationalism and Identity in a Global Age examines the construction of a

Sikh national identity in post-colonial India and the diaspora and explores
the reasons for the failure of the movement for an independent Sikh state:
Khalistan. Based on a decade of research, it is argued that the failure of the
movement to bring about a sovereign, Sikh state should not be interpreted as
resulting from the weakness of the ‘communal’ ties which bind members of
the Sikh ‘nation’ together, but points to the transformation of national iden-
tity under conditions of globalization. Globalization is perceived to have
severed the link between nation and state and, through the proliferation and
development of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs), has
facilitated the articulation of a transnational ‘diasporic’ Sikh identity. It is
argued that this ‘diasporic’ identity potentially challenges the conventional
narratives of international relations and makes the imagination of a post-
Westphalian community possible.
Theoretically innovative and interdisciplinary in approach, it will be pri-
marily of interest to students of South Asian studies, political science and
international relations, as well as to many others trying to come to terms with
the continued importance of religious and cultural identities in times of rapid
political, economic, social and cultural change.

Giorgio Shani is Associate Professor in the Faculty of International Re-

lations, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan. He holds a doctorate from
SOAS, University of London, and is co-editor of Protecting Human Security
in a Post 9/11 World (2007).
Routledge advances in South Asian studies
Edited by Subrata K. Mitra
South Asia Institute, University of Heidelberg, Germany

South Asia, with its burgeoning, ethnically diverse population, soaring econ-
omies, and nuclear weapons, is an increasingly important region in the global
context. The series, which builds on this complex, dynamic and volatile area,
features innovative and original research on the region as a whole or on the
countries. Its scope extends to scholarly works drawing on history, politics,
development studies, sociology and economics of individual countries from
the region as well as those that take an interdisciplinary and comparative
approach to the area as a whole or to a comparison of two or more countries
from this region. In terms of theory and method, rather than basing itself on
any one orthodoxy, the series draws broadly on the insights germane to area
studies, as well as the tool kit of the social sciences in general, emphasizing
comparison, the analysis of the structure and processes, and the application
of qualitative and quantitative methods. The series welcomes submissions
from established authors in the field as well as from young authors who have
recently completed their doctoral dissertations.

1 Perception, Politics and Security in South Asia

The compound crisis of 1990
P. R. Chari, Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema and Stephen Philip Cohen
2 Coalition Politics and Hindu Nationalism
Edited by Katharine Adeney and Lawrence Saez
3 The Puzzle of India’s Governance
Culture, context and comparative theory
Subrata K. Mitra
4 India’s Nuclear Bomb and National Security
Karsten Frey
5 Starvation and India’s Democracy
Dan Banik
6 Parliamentary Control and Government Accountability in South Asia
A comparative analysis of Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka
Taiabur Rahman
7 Political Mobilisation and Democracy in India
States of emergency
Vernon Hewitt
8 Military Control in Pakistan
The parallel state
Mazhar Aziz
9 Sikh Nationalism and Identity in a Global Age
Giorgio Shani
Sikh Nationalism and Identity in
a Global Age

Giorgio Shani
First published 2008
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
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© 2008 Giorgio Shani

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Shani, Giorgio, 1970–
Sikh nationalism and identity in a global age / Giorgio Shani.
p. cm.— (Routledge advances in South Asian studies series; 9)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Sikh nationalism. 2. Sikh diaspora. 3. Sikhs—Political activity.
4. Sikhs—Social networks. 5. Globalization. 6. Punjab (India)—History—
Autonomy and independence movements. I. Title.
DS432.S5S395 2007
320.540917′646–dc22
2007022117
ISBN 0-203-93721-X Master e-book ISBN

ISBN10: 0–415–42190–X (hbk)

ISBN10: 0–203–93721–X (ebk)
ISBN13: 978–0–415–42190–4 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–203–93721–1 (ebk)
To Dharam Singh Sahni, who lived his life according to the
universal and egalitarian values of the Sikh faith, and to his great-
grandchildren, Milena and Arjun, so they can discover them.
He is without colour, mark, caste and lineage.
He is without enemy, friend, father and mother.
He is far away from all and closest to all.
His dwelling is within water, on earth and in heavens.
He is Limitless Entity and hath infinite celestial strain.
(Guru Gobind Singh, ‘Akal Ustat’, Sri Dasam Granth Sahib, verses 4–5)
Contents

List of figures x
List of tables xi
Preface and acknowledgements xii
Abbreviations xv

1 Introduction: rethinking Sikh nationalism in a global age 1

Ethno-symbolist approaches 2
Instrumentalist approaches 4
Constructivist approaches 6
Long-distance nationalism 8
Globalization, sovereignty and national identity 9
Rethinking Sikh nationalism 11
The structure of the book 14

2 From panth to qaum: the construction of a Sikh ‘national’

identity in colonial India 17
The Sikh panth: from Nanak-panth to Khalsa panth 21
The mythology and symbolism of the Khalsa 24
‘Singh-izing the Sikhs’: the Tat Khalsa discourse and the
colonial state 26
The institutionalization of a ‘Sikh’ identity: from the CKD to
the SGPC 35
Conclusion 39

3 The territorialization of the qaum: Sikh ‘national’ identity in

independent India 40
The Nehruvian secular settlement 41
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and the movement for the
Punjabi Suba 43
viii Contents
The ‘violence’ of the Green Revolution and Sikh ‘kulak’
nationalism 48
Imagining Khalistan 51
The ‘communalization’ of the Punjab and state terrorism 53
The militarization of the qaum 56
Conclusion 58

4 From Khalistan to Punjabiat: globalization, Hindutva and the

decline of Sikh militancy 61
Economic liberalization in India 62
Rebranding India: the challenge of Hindu nationalism 66
Globalization, regionalism and the ‘new democratic alignment’:
an analysis of the 2004 elections 71
Globalization, the SAD–BJP alliance and the reassertion of
Punjabi identity in post-Blue Star Punjab 73
Conclusion 77

5 ‘The territorialization of memory’: Sikh nationalism in the ‘diaspora’ 79

A Sikh diaspora? 80
The Sikh nationalist discourse in the diaspora 82
Partition 86
‘Operation Blue Star’ 94
Conclusion 98

6 The politics of recognition: from a Sikh ‘national’ to a Sikh

‘diasporic’ identity in a post-9/11 world? 100
Location and identity: the dynamics of Sikh diaspora
nationalism 102
Britain: from ‘nation-state’ to ‘community of
communities’? 105
Who are we? Khalistan, 9/11 and Sikh-American identity 114
Conclusion 125

7 Beyond Khalistan? The Sikh diaspora, globalization and

international relations 128
The Westphalian order and IR theory 129
‘A revolt against the West’: the global religious resurgence 132
Beyond Westphalia? Globalization, transnational religious
communities and international relations 133
Serving the qaum: Sikh transnational religious actors 137
 Contents ix
Beyond Khalistan? Voices from the diaspora 142
Concluding remarks 149

Conclusion 152

Appendix: full questionnaire results (India) 157

Notes 161
Bibliography 173
Index 195
Figures

7.1 Questionnaire results (diaspora) 143

7.2 Questionnaire results (India) 144
A.1 Question 1) Age 157
A.2 Question 2) Gender 158
A.3 Question 3) How would you categorize yourself ? You are
allowed to choose more than one category 158
A.4 Question 4) Where do you consider ‘home’ to be? 159
A.5 Question 5) In your opinion, are Sikhs discriminated against
in India? 159
A.6 Question 6) Which of the following words do you consider to
best describe the Khalsa Panth? 159
A.7 Question 7) In your opinion, is Khalistan necessary and/or
desirable? 160
Tables

2.1 Indian population by religion, 1961–2001 17

2.2 Sikhs in India 18
2.3 Sikh population growth in the Punjab, 1881–1921 27
2.4 Variation in Sikh and Hindu populations, 1901–1911 28
2.5 Membership of selected Kes-dhari Sikh ‘sects’, 1911–1921 28
2.6 Membership of selected Sahajdhari Sikh ‘sects’, 1911–1921 28
4.1 Indian development indicators, 2000–2005 65
5.1 Global Sikh population, 2005 81
5.2 Main Sikh nationalist organizations in the diaspora 82
5.3 Selected Sikh websites 83
5.4 Selected Khalistani websites 84
7.1 Selected Internet discussion groups listed under the category
‘Sikh’ 144
7.2 Selected Internet discussion groups listed under the category
‘Khalistan’ 145
Preface and acknowledgements

He is the One in many, countless are His shapes and forms.

He pervades all that exists: wherever I look, He is there.
(Namdeva, Raga Asa, SGGS; cited in Dass 2000: 29)

This book, which is a substantially revised version of my Ph.D. thesis pre-

sented at the School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London),
attempts to account for the construction, demise and persistence of a Sikh
national identity within India and the diaspora. It is also a highly subjective
account of how the central values and ideals of Sikhism can be adapted to
our contemporary global age, characterized by increasing interconnectedness
between societies and the establishment of transplanetary social networks.
Written by someone of mixed Punjabi–Italian parentage who is certainly
more ‘at home’ in the ‘diaspora’ than in the Punjab, it argues that the ideals
of Sikhism, as embodied in the Khalsa, are universal and should not be
confined to a Punjabi ethnie. Consequently, the book makes no attempt at
‘objectivity’, and no apologies are offered for not providing a definitive por-
trait of Sikh identity in the twenty-first century (although I take full respon-
sibility for any factual errors). However, it is hoped that many Sikhs – as well
as scholars of South Asian studies, sociology and international politics – will
find the book of interest and not revoke my ‘permission to narrate’ (Said
2000) on the grounds of religion or ethnicity.
Indeed, the book is written with two different audiences and objectives in
mind. The first objective is for scholars working within the discipline of
political science and international relations in particular to take Sikhism and
Sikh identity more seriously. Sikh nationalism first emerged as a ‘problem’ in
Punjab studies in the early 1980s. Punjab’s ‘problem’ subsequently became a
‘national’ one after Blue Star and the assassination of Indira Gandhi. Finally,
militant Sikh nationalism became an international one – at least for India –
with the mobilization of Sikhs in the diaspora under the banner of ‘Khalistan’.
Since the crushing of the militancy in the early 1990s, there has been a declin-
ing academic interest in Sikh identity within South Asian studies and political
science – although this has been countered by the development of ‘Sikh
studies’ as a sub-discipline of religion and history in some Western academic
 Preface and acknowledgements xiii
institutions. There has also, as far as I am aware, been no attempt to theorize
international relations from a transnational Sikh perspective, and it is hoped
that the last chapter of this book goes some way towards doing so.
The second objective I share with Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh and many
others: I would like the Sikh community to be (even more) self-reflective
(2005: 175, emphasis mine). Specifically, I would like more Sikhs in the dias-
pora to question whether a sovereign state is really needed to preserve the
transnational ideals of the Khalsa in a time of globalization and regionaliza-
tion. Perhaps, given the continued ‘Hinduization’ of Indian society, it still is,
but I believe that further debate on whether Khalistan is, in fact, desirable will
– if allowed by states – be beneficial for Sikhs everywhere. If, as I conclude,
Khalistan is not needed, then how else can these ideals be maintained and
articulated both nationally and internationally?
Although, unlike Kaur Singh, I am unable to claim this community as my
own, it was unquestionably my grandfather’s, and it is to him – and his great-
grandchildren – that I dedicate this book. Dharam Singh Sahni embodied
the ideals of the Khalsa and lived through many of the formative events of
twentieth-century South Asian history, including Jallianwallah Bagh, anti-
colonial nationalism and the ‘holocaust’ of partition. This book would have
never been written without his inspiration or the support of my extended
family: principally my father and mother; my Uncle Charanjit and Aunt
Tavinder; my ‘brother’ Raju and his wife Sumiti; Nirmal and Jawant Singh
Chowdury; Jagjit Singh Chaddah and his family; and, of course, Akiko,
Milena and Arjun.
Special mention must also go to my Ph.D. supervisors at SOAS, Professor
Sudipta Kaviraj and Professor David Taylor; to Professor Subrata Mitra and
two anonymous reviewers for their helpful and critical comments on four draft
chapters; and to Helly Chalal in the UK, Surinder Singh Sawhney in India,
and Dr Swaranjeet Singh in the US for their invaluable help in arranging
interviews across three continents. Research for the thesis was initially carried
out in India over a decade ago and in the UK between 1998 and 2001. This
has been supplemented by further research at a post-doctoral level with
the financial support of the Japanese Ministry of Education (MEXT) and
Ritsumeikan University.
I am, furthermore, very grateful to the following people for making the
time to be interviewed by me: Mejindarpal Kaur, Tejinder Singh, Patwant
Singh, Ajit Singh Khera, Bhupinder Singh, Surinderpal Singh, Amardeep
Singh, Rajinder Singh Magoo, Dr Balwant Singh Hansra, Dr Amarjit Singh,
Dr Jasdev Singh Rai and the late Dr Jagjit Singh Chauhan. I would like to
thank Dorothea Schaefter, Tom Bates and the editorial team at Routledge
for their patience; and the following people for comments made on my work
at various stages of preparation: Professor Pal Ahluwalia, Professor Brian
Keith Axel, Professor Partha Chatterjee, Dr Stephen Hopgood, Dr Virinder
Singh Kalra, Ms Harvind Kaur, Professor Richard King, Professor Kristina
Kinvall, Professor W.H. McLeod, Professor Arvind-Pal Singh Mandair,
xiv Preface and acknowledgements
Professor Mustapha Kamal Pasha, Dr Bobby S. Sayyid, Professor John Sidel,
Professor Ian Talbot and Professor Peter van der Veer. Finally, I wish to
especially thank Professor Gurharpal Singh for his constant encouragement,
support and advice as well as his pivotal role in pioneering Sikh studies in
political science.
Earlier versions of Chapters 2 and 3, 5, 6 and 7 have been published in
South Asia Research (Shani 2000b), Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism
(Shani 2002), the International Journal of Punjab Studies (Shani 2000a) and
Sikh Formations: Religion, Culture, Theory (Shani 2005), but all have been
substantially revised, updated and rewritten for this volume.

Giorgiandrea (Giorgio) Dharam Singh Shani

Kyoto, Japan
April 2007
Abbreviations

AIADMK All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam

AISSF All-India Sikh Students’ Federation
ASR Anandpur Sahib Resolution
BJP Bharatiya Janata Party
BK Babbar Khalsa
BKI Babbar Khalsa International
BSP Bahujan Samaj Party
BT Bhindranwale Tigers
CKD Chief Khalsa Diwan
CPI Communist Party of India
CPI (M) Communist Party of India (Marxist)
CRE Commission for Racial Equality
CSDS Centre for the Study of Developing Societies
DK Dal Khalsa
DMK Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam
DT Damdam Taksal
EIU Economist Intelligence Unit
EU European Union
FRY Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
GOI Government of India
HRAG Human Rights Advisory Group
HYV high-yield variety
ICCPR International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
ICHRA International Civil and Human Rights Advocacy
ICT Information and Communications Technology
IMF International Monetary Fund
INC Indian National Congress
IR international relations
ISYF International Sikh Youth Federation
IWAs Indian workers’ associations
KAC Khalistan Affairs Center
KCF Khalistan Commando Force
KLF Khalistan Liberation Force
xvi Abbreviations
MEPs Members of the European Parliament
MLAs Members of the Legislative Assembly
MNC multinational corporation
MPs Members of Parliament
MTA Metropolitan Transit Authority
NDA National Democratic Alliance
NGO non-governmental organization
NYPD New York City Police Department
PRC People’s Republic of China
RSS Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
RTT Right to the Turban (United States)
SAD Shiromani Akali Dal
SAD (Amritsar) Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar)
SAD (Badal) Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal)
SAD (UK) Shiromani Akali Dal (UK)
SALDEF Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund
SAPs structurally adjusted policies
SDGS Sri Dasam Granth Sahib
SGGS Sri Guru Granth Sahib
SGPC Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee
SHRG Sikh Human Rights Group
SMART Sikh Mediawatch and Resource Task Force
SWAN Sikh with a Need
TDP Telugu Desam Party
UAD United Akali Dal
UK United Kingdom
UN United Nations
UNDP United Nations Development Programme
UP Uttar Pradesh
UPA United Progressive Alliance
USA United States of America
VHP Vishwa Hindu Parishad
WSC World Sikh Council
WSC-AR World Sikh Council – America Region
WSO World Sikh Organization
1 Introduction
Rethinking Sikh nationalism in a
global age

The appointment of the first Sikh prime minister of India, ironically one
instigated by the daughter-in-law of the woman who ordered the infamous
storming of the Golden Temple complex in Amritsar in June 1984,1 provides
an opportune moment to reflect upon Sikh national identity. The twenty-odd
years since the military action, codenamed ‘Operation Blue Star’, designed to
eliminate a band of armed Sikh militants taking refuge in the holiest shrine in
Sikhism have seen the rise and fall of a separatist movement dedicated to the
achievement of an independent Sikh state: Khalistan. Although this move-
ment was unsuccessful, there is evidence to show that it enjoyed the support
of a significant number of Sikhs in the Indian state of the Punjab (Pettigrew
1995; Gurharpal Singh 2000) and in the ‘diaspora’ (Tatla 1999; Axel 2001).
What then can account for first the strength and then the ‘strange death of
Sikh ethno-nationalism’ (Gurharpal Singh 2004)?
Generally speaking, four or five different approaches to this question may
be identified. The first approach attributes the rise of Sikh nationalism to
the coherence of a religiously and culturally defined ethnie (H. Deol 2000;
Gurharpal Singh 2000) and accounts for the decline of Sikh militancy in the
Punjab as primarily a traumatic reaction to the ‘crescendo of state led vio-
lence’ orchestrated by the Indian state (Gurharpal Singh 2004). The second
approach considers Sikh identity to have been ‘invented’ in the colonial
period (Kapur 1986; Oberoi 1994) and Sikh nationalism itself to have been
primarily a reaction to state-led violence and to the ruthless centralization of
political power in India by the then prime minister, Indira Gandhi (Brass
1991). A variant of this approach sees Sikh ethno-nationalism essentially in
socio-economic terms as an ideology propagated by rich, capitalist farmers
to unite the rural Sikh masses under their hegemony (Purewal 2000). The
‘death’ of Sikh ethno-nationalism is attributed to the readjustment of rela-
tions between central and state governments and the liberalization of the
Indian economy. A related approach sees modern Sikh identity as a ‘con-
struction’ of colonial Orientalism (Fox 1985) and Sikh nationalism, in
Partha Chatterjee’s words, as ‘derivative discourse’ (Chatterjee 1996 [1993])
or even a ‘pathology’ of modernity (Fox 1996). Finally, many scholars have
followed the Indian state in considering Sikh nationalism to be primarily a
2 Introduction
‘long-distance’ phenomenon (Anderson 1992). Sikhs settled overseas, par-
ticularly in advanced capitalist societies such as Canada, the US and the UK,
are seen to constitute a ‘diaspora’, mobilized for the achievement of sover-
eign statehood (Tatla 1999; Axel 2001).
It will be argued that all of the approaches outlined above are problematic:
the first essentializes Sikh identity; the second ‘reduces’ identity to a single
causal principle and is, furthermore, unable to account for continuity within
the Sikh tradition; the third reproduces the Orientalist discourse it is attempt-
ing to critique, whilst the final approach conflates the concepts of ‘nation’
and ‘diaspora’. It will be argued, instead, that a more comprehensive approach
is needed: one which accounts for both continuity and change in Sikh narra-
tives and, furthermore, takes into account the global dimensions of Sikh
identity.

Ethno-symbolist approaches
The first approach attributes the strength of Sikh ethno-religious nationalism
to the coherence of a religiously and culturally defined community and
accounts for the decline of Sikh militancy in the Punjab as primarily a trau-
matic reaction to the ‘crescendo of state led violence’ orchestrated by the
Indian state and the Indian National Congress (INC) in particular (Gurharpal
Singh 2000, 2004). From this perspective, the Sikh community or qaum
corresponds to A.D. Smith’s definition of a politicized ethnie, or nation. For
Smith, an ethnie is defined as a ‘a named human population with myths of
common ancestry, shared historical memories and one or more elements of a
common culture, including an association with a homeland, and some degree
of solidarity, at least amongst elites’ (A.D. Smith 1999: 13).
The Sikh ethnie share common ancestry myths dating back to the founding
of the Khalsa in 1699 and historical memories of martyrdom and persecution
under successive Mughal, British and Indian rulers. Although Punjabi is
spoken by Sikh, Hindu and Muslim in East and West Punjab alike, the Sikh
scriptures are written in the Gurumukhi script particular to Sikhs. Sikhs fol-
lowing the edicts of the tenth Guru, Gobind Singh, are enjoined to keep their
hair, including facial hair, long (kes); carry a comb (kanga); wear knee-length
breeches (kach); wear a steel bracelet on the right hand (kara); and carry a
sword or dagger (kirpan). Those who hold these five symbols of Sikh identity
are known as Kes-dhari Sikhs. Those who don’t are known as Sahajdhari
Sikhs: ‘slow adopters’ who would eventually progress towards full participa-
tion in the Khalsa (McLeod 1989: 96). Finally, for the Sikhs, the Punjab may
be equated with what A.D. Smith terms the ancestral land where, ‘in the
shared memories of its inhabitants, the great events that formed the nation
took place’ (A.D. Smith 1996: 383).
This ethno-symbolist view of the Sikh nation is reflected in the recent work
of Sikh scholars as well as in the nationalist narratives in the Punjab as
articulated by actors operating within the Sikh political system. In Religion
 Introduction 3
and Nationalism in India: The Case of the Punjab (2000), Harnik Deol illus-
trates how the origins of modern Sikh national consciousness (1947–1995)
lie in the historical roots of Sikh communal consciousness (1469–1947).
For Deol, a specifically Sikh ethnic identity based upon the Sikh religious
tradition and Punjabi language pre-dates colonial rule. Consequently, the
introduction of print capitalism in the colonial period merely ‘energized’
the existing tendencies towards differentiation between the diverse religio-
linguistic communities of the Punjab rather than, as in Benedict Anderson’s
formulation, created a radically different consciousness (H. Deol 2000: 90).
Like Deol, Gurharpal Singh believes modern Sikh identity to be ‘remarkably
cohesive’ (Gurharpal Singh 2000: 87), having its roots in a Jat Punjabi ethnie,
‘a sacred text and religious tradition dating from Guru Nanak’ (Gurharpal
Singh 2000: 78). Central to this ethno-nationalist narrative is the territorial-
ization of Sikh socio-political identity in the homeland of the Punjab. As early
as 1946, the SGPC committed itself to the ‘goal of a Sikh state’ and, there-
fore, the territorialization of the Sikh qaum or ‘nation’. The Sikh people
needed a state of their own to ‘preserve the main Sikh shrines, Sikh social
practices, Sikh self-respect and pride, Sikh sovereignty and the future pros-
perity of the Sikh people’ (SGPC 1946).
However, it is argued that this approach, although convincing in its analy-
sis of the strategies of violent and hegemonic control adopted by the Indian
state, essentializes Sikh identity and ignores the voices of those in the Sikh
qaum critical of territorialized nationalist narratives. Identities are multiple,
subjective and infinitely contested. Communal identities are not ascribed at
birth but are adopted, rejected, reinterpreted, negotiated, imagined and, in
certain circumstances, invented. In multiethnic states, ‘new’ identities, such as
Black, White, European, Asian or Indian, coexist with ‘older’ identities based
on language, religion and culture (S. Hall 1997). In such circumstances,
identity becomes, in Stuart Hall’s words, a ‘moveable feast’ which is ‘formed
and transformed continuously in relation to the ways we are represented or
addressed in the cultural systems which surround us’ (S. Hall 1992: 277).
Identification may be understood, following Lacan, as the ‘transformation
that takes place in the subject when he assumes an image’, to which Lacan
gives the term imago (Lacan 1977: 2). Lacan argued that identification first
takes place when the child is between six and eighteen months and first rec-
ognizes a reflection of itself in a mirror. This image, however, is alienating.
The ‘specular’ image of the child does not correspond to the identity of the
child but comes to the child ‘from the outside’. The mirror-state ‘situates the
agency of the ego, before its social determination, in a fictional direction’
(Lacan 1977: 2). Thus, for Lacan, identity is not inherent within the subject
but comes into being ‘from the place of the other’. It is, therefore, a ‘fictional’
construct: all identities are ‘imaginary’ based on the fundamental misrecogni-
tion (méconnaissance) of the child with its imago. The subject and the social
order in which the subject finds a place are both in a continuous process of
becoming. Both are always in a process of formation.
4 Introduction
It follows that the identity of the collective subject, the community, society
or nation, cannot be fixed by a ‘primordial attachment’2 such as language,
religion or ethnicity, but is too in a process of becoming. Although ethno-
symbolists are correct to point out that ‘religious’ traditions pre-date coloni-
alism, ethnicized religious communities in South Asia are relatively recent
phenomena and their claims to primordiality are based upon an appropri-
ation and reinterpretation of colonial categories. As will be argued later, the
religious and cultural homogeneity upon which ethno-symbolists based their
claims for Sikh ‘nationhood’ is itself of recent origin, a product of elite
manipulation (Kapur 1986; Brass 1991), a reflection of colonial Orientalism
(Fox 1985; Dusenbery 1999) or both (Oberoi 1994).

Instrumentalist approaches
The second approach considers Sikh identity as it is known today to have
been ‘invented’ by Sikh elites during the colonial period. Particular attention
has been paid to the activities of the Singh Sabha movement in the late nine-
teenth century and their elucidation of a Tat Khalsa discourse which became
hegemonic in the twentieth century (Kapur 1986; Oberoi 1994; Barrier
2004a, 2004b). By far the most impressive account of the rise of a Tat Khalsa
discourse is provided by Harjot Oberoi’s The Construction of Religious
Boundaries (1994), which despite its sophisticated use of constructivist and
post-structuralist theory appears to support the instrumentalist thesis. For
Oberoi:

In the late nineteenth-century a growing body of Sikhs took part in a

systematic campaign to purge their faith of religious diversity, as well as
what they saw as Hindu accretions and as a Brahmanical stranglehold
over their rituals. The result was a fundamental change in the nature of
the Sikh tradition. From an amorphous entity it rapidly turned into a
homogenous community.
(Oberoi 1994: 420–421)

However, for instrumentalists, it is post-1984 Sikh nationalism, and in

particular the movement for a separate Sikh state, which, to paraphrase
Ernest Gellner, engendered the Sikh nation (Gellner 1983: 55). Sikh militancy
itself is seen to be primarily a reaction to state-led violence and to the
ruthless centralization of political power in India by the then prime minis-
ter, Indira Gandhi (Brass 1991). There are two variants of the instru-
mentalist position which purport to account for the emergence of a Sikh
nationalist movement within India. One school of thought has stressed the
primacy of the centralizing tendencies of the national government in Delhi
and the post-Nehruvian leadership in alienating the Sikh community (Brass
1991). Another complementary approach has emphasized the role of eco-
nomic factors and, in particular, the effects of the Green Revolution in
 Introduction 5
making the emergence of a new type of politics possible (Narang 1983;
Purewal 2000).
The ‘death’ of Sikh ethno-nationalism is attributed to the readjustment
of relations between central and state governments which followed the
decline of INC hegemony within the Indian political system and the rise of
a loose federation of regional parties, including the Badal faction of the
SAD, which has helped keep the centralizing tendencies of the centre in
check. A variant of this approach sees Sikh ethno-nationalism essentially
in socio-economic terms as an ideology propagated by rich, capitalist farmers
to unite the rural Sikh masses under their hegemony (Gill and Singhal 1984;
Gopal Singh 1984; Narang 1986; Purewal 2000). For Shinder Purewal, Sikh
ethno-nationalism is a by-product of the struggle between the Sikh ‘kulaks’
and the predominately Hindu commercial and industrial bourgeoisie of
India. Sikhism had become ‘an ideological weapon of the kulaks to build a
“common” bond among Sikhs of all classes and to build them under their
command’ (Purewal 2000: 73).

In the name of Sikhism, the Kulaks seek to strengthen their domination

over the home market of Punjab either by demanding the transfer of all
jurisdictions except communications, currency, defence, and foreign
affairs to the provinces, or by asserting complete independence of India.
(Purewal 2000: viii)

Since the demands of this new Sikh elite were primarily material and centred
on greater access to the world market for their mainly agricultural produce,
it follows that the decline of Sikh ethno-nationalism can be explained in
terms of the transition to a market economy which followed on from the
economic reforms which the then finance minister and current prime minister,
Manmohan Singh, inaugurated in 1991.
It is argued that both the instrumental approaches outlined above are
reductionist in that they seek to reduce the complexity of Sikh ethno-
nationalism to a single causal principle: the internal dynamics of the Indian
political system or the impact of the ‘Green Revolution’ upon agriculture in
the Indian state of Punjab where most Sikhs live. Furthermore, ‘instrumental-
ist’ approaches are unable to account for the persistence of Sikh nationalism
today and for its continued salience for, in many cases, wealthy young Sikhs
settled in Western, capitalist societies. No attempt is made to account for
what Walker Connor termed the ‘irrational’ nature of the ethno-national
bond: the strength and depth of feeling of belonging to an ethnic or national
community which cuts across different classes (Connor 1994). Nor is there a
concerted attempt to explain just how the consciousness of belonging to a
religious and cultural community which included adherents from many dif-
ferent classes and ‘castes’ was constructed over time and developed into a
political consciousness. Finally, there is no explanation of how Sikh elites
were able to exert hegemony over followers of the Sikh faith and redefine a
6 Introduction
religious tradition which has stood, in one form or another, for almost half a
millennium, long before the transition to ‘modernity’ in the Punjab. The con-
tributions made by people ‘on their own, that is, independent of the elite to the
making and development of ’ nationalism are conveniently ignored (Guha
1988: 3, author’s emphasis). Instrumentalist approaches, therefore, do not
provide us with an adequate theory of how political identities based upon
religion and culture are constructed but merely with a description of the condi-
tions under which existing ethnic and religious identities may be politicized.

Constructivist approaches
For constructivist approaches, colonial discourse prescribes limits to elite
manipulation of ethno-cultural identity. Colonial power, Edward Said per-
suasively argued, was supported and made possible by the development of
Orientalist scholarship which had the effect of distorting indigenous narra-
tives about their own societies (Said 1978). The purpose of Orientalist schol-
arship, ‘Indology’ in the case of South Asia (Inden 1990), was to render the
‘Orient’ an object of colonial knowledge, and Orientalism in turn deeply
influenced the self-perception and identity formation of indigenous elites.
Whilst Romilla Thapar, Ashis Nandy and Chetan Bhatt amongst others con-
sider the development of a Hindu national consciousness to have been pro-
foundly influenced by Orientalism (Thapar 1989; Nandy 1998a, 1998b; Bhatt
2001), Richard Fox comes close to arguing that the very notion of a distinct
‘Sikh’ identity itself is an Orientalist construction. Fox follows Said in con-
sidering Orientalism a totalizing discourse, and has argued that contempor-
ary Sikh identity is a re-appropriation of the colonial stereotype, or imago, of
the Sikhs as a ‘martial race’ (Fox 1985).
As the British believed the Singhs to constitute a separate race, possessing a
distinctive physiognomy, habitat, behaviour and appearance, the colonial
state strove to treat the Kes-dhari Singhs as a distinct community. ‘British
rulers, in pursuit of their colonial interests through means directed by their
own cultural beliefs, foreshadowed the reformed Sikh, or Singh identity, pro-
pounded by the Singh Sabhas’ (Fox 1985: 10). The myth of the ‘Lions of the
Punjab’, like that of other ‘martial races’ in the subcontinent, was functional
in that it served the interests of the Indian army. Between a quarter and a
third of all soldiers from the Punjab were Sikhs at a time when Sikhs barely
made up a tenth of the Punjab’s population. The military authorities toler-
ated and moreover encouraged the Sikh initiation ceremony, the khande ki
pahul, since British officers believed that the valour and even loyalty of their
Sikh troops were closely linked with their religious identity. In return, the
British expected the Singhs to fight and die for king and empire. However,
when the Punjab’s rural economy deteriorated after the First World War,
the demobilized Jat soldier-peasants, imbued with the Raj’s image of a
Singh, joined the urban religious mainly Khatri reformers in the movement
for gurdwara reform.
 Introduction 7
In a more recent work, Fox has extended his conclusions to a general
theory of ‘communalism’ and modernity. For Fox, colonialism was merely
the mode by which modernity came to South Asia. Although colonial mod-
ernity may have differed from Western modernity in the degree of coercion
used to implement its policies, it had similar consequences: namely, following
Weber, disenchantment brought by bureaucratic rationality and capitalist
alienation, and the ‘hyper-enchantment’ of pre-existing ethnic and religious
identities (Fox 1996). ‘Communalism’ in South Asia is therefore merely a
local instance of how modernity builds new forms of identity once it has
disenchanted the pre-modern world. It is not specific to a particular geo-
graphical area, South Asia in this case, as much as it has been assigned to one
by modernity.3 Sikh ‘nationalism’ is, for Fox, an example of a communal
identity produced by the institutional embodiment of modernity: the bureau-
cratic state (Fox 1996: 239). The bureaucratic state is characterized, on the
one hand, by its rationality, secularism and efficiency, and on the other by its
intrusions upon the autonomy of local elites. Fox claims that the autonomy
of both Sikh and Welsh local elites was compromised by the development of
the bureaucratic state in India and Britain respectively. As with the Sikhs,
Welsh ethnic identity was initially infused with a religious dimension.
Chapels, like Sikh temples, conserved Welsh identity and became centres for
communal politics. However, whereas the post-colonial British welfare state,
because of its greater efficiency and competence, was able to placate local
elites by institutionalizing a Welsh linguistic identity, the Indian state was less
successful. Fox implicitly, like instrumentalists, relies upon a distinction
between the Nehruvian and post-Nehruvian state which tried to exploit
factional divisions within the sectarian movement, leading to Sikh ‘hyper-
enchantment’ under Bhindranwale.
Fox’s account, however, reproduces the hegemony of the Orientalist dis-
course which it appears to be critiquing. Sikh identity appears to be a mere
reflection of a colonial discourse which, in Said’s words, reduces the Orient to
silence.4 As Peter van der Veer has pointed out, this is in itself an ‘orientalist
fallacy that denies Indians agency in constructing their society and simplifies
the intricate interplay of Western and Indian discourses’ (van der Veer 1994:
21). Sikh identity, as Harjot Oberoi argues, ‘cannot be explained by referring
to the British policy of divide and rule, or the compulsions of elite politics’
but ‘resulted from a complex evolution’ (Oberoi 1994: 424). Colonial dis-
course did not reduce the Orient to silence but stimulated a search for an
‘indigenous’ modernity: a modernity which could speak for and on behalf of
the colonized. Furthermore, Fox does not make a distinction between mod-
ernity as it is experienced in the modern West and colonial modernity. His
comparison of Sikh communalism to Welsh ethnic nationalism not only emp-
ties the Sikh tradition of any religious significance, regarding it as little more
than a ‘sect’ of Hinduism in the same way as Methodism was a branch of
Protestantism, but also ignores the very different cultural contexts in which
both arose.5
8 Introduction

Long-distance nationalism
This final approach assumes Sikh nationalism to be a diaspora-led phenom-
enon. Sikhs settled overseas, particularly in advanced capitalist societies
such as Canada, the US and the UK, are seen to constitute a ‘diaspora’,
mobilized for the achievement of sovereign statehood. According to Darshan
Singh Tatla, ‘the Sikh diaspora, through its location and involvement in
Punjabi affairs, has helped in providing an ideological framework . . . redefin-
ing Sikh ethnicity in terms of an ethno-national bond’ (Tatla 2001: 185).
Arjun Appadurai goes so far as to claim that Khalistan, the ‘land of the
pure’ or Sikh homeland, is ‘an invented homeland of the deterritorialized
Sikh population of England, Canada and the United States’ (Appadurai
1990: 302).
It is argued here, however, that this approach ignores the depth of national-
ist sentiment in the Punjab, which led between 1984 and 1992 to an
undeclared war of national self-determination between armed militants and
the Indian state (Pettigrew 1995), and is, furthermore, unable to account for
why the nationalist discourse is so strong in the diaspora. Other attempts to
conceive of Sikh nationalism as a primarily diasporic phenomenon ignore the
transnational linkages between the diaspora and homeland (Anderson 1992,
1994) and/or unwittingly silence the voices of those critical of the nationalist
narrative by equating nation with diaspora (Axel 2001).
What all explanations have in common is their treatment of Sikh national-
ism as what Kenneth Waltz terms a ‘unit-led’ phenomenon and not a ‘sys-
temic’ feature of international relations (Waltz 1986). Sikh nationalism has
been regarded as a distortion of South Asian political and economic devel-
opment (Fox 1996) and even as a product of multiculturalist policies in the
West based upon ‘western ethno-sociology’ (Dusenbery 1999) but it is pri-
marily analysed within the parameters of the nation-state, through the discip-
lines of political science, history or anthropology. The international and
global dimensions of Sikh identity are ignored, making it easier for the theor-
ists and practitioners of the notoriously ‘state-centric’ discipline of inter-
national relations (IR) to ignore the Sikh qaum completely. It is suggested
instead that an engagement with critical theories of international relations
may prove productive, as it forces us to re-examine the statist assumptions of
conventional narratives of IR and those of the movement for Khalistan. It is
argued that globalization has created space for the articulation of a deter-
ritorialized Sikh identity which, in its desire to move beyond Khalistan, chal-
lenges the territorialized narratives of the Westphalian international order
upon which the modern discipline of international relations is based. Both
‘homeland’ and ‘diaspora’ may be regarded as indivisible parts of a global
Sikh qaum which sees the establishment of an independent sovereign state as
merely one strategy used to secure recognition of its cultural and religious
particularity.
 Introduction 9

Globalization, sovereignty and national identity

Since the events of 11 September 2001 (hereafter 9/11), it has been common-
place on both right and left to talk of the end of globalization (Ferguson
2005; Rosenberg 2005). While transnational economic transactions stalled
(albeit temporarily) in the wake of 9/11, the US-led ‘War on Terror’ has
heightened nationalist sentiments throughout much of the world through the
(re)deployment of the doctrine of national – at the expense of human –
security (Shani et al. 2007). In Held and McGrew’s words, ‘borders and
boundaries, nationalism and protectionism, localism and ethnicity appear to
define an epoch of radical de-globalization: the disintegration and demise of
globalism’ (Held and McGrew 2006). This rapid process of de-globalization
has led some to definitively claim that ‘the age of globalization is over’
(Rosenberg 2005: 2). In doing so, this perspective builds upon the sceptical
view which cast doubt on the extent to which the contemporary world
was ‘globalized’ and upon the degree to which the economic trends towards
internationalization and regionalization were historically unprecedented
(Hirst and Thompson 1996; Krasner 1999). For Niall Ferguson, there lies a
very real danger that the contemporary era of globalization could be ‘sunk’
by ‘another, bigger September 11’ and that ‘we seem no better prepared . . .
than were the beneficiaries of the last age of globalization, 90 years ago’
(Ferguson 2005: 76–77).
Certainly, much of the optimism which accompanied the collapse of the
Soviet bloc and the expansion of capitalism in the 1990s seems to have
dissipated in a post-9/11 world characterized by a ‘clash of civilizations’
(Huntington 1996) and increased global inequality (Shani et al. 2007).
The ‘borderless economy’ predicted by Ohmae (Ohmae 1990) has failed
to materialize and it would seem that the demise of the ‘nation state’
(Ohmae 1995) seems, at best, premature. However, the contemporary world
does appear to be more ‘global’ than that of previous epochs. The world
we live in is characterized by greater interconnectedness between societies
and enmeshment of economies so that ‘events in one part of the world
more and more have effects on peoples and societies far away’ (Baylis and
Smith 2001: 7).
Globalization may be defined as:

a process (or set of processes) which embodies a transformation in the

spatial organization of social relations and transactions – assessed in
terms of their extensity, intensity, velocity and impact – generating trans-
continental or interregional flows and networks of activity, interaction
and the exercise of power.
(Held et al. 1999: 16)

Viewed in such a light, globalization is hardly a new phenomenon and has its
origins in the rise of a world capitalist economy (Frank 1969; Wallerstein
10 Introduction
1974; Marx 1977), imperialism (Biel 2000; Hardt and Negri 2000; Harvey
2003) and ‘organized violence’ (McGrew 2006). However, many theorists
have identified the post-Cold War world in particular as marking a new stage
in the history of globalization (Held et al. 1999; Giddens 2000; Held and
McGrew 2000, 2006; Scholte 2005). Whilst some have located the dynamics
of the contemporary intensification of the processes associated with global-
ization in the ‘impersonal forces of the world market’ (Strange 1996), others
have pointed to the emergence of new technologies (Castells 1996; Giddens
2000). For Castells, the deregulation and restructuring of world capitalism,
combined with the information technology revolution, has induced a new
form of society: the network society (Castells 1996). This society is character-
ized not only by the erosion of the power of the nation-state but also by ‘the
widespread surge of powerful expressions of collective identity that challenge
globalization and cosmopolitanism on behalf of the cultural singularity and
people’s control over their lives and environment’ (Castells 1997: 3). Thus, for
Castells, the intensification of economic globalization is accompanied by
greater political fragmentation: a view in stark contrast to hyperglobalist
orthodoxy.6
For hyperglobalists, particularly of the liberal variant, the intensification
of economic globalization erodes the sovereignty of the nation-state, usher-
ing in a new ‘global age’. The nation-state, in the words of Kenichi Ohmae,
‘has become an unnatural, even dysfunctional, unit for organizing human
activity and managing economic endeavour in a borderless world’ (Ohmae
1993: 79), whilst, for Albrow, the nation-state is a ‘timebound form, which no
longer contains the aspirations nor monopolizes the attention of those who
live on its territory’ (Albrow 1996: 170). The universalization of a human
rights discourse dating from the United Nations Universal Declaration of
Human Rights in 1948 and guaranteeing property rights throughout the
world, or at least in the developed North, forms the foundation of a ‘global
political culture’7 or ‘global civil society’ understood as ‘the space of unco-
erced human association’ (Walzer 1995: 7). However, this ‘global civil society’
has yet to emerge from the shadows cast by late-twentieth-century ethno-
national conflict and the contemporary ‘War on Terror’. The global resur-
gence of politicized collective religious identities points not only to an
absence of a liberal ‘global civil society’ (Kaldor 2003) outside of the UN
and, by implication, state system, but also to the existence of multiple trans-
national civil societies questioning and challenging the legitimacy of a system
or society of territorialized nation-states.
What then can be said about the impact of the contemporary phase of
globalization on the nation-state and, by extension, on the Westphalian
international order? In contrast to the claims of sceptics like Steven Krasner
that ‘sovereignty is not being transformed fundamentally by globalization’
and that to claim so is at best ‘exaggerated and historically myopic’ (Krasner
1999: 34), it is argued here that the contemporary phase of globalization
has transformed, or, more accurately, is in the process of transforming, the
 Introduction 11
Westphalian conception of territorialized sovereignty. Although the state
remains the ‘principal actor’ within the global political order, it is no longer
the unique centre of authority and governance. Held et al. argue that ‘a “new
sovereignty” regime is displacing traditional conceptions of statehood as an
absolute, indivisible, territorially exclusive and zero-sum form of power’
(Held et al. 1999: 9). Similarly, Sassen argues that although ‘sovereignty
remains a feature of the system . . . it is now located in a multiplicity of
institutional arenas’ (Sassen 1997: 29) and that this ‘reconfiguration of space
may signal a more fundamental transformation in the matter of sovereignty’
(Sassen 1997: 14).
Finally, in its cultural dimension, globalization, driven by a technological
revolution which has made communication instantaneous over large dis-
tances, breaks down the barriers of territorial identity, facilitating the devel-
opment of new kinds of ‘imagined community’ or, rather, the re-imagination
of existing cultural communities based on ethnicity, language and religion.
Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) ‘offer new resources
and new disciplines for the construction of imagined selves and imagined
worlds’ (Appadurai 1996: 3). However, these new ‘imagined’ identities remain
communally defined, understood and experienced primarily in terms of lan-
guage and religion (Castells 1997). They coexist with – but are not replaced
by – newer, hybrid identities (Pieterse 2004: 59–83). Furthermore, the global-
izing world has witnessed a pluralization of national identities. Instead of the
previous effective monopoly of the state over the articulation of national
identity, national identities have come increasingly to take sub-state, trans-
state and supra-state forms. Indeed, many individuals have acquired ‘a
plurinational sense of self’ (Scholte 2005: 231).
Globalization, or rather the globalization of liberal-capitalist modernity,
has thus not resulted in the erasure of localized, communal identities, but
rather in their transformation. The growth of the Internet and linked tech-
nologies in particular has facilitated, and often enabled, the formation of
‘transworld’ (Scholte 2005) networks among individuals and groups with a
shared cultural or religious background. These may be termed digital or,
following Cohen, global ‘diasporas’ (Cohen 1997). Using Anderson’s concep-
tion of the nation as an imagined community (Anderson 1991), it is argued
that, just as the convergence of capitalism and the printing press – print
capitalism – made it possible for readers of the same language to imagine
themselves to be members of a nation in an earlier age, the convergence of
computing and telecommunications underlying the Internet – digital capital-
ism – makes the imagination of deterritorialized, diasporic identities on a
global scale possible.

Rethinking Sikh nationalism

The approach taken in the subsequent chapters is based upon a critical read-
ing of two modernist assumptions. Firstly, following Anderson (1991 [1983]),
12 Introduction
it can be argued that the Sikhs imagine themselves to be a ‘nation’ possessing
their own separate religion, history, institutions, territory and martial tradi-
tions. This is not to deny that the Sikh nation is ‘real’ in the sense that it exists
in the eyes of its members, but simply that it is imagined as a finite and
sovereign political community (Anderson 1991). Secondly, the need to con-
stantly re-imagine communities, particularly that of the nation, leads to the
invention and reification of traditions (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983).
However, neither Anderson nor Hobsbawm and Ranger are able to account
for the continued salience of ‘imagined religious communities’ (Thapar 1989,
emphasis mine) or invented religious traditions in South Asia or elsewhere.
Indeed, the persistence of communal attachments can be explained by neither
instrumentalist nor constructivist accounts alone. It is suggested instead
that Sikh nationalism, in common with other religious nationalisms, arose
as a result of a dialectical relationship between the Sikh religious tradition
and the colonial state. Following Peter van der Veer, it will be argued that
religious nationalism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was built upon
forms of religious identity which pre-dated the colonial encounter and modes
of religious communication that were themselves in a constant process of
transformation (van der Veer 1994: xiii).
At this point, a distinction should be drawn between religion as an ideol-
ogy, where it is used for political purposes, and religion as faith (Nandy
1998a). For Nandy, religion as faith refers to religion as a ‘way of life, a
tradition that is definitionally non-monolithic and operationally plural’
whilst religion as an ideology refers to a ‘subnational, national or cross-
national identifier of populations contesting for or protecting non-religious,
usually political or socio-economic interests’ (Nandy 1998a: 322). Nandy
cites two examples of the difference between the two concepts. For Nandy, it
was ‘religion as faith’ that prompted 200,000 Indians to declare themselves
Mohammedan Hindus in the 1911 Census, yet it was ‘religion as ideology’
that prompted Punjabi Hindus to declare Hindi as their mother tongue in the
1951 Census. The state, as Nandy points out, prefers to deal with ‘religion as
ideology’. While the colonial authorities were at a loss as to which category to
place the 200,000 Mohammedan Hindus in, the post-colonial state used the
Census to ‘communalize’ the Punjab by using it as a pretext to eventually
partition it along ‘linguistic’ lines, conveniently creating Hindu-majority
(Haryana) and Sikh-majority (Punjab) states.
Since the two categories are not mutually exclusive, it is possible to
conclude, following Nandy, that ‘religion as ideology’ is constrained by
‘religion as faith’: that, in other words, the ability of religious and political
elites to use religion for material ends is limited by the beliefs of their follow-
ers. Nandy, however, does not elaborate upon the ideological nature of
modern religious identities in South Asia beyond recognizing that con-
temporary religious identities in India are often viewed through the eyes
of post-medieval European Christianity and this has contributed to the
reification and ‘fixing’ of previously more fluid identities. This perception
 Introduction 13
reproduces the ‘Orientalist fallacy’, outlined by van der Veer (1994), which
regards modern South Asian identities as little more than reflections of
colonial discourse.
For a more comprehensive understanding of ‘ideology’, it is suggested that
we turn to Althusser. For Althusser, ideology was all encompassing; there
could be no ‘reality’ or ‘authentic’ tradition outside ideology, for it is ideology
which creates ‘subjects’ through ‘interpellation’ (Althusser 1971: 170–172).
Applying Lacan’s concept of the ‘mirror-stage’ to the development of political
identity, Althusser argued that the duplicate ‘mirror-structure’ of ideology
ensures simultaneously:

1 the interpellation of ‘individual’ as subjects;

2 their subjection to the Subject;
3 the mutual recognition of subjects and Subjects, the subjects’ recog-
nition of each other, and finally the subject’s recognition of himself;
4 the absolute guarantee that everything really is so and that, on
condition that the subjects recognize what they are and behave
accordingly, everything will be all right: Amen – ‘So be it’.
(Althusser 1971: 180–181)

Religion as an ideology when territorialized and largely confined to an ethnic

group, as in the case of Anglicanism, Calvinism, Methodism, Judaism,
Shintoism, Daoism, Wahabbi Sunni Islam in Saudi Arabia and Shi
ism in Iran
and, in South Asia, Hinduism, Sikhism and Islam, may be seen as a form of
nationalism. The autonomy for elite manipulation of this ideology of nation-
alism, however, remains heavily circumscribed by popular interpretations of
the religious tradition. In other words, the success of what Nandy refers to as
religion as ‘ideology’ is dependent upon its ability to ‘interpellate’ subjects in
terms that they can understand. The story being told must be familiar to
them in order to be convincing. For that to occur, the ‘national’ story must be
narrated in the vernacular using idioms which chime with their lived experi-
ence. Agents act within socially constructed ranges of possibilities which are
inscribed within them as well as the social world in which they move. Their
actions are improvised but at the same time constrained by the universe of
possible discourse: the range of options, not necessarily expressed in language,
available to them (Bourdieu 1977: 169–170). The range of options, or sense of
limits (Bourdieu 1977: 164), is itself the product of history, of the past choices
accepted and legitimized by ‘tradition’.
This perspective differs from instrumentalist (Brass 1991) and other con-
structivist (Oberoi 1994) approaches in the degree of autonomy accorded to
elites. Although successive Sikh religious and political elites have played a
crucial role in this process of imagination, they have not consciously done so.
Contemporary Sikh political elites, whether moderate Akali or separatist, are
seen as ‘unconsciously’ subject to the past cultural choices of their forefathers
in the Tat Khalsa movement who helped to define the ‘tradition’ which they
14 Introduction
are now endeavouring to defend. The ‘unconscious’ in this sense may be seen
as nothing other than the forgetting of history. This forgetting of history is
itself produced by history through the internalization and incorporation of
social structures. This corresponds to what Pierre Bourdieu termed the habi-
tus. For Bourdieu, ‘the habitus – embodied history, internalised as a second
nature and so forgotten as history – is the active presence of the whole past of
which it is a product’ (Bourdieu 1990: 56). Sikh religio-political elites have
unconsciously helped redefine Sikh identity in the light of new challenges to
the Sikh ‘tradition’ by attempting to construct an orthodox understanding of
what it means to be a Sikh. This orthodoxy emerged during the colonial
period and was embodied in the external symbols of Sikh identity which gave
the Sikhs a distinctive appearance, enabling colonial administrators to clas-
sify them as both a distinct ‘religion’ and a ‘race’ or ‘nation’. Colonial mod-
ernity constituted a break from the past and, unable to rely upon a Guru for
guidance, Sikhs were forced to consolidate and redefine their ‘faith’, which,
contrary to instrumentalist and constructivist claims, pre-existed the colonial
encounter, through organizations such as the Singh Sabhas and, later, the
Chief Khalsa Diwan (CKD) and Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Commit-
tee (SGPC). The SGPC institutionalized Tat Khalsa orthodoxy through the
Rehat Maryada, a code of conduct considered binding on all Sikhs, and in the
twentieth century, along with the various factions of the Akali Dal, it has
constituted a Sikh ‘political system’ (Wallace 1981) which coexists with, and
potentially challenges, the state power.
It is argued here that the SGPC and Akali Dal have played a central role in
the articulation of a national discourse. Nationalism may be understood,
following Althusser, as an ideology: a particular discursive articulation which
constructs subjects as being of a particular nation and thereby having certain
distinctive characteristics and political needs and interests. Sikh nationalism,
as opposed to the Sikh ‘faith’, may be seen as relying on the interpellation of
people as Sikhs, rather than as Indians, Punjabis, Jats, Khatris, Mazhabis or
members of a particular class or gender. For Althusser, all ideology ‘hails
or interpellates concrete individuals as concrete subjects’ (Althusser 1971:
170–172). We are thus constituted as subjects through a process of recogni-
tion. To be hailed is to become a subject. This interpellation may be seen to
have first taken place in the colonial period and continues today.

The structure of the book

Chapter 2 will examine the construction of a Sikh ‘national’ identity. Sikh
nationalism, it will be argued, relies upon the ‘interpellation’ of Sikh com-
munities as members of a Sikh qaum or nation with the Punjab as their
homeland or place of origin, rather than as followers of a religious tradition,
a panth, or as Punjabis or Indians. This interpellation first took place in
the colonial period, which saw a redefinition and reinterpretation of what
it meant to be Sikh. There existed by the end of the colonial period a
 Introduction 15
more homogeneous, modern conception of Sikh identity as internal religious
boundaries between ‘orthodox’ and ‘unorthodox’ Sikhs and external bound-
aries between Sikhs and other religious communities were institutionalized
first by the colonial state’s project of classification and enumeration and
subsequently through the creation of Singh Sabhas and the CKD and finally
by the establishment of the SGPC.
Chapter 3 will examine the further development of Sikh nationalism in
post-colonial India. After independence, the SGPC continued to define Sikh
identity and together with the various factions of the Shiromani Akali Dal
(SAD) a Sikh ‘political system’ emerged which both co-exists within and
potentially challenges the Congress ‘system’ that has dominated Indian
politics for much of the post-independence period. It will be argued that
the SAD leadership’s use of ethno-religious symbols to mobilize the Sikh
masses behind the creation of a linguistically defined Sikh ‘homeland’ within
independent, secular India and the subsequent ‘communalization’ of the
demand for a restructuring of relations between the central government and
the states by the Indian government under Indira Gandhi created space for a
nationalist challenge to both the Sikh ‘political system’ and the Indian state
by armed militants seeking to create an independent Sikh state: Khalistan.
Chapter 4 will account for the demise of armed Sikh separatism in India.
It will be argued that, although the movement was initially crushed by a
reassertion of state and central government power using a strategy of ‘violent
control’ as Gurharpal Singh suggests (Singh 2000), the erosion of Congress
hegemony afforded Sikh elites an opportunity to articulate Sikh demands
to the Indian political system from within the democratic system. The eco-
nomic reforms which Dr Manmohan Singh initiated as finance minister in
Narasimha Rao’s government in particular facilitated a structural trans-
formation in Indian politics, economics and society resulting in both regional
and Hindu ‘nationalist’ challenges to the Congress ‘one-party dominance’
system. Moreover, the failure of the BJP to ‘rebrand’ India as a homogeneous
Hindu nation-state based on ‘One Nation, One People and One Culture’
(BJP 2004) and the appointment of Dr Singh as prime minister have con-
vinced many Sikh former militants to suspend, at least temporarily, their
‘struggle for Khalistan’ and to focus on securing recognition of INC com-
plicity in the systematic human rights abuses carried out in New Delhi and
the Punjab during the 1980s.
In Chapter 5, the focus shifts from India to the ‘diaspora’. This chapter
considers the rise of Sikh nationalism outside of India after the storming of
the Golden Temple complex by Indian troops in June 1984. Based on empir-
ical research of ‘Khalistani’ organizations in the UK and North America, it is
argued that, whereas the military solution preferred by the Indian state to the
‘Punjab Problem’ may have succeeded in reducing the Sikhs of the Punjab to
silence, it has opened up an alternative site for nationalist activity in the
‘diaspora’. The nationalist discourse as articulated increasingly through the
Internet in the diaspora is then examined. It is argued that the violence of
16 Introduction
partition and the storming of the Golden Temple complex in 1984 are central
to the imagination of both the Sikh ‘nation’ and a specifically Sikh ‘diaspora’.
Chapter 6 will examine the uneasy transition from a nationalist ‘politics of
homeland’ to a diasporic ‘politics of recognition’ in the wake of 9/11.
Recently, a plethora of groups have emerged in the diaspora committed to
representing the interests of Sikhs in their places of settlement, and their
activities will be analysed in detail. It is suggested that these groups, such as
the Sikh Federation and Sikh Agenda group in the UK and Sikh Coalition in
North America, are in the process of articulating a ‘new’ counter-hegemonic
diasporic Sikh identity: an identity made possible by the nationalist project
but opposed to its territorializing, reifying imperatives. However, both
‘nationalist’ and ‘diasporic’ political projects have a common dynamic: the
rift between location and identity in places of Sikh settlement.
The possibilities opened up by globalization for the articulation of a post-
nationalist discourse are examined in Chapter 7. By asserting the sovereignty
of the Khalsa panth, Sikh transnational religious actors such as the World
Sikh Council (WSC) and UNITED SIKHS potentially interrupt the closure
of the nation-state and thus, it is argued, the Westphalian order of territorial-
ized nation-states. Interviews with Sikhs in India and the diaspora, together
with an empirical analysis of Sikh discussion groups on the Internet, suggest
that the Sikh qaum has indeed, on the whole, gone beyond Khalistan in con-
sidering the establishment of an independent, sovereign Sikh state unneces-
sary for the continued survival of a distinct Sikh identity in a globalizing
world.
Finally, in the Conclusion it will be argued that Sikh identity has been, and
is being, transformed by ‘globalization’ and its forerunner, colonial modern-
ity: from a panth, a ‘religious’ community, to a qaum or ‘nation’ during the
colonial period and, finally, to a global ‘diaspora’ as a result of the latest
phase of globalization. Furthermore, it is argued that the transformation of
Sikh identity – and those of other transnational ethno-religious communities
– will have profound implications for the theory and practice of international
relations in the new millennium, since the sovereignty of the territorialized
nation-state over the religious community as established in the aftermath of
the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 can no longer be assumed in our ‘global age’.
2 From panth to qaum
The construction of a Sikh
‘national’ identity in colonial
India

The search for descent is not the erecting of foundations: on the contrary, it
disturbs what was previously considered immobile; it fragments what was
thought unified; it shows heterogeneity of what was imagined consistent with
itself.
(Foucault 1991: 82)

The Sikhs are an ethno-religious community originally from the Punjab region
of North-West India. Although a multiethnic, secular state, India is an over-
whelmingly Hindu society. Hindus make up approximately 80 per cent of
the Indian population, whilst Sikhs, regarded by some Hindus as a sect of
Hinduism, make up just 2 per cent (see Table 2.1). As Table 2.2 makes clear,
the majority of Sikhs in India continue to live in the state of Punjab, where
they form a majority of the total population.
As a religious tradition, Sikhism is open to all those who are prepared to
accept its doctrines and practices. Indeed, there is a thriving ‘white’ Sikh
community in North America. In practice, most Sikhs are Punjabis and the
Sikh community has a strong regional identity. Sikh elites within India have
frequently used a religious vocabulary and symbols to champion ostensibly
regional demands such as the creation of a Punjabi-speaking state and

Table 2.1 Indian population by religion (adjusted percentage), 1961–2001

Religion 1961 1971 1981 1991 2001

Hindu 84.4 83.5 83.1 82.4 81.4

Muslim 9.9 10.4 10.9 11.7 12.4
Christian 2.4 2.6 2.5 2.3 2.3
Sikh 1.8 1.9 2.0 2.0 1.9
Buddhist 0.7 0.7 0.7 0.8 0.8
Jain 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.4 0.4
Other 0.3 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.7
Total 100 100 100 100 100

Sources: Census India (2001); GOI (2001); Sikh Pride (2001).

Table 2.2 Sikhs in India

Code State/union territory Total population Sikh Proportion Sex ratio Sex ratio Proportion Literacy Female Work
population of Sikh (0–6) of child rate literacy partici-
population population rate pation
in the age rate
group 0–6
yrs

India* 1,028,610,328 19,215,730 1.9 893 786 12.8 69.4 63.1 37.7
01 Jammu and Kashmir 10,143,700 207,154 2.0 809 773 10.6 85.4 77.6 36.4
02 Himachal Pradesh 6,077,900 72,355 1.2 898 827 12.1 83.0 76.2 38.7
03 Punjab 24,358,999 14,592,387 59.9 897 780 12.8 67.3 61.2 38.2
04 Chandigarh 900,635 145,175 16.1 910 781 9.1 92.0 88.5 33.1
05 Uttaranchal 8,489,349 212,025 2.5 898 844 14.8 73.1 64.2 33.6
06 Haryana 21,144,564 1,170,662 5.5 893 742 13.0 68.9 62.2 37.4
07 Delhi 13,850,507 555,602 4.0 925 796 10.8 92.1 89.1 31.4
08 Rajasthan 56,507,188 818,420 1.4 892 828 15.1 64.7 53.8 42.3
09 Uttar Pradesh 166,197,921 678,059 0.4 877 831 14.1 71.9 63.8 32.7
10 Bihar 82,998,509 20,780 0.0 879 919 14.2 79.8 73.3 31.3
11 Sikkim 540,851 1,176 0.2 108 1556 2.0 97.2 87.1 85.8
12 Arunachal Pradesh 1,097,968 1,865 0.2 264 808 7.6 92.4 79.2 71.0
13 Nagaland 1,990,036 1,152 0.1 488 1000 8.3 82.8 72.7 56.9
14 Manipur* 2,166,788 1,653 0.1 515 932 8.5 88.5 79.8 58.2
15 Mizoram 888,573 326 0.0 299 2200 9.8 91.8 88.7 72.4
16 Tripura 3,199,203 1,182 0.0 101 710 4.5 98.4 89.5 86.6
17 Meghalaya 2,318,822 3,110 0.1 718 896 12.3 74.7 64.1 39.5
18 Assam 26,655,528 22,519 0.1 667 818 9.9 90.4 83.8 42.2
19 West Bengal 80,176,197 66,391 0.1 807 852 10.1 87.2 82.0 33.7
20 Jharkhand 26,945,829 83,358 0.3 838 879 11.1 87.8 82.3 30.8
21 Orissa 36,804,660 17,492 0.0 851 860 10.8 90.5 86.1 31.7
22 Chhattisgarh 20,833,803 69,621 0.3 899 845 12.3 89.0 84.7 31.0
23 Madhya Pradesh 60,348,023 150,772 0.2 882 849 12.9 82.9 76.7 34.9
24 Gujarat 50,671,017 45,587 0.1 824 782 12.7 85.1 79.7 33.5
25 Daman and Diu 158,204 145 0.1 576 600 11.0 93.0 89.4 49.0
26 Dadra and Nagar Hv 220,490 123 0.1 281 750 11.4 91.7 95.2 65.0
27 Maharashtra 96,878,627 215,337 0.2 829 849 11.6 88.9 84.5 35.8
28 Andhra Pradesh 76,210,007 30,998 0.0 796 864 12.4 78.7 72.7 37.2
29 Karnataka 52,850,562 15,326 0.0 739 882 11.9 83.7 77.3 38.4
30 Goa 1,347,668 970 0.1 644 1021 10.0 95.5 94.9 45.2
31 Lakshadweep 60,650 6 N – – 0 100 0 100
32 Kerala 31,841,374 2,762 0.0 714 865 10.0 92.4 89.1 43.3
33 Tamil Nadu 62,405,679 9,545 0.0 731 854 10.4 83.7 77.2 43.6
34 Pondicherry 974,345 108 0.0 543 2000 8.3 90.9 78.1 40.7
35 Andaman and 356,152 1,587 0.4 818 858 12.4 94.1 90.7 34.8
Nicobar Is

Source: The First Report on Religion: Census of India 2001.

Note: *Excludes Mao-Maram, Paomata and Purul sub-divisions of Senapati district of
Manipur.
20 From panth to qaum
greater state autonomy within India. Following Roger Ballard, three dimen-
sions of the ‘Sikh tradition’, encompassing both religious and ethnic elements,
may be identified: the panthic, dharmic and qaumic (Ballard 1996: 16–31;
1998: 5–9).
A panth may be seen as a term particular to Northern India, where it is
used to identify the devotees of a specific spiritual leader. It consists of those
religious ideas and practices concerned with spiritual experience and with the
way in which followers tend to gather around a charismatic spiritual master.
One of the most central aspects of spirituality in the panthic tradition is the
quest for gnostic awareness: the union of the separate personal being with the
universal being. Dharma in a South Asian context both refers to the notion of
coherence at all levels in the cosmic framework and also provides the founda-
tion for the local moral order. Although the founder of the Sikh religious
tradition, Guru Nanak, may be seen to have been preoccupied with the pan-
thic domain, the very task of preserving his teachings drew his successors into
the dharmic or social domain. The more the followers of the Sikh religious
tradition became an organized panth, the more complex the social order which
they constructed became. Nanak’s teachings were collected and eventually
transformed into the Adi Granth, a sacred text which was subsequently to be
endowed with the status of a holy book, or a status equivalent to that of a
Guru. Similarly, physical pilgrimage sites came into existence and there was
a move towards the codification of religious rituals and manuals of correct
behaviour, rahit-namas, after the death of the tenth and last Guru, Gobind
Singh.
Most importantly, Sikhs define themselves, and are identified by others, as
a qaum, a community in a socio-political sense. Unlike panth and dharm, a
qaum is not primarily a religious term and has Arabic rather than Sanskrit
roots. This suggests that the term became incorporated into the political dis-
course of the Punjab as a result of the interaction between its Islamic Mughal
rulers and the guardians of the various panthic traditions. British colonial
administrators and scholars writing in the nineteenth century understood a
qaum to refer to a specific ‘race’ or ‘nationality’ and treated the Sikhs accord-
ingly. The institutionalization of the principle of national self-determination
as the legitimizing principle of the post-colonial state and, as will be discussed
later, the Westphalian international order may be seen to have added a
territorial dimension to the idea of a qaum.
It is argued here that, although the Sikhs, like Muslim and Hindu com-
munities, may have constituted a panth after the institutionalization of the
Khalsa, the development of a qaumic dimension to the Sikh faith can be seen
as the outcome of a historical process with its origins in the colonial encounter
(Fox 1985; Kapur 1986; Oberoi 1994; Barrier 2004a, 2004b). The British intro-
duced new arenas of competition that encouraged a different kind of thinking
about politics, such as the need to form associations, to communicate effec-
tively across these associations, to focus opinion on particular issues and to
mobilize support. Ian Talbot has seen the colonial era as having made three
 From panth to qaum 21
key contributions to the emergence of a ‘communal’ consciousness in the
Punjab. Firstly, the colonial state, associated in ‘native’ Punjabi minds both
with a superior technology and organizational system and with an alien
Christian faith, challenged the world-view of its subjects. Secondly, the British
provided the means for the transmission of reconstructed Punjabi identities
to a new mass audience. Thirdly, colonial rule created new arenas of political
competition, including the granting of separate electorates (Talbot 1996:
26–27). Furthermore, colonial and Western assumptions about the ‘prim-
ordiality’ of ethnic and religious identities influenced the intellectual devel-
opment of political identities on religious lines (Fox 1985; van der Veer 1999;
Bhatt 2001). The colonial state, in short, created the mechanisms by which
the Tat Khalsa movement could imagine a Sikh religio-political community
with a cohesive Kes-dhari identity. The panthic and dharmic dimensions of
Sikh identity, however, were already in place before the encounter with colo-
nial modernity.

The Sikh panth: from Nanak-panth to Khalsa panth

The term ‘Sikh’ refers to the learners or disciples of the first Guru of the Sikh
panth, Nanak (1469–1539). Nanak differed from the other sants of northern
India in two respects. Firstly, Nanak developed, during the course of his
life, a religious and social philosophy which, although deeply influenced by
both Hinduism and Islam, was distinct from both. Declaring that ‘there is
no Hindu, and there is no Musalman’, Nanak drew a sharp distinction
between what following Nandy (1998a, 1998b) may be termed as the ‘faiths’ of
Hinduism and Islam on the one hand, which he broadly accepted as legitimate,
and the ‘ideologies’ of Brahmanism and Mohammedanism on the other hand,
which he vehemently rejected. Brahmanism was unacceptable to Nanak,
given his belief in caste and gender equality, as the system of varnashramad-
harma restricted the possibility of mukti (liberation) for the lower castes,
whilst Nanak regarded the Islamic insistence in the finality of the Prophet
Muhammad’s revelation as recorded in Arabic as precluding the vernaculari-
zation, and thus universalization, of the Lord’s message. For Nanak, there was
‘only one Lord, and only one tradition’, which encompassed both Hinduism
and Islam but which could not be reduced to either. The Sikh faith was,
therefore, from its very inception monotheistic and unitarian. The Sikh con-
cept of God, Vahiguru, is as the omnipotent and omnipresent transcendent
creator and sovereign of the universe who lies beyond human understanding
and, in contrast to Islam and Christianity, does not take human form. The
Vahiguru’s intentions were, however, revealed to Nanak, who is assigned the
title of Mahala 1 or the ‘first body in which the divine voice resided’ in the Sikh
scriptures (Mann 2004: 15). As in other faiths indigenous to South Asia, the
goal of human life is to attain liberation, which is defined as being united by
the Vahiguru by having a respectful place in the divine court (Mann 2004: 81).
Liberation, however, could not be sought individually by withdrawal from the
22 From panth to qaum
world but by active engagement within it, as part of a community. Nanak
defined the ideal person as a gurmukh (one oriented towards the Guru) who
practised the threefold discipline of nam dan ishnan, which encompassed the
cognitive, social and personal aspects of Sikh identity. Nam referred to ‘the
divine Name’ and prescribed the individual Sikh’s relationship with the divine,
dan (‘charity’) prescribed the individual Sikh’s relationship with other Sikhs,
while ishnan, the pursuit of ‘purity’, prescribed the Sikhs relationship with
the self (Pashaura Singh 2004: 78–79).
Secondly, Nanak organized his followers in a community in Kartarpur
(Creator’s Abode) on the right bank of the river Ravi where they could live in
conformity with his teachings. At Kartarpur, Nanak’s Sikhs1 were able to com-
bine a life of ‘disciplined devotion with worldly activities, set in the context of
normal family life and regular satsang [true fellowship]’ (McLeod 1968: 228).
Central to this life of true fellowship was Sikh participation in the sangat, a
spiritual fraternity or fellowship, through communal worship in a dharamsala
and dining together, after prayer, in the langar. The langar, in particular,
encouraged a sense of communal solidarity, as Sikhs were required to sit
together in status-free lines (pangat) to share a common meal. Thus, ‘the
institution of the langar promoted the spirit of unity and mutual belonging,
and struck at a major aspect of caste thereby advancing the process of
defining a distinctive Sikh identity’ (Pashaura Singh 2004: 80).
Nanak’s decision to anoint one of his disciples, Lehna, as his successor in
preference to his own son, Baba Sri Chand, established a lineage of Gurus
where succession was based upon piety rather than blood relations. Lehna
took the name that Nanak gave him, Angad, meaning ‘my own limb’, and
attempted to consolidate Nanak’s panth. The term ‘Sikh’ was bestowed upon
those who venerated Guru Nanak and accepted Guru Angad (1504–1552) as
his legitimate successor. Those who followed Nanak’s son, Baba Sri Chand,
became known as Udasis. Angad helped distinguish the Nanak-panthis
(McLeod 1989: 21) from dominant Hindu religious practice by claiming that
the bani, the ‘divine Word’, was able to liberate all people from the shackles of
karma, irrespective of caste. The bani thus assumed a significance parallel to
the Vedas and were recorded for posterity, neither in the devangari script of
the Hindus nor in the Arabic or Persian scripts favoured by the Punjab’s
Muslim rulers, but in the Gurmukhi script. The use of the Gurmukhi script to
record the message of Guru Nanak made the bani intelligible to the Khatri
merchants of the Punjab who constituted the majority of Nanak-panthis yet
limited its appeal to those outside the Punjab. For Pashaura Singh, the use of
Gurmukhi added ‘an element of demarcation and self-identity to the Sikh
tradition’, one which has become ‘the cornerstone of the religious distinctive-
ness that is part and parcel of the Sikh cultural heritage’ (Pashaura Singh
2004: 81–82).
The third Guru, Amar Das (1479–1574), further institutionalized the Sikh
community through the establishment of the city of Goindval on the banks
of the river Beas, and the festivals of Diwali and, more importantly, Vaisakhi,
 From panth to qaum 23
which provided an opportunity for the Guru to meet his followers. Further-
more, it was during Amar Das’s time that the Goindval pothis (books or
volumes) which recorded the compositions of the Gurus were undertaken
and a system of attracting new converts established (Pashaura Singh 2004: 82).
Amar Das added his own hymn of Anand, ‘divine bliss’, to the emerging Sikh
liturgy, providing the Nanak-panthis with distinctive ceremonies for birth and
death. The city of Goindval was to be eclipsed by the establishment of the city
of Amritsar by the fourth Guru, Ram Das (1534–1581) and the construction
of the Golden Temple of Harimadir as the central place of Sikh worship by
Guru Arjan (1563–1606). The Sikhs now had their Mecca or Vatican, and
Arjan further facilitated the institutionalization of the Sikh faith through the
compilation of the Adi Granth, the ‘original book’, which would come to
acquire as great, or an even greater, significance for the Sikh faith as the
Qur
an for Islam or the Bible for Christianity. Although Gurinder Singh Mann
has traced the formation of the Sikh canon to Guru Nanak himself, the
dominant narrative which continues to be hegemonic today attributes this
to Arjan (Mann 2001: 10–24). For Pashaura Singh, Guru Arjan created an
authoritative text for the Sikh community whereby it could understand and
assert its unique identity. By doing so, he ‘affixed a seal on the sacred word to
preserve it for posterity, and also frustrate attempts by schismatic groups to
circulate spurious hymns for sectarian ends’ (Pashaura Singh 2000: 283–284).
Arjan’s assertion that ‘we are neither Hindu nor Musalman’ established the
Nanak-panthis’ claim to be a separate religious tradition. This claim appeared
to be well supported. According to McLeod, by the time of Guru Arjan’s
death, the panth possessed a line of Gurus, a growing number of holy places,
distinctive rituals, and its own sacred scripture. Consequently, there ‘could no
longer be any question of vague definition or uncertain identity’ (McLeod
2000: 51–52). Such a view overestimates the degree of homogeneity which
existed in a rapidly expanding community which contained minority groups
such as the Udasis, Bhallas 2 and Minas 3 who contested the legitimacy of
the Guru-panth. Uncertainty over whether these groups can be considered
members of, or rivals to, the Sikh panth continues to this day.
Guru Arjan’s final contribution to the further development of the Sikh
panth was his very death at the hands of the Mughals, which introduced a
powerful narrative of martyrdom which has dominated Sikh history ever
since. Subsequent Gurus and modern Sikh political and religious leaders or
sants have invoked the example of Arjan in their attempts to defend the panth
from its ‘enemies’, both internal and external. Arjan’s successor, Hargobind
(1595–1644), responded to his predecessor’s martyrdom by arming the panth
against the Mughals. Furthermore, Hargobind is responsible for including a
temporal dimension into what had hitherto been exclusively a faith commu-
nity through the construction of the Akal Takht, the ‘throne of the immortal
Lord’, facing Harimadir in Amritsar. The dual authority of the warrior-Guru
was symbolized by the two swords which Hargobind wore, piri, signifying
spiritual authority, and miri, temporal authority. The addition of a temporal
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
 Your affectionate friend and ready servant for Christ’s
sake,

G. W.

LETTER MCXXXVII.
To Mr. J―― R――.

Bristol, May 21, 1756.

My dear Sir,

T HIS morning, (which is the first leisure time I have had since my
leaving town) looking over my letters, I found one from you,
who I suppose to be the person whom I have taken notice of at
Long-Acre chapel. As your behaviour there, and your letter before
me, bespeak you to be in earnest about your soul, you will be quite
welcome to come to my house; and if God should vouchsafe to
bless any thing that I may drop for the furtherance of your faith, to
him and him alone be all the glory. I desire to bless him for what he
hath already done. O amazing mercy! to be translated from the
kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God’s dear Son; to be
brought from the swine’s trough to feed upon the fatted calf; what a
heaven upon earth is this! Be not discouraged, though you are
obliged to fight every inch of your way. Jesus will pray for you, and
your faith shall not fail. He can and will enable you to overcome
yourself and the world. To his never-failing mercy do I most earnestly
commit you, as being, for his great name’s sake,

Your friend and servant,

G. W.
 LETTER MCXXXVIII.
To the Reverend Mr. V――.

London, June 4, 1756.

Reverend and very dear Sir,

G LAD, yea very glad was I to hear by Mr. A――, that you grew
better and better every day. Surely your late sickness was only
to purge you, that you might bring forth more fruit unto God. Such
trying and threatening dispensations are glorious presages of future
usefulness. It is in the furnace, that both our gifts and graces are
purified and increased. How gradually doth our great,
compassionate, and all-wise High-priest train up his chosen ones for
the services appointed to them! Happy they that can eye his
providences, and with a disinterested spirit be ready to follow the
Lamb whithersoever he is pleased to lead them.

Through winds and clouds and storms,

He gently clears our way;

Wait we his time, so shall each night

Be turn’d to joyous day.

I rejoice in the prospect of your coming forth like gold that is tried.
May you increase though I decrease! Justly might my Master throw
me aside; but he is patient and long-suffering, and will send by
whom he will send. Since we parted, I have been led to several new
places. Travelling and preaching thrice a day was made delightful.
Blessed be God for my airy pluralities! O what am I, Lord, that I
should be sent into the highways and hedges!
 All hail reproach, and welcome pain,

Only thy terrors, Lord, restrain!

These I cannot bear. A Father’s, a Saviour’s frowns are intolerable.

But what am I doing? Excuse this freedom, because it flows from
love. How does dear Mr. D――? How are the elect Ladies? If
possible I shall write to-night; if not, very soon. I am glad Miss G――
is in such a promising way. She nor any of our honoured friends are
forgotten in my poor prayers. If I should be prevented from writing,
be pleased to present my most dutiful respects, and accept most
cordial love and salutations from, my very dear Sir,

Yours most affectionately in our common Lord,

G. W.

LETTER MCXXXIX.
To Lady H――n.

London, June 4, 1756.

Ever-honoured Madam,

M AN appoints, but God disappoints. In hopes of seeing your

Ladyship, I hastened to Bristol, but found your Ladyship had
been in London whilst I was there. Sorry was I for the occasion of
your Ladyship’s journey, and yet glad to hear that Master H―― was
so well recovered. At Bristol the Redeemer caused us to triumph,
and likewise in Gloucestershire, at Bradford, Frome, Warminster,
and at Portsmouth, whither I have been these three weeks last past.
I am now come up for about ten days to keep Pentecost; I trust it will
be a Pentecost to many souls at Long-Acre. Blessed be God, a new
building is now erecting at Tottenham-Court Road: Mr. J――
promises to assist me. We have consulted the Commons, about
putting it under your Ladyship’s protection. This is the answer: “No
nobleman can licence a chapel, or in any manner have one put in his
dwelling house; that the chapel must be a private one, and not with
doors to the street for any persons to resort to at pleasure, for then it
becomes a public one; that a chapel cannot be built and used as
such, without the consent of the parson of the parish, and when it is
done with his consent, no minister can preach therein, without
licence of the Bishop of the diocese.” There seems then to be but
one way,—to licence it as our other houses are: and thanks be to
Jesus for that liberty which we have. O that I could begin to work
while it is day. My God! half the year gone, and so little, yea very
little done for thee! I have need of being purged, that I may at length
bring forth some fruit unto God. Glory be to his great name, he doth
not say, “Let him alone.” Outward and inward trials frequently
surround me; but, by the help of my God, I shall leap over every
wall. I know your Ladyship will not forget to pray for me. My poor
prayers are always offered up for your Ladyship and honoured
family. That is the only pepper-corn of acknowledgment that can be
made by, ever-honoured Madam,

Your Ladyship’s most dutiful, obliged, and ready servant for

Christ’s sake,

G. W.

LETTER MCXL.
To Mr. G――.

London, June 10, 1756.

My very dear Friend,

W HAT shall I say? Had I wings, how gladly would I fly to my dear
America? But alas! the glittering sword is now unsheathed,
and I fear it would not be proper for me to cross the water
now. However, all the provinces are continually upon my heart: night
and day do I remember them before God. Satan hath been angry
with me for appearing for my Jesus, my King, and my country. If you
examine the Gazette for the latter end of April, or beginning of May,
you will see what it hath produced. My life hath been threatened, but
we are immortal till our work is done. A new building is now erecting
at the other end of the town, the top-stone of which, I trust, will be
brought forth with shoutings, and we shall cry Grace! grace! People
are rather more eager than ever to hear the word. I remark what you
say about Georgia, and shall talk with Mr. D――. The good Lord
Jesus direct you in every step! What if you went and lived at
Bethesda, and took all my outward affairs upon your hands, and
furnished the family with all it wanted. Glad should I be of such a
steward, and of such a steward’s wife as I know dear Mrs. G――
would prove. Poor P―― hath served me as others before him have
done. God keep us from that prosperity which destroyeth! In all time
of our wealth, good Lord deliver us! Let me hear from you
concerning Bethesda. Watch and pray. I send most cordial respects
to you and yours, and all dear friends that are so kind to enquire
after, my very dear Sir,

Yours most affectionately in our common Lord,

G. W.

LETTER MCXLI.
To Lady H――n.

London, June 10, 1756.

 Ever-honoured Madam,

B EING just come off the bed, where I have been sweating for a
cold and cholic that had seized me this day, I met with your
Ladyship’s very kind and condescending letter. I see your Ladyship
is touched in a very tender point: generous minds are always thus
affected, when a friend is abused. But I find more and more,
honoured Madam, that our own mother’s children will be permitted to
be angry with one. The contradiction of saints, is more trying than
that of sinners:—but it is all to teach us to cease from man, and wrap
ourselves in Him, in whom alone dwells consummate perfection.
That I might say, “some of Mr. L――’s principles, in my opinion, are
wrong,” I do not deny; but that I put Mr. W――y upon writing, or had
any active hand in his pamphlet, is utterly false. I think it is a most
ungentleman-like, injudicious, unchristian piece. However, Mr. L――
knows too much of the divine life, not to see some call even in this
cross; and I hope your Ladyship will not suffer it to burden your mind
any longer. Satan wants to disturb your Ladyship’s repose. Ere long,
blessed be the glorious Emmanuel, he will be bruised under our feet.
This last week I have had some respite from his artful and perplexing
suggestions, and have been enabled to ride upon my high places.
My present work at London seems to be over, and Monday or
Tuesday next, God willing, I hope to set out for Bristol, where I
purpose preaching next Thursday. If divine Providence should not
direct your Ladyship thither, I have thought of coming through
Leicestershire, in my way to Scotland. This circuit, I hope, will be a
three months circuit. The prospect in London is very promising.
Every day we hear of fresh conquests. To thee, and thee alone, most
adorable Redeemer, be all the glory! Want of strength forbids my
enlarging. O this vile body! Surely our treasure is in earthly vessels.
When it is breaking to pieces, and the rattles are in my throat, I hope
with my latest breath to acknowledge the innumerable unmerited
favours which have been conferred by your Ladyship on, ever-
honoured Madam,

Your Ladyship’s most dutiful, obliged, and ready servant for

Christ’s sake,
 G. W.

LETTER MCXLII.
To Mrs. C――.

London, June 21, 1756.

Dear Mrs. C――,

N OTHING concerns me in your last letter, but your having the

least suspicion that I was not pleased with your conduct, or
was not satisfied with your being at Bethesda. I know of no person in
the world that I would prefer to you, neither had I ever one thought to
the contrary. I think myself happy in having such a mother for the
poor children, and am persuaded God will bless and own you more
and more. I pity poor Mr. P――, but doubt not of Bethesda’s being
well supplied. I think if Mr. R―― manages outward things, and Mr.
D―― takes the accounts, and keeps to the children, affairs may be
managed very well. I care not how much the family is lessened. As it
is a time of war, this may be done with great propriety, and then the
plantation will have time to grow. J―― H――y writes that you use
him quite well, and seems very contented. Never fear, my dear Mrs.
C――, Jesus will stand by a disinterested cause. I have aimed at
nothing in founding Bethesda, but his glory and the good of my
country. Let Lots then chuse the plain, God will be Abrahams’ shield
and exceeding great reward. All is well that ends well. Faith and
patience must be exercised by means of friends as well as by foes. I
hear that my nephew is married. Alas, what a changing world do we
live in! Blessed be God for an unchangeable Christ! Amidst all, this
is my comfort, his word runs and is glorified. A new building is now
erecting at the other end of the town, and many souls, I trust, are
daily built up in their most holy faith. To-morrow, God willing, I set out
upon a long range. Fain would I have all concerned with me to be
happy. Just now Mrs. F―― hath determined to come over and
marry H――. I have advised her to go with M――, and told her she
should be welcome to my house till she goes to Carolina. I know you
will receive her kindly. It is her own choice, and therefore she must
look to the consequences. The Lord give us all a right judgment in
all things. Near this time, I suppose, you know my mind about Mr.
D――. I have no objection, and your brothers are quite fond of the
match. Perhaps, take all together, it may be more agreeable than the
other. We seldom choose well, when we choose for ourselves.
God’s thoughts are not as our thoughts. Take courage, my dear Mrs.
C――; Bethesda’s welfare doth not depend on a single person. God
will provide: I think he hath already. I care not if all the boarders were
gone. Mr. R―― and D―― and you are hearty. Enough, enough!
God will bless and prosper you. I am more than contented. My
blessing to all the children. That the God of all grace and mercy may
fill you with all his fulness, is the earnest prayer of, dear Mrs. C――,

Your very affectionate, sincere friend, and ready servant for

Christ’s sake,

G. W.

LETTER MCXLIII.
To Mr. D――.

London, July 10, 1756.

My dear Mr. D――,

Y OUR letter gave me satisfaction. I read it on our Letter-day, and

you and the rest of my dear family had many prayers put up for
you. May they enter into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth! Ere now, I
hope you have agreed upon what plan to act. I shall send no one
over. As I would have the family lessened as much as possible, you
that are left upon the spot will be sufficient. Debts may then be paid,
and the plantation brought into good order, by the time Providence
opens a door for my seeing America again. What think you of J――
P――? If not truly serious, I would not have him sent to the college.
Lord Jesus, do thou shew all concerned, what thou wouldst have
them to do! Surely Bethesda will be a house of mercy still. God
blesses my feeble labours here. Last night I came from Bristol. There
the word ran and was glorified. In a few days I set out for Scotland.
God continue my moving life, till I am moved at last to glory!
Continue to pray for me, and assure yourself of not being forgotten
by, my very dear Mr. D――,

Yours most affectionately, &c.

G. W.

LETTER MCXLIV.
To Lady H――n.

London, July 17, 1756.

Ever-honoured Madam,

Y OUR Ladyship’s kind letter found me just returned from Bristol,

and just setting out for Maidstone and Chatham, where I have
been to preach the gospel, and to visit a poor murderer. I hope that
my poor feeble labours were not altogether in vain in the Lord. A
divine influence accompanies the word preached here, and I am now
preparing for my northern expedition. If your Ladyship removes not
from Donnington soon, perhaps I may have the honour of waiting
upon your Ladyship there. My motions must be very quick, because I
would hasten to Scotland as fast as possible, to have more time at
my return. Eternity! eternity! O how do I long for thee! But alas, how
often must we be like pelicans in the wilderness, before we arrive
there? Solitariness prepares for the social life, and the social life for
solitariness again. Thus doth an all-wise Redeemer set one over
against another. Jesus is the alone center of peace and comfort in
either situation. Your Ladyship knows this by happy experience.
Perhaps our consolations come sweetest, when immediately derived
from the fountain head. Springs fail, the fountain never can nor will.
That your Ladyship may every moment be refreshed with its living
waters, is and shall be the earnest prayer of, ever-honoured Madam,

Your Ladyship’s most dutiful, obliged, and ready servant,

G. W.

LETTER MCXLV.
To Mrs. C――.

Islington, July 27, 1756.

Dear Mrs. C――,

S INCE my last, which I believe is not yet gone, I have given an

order to have Mr. R――’s children delivered to him or his
mother, or whomsoever they shall appoint: and pray lessen the
family as much as possible. I wish I had none in the house, but what
were proper orphans. The plantation would then suffice for its
support, and debts be paid: but we must buy our experience.
Troubles seem to beset us here: but we are all secure in God, even
in a God in Christ. His gospel flourishes in London. I am just
returned from preaching it at Sheerness, Chatham, and in the camp.
This afternoon or to-morrow I set off for Scotland. I can only add, that
with continual prayers for your temporal and spiritual welfare, I am,
dear Mrs. C――,
 Your most affectionate, obliged friend, and ready servant for
Christ’s sake,

G. W.

P. S. My hearty love to all. The Lord be with you! Amen, and

Amen!

LETTER MCXLVI.
To Mr. Z――.

Sunderland, August 14, 1756.

Honoured and very dear Sir,

H OW swiftly doth my precious time fly away! It is now a fortnight

since I came to Leeds in Yorkshire, where the gospel had
indeed free course, did run, and was glorified. On the Sunday
evening, a few hours after my arrival, many thousands were
gathered in the fields, to whom, I trust, Jesus enabled me to speak
with some degree of power. The following week I preached in and
about Leeds, thrice almost every day, to thronged and affected
auditories; and on Sunday last the fields were indeed white ready
unto harvest. At Bradford, about seven in the morning, the auditory
consisted of about ten thousand; at noon, and in the evening at
Burstall, to near double the number. Though hoarse, the Redeemer
helped me to speak, so that all heard. Upon every account it was a
high-day. In the evening several hundreds of us rode about eight
miles, singing and praising God. Indeed it was a night much to be
remembered. The next morning I took a sorrowful leave of Leeds,
preached at Tadcaster at noon, and at York the same night. God
was with us. On Tuesday I preached twice at York (delightful
seasons!); on Wednesday at Warstall, about fifty miles off; on
Thursday twice at Yarm, and last night and this morning here. All the
way I have heard of a great concern since I was in these parts last
year, and of many glorious trophies of the power of redeeming love.
In heaven, honoured Sir, you will know all. There I shall throw my
crown before the Lamb, and there you shall be rewarded for
strengthening the hands of the most unworthy creature that ever was
employed by God. After spending my sabbath here, and visiting
Shields, Newcastle, and some adjacent places, I purpose to go on to
Scotland. From thence I hope to have the honour of writing to you
again. This is the first time I have had a proper opportunity of
refreshing myself in that way. Praying that you may increase with all
the increase of God, and begging your acceptance of repeated
thanks for repeated unmerited favours, I subscribe myself, honoured
and very dear Sir,

Your most dutiful, though most unworthy son in the glorious

gospel,

G. W.

LETTER MCXLVII.
To the Reverend Mr. T――.

Edinburgh, September 9, 1756.

My very dear Friend,

G LAD, yea very glad should I have been to have waited upon you
at C――. But it seems it was not to be. However, if I should
return from Glasgow, God willing, I shall call upon you; if not, in
heaven, in heaven we shall meet. God be with you and yours! I am
just going off. O these partings! they are cutting. I trust Jesus hath
been walking amidst the golden candlesticks. You will hear
particulars from others. I have only time to beg the continuance of
your prayers, and with hearty love to your yoke-fellow, Mr. C――,
and his spouse, to subscribe myself, my very dear friend,

Yours most affectionately in our common Lord,

G. W.

LETTER MCXLVIII.
To the Reverend Mr. G――.

Edinburgh, September 21, 1756.

Reverend and very dear Sir,

I THANK you most heartily for your kind letter, and for all other
tokens of your regard and love. I can only send you a pepper-
corn of acknowledgment. My Master, my long-suffering, ever-loving,
ever-lovely Master, will pay you all. I hope he hath directed my steps.
On Saturday I received a message from our new Governor of
Georgia, desiring to see and converse with me, before he embarks.
This could not have been done, if I had went to Ireland now. Our
Lord orders all things well. O remember me before his throne. To-
morrow I leave Edinburgh. Your letter shall be delivered to Mr.
R――. Be pleased to give the inclosed to Mr. Scot, to put in his
Philadelphia-Packet. I am busy, and yet, alas! I do nothing.
Impressions seem to be promising here. Lord, what am I? less than
the least of all, but for Christ’s sake, my very dear friend,

Yours indissolubly in the best bonds,

G. W.
 LETTER MCXLIX.
To Lady H――n.

London, October 27, 1756.

Ever-honoured Madam,

H OPING that they would find your Ladyship at Bristol, I wrote a

few lines not long ago from Leeds. Since that I have been in
honest Mr. G―― and Mr. J――’s round, preaching upon the
mountains to many thousands. One that was awakened three years
ago, is gone to heaven, and desired to be buried upon the spot
where she was awakened. The sacrament at Mr. G――’s was most
awful, and the Welch night at Leeds exceeding solemn. I would have
continued my circuit, but found that preaching so frequently in those
cold countries, was bringing on my last year’s disorder. Being
therefore grown very prudent, I am come to open our new chapel in
Tottenham-Court Road, and in my poor way to recommend the ever-
loving, ever-lovely Jesus. Lord, what am I, that thou shouldest
suffer me to put a pin in thy tabernacle! O for grace to stand in a
trying hour. Something very extraordinary lies before us: “Prepare to
meet thy God,” seems now to be the call to all. Blessed be God, his
Spirit hath not done striving for us. This, I hope, is a token for good.
Never did I know the fields more ready unto harvest, than I have
seen them in the North. May I wish your Ladyship joy of what hath
happened at the other end of the town. May his Lordship be made a
long and public blessing to this sinful nation! If the other elect Ladies
are all at Clifton court, I wish you all the blessings of the everlasting
gospel. Though utterly unworthy of such an honour, offering my poor
pepper-corn of acknowledgment for all your Ladyship’s unmerited
kindnesses, I beg leave to subscribe myself, ever-honoured Madam,

Your Ladyship’s most dutiful, obliged, and ready servant for

Christ’s sake,

G. W.
 LETTER MCL.
To Mrs. C――.

London, October 30, 1756.

Dear Mrs. C――,

I CAN only drop you a few lines. I am just returned from a thousand
miles northern circuit, and Mr. Graham is just a going. All your
relations are well. The fields have been white ready unto harvest. In
about a week, a new building at the other end of the town is to be
opened. I expect to see your new Governor every moment. By his
ship I hope to send letters to you all. May God bless and prosper
you! J―― H――’s relations are well. You will give him all the
encouragement you can. I am still for lessening the family as much
as possible. My wife wrote lately. I have scarce time to subscribe
myself, dear Mrs. C――,

Your most affectionate, obliged, and ready servant for

Christ’s sake,

G. W.
 LETTER MCLI.
To Alderman H――.

London, November 6, 1756.

My dear Friend,

I AM glad you got no more hurt by your late fall from your horse. May
the Lord Jesus write the laws of gratitude upon all our hearts! I
wish my brother’s sickness may be sanctified to his better part. I know
not the case of the poor weavers: I do not love to fish in troubled
waters, and yet I fear more and more troubles await us both at home
and abroad. O that the walls and street of the New Jerusalem, may be
built in troublesome times! He hath said it, who is also able to perform
it. I wish I may begin to begin to build in earnest. Do pray for me: I shall
never forget you or yours. May this find you on the full stretch for
Jesus! He was stretched upon the cross for you and me. Amazing love!
Adieu. I must away. Beg Mr. B―― to write if my brother grows worse. I
will answer him as soon as possible; but whilst my cold continues, I
cannot expect to see you at Gloucester. O for a warm heaven! there
you will know how much I am, my very dear Friend,

Yours in our common Lord,

G. W.

LETTER MCLII.
To Mr. D――.

London, November 12, 1756.

 My dear Mr. D――,

I HAVE just been with your new Governor, who sets out to-morrow.
May the Lord of all lords make him a blessing! Upon the receipt of
this, do you wait upon his Excellency, and give Him, and whom he
pleases to bring with him, an invitation to Bethesda. I know dear Mrs.
C―― will make proper provision. I have had no letters for a long
season. I have only time to inform you, that we have just opened a new
chapel at Tottenham-Court Road, and that I trust the Redeemer’s glory
filled it last Sunday. Have you persons enough to exercise before the
Governor? Can they receive him under arms? That the Captain of our
salvation may make them all good soldiers for himself, is the earnest
prayer of, my dear Mr. D――,

Yours, &c. in our common Lord,

G. W.

LETTER MCLIII.
To Lady ――.

London, November 17, 1756.

Honoured Madam,

A S I thought it would give your Ladyship satisfaction, I herein inclose

the copies of two letters sent from the condemned youth, in
whose behalf your Ladyship hath interposed. May the Redeemer crown
your endeavours with success! Blessed be his name, we hear of daily
instances of his grace! At Long-Acre indeed the word ran, and at
Tottenham-Court chapel we have had some glorious earnests of future
blessings. Providence, I doubt not, will enable us to pray for it. My
constant work now is, preaching about fifteen times a week. This, with
a weak appetite, want of rest, and much care lying upon my mind,
enfeebles my too, too feeble nature. But the joy of the Lord is my
strength. And my greatest grief is, that I can do no more for Him, who
hath done and suffered so much for me. I thank your Ladyship for your
kind letter and good wishes. Indeed, honoured Madam, you are always
remembered at the throne of grace. That your Ladyship’s soul may
always prosper, and that you may increase with all the increase of
God, is and shall be the earnest prayer of, honoured Madam,

Your Ladyship’s most dutiful, obliged, and ready servant for

Christ’s sake,

G. W.

LETTER MCLIV.
To Mr. H――y.

London, December 9, 1756.

My very dear Friend,

L AST night Mr. M―― informed me, that Mr. C―― shewed him a
pamphlet, wrote on purpose to prove the fundamental errors of my
printed sermons, and that you had offered to preface it, but he chose
you should not. That this is true, I as much believe, as that I am now at
Rome. But I wish that my very dear friend may not repent his
connection and correspondence with some, when it is too late. This is
my comfort, I have delivered my soul. Mr. R―― hath been so kind as
to send me the two volumes of Jenks’s Meditations, and desires me to
annex my recommendation to yours. I have answered, that it will not be
prudent or beneficial to him so to do. I fear they are too large to go off. I
hope that my dear friend prospers both in soul and body. Conviction
and conversion work go on here. Lord keep us from tares! All is well at
Clapham; I have expounded there twice. God hath met us at our new
building. I know that you will pray, it may be full of new creatures. My
most cordial respects await your mother and sister; my wife joins. With
great haste, but much greater love, I subscribe myself, my very dear
friend,

Yours most affectionately in our common Lord,

G. W.

LETTER MCLV.
To Mr. Aaron B――.

London, December 9, 1756.

My very dear Friend,

A S I am informed the Philadelphia packet sails this day, I cannot

omit acknowledging the receipt of Mr. P――’s paper: the
duplicates came to hand before. A memorial is drawn up by proper
persons, and application is to be made for a charter. As yet, every thing
promises well. This morning I am going to send P――’s writing to
those, who I believe will put it into his Majesty’s hands. The letters
mentioned by Mr. B――, about purchasing the land for the Indians, I
did not receive, but I shall take the hint in the last, and do what I can.
Alas! that is but little. Some books shall be secured for John O――,
and some bibles, &c. for the Indian school. I wish John O―― of Long-
Island was here, especially if he can preach, and could be spared from
his mission for a few months, and his passage paid. I would pay his
passage back again, and I hope get something for that which you have
in view. At the ensuing fast, it practicable, I intend making a collection.
Night and day, our hands are lifted up for dear America. I fear we are to
be brought into far greater extremity, both at home and abroad, ere
deliverance comes. The Lord reigneth, and blessed be the God of our
salvation. I am sorry you have not your degree. It is ready, if
testimonials were sent from those that know you. This not being done,
it looks as though the character given you on this side the water, was
not justly founded. The Lord Jesus direct and bless you! I wish you
would write oftener. How glad would I be to see America, but my way is
hedged up. We have just opened a new chapel at the other end of the
town, and the awakening both in town and country continues. We have
many pleasing accounts from various quarters, and more ministers are
coming out to preach the gospel. This is refreshing. How does the
worthy Governor? I cannot write now, but I pray. Dear Captain G―― is
gone: O that my turn was come! Jesus is kind. I am strengthened to
preach fourteen times a week, and I trust it is not in vain. You have
work enough. That the giver of all strength may support and succeed
you more and more, is the earnest prayer of, dear Sir,

Yours most affectionately in our glorious Head,

G. W.

LETTER MCLVI.
To Mrs. G――.

London, December 15, 1756.

Dear Madam,

W HAT a prayer-hearing, promise-keeping God do we serve! O that

I had a heart to bless and praise him! Your kind and opportune
contribution for the new chapel, strengthened my faith, and encouraged
me (in spite of the opposition of some narrow hearts) to go forwards
with it, till it is compleated. Surely the work is of God. Last Sunday
there was a wonderful stirring amongst the dry bones; some great
people came, and begged they might have a constant seat. An earnest
this, I believe, of more good things to come. To me, dear Madam, it is
the most promising work the Redeemer ever vouchsafed to employ me
in. Lord, what am I? Help me, glorious Emmanuel, to abhor myself in
dust and ashes! He will bless you, dear Madam, for what you have
done. O that I had a thousand lives to employ in his service! I am much
obliged to dear Mrs. B――. Neither she nor you will have reason to
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