INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

INTRODUCTION
When I first arrived at Varanasi in 1996 for an undergraduate program in religious
studies I had plans to write a thesis about perceptions of religious identity among
Sikhs residing in the Hindu pilgrimage center. The destination of Varanasi was set by
the university program and I had joined it to learn more about the Sikh religion. From
the available literature I had monitored up to then, a separate Sikh identity and especially
its definition in relation to the Hindu religion seemed to be a topic of high relevance
and great controversy among scholars. Contrastingly, my university professor
at that time would talk warmly about “cultural inclusion” in the Indian society and
“religious interface” in worship and festivals between Hindus, Muslims, and the
Sikhs. A contributing factor for choosing the Sikhs at Varanasi was the scholarly tendency
to focus on Sikhism in the Punjab and in a “Western” Diaspora, while neglecting
all those Sikhs who live outside the heartland of Punjab but still within the national
borders of India, that is, in an Indian Diaspora. 1 Of the 19 million people who
constitute the Sikh population in India about a quarter resides in the capital of Delhi
and other states apart from the Punjab. Uttar Pradesh, the state in which Varanasi is
located, holds the seemingly modest number 3.5 percent of the total Sikh population,
yet comprises more than half a million individuals. 2
With a rather vague plan to investigate manifestations of “cultural inclusion” at
Varanasi and trace elements that could possibly be relevant to local conceptions and
attitudes toward a Sikh identity, I made the first acquaintance with the gurdwaras in
the city and began to conduct interviews with Sikh families. One sunny afternoon in
the middle of the work, however, the manager of the gurdwara invited me to his
office. He requested me to take a seat and share a cup of tea. After a silent moment,
he asked what I really wanted to know about the Sikh religion. I tried my best to
explain the interest in a Sikh identity, and especially the relationship between the
Hindu and Sikh traditions, but noticed that my words did not fall into good grounds.
The manager explained the interrelation between the two traditions as a matter of
course, since the Sikhs were Hindus from the beginning. Within a few minutes he had
in fact judged the problem of my study as irrelevant. When our tea was finished he
pointed a finger towards the nearby gurdwara hall and said: “Why don’t you look at
the things we actually do?”
I should admit the manager’s negative response momentarily caused distress.
To have the research study mistrusted or rejected by “informants” is not a pleasant
1
Exceptions are Parkash’s (1981) study of the Sikhs in Bihar, Sarna’s (1993) work on the Sikhs in
Kashmir, and Banerjee’s (2003) analysis of Sikh literature published in Assamese, Bengali, and
Oriya between 1845 and 1947. These contributions are primarily textual analyses of historical
documents and make passing notes on social practices and religious worship in the respective
cultural settings.
2
Census of India 2001 at the web site: www.censusindia.net.
1
Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008