exactly. these laws in effect will do nothing to "liberate" women and only perpetuate racist perceptions of muslims. it's true that sikhi denounces requirement of women to cover their face, and rightly so. but sikhs have stood up for ways of life that are contrary to our own in the past, i.e. guru tegh bahadur's martyrdom. i agree with you on the slippery slope as well, and it's not even a theoretical concern, given the reality in france.

here's a thoughtful column debunking the women's liberation justification of the law in france: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/20...

I agree. It's a balance we must strike. It is so so important for young Sikhs in the diaspora to have role models in the arts who indeed keep their kes... I can't imagine what this would have meant to me as a kid growing up with literally no other Sikhs around. But at the same time I think it's important that we be inclusive within our community and embrace all those who embrace the Sikh identity, even if they make a choice to cut their hair. The majority of performers at Lahir indeed kept their kes, and I sensed that the young people in the audience left feeling very empowered, proud to be Sikhs.

I hear you. With such a large crowd, you're always going to have a diversity of motives for being there and different levels of engagement (i.e. some people just wanting to rock out, some just wanting to eat chaat, others wanting to engage fully and deeply, etc.). The scholar you're referring to was Harinder Singh of the Sikh Research Institute. I regret not getting my camera out in time to record his remarks, as they were really powerful. "To bring Sikhi back, we have to pick up the rabab and the khanda..." (or something like that)

yes that's must be it: young london sikhs are the best sikh youth of them all, do paath every day, and have the best relationship with their guru, while new york sikhs just like to wear baggy pants and rap instead of having a "real" connection to sikhi.

pitting london and new york sikhs against each other in this way is not helpful and so overly simplistic. of course there are significant differences in our communities, based on colonial history, class, and a variety of other factors, but new york (queens, bronx, etc) sikhs are far from a monolith. i used to work with youth in richmond hill... some go to kirtan class every sunday and gurdwara every day. some get As in school, while some are failing. some join gangs. most deal with harassment and bullying in schools.

i think there's too narrow a definition of what is real/authentic sikhi and what is not in this conversation. how one relates to their spirituality and to the guru is a deeply personal thing, and not all sikhs are the same, nor should we be. of course there are some basic things that most of us would probably agree are not the most sikh of practices (i.e. racism and sexism for example), but i hardly think developing writing skills and learning to speak one's truth through poetry and/or hip hop is at odds with the sikh way of life in any way. and in fact, as others have stated, it certainly has the POTENTIAL to bring youth closer to waheguru and deepen their relationship with sikhi. check out the video i posted yesterday and see what you think.

i agree that it's important to distinguish a people from a government. but my feeling is that national flags are very much representing the nation state... the people are far more complex. nationalism attempts to get buy in from them into a construct of national identity, which generally attempts to erase differences and dissent. in the case of india, indian = hindi speaking and hindu, for example.

Yes, I would use the same argument for a US flag, except the human rights atrocities are even more extreme in the case of the US (though of course Sikhs have not been the main victims of US military aggression, etc., but that shouldn't matter). And I agree with you on nation state flag waving.

i hear where you're coming from, but the reality of the situation is anyone who watches this is gonna see this as a reflection of the sikh community, of sikh practices, and of sikhi. these men are cloaking themselves in the sikh flag, so to speak (despite the indian flag at the end) and drawing from the tradition of gatka. whether we like it or not, this is absolutely going to reinforce stereotypes about sikhs. i wish that wasn't the case, but it unfortunately is.

to start, the indian government has been responsible for the mass killings of thousands of sikhs in the 1980s with total impunity. in more recent years the government has also been complicit in the killing of thousands of muslims in gujarat.

in erecting the indian flag these performers are not simply saying they are from india, they are pledging allegiance and victory to a repressive nation state -- positioning themselves as "warriors" of that state. to me, this is definitely problematic.

i'm all for intellectual discussion about capitalism and media representation, but not without a discussion about action. theory and practice must not be presented as somehow opposed to one another. i am an activist, unapologetically, and i strive for reflective action -- praxis.

that being said, many of your points/examples are well taken, particularly the fetishization of our own bodies as sikhs (men, i should add). the question of hypermasculinity seems to come up a lot in our discussions here at TLH... i wonder if anyone is doing research on this issue in the sikh community in particular. it's hardly specific to our community, but we have our particularities to be sure. this also relates to the imagery of violence and militance as well, which were quite ridiculously present in this video. and then, as a friend of mine put it, you have the female judge who plays "damsel in distress" who responds in shock to the hypermasculine aggression and spectacle over and over again.

all this to say, patriarchy is certainly a significant part of the picture as well.

you would call running over people with cars and smashing people with sledge hammers gatka? their performance makes a complete mockery of sikh imagery and traditions. we should be proud of this?