EUROCENTRISM AND KHALSA-CENTRISM

Dr. S.S. Sodhi Dr. J.S. Mann The purpose of this article is two-fold. To introduce to the Sikh researchers the concepts of Eurocentrism and compare it with Khalsacentrism. Also an attempt will be made to apply these concepts to Dr. H. S. Oberoi’s recent anti-Sikh book entitled, "The Construction of Religious Boundaries - Culture, Identity and Diversity in the Sikh Tradition” (1994). Eurocentrism first raised its ugly head in Sikh research when E. Trumpp was invited by India office authorities in 1869, to produce a translation of Siri Guru Granth Sahib. This ignorant and arrogant, “historian in a hurry” is a good example of Eurocentric research. On many pages of his translation of Adi Granth (1877, 1970), Dr. Trumpp was as insulting as any European could ever be to the Sikh heritage and Sikh scriptures. Here are some examples: 1. The Sikh Granth is a very big volume, and couched at the same time in dark and perplexing language, in order to cover these defects. It is for us Occidentals a most painful and almost stupefying task, to read only a single Raga. 2. Sikhism is a wanting religion, that will soon belong to history. 3. Guru Nanak’s words as preserved in the Sikh Granth were so often dark and unintelligible to me. 4. Guru Nanak’s travel to Mecca is an invention from the beginning to the end. 5. The way in which Nanak used the disciples who attached themselves to his person, was not very conducive to impart to them any considerable knowledge. They were little more than his menial servants. The mass of Nanak’s disciples were ignorant Jats, who on an average could neither read nor write. 6. What Nanak looked chiefly for in his successor, were not scientific accomplishments, or a cultivated mind, but blind obedience to the commands of the Guru. These stories, which are told in Janam - Sakhis of the total “sacrificism intellects” of Lahana are therefore very significant. 7. Angad was altogether unlettered and could himself neither read nor write. The tradition, which makes him inventor of the gurmukhi letters is without any foundation. 8. The few verses of Angad, which are contained in the Granth, are but a poor repetition of the words of Nanak and shallow in the extreme. 9. Guru Amar Das performed all sorts of menial services to Angad, as Angad had done to Nanak. 10. Guru Amar Das was unlettered like his master Angad. 11. Sikh Gurus strictly observed the caste system of India. 12. Guru Ram Das was without any scientific education. His compositions were not original. 13. Guru Arjan was the first Guru who meddled in politics. 14. Guru Arjan collected verses of the preceding Gurus, to which he added his own very numerous but carelessly written verses. 15. To these verses he added the verses of the Bhagats to prove that the tenets of the Sikh Gurus were already entertained and proclaimed by the earlier popular saints. 16. Guru Arjan called this miscellaneous collections Granth (i.e.: the book). It was given the authority of Vedas and Puranas, which the unlettered people had never been able to read, whereas the Granth was composed in their mother tongue and intelligible to the vulgar. 17. Guru Arjan was the first Sikh Guru who laid aside the garb of a Faquir and kept an establishment like a grandee; he engaged also in trades in a grand style. 18. Guru Hargobind was addicted to hunting and entered the services of the Emperor Jahangir. After Jahangir's death, he entered the services of Shah Jahan. When Shah Jahan sent troops against him, he fled to Kartarpur and later to Kiratpur. 19. Guru Hargobind had no time nor task for meditation and opposition of religious poetry. 20. Guru Teg Bahadur like a madman, was given to deep silence. 21. Har Rai seemed to have neither inclination nor calling for poetry. 22. Guru Teg Bahadur while feeling unsafe in Panjab moved to Patna under the garb of a Hindu pilgrim. 23. Guru Teg Bahadur, who was not a learned man nor conversant with disputations, was thrown into prison because he refused to show miracles or embrace Musalman faith. 24. Guru Teg Bahadur ordered his Sikhs to cut off his head because he could not tolerate the pain inflicted on him in Delhi. 25. Moral views of Sikhs of Guru Teg Bahadur's time were confusing. Guru Teg Bahadur was outlawed by the Delhi government and captured as a criminal at Agra. 26. Guru Gobind Singh was surrounded on all sides by dangers, so he retreated to the mountains (Poanta Sahib). There he kept himself concealed. 27. Guru Gobind Singh never studied Sanskrit but tried to imitate it in his compositions, which on the whole are very different and intricate. 28. Guru Gobind Singh’s mind was deeply tinged with the superstitious notions of the Hindus. So he wanted to secure the aid of the Goddess Durga; who was the special object of his worship. 29. Guru Gobind Singh made a human head sacrifice to Maina-devi who then blessed him. 30. As Guru Gobind Singh offended the high caste people by abolishing the caste system, they left him. Hence, the Khalsa consisted of lower caste people such as Jats. 31. According to Guru Gobind Singh, Guru Granth Sahib in its present form produced a spirit of meekness and humbleness. So the Guru set to work and composed a big, heavy Granth. He completed it in 1696 A.D. and called it Granth of the Tenth Reign. 32. Guru Gobind Singh exaggerated the importance of his fights with Hill Rajas in Vichiter Natak. 33. When Guru Gobind Singh’s children were put under the foundation of a wall, the weeping of these children was heard for many days. 34. Guru Gobind Singh was again defeated at Muktsar by imperial forces. 35. After leaving Damdama, Guru Gobind Singh went to Sirhind where his sons have been buried alive. From Sirhind the Guru went back to Anandpur and settled there again, unmolested. 36. Guru Gobind Singh joined the imperial army of Emperor Bahadur Shah. 37. Guru Gobind Singh went to Deccan because he was appointed the commander of five thousand horses. 38. Even though the Guruís wounds were sew up and healed again, it seemed that the Guru was bent of dying. After appointing Guru Granth Sahib the Guru, he became senseless. 39. Guru Gobind Singh died broken-hearted, weary of life far from the scenes of his exploits. For more detailed arrogance of E. Trumpp the readers are advised to read Preface, Introductory Essays from Pages 1-XCVI of Adi Granth (1877 & 1970). After heaping Eurocentric insults on the Sikh Gurus and their Sikh scripture, E. Trumpp, in Chapter III of his book, says the following insulting things about Sikh religion: 1. Nanak himself was not a speculative philosopher, who built up a concise system on scientific principles. He had not received a regular school-training, and uttered therefore, his thoughts in a loose way, which are now scattered through the Granth, and must first be patiently searched out and collected into a whole, before we can form an idea of his tenets. 2. Nanak himself was by no means an independent thinker, neither had he any idea of starting a new religious sect. He followed all essential points, the common Hindu philosophy of those days especially the system laid down in Bhagavad Gita. He also followed Kabir who was already a popular man in India. 3. Kabir’s writings which were composed in the vulgar tongue were accessible to the unlearned masses. 4. The tenth Guru, Gobind Singh relapsed in many points again into Hinduism. He was special Votary of Durga. 5. Nanak remained a thorough Hindu according to all his views. We should be wrong in assuming that Nanak forbade the worship of other gods on the grounds of the unity of the supreme. He took over the whole Pantheon, with all the mythological background and subordinated it to the supreme Brahm. 6. Guru Granth denies the liberum arbitrium in man (Free will). 7. Buddhism like Sikhism is nothing but unrestricted pessimism unable to hold out to any solace except that of annihilation. 8. Guru gives salvation to the elect using principle of “Decretum Aeternum”. Those elects are chosen according to the pleasure of the Hari. It is Hari’s sport. 9. Sikhism is not moralizing deism. 10. Earlier Gurus deificated man into supreme himself. 11. Guru Gobind Singh took rude-and-ignorant Jats, kept them subservient by kindling in them the hatred against Muslims. 12. The sayings of Bhatts were composed for the occasion of abject flatteries, without any intrinsic value, and were added to Guru Granth by Guru Arjan himself. 13. The verses of the different Gurus have been distributed into 31 ragas apparently without any leading principle, as hardly any verse is internally connected with another. 14. By thus jumbling together whatever came to hand without any judicious selection, the Granth has become an extremely incoherent and wearisome book, the few thoughts and ideas, that it contains, being repeated in endless variations, which are for the greatest part nothing but a jungling of words. 15. As Guru Arjan and Guru Nanak did not understand Sanskrit, they were incapable of writing Shlokas. 16. Through the Granth, as regards its content, is perhaps the most shallow and empty book that exists in proportion to its size, it is on the other hand, linguistic point of view, of the greatest interest to us, as it is a real treasury of the “old Hindui” dialects. 17. Nanak and his successors employed in their writings purposely, the Hindui idiom, following the examples of Kabir and other Bhagats. It must be pointed out that Trumpp has been a source of hidden inspiration to many “Occidental” historians such as Dr. McLeod, Oberoi, Pashaura Singh, J.S. Grewal and S.S. Hans. But the leader of the pack is Dr. McLeod, the rest of them are his role-dancing followers. Here are some examples of what McLeod has to say about Sikhism and Sikh Gurus while using his Western reality and his right to use Social Science Methods developed in Europe to understand an Eastern religion. Also his determined effort to convert somebody’s subjective faith to bring it objectivity is arrogantly evident. These examples are from his books such as, “Evolution of the Sikh Community” (1975), “The Sikh History, Religion, and Society” (1989), “Who is a Sikh? The Problem of Sikh Identity” (1989). The readers will notice that the Trumppian themes run in McLeod’s writings. 1. Guru Nanak was the founder of the Sikh religion in the organizational sense, and not in the religious sense. 2. Nath tradition was worked by Kabir; Guru Nanak provided the extension. 3. Guru Nanak in a way is a Sant Nanak. 4. Guru Nanak never went abroad. 5. Guru Gobind Singh lost all his battles. 6. Regression from Sikhism to Hindu religion took place at the time of Guru Amar Das. 7. Jat influence got Guruship to Guru Arjan Dev. 8. Guru Arjan corrected the Bani written by Guru Nanak (Pashaura Sing, 1991). 9. Compilation of Adi Granth was a process, it was not Dhur Ki Bani (Pashaura Singh, 1991). 10. Bhagat Bani was included in Guru Granth Sahib to please the minorities (Pashaura Singh, 1991). 11. Guru Arjan was murdered and not martyred in 1606 A.D. (Pashaura Singh, 1991). 12. Guru Granth is an anthology which is very amorphous (H.S. Oberoi, 1994). Dr. James R. Lewis, Professor of Philosophy and Religion, Appalachian State University, Boone, North Carolina, while writing for Advanced Studies in Sikhism (1989), has exposed the behaviour of Eurocentric Historians in his famous article entitled, Misrepresentation of the Sikh Tradition in World Religious Books (1989). Dr. Lewis feels that as India was under a colonial rule, the Eurocentric Historians such as W. I. McGregor (1846) and H.H. Wilson (1848) and E. Trumpp were reinforcing and legitimizing British imperialism by downgrading the religion of the Sikhs (it must be noted that J.D.Cunningham and Evans Bell did support Sikh aspirations in this period for which they were punished). Mystified by the colonial and imperialistic scholars, some Sikh historians such as J.S. Grewal, S.S. Hans, Pashaura Singh, and Harjot Oberoi have produced errors of fact and interpretation in Sikh history. Many Western scholars have joined this pack. For example the following misstatements were made by Eurocentric Sikh scholars in the recent past about Sikh history. They have been collected from various books used in the Department of Religious Studies in North America. 1. Sikhism is the outcome of the impact of Islam on Hinduism (Ellwood, Many People Many Faiths, 1987). 2. Guru Gobind Singh was killed in a battle (Robert Wellwood, 1987). 3. The tenth master slew a chicken rather than a goat on the occasion of the formation of the Khalsa (Robert Ellwood, Many People Many Faiths, 1987, P.101-102). 4. Guru Gobind Singh introduced into Sikhism the worship of the terrible Hindu Goddess of Death, Durga. (Lewis M. Hopfe, Religions of the World, 1987). 5. Guru Nanak was the disciple of Kabir (Ward J. Fellows, Religion East and West, 1979). 6. Guru Nanak accepted gods of Hindu pantheon (K.W. Morgan, The Religion of the Hindus, 1953, P. 41). 7. Guru Granth Sahib is not comprehensive to most Sikhs, despite the fact they hold it sacred. (David G. Bradley, A Guide to World Religions, 1963, P. 128). 8. The Sikhs, in their fight for survival against Islam, became instead a symbol of religious intransigence and hatred (Hyla s. Converse, The Religious World, 1988, P. 98). 9. Sikhism is more of a reformed Hindu religion (Wing-tsit cham et al. The Great Asian Religion, 1969, P. 5). 10. There is little doubt that in Sikhism, Muslim sources predominate (John Hutchison, Faith of Faith, 1969, P. 200). 11. Guru Nanak leaned rather more to Islam than to Hinduism (Ninian Smart, The Religious Experience of Mankind, 1976, P. 150). 12. Sikhism is an equal mixture of Islam and Hinduism (D.L. Carnody, The Story of World Religion, 1988, P. 253). 13. The Sikh religion is not in any absolute sense new (J.B. Noss & David Moss, Man’s Religion, 1984, P. 221). 14. Sikhism was grafted (syncretized) on foreign elements (Paul B. Courtright and Harbans Singh, Panjab Past and Present, 1976, P. 417). 15. Sikhs as the most militant of warriors (L.M. Hopfe, Religions of the World, 1987, P. 184). 16. Sikhs started believing in combativeness and even militarism (H. Stroup, The Founders of Living Religion, 1975, P. 104). 17. Sikhs like Muslims started believing that death was a passport to paradise (R. Cavendish, The Great Religions, 1980, P. 49). The present author firmly believes that the “sloppy scholarship” of the Eurocentric, Colonial, Racist and Imperial Scholars is due to their hidden desire to show the superiority of Christianity, and Justification of colonization. These scholars represent the elite and elect behaviour of Calvinistic males. EUROCENTRISM AND SIKH RESEARCHERS After giving the above-mentioned examples, a brief introduction to Eurocentrism is in order at this time. Eurocentric Sikh researchers are self-appointed Sikh historians who want to bring "correctness" to Sikh history. Their linear, collective mind treats the Sikhs, Sikh Gurus, and Sikh Scriptures the same way as Marx treated various European religions. These empiricists and logical - positivists use social science methods developed in Europe to understand and evaluate the Mystic writings of the East. They operate using object-subject duality. They are committed to hard-headed no-nonsense interpretation of mystical realities and lives of cosmocentric Sikh Gurus. Their logical positivism wants to verify the Sikh traditions by recorded documentation. They get their inspirations from such European thinkers as Calvin, Wilden, Habernras, Sartre, Marcuse, Freud, Marx, and Hegel (see Sirdar Kapur Singh’s Sikhism, Institute of Sikh Studies, 1993). The motivations of Eurocentric Scholars are repression-projection mechanisms. The Eurocentric scholar is uncomfortable with contradiction between the theory and practice in his own religious traditions. By repressing, they project the contradiction to Sikhism (McLeod’s various articles in the Sikh Review, January and April, 1994) are very good examples of this phenomenon). This psychodynamic interpretation explains why faithless scholars, graduate students in a hurry, the Western and some mystified Eastern Role-Dancing followers, have given such a differential treatment to Sikhism. The present writer is not aware of any article of Dr. McLeod where he has taken Christianity to task for being a very oppressive and colonized religion. By this ‘repression’, projection mechanism of motivation, these Eurocentric scholars want to bring structure to Sikhism and make it sociologically respectable (Oberoi, 1994). Calvinistic elect and elitist thought has brought the dehumanizing structural necessity, rational efficiency, concentration on self, selfishness and ability to “denature the supernatural” in Eurocentric Scholarship. Eurocentric scholars want "to see" the invisible in the visible or “essential in the appearing”. An Eurocentric researcher believes or is mystified in believing in the inferiority of Asian religions. The readers are recommended to read: W.L. McGregor (1848); H.H. Wilson (1848); E. Trumpp (1877); R.S. Ellwood (1987); Hopfe (1987); Ward J. Fellows (1979); Geoffrey Parrinder (1965); K.W. Morgan (1953); D.G. Bradley (1963); J.B. Noss (1984); and writings of McLeod, J.S. Grewal, S.S. Hans, Gurinder Mann, Pashaura Singh, and H. Oberoi for understanding the “Culture of the Fitters” of Sikh Religion. It is a known fact that Darwin’s “Origin of the Species” (1859) gave freedom to the imperialists, colonizers, and fitters to create the culture of the Fitters. Using their linear and colonial mind, these Eurocentric historians are trying to fit Sikh religion to the “Social Science, European, no-nonsense paradigm”. They also operate on the assumption that the researcher is separate from the object of study and in fact seeks to gain as much distance as possible from the object of the study. KHALSACENTRICISM AND SIKH RESEARCH Khalsacentric research believes in essence, wholism introspection and retrospection. It rejects the hypothetical - statistical - interventionist model of research and the use of European social science methods. The Khalsacentric researcher does not approach the subject of study with a 'prestored paradigm' in her/his psyche. Through retrospection, a Khalsacentric researcher questions to ascertain if the interpretations of his findings are causing psychic or spiritual discomfort to the people who belong to the culture under study. A Khalsacentric researcher looks for the wholistic reality rather than the detached reality. He looks for the essence of the culture rooted in a particularistic view of reality. False proportion of one culture are not applied to study the other culture to produce distorted and hurtful knowledge. The Khalscentric researcher seeks total immersion in the culture before rushing to study it. Researchers can’t stay separate from the object of the study. The distance distorts the view. The Khalsacentric researcher “cleanses the doors of his/her perception, through introspection of any pre-existing paradigms”. The Khalsacentric researcher uses retrospection to see if the interpretation is not intentionally made convergent to provide a “good fit to the existing paradigms of knowledge”. The Khalsacentric researcher does not use “Freedom of expression as a Crutch”. His personality is very important and his knowledge of techno-methodology of research is very crucial for the research outcome. It must be pointed out that the Khalsacentric scholar assumes the right and responsibility of describing Sikh realities from a subjective faith point of view of the Khalsa values of ideals. He centres himself and the Sikh community in his research activity. Khalsacentrism recognizes the pivotal role of history, especially the history of Sikhs vs. Muslims/Hindus and Christians and uses ideological, humanistic and emancipatory anti-racist awareness to formulate his hypothesis. Colonial, Calvinistic, elitist, and arrogantly elect behaviour is not accepted in Khalsacentrism. Part of the mandate of the Khalsacentric research is to screen out oppressive assumptions. The Khalsacentric researcher stresses the importance of centring Sikh ideals, codes and symbols in Panjab as a place and the struggle that was put up to oppose the oppression of the foreign rulers. The Khalsacentric researcher self-consciously obliterates the subject/object duality and enthrones Khalsa wholism in his research. The perspective which a Khalsacentric researcher brings to the research exercise depends upon his experiences both within and without the Sikh culture. When centering Khalsa values, the researcher must centre his own ideals. It is therefore important that Khalsacentric scholars should declare who they are and what has motivated them to study Sikhism (If Sikhs had known what McLeod was going to write in his articles in the Sikh Review (January and April, 1994), stating his own contradictions about Christianity and his repression - projection of those contradictions to Sikhism, their reaction to his indulging in Sikh research since 1968, would have been different). The same argument could be applied to the recent research produced by Oberoi, Gurrinder Mann, and Pashaura Singh. While McLeod was running away from Christianity using the missionary money of New Zealand; Oberoi, Pashaura, and Gurrinder Mann were busy selling the Sikh Soul for landing a University position. Even though Sikhism has become a living, assertive way of life a Khalsacentric researcher can extract the following specific Sikh values and apply them to “discover himself”. These values are easily traceable in Sikh scriptures and ethos.

1. Khalsacentrism is an assertive way of life which attempts to decrease the dichotomy between spiritual and empirical life of a person. It has successfully challenged the initial structure of existing religions through “structured inversion and negation of the negation”. 2. In Khalsacentric living, Sikhs reject the unreality of life, withdraw from life, indulgence in asceticism or Sanyas, rejection of varnas, caste, pollution, ritualism and avtarhood. 3. All ten Sikh Gurus developed a life affirming system and asked Sikhs to model life as a game of love, truthful and assertive living. 4. Khalsacentrism believes in universal consciousness and deep mystical saintliness. The Sikh’s concept of God is “the sole one, self existent, creator person, without fear, and without enmity, timeless, un-incarnated, self-created, gracious, enlightener, benevolent, ocean of virtue and ineffaceable”. The Sikhs are urged to internalize these attributes by repeating them in their prayers. 5. In Khalsacentric living, householder’s life is a must. Khalsa has no use for recluses, ascetics and other-worldliness. 6. Rejection of celibacy made the status of woman equal to man. 7. Khalsacentrism believes in the importance of work and production. Work should not be divided through castes. A Sikh attempts to break free of the convoluted cycle of higher vs. lower castes. 8. Khalsacentrism recommends work and sharing of incomes. Sikhism like socialism deprecates the amassing of wealth. In Sikhism, a wealthy man has a social responsibility of sharing. 9. Khalsacentrism fully accepts the concept of social responsibility. The oppressor who dehumanizes and hinders in the honest and righteous discharge of a householder’s life has to be tackled. A Khalsa becomes the protector or Rakha, whether they are Brahmins from Kashmir or the powerless woman being taken to Ghazni for the slave trade. 10. A Khalsa undergoes constantly what psychologists call positive disintegration and cognitive dissonance, because of his truthful living and believing in the principles of “Adde So Jharre”. His reality is formed through his internalizing of the remarkably powerful Sikh Ardas and Guru Bani. He becomes a Gurumukh by killing his ego and then is expected to re-enter the Fannah phase of his life to fulfil his social responsibilities. Guru Arjan Dev, Guru Teg Bahadur, Guru Gobind Singh, and his children and many of his followers up to the present time, followed this path of social responsibility producing a compulsion of re-entry into the oppressed world and enjoying martyrdom. 11. In Khalsacentrism, the oppressive status quo has to be challenged. Sikhism teaches politeness to friends and defiance to oppressors. 12. Through social participation and resistance against wrong doings, a Khalsa becomes “the instrument of his attributive Will and wants to bring Haleemi-Raj or kingdom of God on Earth for everybody. He wants Sarbat Ka Bhala (Goodwill for all)”. 13. By repeating and internalizing Naam, the Khalsa stops seeing lines of duality in his reality. He becomes cosmocentric and the pain of the universe becomes his own pain. Haumain (Egoism) the neurosis of the soul, dies through this awakening. 14. In Khalsacentrism, remembering Karta Purakh in the company of Sadh Sangat is the means to evolve. A Khalsa develops a sense of cosmocentric awareness and power of “discrimination”. Naam repetition is a psychological method of removing an “I-am-ness” attitude, the greatest malady of human beings. It also awakens in “Khalsa” his will through love, contentment, truth, humanity, other-orientedness, and unconditional positive regard for the oppressed. Naam removes lust, anger, greed over attachment, and excessive pride. The Khalsa (purified) emerges to defend the claims of consciousness against oppression. Khalsa becomes the Vanguard of righteousness by defining himself in the image of the Guru. 15. Khalsacentrism believes in an egalitarian society and joins the cosmocentric universal culture where only “the pure will be allowed to rule”. 16. Through Khalsa, Guru Gobind Singh took Sikhism to the “Phoenix Principle” of Khalsacentric - life-affirming systems and brought revolutionary liberation. The Khalsacentric researcher rejects subject/object separation, encourages collectivism rather than individualism, grounds himself in complementarity, leaves false consciousness of Eurocentric thinking, looks at struggles as a way of transferring human consciousness, makes research centred in its base community (Panjab), and gets grounded in Panjab experience of 500 years, and familiarizes himself in the language, philosophy and myths of the Sikhs through cultural immersion. The Khalsacentric researcher must examine himself or herself in the process of examining any subject. The introspection and retrospection are an integral part of Khalsacentric research. Introspection means that the researcher questions herself or himself in regard to the subject under study. In retrospection the researcher questions himself or herself after the project is completed to ascertain if any personal biases have entered, or are hindering the fair interpretation of the results. He should attempt to know how the community being studies will feel about his research findings. The first question that the Khalsacentric researcher asks is "who am I?" In defining himself he defines his place and the perspective he brings to the research exercise. The data collected must include the personal knowledge of the subjective faith of the researcher, his personality functioning, experiences, and his motivation (repression, projection, spiritual, mystical) in order to provide some source of validation for the result of his inquiry. REVIEW OF THE CONSTRUCTION OF RELIGIOUS BOUNDARIES, CULTURE, IDENTITY AND DIVERSITY IN THE SIKH TRADITION (Dr. H.S. Oberoi, 1994). Dr. Harjot Oberoi is a second generation dislocated Panjabi Sikh from West Panjab. While living in Delhi he got his exposure to history at the Centre of Historical Studies at the Jawahar Lal Nehru University in Delhi. At JNU, he came under the influence of Marxist professors such as Bipan Chandra, Romila Thapar, K.N. Pannikar and Satish Saberwal. He also wrote his M. Phil thesis on Bhai Vit Singh. From the style of his writing English as his second language, it appears he must have gone to an English medium school in Delhi where the elects and elites sent their children in the 60s. At the Australian National University, he studied for his Ph.D. degree with Dr. J.T.F. Jordan, who shaped his thoughts on Indian religion from an Eurocentric point of view. The Eurocentric group of self-appointed researchers on Sikhism led by Dr. W.H. McLeod, J.T. O’Connell, Milton Israel, Bruce de Brack, J.S. Hawley, Mark Juergensbeyer, Jerry Barrier, Rolin Jeffery, after reading Dr. Oberoi’s thesis entitled, “A World Reconstructed: Religion Ritual and the Community Among Sikhs” (1850-1901 Ph.D. dissertation Faculty of Asian Studies, A.N. University Canberra, 1987): advised him to expand it into a book by collating into it the following articles that he had written from time to time. Oberoi, Harjot “Bhais, Babas and Byanis: Traditional Intellectuals in Nineteenth Century Panjab” Studies in History (vol.2, 1980, 33-62). “From Gurdwara Rikabganj to the Viceregal Palace: A study of religious Protest the Panjab Past and Present” (vol. 14, 1980, pp 182-98). “The worship of Pir Sakhi Sarvar: Illness, healing and Popular Culture in the Panjab Studies in History” (vol. 3, 1987, pp. 29-55). “A Historigraphical and bibliographical reconstruction of the Singh Sabha in the Nineteenth Century” Journal of Sikh Studies (vol. 10, 1983, pp. 108-30). “From Ritual to Counter-ritual: Rethinking the Hindu - Sikh Question”. (1844-19150. In J.T. O’Connell, Milton Israel, W.G. Oxtoby, eds with W.H. McLeod and J.S. Grewal visiting eds. Sikh History and Religion in the Twentieth Century. Toronto: S. Asian Studies, University of Toronto (1988, pp. 136-158). So the present book entitled, The Construction of Religious Boundaries in the Sikh Tradition, is a careful mixing of his thesis and articles (paragraphs lifted from articles to the book). It also clearly shows that Dr. Oberoi too has become a prisoner of McLeodian Eurocentric research paradigm. As Dr. Oberoi is very fond of quoting Sapir Whorf to show how language constructs the thought and reality of persons, I, as a Sikh Psychologist would like to construct Dr. Oberoi’s reality by using the written statements taken from his book (CRB) and articles. 1. Adi Granth is an amorphous religious text (CRB, P. 22). Amorphous according to Webster’s dictionary (1988, p. 30) means formless, not conforming to normal structural organization, having no crystalline form, unstratified. 2. By the closing decades of the Nineteenth Century, the Singh Sabha, a wide-ranging religious movement, began to view the multiplicity in Sikh identity with great suspicion and hostility (CRB, p. 25). 3. A new cultured elite aggressively usurped the right to represent others within a singular tradition (CRB, p. 25). 4. “Tat Khalsa” imposed monolithic, codified, and closed culture on the Sikhs by dissolving alternative ideals (CRB, p. 25). 5. This effort created many marginalized Sikhs who turned their backs on Sikh tradition and went their own way (CRB, p. 25). 6. Pluralist paradigm of Sikhism was replaced by a highly uniformed Sikh identity, the one we know today as modern Sikh existence (CRB, p. 26). 7. Through the process of silence and negotiation, Sikh historians of the past, have not given the true picture of what Singh Sabha did to the un-Sikh beliefs of the population (CRB, P. 27). 8. The ideas of what Sikhism out to be, were picked up by the Tat Khalsa from men like Ernest Trumpp, John Gordon, and Macauliffe (CRB, P. 32). 9. Ideological blinkers imposed by various complex forces led by Tat Khalsa produced many distortions in understanding the Sikh (CRB, p. 32). 10. Mr. G.S. Dhillin’s Ph.D. thesis on the Singh Sabha Movement is based on the principles of negatives of Sikh Studies. Dr. Oberoi is upset because Dr. Dhillon has given what could be called Khalsacentric view rather than Eurocentric social science anthropological view (CRB, p. 35). 11. Sikh studies need to fully open to this gaze of history so that the Sikhs become “sociological” respectable: (CRB, p.35). 12. Guru Nanak’s paradigm of interior religion was cut with the axes of identity by: a. Producing allegiance with Guru Nanak. b. Identify with Guru Bani. c. Foundation of Sangats. d. Setting up pilgrim centres at Goindwal and Harminder Sahib Amritsar. e. Convention of a communal meal (langar) was introduced. f. And compilation of an anthology commonly known as the Adi Granth whereby the Sikhs became a textual community. For further information on this topic, Dr. Oberoi recommends Dr. Pashaura Singh’s Ph.D. thesis, University of Toronto, (1991), is a major contribution to the study of Adi Granth. Please note in item number 12, Dr. Oberoi is under the influence of Dr. McLeod’s writings. It is strange that this professor of Sikh studies accepts everything that Dr. McLeod has formulated and even goes to endorse Dr Pashaura Singh’s University of Toronto (1991) very controversial thesis as a major study. (CRB, pp. 52-53). It is group thinking in which “birds of Eurocentric research get together” to further trample over the subjective faith of Sikhs. 13. According to Dr. Oberoi, in the early Guru period, Sikh as a category was still problematic and empty. It needed to be correlated with historical intervention. 14. Dr. Oberoi thinks that the Adi Granth was collated (CRB, pp. 54-55) whereas Pashaura Singh thinks that Guru Arjan Dev used a process to change Guru Nanak’s Bani before formerly including it in the Adi Granth. Guru Arjan Devji was also influenced by “social political consideration to produce the Adi Granth”. Like Trumpp, Dr. Oberoi thinks that the Adi Granth is the most voluminous and structured of the early Seventeenth Century devotional anthology (is Guru Granth an Anthology? According to the Webster Dictionary, 1988, p. 38) - collection of poetry or prose chosen to represent the work of a particular writer, a literary school or a national literature. 15. Dr. Oberoi compares the Adi Granth with Surdas Ka Pada, Fateh Pur manuscript of 1582 A.D. As Surdas Ka Pada had the same features as the Adi Granth, Dr. Oberoi feels that the Adi Granth was neither the first nor the last of such collections. So the uniqueness of Adi Granth as a secular Dhur Ki Bani is called in question by Dr. Oberoi (CRB, p. 54). 16. Stories of Guru Nanak’s travel are created out of Janam Sakhis, which are mythical texts (CRS, p. 55). These stories take Guru Nanak to Mecca or Hardwar and make him behave as if he has no fixed identity (Here Dr. Oberoi is dancing to the tune of Dr. McLeod’s research on Janam Sakhis) (CRS, p.56). 17. Just as there is no fixed Guru Nanak in the Janam Sakhis, there is no fixed Sikh identity in the early Guru period (CRB, p. 56). The Sikh world view of the earlier Guru period allowed the Sikhs to cut and sell their long hair to feed Guru Nanak (CRS, p. 56). It is very important to note that the Eurocentric Social Sikh historians will pick only those episodes from Janam Sakhis that point to the inconsistencies in Sikh psyche. Dr. Oberoi forgets that the quest for early Sikh identity was enshrined in challenging the status quo, the displacement of Brahmin, the non-use of Sanskrit, the challenge to Sati customs. Purdha and the institution of Langar to get rid of the caste systems and writing Guru Bani in Panjabi so that common persons could share it, were the pillars of Sikh identity in the early Guru period. 18. Guru Arjan was executed not martyred (Oberoi Pashaura and McLeod and J.S. Hawley would not use the word Martyrdom for Guru Arjan. It appears it comes out of their collective group thinking!). 19. Finally, the Jat influx into Sikhs produced the real Sikhs. So the Sikhs became Khalsas with their own Dharma. It is sad that a “Sikh Scholar” while sitting on the University of British Columbia (Canada), Sikh chair, is so anti-Sikh that he does not seem to respect the Sikh Scripture, the Sikh Gurus, and the Sikh traditions because of his Eurocentric-Racist Scholarship. He has no idea of the pain and hurt he is causing to those who collected money so that a Sikh chair be started that would enhance the image of the community. He is a misplaced Marxist anthropologist who should be removed from the "chair" and sent to teach Social Sciences in other departments of the University of British Columbia. (It has been done and now he teaches Anthropology at U.B.C.) What Freud was to the females, Jensen and Rushton to the Blacks, Oberoi is to the Sikhs. FINAL WORD The purpose of this article was to show that the theme of Eurocentrism runs through the writings of McLeod, Pashaura Singh, and Oberoi. It is very clear that they got their “research inspirations” from E. Trumpp, who came to India in 1869 to write a book about Sikhs for the benefit of the colonizers. I feel that E. Trumpp’s colonial mentality and “Occidental” reality was picked up by consciously or unconsciously by the historians in a hurry - trained in social science methodology with European traditions. “The other kind seeing” of Khalsacentric research where the place, time and nature of the community being studied and the role, the role models played, does not fit into their egocentric - repression - projection paradigms. When some of these scholars write about Sikh Gurus as “political personalities”, they open windows for others to see the pathology they are suffering from. The mystification of producing and "impressing" people with their writings without introspection and retrospection, has caused in the Sikh community a great deal of hurt and stress. Their zeal to bring "sociological respectively" to Sikhism has made them arrogant and dehumanizing. If they could have read the reactions of the First Nations of North America, women and blacks about the Eurocentric research done on them by the “well meaning researchers of the 60s”, they would have not gone the direction they had taken. The cover of academic freedom will not shelter them for a long time. Their instrumental, non-believing personalities that takes sadist pleasure in trampling over the subjective faith of a troubled minority, have to be challenged and exposed. May Sat Guru forgive them for the hurt they are causing. Perhaps “they do not know what they are doing”, because of the acute academic neurosis which has made them linear, non-intuitive, convergent, and myopically pathological. BOOKS CONSULTED Abstract of Sikh Studies, July 1992, January 1993, and July 1994. Published by the Institute of Sikh Studies, 959 Sector 59, Chadigarth, India. Ahluwalia, J.W., Sikhism Today. Chadigarh Guru Gobind Singh foundation. 1987. 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