Contesting Interpretations of the Sikh Tradition;.Historical Perspectives on Sikh Identity.

• Author: SINGH, PASHAURA
• Position: Review

Contesting Interpretations of the Sikh Tradition. By J. S. GREWAL. New Delhi: MANOHAR PUBLICATIONS, 1998. Pp. 315. Rs 500, $30.

Historical Perspectives on Sikh Identity. By J. S. GREWAL. Patiala: PUNJABI UNIVERSITY, 1997. Pp. x + 101. Rs 125, $10.

In Contesting Interpretations of the Sikh Tradition, J. S. Grewal offers an insight into the current debate between "critical scholars" of the Sikh tradition and their "Sikh critics" regarding controversial issues in the study of Sikhism. The primary objective of this work is set in the introduction: "Hopefully, this dispassionate discussion may lead to mutual understanding between the contestants for a more fruitful dialogue in Sikh studies" (p. 18).

The book is divided into three parts. Part I deals with the "development of Sikh studies." This section traces this development from its beginnings in the late eighteenth century, focusing upon the observations of early Europeans associated with the East India Company that served its diplomatic and political purposes. It continues by exploring the major works of J. D. Cunningham, Ernest Trumpp, and M. A. Macauliffe, produced in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Being the products of the European Enlightenment, these early Orientalists followed a "methodological atheism" to formulate a rational interpretation of the evidence at their disposal. It is not surprising that Trumpp and Macauliffe came up with opposing interpretations of the Sikh tradition. Trumpp not only reinforced the view that Sikhism was "a form of Hinduism," but also made some offensive remarks in his introduction to The Adi Granth (1877). Macauliffe, on the other hand, stressed the "originality" of Sikhism: "Sikh identity was not only distinct from that of Hindus, it was more valuable--for the British, for the Sikhs, and for the world at large" (p. 296). Indeed, early Sikh writers rejected Trumpp's interpretation and agreed with Macauliffe and Cunningham before him, both of whom maintained that Sikh ideology, Sikh polity, Sikh social order, and Sikh identity were correlated. They transformed an "orientalist dialogue" in Sikh studies into a European-Sikh dialogue.

Part 2 focuses on "the recent controversy" resulting from W. H. McLeod's work which, according to Grewal, "proved to be controversial from the very beginning" (p. 299). Most in the academic community were appreciative of his work. Others, however, were critical, especially of its limitations. Among these critics Daljeet Singh was the most severe. His criticism of The Evolution of the Sikh Community (1975), and of McLeod himself was "brusque and pungent" (p. 126). But the first frankly polemical work directed against MeLeod appeared in the form of an edited volume, Perspectives on the Sikh Tradition (1986), in which the editor, Gurdev Singh, attributed "extra-academic motives" to McLeod on the assumption that "Christian missionaries were out to undermine non-Christian traditions" (p. 300).

Grewal carefully identifies four main points on which the Sikh critics take issue with MeLeod: the faith of Guru Nanak...