The Practice of the Peraktown Pindh in Community Identity Formation and Belonging in a Malaysian Sikh Diaspora
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Page 1 of 297 THE PRACTICE OF THE PERAKTOWN PINDH IN COMMUNITY IDENTITY FORMATION AND BELONGING IN A MALAYSIAN SIKH DIASPORA Narveen Kaur BA (Hons) Thesis submitted to the University of Nottingham for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy FEBRUARY 2015 Page 2 of 297 Abstract This research discusses the post-migration lived experience of the Peraktown Sikhs, a diaspora community of visible difference in the specific context of Malaysia. Using a qualitative case study methodology, I juxtaposed oral life history narratives and extensive interviews, memoirs and photographs, to study eighteen members of a total thirty-five Sikh families who lived in the multi-ethnic township I renamed Peraktown. Their narratives offer a loose historical chronology from the early 20th century to the 1970s of a diasporic group seeking to find home and a place to belong. Using a postcolonial lens, the research demonstrates the complex negotiation between inherited cultural traditions and the appropriation of colonial knowledge. It explores engagement and interaction with broader societal structures and dominant habitus within the rubric of identity construction, hybridity and the idea of home. My focus is the liminal generation, born prior to Indian and Malaysian independence, between 1915 and 1947. Framed in both the concept of diaspora as bounded space and the diaspora as a societal process, I co-opted a concept native to Sikhs, the Pindh, to understand and interrogate their unique understanding of identity, belonging and home. The Pindh or village incorporates relationships with the landscape and social structure in the construction of Sikh/Punjabi identification. In contrast to studies on Sikhs elsewhere, in Peraktown, the nostalgic attachment and identification with the physical spaces of their ancestral homeland and the meaning it imbued is accompanied by the appropriation of concepts and practices that sustain the idea of community belonging, bridging the divide of being at home both ‘here’ and ‘there’. This conceptual category is extended further, creating a Pindh of the mind, not bounded by geography or time. Their position offers this research a place in continued discussions of the complexity and Page 3 of 297 fluidity of cultural identity and belonging and how this is constructed. Their lived experiences offer a map to the continued negotiations of diaspora identities in the newly forged linkages and relationships with land, a recreation of place and space in the course of settlement in the new host country. Page 4 of 297 Acknowledgements I am grateful to my research supervisors, Professor Neville Wylie and Dr Sean Matthews for their encouragement, advice, criticism and the introduction to the work of Raymond Williams. Their patience and enthusiasm for my research is greatly appreciated. This thesis owes a debt to the people of the Peraktown Sikh community, who unstintingly shared their lives and memories with me and welcomed me into their world with no reservations. I am thankful for their enthusiastic engagement with my research and their trust. My brother deserves a special mention for emotional and financial support and generous provision of frequent flyer miles and hotel loyalty points, to help with the travels for research. Finally, I wish to thank my parents for their support, patience and faith, which they provided liberally, with many cups of coffee and late night discussions on the Sikh faith and history. Page 5 of 297 Contents Abstract ..................................................................................... 2 Acknowledgements .................................................................... 4 Contents ..................................................................................... 5 Figures ....................................................................................... 7 Maps .......................................................................................... 7 Glossary and key dates .............................................................. 8 Foreword .................................................................................. 11 1 Introducing the research ..................................................... 12 1.1 Peraktown and the Peraktown Sikhs ...................................... 24 1.2 Thesis chapter outline ............................................................ 30 2 Considering theory and practice in researching diasporas ... 34 2.1 Diasporas, liminal spaces and identity construction ............... 35 2.2 Social and cultural capital use in diaspora communities ......... 46 2.3 Indian (Sikhs) in Malaysia and elsewhere .............................. 52 2.4 Using a postcolonial lens ........................................................ 59 2.5 The practicalities of diaspora research ................................... 62 2.6 The people and the process .................................................... 64 2.7 Insider or outsider? ................................................................ 68 2.8 Debating methodology and position ....................................... 70 2.9 Establishing self-reflexivity .................................................... 73 2.10 Translation ........................................................................... 83 3 The Pindh as history ............................................................ 86 3.1 Leaving home to find home .................................................... 90 3.2 Sikhs or Punjabis: What is in a name? .................................... 93 3.3 Sikhism: A very brief introduction .......................................... 94 3.4 Sikhs: The colonial subject ..................................................... 97 3.5 Modernity, agency and reform .............................................. 100 3.6 Relocating the Pindh in Peraktown ....................................... 103 3.7 Claiming the Gurdwara ......................................................... 112 3.8 The elders who guide and protect ........................................ 115 3.9 Japanese Occupation memories in the liminal generation .... 117 3.10 The Japanese Occupation of Malaya in historical context ... 119 3.11 Remembering as the transmission of community memory . 130 3.12 Letting the women out of the kitchen ................................. 134 3.13 Alignment with the dominant power .................................. 137 3.14 Summarising the Pindh as history ...................................... 141 4 The Pindh as place ............................................................. 145 4.1 Locating home: building bricks, culture and family .............. 149 4.2 The Gurdwara: Homeland longing and belonging ................. 162 4.3 Public spaces and contesting places ..................................... 170 4.4 The Native Club and Colonials Club ...................................... 171 4.5 The field with the coconut tree ............................................. 172 4.6 The School: Subverting forms of knowledge ......................... 175 Page 6 of 297 4.7 Work places, gendered spaces ............................................. 183 4.8 Summarising the Pindh as place ........................................... 194 5 The Pindh as boundaries ................................................... 198 5.1 Naming themselves .............................................................. 200 5.2 Naming the boundaries of family .......................................... 201 5.3 Naming family behaviours and values .................................. 203 5.4 Naming women .................................................................... 205 5.5 Naming caste and social hierarchy ....................................... 210 5.6 Joining together ................................................................... 213 5.7 Joining in prayer and practice of faith .................................. 214 5.8 Joining to teach and to learn ................................................ 221 5.9 Marriage between equals ..................................................... 234 5.10 Majha and Malwa: Never the twain shall meet ................... 238 5.11 Marrying down ................................................................... 240 5.12 Marrying out ....................................................................... 244 5.13 Disregarding the ‘other’ ..................................................... 247 5.14 Summarising the Pindh as boundaries ................................ 252 6 Conclusion ......................................................................... 256 6.1 Summary of findings ............................................................ 256 6.2 Limitations and further research .......................................... 270 6.3 Concluding remarks .............................................................. 272 Appendices ............................................................................. 276 Appendix 1: Information sheet and consent form ........................ 276 Appendix 2: List of Peraktown Sikhs ............................................ 280 Bibliography ........................................................................... 281 Page 7 of 297 Figures Figure 1: Peraktown Sikhs around the 1950s .................................. 16 Figure 2: An ancestor of a Peraktown Sikh in the Perak Police .......... 92 Figure 3: Soldiers at Aden including a Peraktown Sikh ................... 104 Figure 4: MSFSingh outside his home with Suzuki on left ............... 131 Figure 5: A Sikh house in Peraktown