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Being Sikh, Being Women: Negotiating Religion and Gender in South Asian Women's Cultural Productions Sharanpal Kaur Ruprai A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE PROGRAM IN HUMANITIES YORK UNIVERSITY TORONTO, ONTARIO August 2013 © Sharanpal Kaur Ruprai, 2013 ii Abstract This dissertation addresses the relationship between gender and religion in Canada, specifically focusing on the Sikh woman. Using a multidisciplinary approach to examine cultural productions such as film, literature, drama and images from the World Wide Web, the dissertation concludes that the Sikh woman is emerging as a controversial new religious figure. I suggest that what materializes are figures of Sikh women who struggle with navigating and negotiating their own reinterpretations of religious symbols. I look at two poetry collections, Dharma Rasa and Valley Sutra by Kuldip Gill; a film, Heaven on Earth, by Deepa Mehta; a play, Behzti (Dishonour) by playwright Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti; a novel, Everything Was Good-Bye by Gurjinder Basran; a memoir, On the Outside Looking Indian: How My Second Childhood Changed My Life by Rupinder Gill; and images of Sikh women wearing turbans from the blogosphere and newspapers. Each of the above cultural and literary productions concentrates on Sikh women's experiences and how they change, modify and/or maintain their religious identity, but the question remains as to how their voices, bodies and images have been transmitted within the diasporas. Keywords: Sikhism, Gender, Diasporas, Turbans, South Asian, Canadian Literature iii Acknowledgments I am thankful for all the guidance, invaluable advice, and critical insights that my dedicated supervisor Dr. Arun Mukherjee and enthusiastic committee member Dr. Becky Lee have offered and continue to offer throughout the writing of this dissertation. To Dr. Eve Haque, who served as a committee member, thank you for swooping in and reminding me of the privilege and joy of graduate school! I am appreciative to Dr. Rishma Dunlop who served as a committee member for the interim of this project. I would like to thank the examining committee for their dedication and for their intellectual generosity: Dr. Gail Vanstone, Dr. Andrea Davis and a big thank you to Dr. Doris Jakobsh, who is a pioneer in the field and whose insightful questions will continue to influence the direction of my work. I would like to thank Dr. Andrea Davis, whose skills at teaching two hundred students inspired me as a student and as a teacher. I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. Patrick Talyor, Dr. Joan Steigerwald and Dr. Markus Reisenleitner, for taking my causes of graduate student engagement seriously. I am appreciative of the limited financial support I received through York University Graduate Studies scholarships and a one-year Ontario Graduate scholarship. I would like to thank the wonderful Administrative Assistants in the Department of Humanities: Savitri Ramjattan, Sharon Boatswain, Rita Quagliara, Liliana Hassani, and Sorkleng Jax for always answering all my questions with professionalism, unfaltering patience and good humour. iv This project would have not have been possible without the support, feedback and encouragement from colleagues. I am particularly grateful to Sailaja Krishnamurti, Jaspal Kaur Singh, Gitanjali Singh, Tanis MacDonald, Jaspreet Gill, Robert O'Shea Brown, Nedra Rodrigo and Cristina Adelina. To all my humanities graduate colleagues, thank you for indulging me at HUGSA meetings. To my colleagues on the South Asian Literary Association board (from 2007-2014), all of you have provided me with space to discuss my ideas through conversation, conference papers and on the dance floor! Thank you to Dr. Aruna Srivastava for planting the academic seed and for checking up on me. You are a brilliant mentor and friend. To my friends: Jen Liang, Frances Kruk, Teresa Bove, Leigh Rosin, Paul Wedel, Lisa Fernando, Anna Birtles, Sheniz Janmohamed, David Bateman, Robert Wright, Ian Green, Jeffrey Reinhart, Wesley Cocks, Angela Misri and Jason Pilling, thank you for reminding me that there is life beyond graduate school. I want to give special thanks to my mom Harjinder Ruprai, whose daily pep talks kept me optimistic and fueled a lot of thinking and writing. Thank you Mum! To my brother Rajpal Ruprai, thank you for supporting my academic endeavors. I would like to thank Almas and Azim Hassanali because I truly could not have written this dissertation without your support. Thank you for making samosas, building bookshelves and assembling kitchen islands! Finally, to Lisha Hassanali, I would still be lost in the library stacks without you. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ii Acknowledgments iii Table of Contents v List of Illustrations vi Introduction: Sikh-Cred: Wearing Religion, Wearing Gender 1 Chapter 1: Emergance of a Sikh Woman's Religious Body 25 Chapter 2: Reading Transgenerational Sikh Canadian Women's Narratives 43 Chapter 3: A Shattered Sikh Household in Deepa Mehta's film Heaven on Earth 104 Chapter 4: Travails of lzzat (Honour): Contemporary Plays by Gurpeet Kaur Bhatti 133 Chapter 5: Turban, Facial Hair, and Cleavage 165 Epilogue 197 Works Citied 203 vi List of Illustrations Figure 3.1. Chand's Sangeet in Heaven on Earth. DVD still 115 Figure 3.2. Chand in the motel bathroom in Heaven on Earth. DVD still 117 Figure 3.3. A Family Portrait from Heaven on Earth. DVD still 122 Figure 3.4. Chand as Goddess from Heaven on Earth. DVD still 124 Figure 3.5. Approaching the snake pit from Heaven on Earth. DVD still 128 Figure. 4.1. Photo by Richard Lautens 169 Figure. 4.2. Mai Bhago at the Battle ofMuktsar, 1705. 176 Figure. 4.3. Photo by Vince Talotta. 179 Figure. 4.4. Photo of Dalveer Kaur 187 Figure. 4.5. Photo ofBalpreet Kaur 190 Introduction Sikh-Cred: Wearing Religion, Wearing Gender "Listen," said Maneck, "why don't you remove your kara and hide it for the time being?" "It won't come off." He [the taxi driver] held up his wrist and pulled hard at the iron bangle. "I was planning to have it cut. But I have to find a reliable Lobar, one who won't tell the wrong people." ... The driver smiled. "Solid as a handcuff. I am manacled to my religion - a happy prisoner." (Mistry 676) Beginning a study of Sikh Women's religious identities by quoting Rohinton Mistry's "Epilogue: 1984" from his 1997 novel A Fine Balance may appear odd, but it is an ideal example of how religious symbols operate within narratives. The taxi driver explains to Maneck Kohlah, one of the four protagonists of the novel, that he is a Sikh and unable to remove his Kara. Of course, the taxi driver has to explain to Maneck that various riots have broken out and in and across India because of the attack on the Golden Temple and the riots were sparked by the assassination of India's prime minister by her Sikh bodyguards. Maneck, at this point in the novel, has been living in Dubai and has returned home for his father's funeral. Maneck relinquishes the Kara and accepts that the taxi driver cannot simply "wear long sleeves" to cover up his Kara because, as the taxi driver explains, he has to stick his arm out to signal his turns or else the police will stop him. In the conclusion of the novel, it becomes clear how an iron bangle or a beard could become identity markers that could get someone killed. The passage encapsulates the constructions of power between the taxi driver and Maneck, that is, a Sikh and a non- Sikh. It also demonstrates the power of ritualization on the body, that is, between the 2 religious item, the Kara, and the wearer, the taxi driver, and the religious item and the observer/reader, that is Maneck or the police or the reader of the narrative. This passage occurs at the end of the novel in the epilogue and the readers of the novel would have understood the plight of both Maneck and the taxi driver and would have gained some knowledge of Sikhism and Indian religious politics. The Kara provides the taxi driver with credibility as a Sikh, that is, "Sikh-Cred," and it is this idea, of wearing religion, that is at the core of this dissertation. Over the years, I, a Sikh woman, have shed the Sikh religious symbols; however, the last symbol, the Kara, is still around my right wrist. My religious detaching has stopped for now, and I am compelled to leave this one symbol in place. For non-Sikh people, the Kara is just another bracelet that any person might wear; however, I have found in recent years that the Kara signals to other Sikh people that I am of that faith. For example, when I was attending the South Asian Literature Association conference (SALA) in San Francisco in 2009, I was introduced to the creative writing editor of the South Asian Review. He was a Sikh man wearing a turban and immediately recognized my Kara and spoke to me in Punjabi. When I asked him how he knew I was Sikh he said, "Your last name and you're wearing a Kara, or did you forget?" I assured him that I did not forget. Reflecting on this interchange I was reminded ofMistry's novel and the passage quoted above; there I was, in another country, surrounded by academics from around the world, and because of my middle and family name, plus the Kara I was wearing, I was recognized as a Sikh woman. On the surface it would seem that these symbols are doing their job of categorizing people into religious groups.

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