{"id":9906,"date":"2016-09-15T22:05:59","date_gmt":"2016-09-15T16:35:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak?p=9906"},"modified":"2018-08-28T16:21:43","modified_gmt":"2018-08-28T10:51:43","slug":"voices-sikh-turban-masculinity-transnational","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/voices-sikh-turban-masculinity-transnational\/","title":{"rendered":"What the Sikh Turban Means to Masculinity in These Transnational Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>In 2009, I was conducting doctoral research in Chandigarh (the capital of the Indian state of Punjab), interviewing young migrant men from across the region. As I was talking to them about their future aspirations and desire to be part of the transnational migration complex[1]<\/a> that now defines what it means to be a successful Punjabi man, I came across a set of curious cultural phenomena. Most of the young Sardars (turban-wearing Sikh men) I met and spoke to had cut their previously unshorn hair within months, if not weeks of arriving in Chandigarh.<\/p>\n

For many aspiring migrants, Chandigarh represents an in-between place, a \u201cknowledge society\u201d[2]<\/a> of sorts, where young men can acquire the educational and vocational skills they need to qualify for a study-abroad or work visa. Furthermore, even after forgoing their unshorn hair, these men and other returning migrants (colloquially referred to as Non-Resident Indians or NRIs) would continue wearing their turbans, especially when travelling through Chandigarh and while visiting their families across rural Punjab. I was puzzled by this revelation that a mona<\/em> Sikh (colloquially referred to as a \u2018cut Surd\u2019 or a shorn Sardar) would choose to continue wearing a turban.<\/p>\n

While the Sikh scriptures sternly denounce the cutting of hair, this practice has grown increasingly common, and by some unofficial estimates, over 75% of Sikh men cut off their hair. Despite its denunciation within orthodox families and communities, Sikh men who cut their hair are rarely denied their claims to their religious identity, and most continue practising Sikhism, observing all other aspects and teachings of the religion.<\/p>\n

The significance of the turban within Sikhism and in the formation of Sikh identity has been a topic of ongoing debate among historians and scholars of Sikh studies. Some refer to it as the most important symbol of identity, while others call it an antiquated head-covering meant to protect kesh<\/em> (unshorn hair), the more genuine (albeit hidden) symbol of Sikh identity. In religious and cultural debates and representations of the Sikh turban, this symbolic object rarely appears disassociated from its counterpart, kesh<\/em>. I had assumed up until I started my research that most Sikh men who cut their hair simultaneously give up wearing turbans altogether.<\/p>\n

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As I have documented in my 2010 documentary film Roots of Love<\/a><\/em>, reasons for cutting unshorn hair vary widely. However, over the last decade and a half, as transnational migration becomes an aspiration for the majority of families across rural Punjab, the fear of being discriminated against by foreign immigration officials, as well as the fear of being subjected to racism, xenophobia and hate crimes upon arriving on foreign shores[3]<\/a> seems to dominate the list of justifications Sikh migrants offer for preemptively cutting their hair.<\/p>\n

Secondary to that are often more practical concerns about the desire to \u201csave time\u201d and adjust to the \u201cbusy pace of life\u201d that awaits them upon arriving in countries like Canada or the United States, where labour migrants often quantify their working hours in strictly monetary terms.<\/p>\n

So, in this sense, if the turban-tying ceremony represents the official rite of passage from Punjabi\/Sikh boyhood into Punjabi\/Sikh manhood, the practice of cutting unshorn hair upon arriving in Chandigarh signifies yet another (albeit unofficial) rite of passage from Punjabi\/Sikh manhood into migrant manhood \u2013 a physical transformation of sorts necessary to become a successful transnational migrant.<\/p>\n

Given this ongoing cultural shift, anxious religious leaders and Sikh organisations across Punjab and in the diaspora have led concerted campaigns<\/a> to counteract the misconceptions associated with the turban and encourage young men to retain their unshorn hair or readopt the turban as a symbol of their identity. While well-intentioned, the cumulative effect of such interventions can be reduced to further obsession with and glorification of the Sikh turban \u2013 a sole masculinist religious symbol, at the risk of overlooking and sidelining more pressing concerns confronting the Sikh community including issues of gender and caste inequality rooted in heteronormative, patriarchal, elitist traditions and cultural practices in Punjab.<\/p>\n

Circling back to my observations in the opening of this article, while the choice to forgo their unshorn hair in anticipation of transnational mobility seems intuitive, how do we make sense of the more ambiguous cultural practice of these men choosing to wear their turbans after having cut their formerly unshorn hair, while walking around Sector 17 market (a popular spot in Chandigarh), or hanging out at Punjab University\u2019s student union, or cursing in a jeep or on a Bullet motorcycle riding down Chandigarh\u2019s infamous gerdi<\/em> (a colloquial term for cruising) route? Why would an NRI tie a turban before getting on the plane headed back home to Punjab (something I have documented on several occasions during my flights to India)?<\/p>\n