7-BOOK REVIEW:                        THE NATION’S TORTURED BODY;

VIOLENCE, REPRESENTATION, AND THE FORMATION OF A SIKH “DIASPORA”:
BRAIN KEITH AXEL (2001) [297P] ISBN: 0-8223-2615-9

A BOOK REVIEW: KAVNEET SINGH

Brian Keith Axel is an associate professor of anthropology at Swarthmore College, PA with a doctorate from the University of Chicago. The well meaning Axel has made a valiant attempt to do a psycho-analysis and a postmortem on the thinking, motives and psychosis of the Sikh Diaspora in the western hemisphere in relation to the formation of the Sikh homeland called Khalistan; by using Maharaja Duleep Singh, cartography, torture of Sikhs by the Indian government, the ‘pub’ culture in the UK, and finally some of the politics of pushing the agenda of Khalistan in the West.

_As Dalhousie said: “Do away with that and he has no longer any outward sign of a Sikh_ _about him.”……..In other words, there was no evidence of the religious symbols (the Five_ _K’s’) associated with the_ _amritdhari body that Guru Gobind_ _Singh institutionalized in_ _1699. In the colonial discourse, the Sikh national feature did_ _not signify a Sikh religion._ _Indeed, as I have noted, in 1854 the Sikh,
Duleep Singh, was a celebrated Christian._ Brian Axel first introduces the reader to the psychology behind the subtle stripping of Maharaja Duleep Singh all the “kakkars” by the British monarch, Queen Victoria and her minions through the context of the famous painting of the Prince. Axel glosses over and does not go into detail by explaining how the child prince Duleep Singh was literally kidnapped and forcibly coerced and taken away to England as a little child. Every crooked method including Christian Priests and also a Hindu servant were used to coerce and cajole Maharaja Duleep Singh to successfully convert him to Christianity. All the vile and chicanery which was at the disposal of the British was used very effectively.
Once a Christian with literally no knowledge of the Sikh Faith other than the outward appearance stripping a person of their adornments which is of mere cultural significance does not carry any weight, just like Sadhu Sundar Singh a devout Christian walked around with appearance of Sikh. So stripping Sadhu Sundar Singh of his turban and other coverings would not make him less of a Sikh because he was never a Sikh to begin with. Furthermore the young Prince was too young to even be “formally initiated” as a Khalsa and was forced into Christianity and therefore the enactment of a Sikh Prince being stripped was moot, which was not missed by even an ordinary Sikh. Axel shows the remaking of a painting by British Sikhs of Prince Duleep Singh with some changes from the original painting by depicting the Prince in a better [Sikh] light seems to have a major effect on the Sikh psyche in reference to making their long lost empire more palpable in their own mind. Axel does not realize that the Sikhs believe in the “Chardi Kala”, i.e., an ever uplifting unbounded optimism.
This is inculcated to the Sikhs by their Faith. Anyone whether they belong to a distinct ethnic or a religious group like to hold onto and cherish ‘things’ that they hold dear, regardless of their place in the world. _By generating and visualizing constitutive relations of people and places, cartography_ _has not merely made possible a certain scopic recognition of the formative moment of the_ _“new order” of territorial allegiance_ _–_ _that is, the sight, both pleasurable and violent, of_ _subjectification. It has also constituted the anterior difference from which, in the fantasy_ _of the people as one, the nation-state must emerge. In national cartography, the_ _production of particular places, thus, also facilitates a displacement dramatized in the_ _nation-state’s fantasy as an abolition of places in the creation of a general place: the_ _Dominion of India._

Axel uses the power of cartography to depict the fact that Sikh home, gurdwaras and even a “pub” in the UK has maps of Panjab displayed on their walls. This conveying the fact that the minds of the Sikhs are always focused on the pursuit of a homeland. Its not uncommon for Sikhs have maps of Panjab albeit whether it is the current Panjab in India or the old Panjab of long gone adorning their walls somewhere in their homes and sometimes even the Gurdwaras. But that is true of many Indian ethnic Hindu and other non-Indian diaspora groups.        Therefore is one to surmise that all ‘other’ diaspora groups are yearning to form a homeland! That would be a very immature assumption to make by anyone. Does that automatically mean that a person is a Khalistani because he or she has map of Panjab which is not the precise official version blessed by the government of India.
That would make anyone and everyone a criminal and further how would ‘Indian law’ apply to someone not living there. A simplistic example would be a large extended family adorning their walls with a photograph of an ancestral home which has been touched up to further enhance the quality, albeit not theirs anymore; but does that automatically mean that now after many years bygone, they all yearn to go and take over that; anyway they can if they have to. Now that is pure hogwash.