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Series:   Elements in Religion and Violence

Violence and the Sikhs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 March 2022

Arvind-Pal S. Mandair
Arvind-Pal S. Mandair
Affiliation:
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Summary

Violence and the Sikhs interrogates conventional typologies of violence and non-violence in Sikhism by rethinking the dominant narrative of Sikhism as a deviation from the ostensibly original pacifist-religious intentions and practices of its founders. This Element highlights competing logics of violence drawn from primary sources of Sikh literature, thereby complicating our understanding of the relationship between spirituality and violence, connecting it to issues of sovereignty and the relationship between Sikhism and the State during the five centuries of its history. By cultivating a non-oppositional understanding of violence and spirituality, this Element provides an innovative method for interpreting events of 'religious violence'. In doing so it provides a novel perspective on familiar themes such as martyrdom, Martial Race theory, warfare and (post)colonial conflicts in the Sikh context.
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Keywords

violencenonviolenceSikhismspiritualitymartyrdomconflict
Type
Element
Information
Series: Elements in Religion and Violence
Online ISBN: 9781108610353
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication: 21 April 2022

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