Unsettling Sikh and Muslim Conflict : Mistaken Identities, Forced Conversions, and Postcolonial Formations

This book provides a critical investigation into Sikh and Muslim conflict in the postcolonial setting. Being Sikh in a diasporic context creates challenges that require complex negotiations between other ethnic minorities as well as the national majority. Unsettling Sikh and Muslim Conflict: Mistaken Identities, Forced Conversions, and Postcolonial Formations maps in theoretically informed and empirically rich detail the trope of Sikh-Muslim antagonism as it circulates throughout the diaspora. While focusing on contemporary manifestations of Sikh-Muslim hostility, the book also draws upon historical examples of such conflict to explore the way in which the past has been mobilized to tell a story about the future of Sikhs. This book uses critical race theory to understand the performance of postcolonial subjectivity in the heart of the metropolis. Unsettling Sikh and Muslim Conflict: Mistaken Identities, Forced Conversions, and Postcolonial Formations provides a critical investigation into Sikh and Muslim conflict in the postcolonial setting. Being Sikh in a diasporic context creates challenges that require complex negotiations with other ethnic minorities as well as the national majority. This book maps in theoretically informed and empirically rich detail the trope of Sikh-Muslim antagonism as it circulates throughout the diaspora. While focusing on contemporary manifestations of Sikh-Muslim antagonism as it circulates throughout the diaspora. While focusing on contemporary manifestations of Sikh-Muslim hostility, the book also draws upon historical examples of such conflict to explore the way in which the past has been mobilized to tell a story about the future of Sikhs. This book uses critical race theory to understand the performance of postcolonial subjectivity in the heart of the metropolis. Book jacket Introduction: "Shoot the Pakis!": the art of storytelling Deconstructing Sikhs: what's in a name? The development of the Sikh diaspora A history of conflict Explaining conflict Sweet seduction: "Forced" conversion narratives Accounting for Sikh and Muslim conflict Sikhs and the British ethnoscapes Sikh not Muslim: Questioning Sikh Islamophobia "Who is a Sikh?" Conflict between Sikhs and Muslims is often remarked upon but rarely investigated rigorously. Such conflict is typically described as being due to angry youth or ethnic hatred and religious passions. This book interrogates such explanations, by focusing upon the relationship between diaspora and the articulation of a postcolonial Sikh identity.