Keen to learn about their roots

By Roopinder Singh
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, July 7 — There is a group of foreigners in town. And they would like to talk with you in Punjabi. The Columbia-UCSB Summer Programme in Punjab Studies has brought in 18 persons to town this year.

Participants in the programme are more likely to say, “Ki haal hai ji,” than “Good morning.” It is a truly international group, consisting of persons from five countries and nine universities. “We have 12 persons from the US, three from Canada and one each from France, England and Sweden. Out of them, 13 of them are doctoral students, one a school teacher, one a social worker and two undergraduates,” says Dr Gurinder Singh Mann, the man behind the show.

The disciplines they belong to are equally diverse: religious studies, anthropology, comparative literature and Indian studies, ethnomusicology, sociology and linguistics, asserts Dr Mann, who holds the Kundan Kaur Kapany Chair in Sikh Studies at University of California, Santa Barbara, USA. Dr Mann started this programme four years ago while he was at the University of Columbia in New York, USA, where he taught in the Religion Department.

Nine of the group are of European and North American origin. For Kristina Myrvold, who studies Religious Studies at Lund University, this six-week programme will provide her with a broader picture of Punjab. Some time ago, the issue of Sikhs having the freedom to wear a turban at work arose in Sweden and she wrote an article on turbans for a local magazine, which brought about a wider awareness of the significance of this religious symbol of the community, numbering around a thousand persons in that country. In time, laws were amended to guarantee the right to (wear/display) religious symbols.

The attitude of the French is, however, quite different. Francisco Luis, who is from France, carries his scholarship lightly and displays a marvellous knack of mimicking accents. He talks of how various communities are facing problems due to the French schooling system that is “aggressively secular” in not permitting religious symbols being worn to school, including the Muslim dress for women and the turban.

This group goes through an intensive programme of lectures and classes, interacting with local scholars like Dr J. S. Grewal, who was delivering a lecture today, Dr Indu Banga and Dr B.N. Goswamy, as well as a wide cross-section of experts and creative persons, including Shiv Singh who would present his paintings, and Idu Sharif, who would sing to them. Eight of the participants are of South Asian origin. Preet Dutt is a teacher in Princess Margaret Secondary School, Surrey, BC, Canada; Prabhjap Jutla is studying religion at SOAS, London University; Anita Khandelwal is a student of anthropology and history at Yale University; Veena Dubal is studying in Stanford University; and Varun Soni is student of religious studies at University of California, Santa Barbara. They represent a generation of Indians of foreign descent that is keen to learn more about the culture and the milieu that they originally belonged to.

Gurdit Singh and Ami Shah were a part of the programme when it started in 1997. They have come back to teach Punjabi this time. “By now, 47 scholars have participated in this programme and we already have people lined up for the year. Last year, Ann Murphy helped me, and this year, Gurdit Singh and Ami Shah are helping me. “We have got great support from local scholars and by the time these people return after six weeks, they would have extensively travelled in the area, they would have met most of the important scholars and would know about Punjabi history and culture. The effort is not only to bring in scholars with a western orientation, but local scholars like Piara Singh Padam and Giani Gurdit Singh. I feel that I would have done my job if I can help produce a generation of scholars interested in Punjabi studies,” says Dr Mann. On a lighter note, as it was time to leave, there was talk about a woman wanting to change the area of research to Sikh air force pilots between the ages of 25 and 35.