Abstract
In October and November of 1984, after the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards, approximately 3500 Sikh men were killed in Delhi, India. Many of the survivors—Sikh widows and their kin—were relocated thereafter to the “Widow Colony”, also known as Tilak Vihar, within the boundary of Tilak Nagar in West Delhi, as a means of rehabilitation and compensation. Within this colony lies the Shaheedganj Gurdwara, frequented by widows and their families. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, I explore the intersections between violence, widowhood, and gendered religious practice in this place of worship. Memories of violence and experiences of widowhood inform and intersect with embodied religious practices in this place. I argue that the gurdwara is primarily a female place; although male-administered, it is a place that, through women’s practices, becomes a gendered counterpublic, allowing women a place to socialize and heal in an area where there is little public space for women to gather. The gurdwara has been re-appropriated away from formal religious practice by these widows, functioning as a place that enables the subversive exchange of local knowledges and viewpoints and a repository of shared experiences that reifies and reclaims gendered loss.
Highlights
In October and November of 1984, after the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards, approximately 3500 Sikh men were killed in Delhi, India
From 2012 to 2014, I lived in Delhi to conduct ethnographic fieldwork in this colony—a designated slum area in Tilak Vihar, Tilak Nagar, which was used to relocate many Sikh widows and their families after the 1984 anti-Sikh massacre
This paper arises out of PhD fieldwork conducted from 2012 to 2014 that focused on past experiences and current legacies of violence, gender, memory, space, affect, and religious practice among Sikh widows in this colony
Summary
The Shaheedganj Gurdwara lies just off the main road of Tilak Vihar, the neighbourhood in Delhi known as the “Widow Colony”. Similar to most other gurdwaras, one must cover one’s head and take off one’s shoes and wash both hands and feet, the small pool of water reserved for dipping one’s feet is generally dry here It is in this gurdwara that many of the Sikh families in the Widow Colony congregate. The women generally walk to the back of the room and bow to the cabins housing an oil lamp and the room where the SGGS is kept in repose at night They turn back to the front of the room, stopping at the large, lightbox-type photograph of the Harimandir Sahib. After the closing of prayer, the women again linger to converse before heading home—shorter this time, as it is getting late and gets dark early in the winters
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