Fighting for Faith and Nation

By Cynthia Keppley Mahmood

Book Overview

The ethnic and religious violence that characterized the late twentieth century calls for new ways of thinking and writing about politics. Listening to the voices of people who experience political violence--either as victims or as perpetrators--gives new insights into both the sources of violent conflict and the potential for its resolution.

Drawing on her extensive interviews and conversations with Sikh militants, Cynthia Keppley Mahmood presents their accounts of the human rights abuses inflicted on them by the state of India as well as their explanations of the philosophical tradition of martyrdom and meaningful death in the Sikh faith. While demonstrating how divergent the world views of participants in a conflict can be, Fighting for Faith and Nation gives reason to hope that our essential common humanity may provide grounds for a pragmatic resolution of conflicts such as the one in Punjab which has claimed tens of thousands of lives in the past fifteen years.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0812215923
• ISBN13: 9780812215922
• Release Date: November 1996
• Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
• Length: 328 Pages
• Weight: 1.18 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Fighting for Faith and Nation

By far one of the best books I have ever read. This book is not for just Khalistanis, but for everyone who wants to know the truth. It is written by a non sikh and a non indian for that matter giving it a bi partisian view of the punjab situation past and present. It is a well written and easy to read book. At times this book was so intense that I had to put it down so I would not over flow with emotion. This is not for the weak of heart, there are eye witness stories of militants and survivors of tragdey. I have read other books on the punjab crisis but non come close to the one on one interviews that Cynthia has given. These stories will grip your heart and turn it around. Stories of brave Sikhs IN OUR TIME! Many times people think that the days of Baba Deep Singh are gone, but after reading this book you will know there are countless of those kinds of Sikhs, who are upholding what Sikhi really is, while we live in luxury and just proclaim our selves as sikhs with high heads. There heads pay for our heads tanding tall today. We have been humiliated by the Government of India, and the only reason that we can even walk with our respect today is because of what the freedom fighters in punjab did for us. Many times you will see non-sikhs wearing a kara, I once asked one of my south indian friends, why do you wear a kara, and his response was, this is the sign of bravery. What bravery? today we wear a kara and proclaim to be brave, and this comes from the lives others have given. So many people dont know the truth, and even some of our own sikhs choose not to know the truth because they are fearful that it might make them uncomfortable in there 'comfortable' life styles. How can we live easily while the rest of our people suffer? This makes people take the easy way out, and decide, its better if i dont know, then to be made to feel guilty. I think i have gone off on a different direction, but back to the book. If you know english, and are someone who proclaims to be a sikh, then you owe it to those people who died, to at least READ about them, and what they went threw. They have given their today, so that Sikh Panth could have a prosperous future.Put down the TV Remote and pick up this book. For the sake of humanity READ THIS BOOK... Please join our group: Khalistan@egroups.com or email me at Khalistanee@hotmail.comThe mission of the group is to inform people about Sikhs Struggle for Khalistan, and Injustice done to Sikhs and other minorities by INDIAN Govt.

walking in fire to promote understanding

I highly commend the hard work and courage it took Ms. Mahmood to dialogue with human beings whose way of thinking and being is so foreign to most westeners offering a glimpse into their world in their own words and not in judgement of them (though not in agreement either). If more dialogue like this occured, the way would be paved for better understanding and bridgemaking rather than bridgebreaking as is the common approach when politicians deal with so-called 'terrorist groups'.Dialogue and the groundwork that promotes understanding, humanisation and the promotion of dignity are the tools of peace in our global village.Thank you for taking the risk where others would not.

I Loved this book

I loved this book. It was very powerful. This book had a very unbyast opinion. I hope you read it. It has changed my thoughts on the Sikh problems.

Most interesting analysis of the Khalistani movement

C. K. Mahmood has, in her book, given us a glimpse of the real world of expatriate khalistani militants, heretofore distorted by Indian Govt./press propaganda. Her book is based on extensive interviews she undertook with different people who were involved in the movement at one time or another. The style of presenting the material reminds us of Shakespearean plays where, after the characters play out their parts there are asides to give the audiences the context. Not only has she brought out the travails of the militants but also her own uneasy position as a practicing anthropologist who, on the one hand, has to keep her distance to be objective, and on the other, has to show empathy to really understand the motivations of the militants. While her subjects are going through dilemmas of their own she has her own sets to confront with. She has presented the interviews verbatim as they were recorded and has given her own analysis after the interview. This gives her work some objectivity as people can then agree or disagree with her interpretation/analysis. She also develops the background of the movement with a brief introduction to the Sikh religion. She goes on to give background material about the Damdami Taksal, the genesis of Bhindrawale. It is interesting to note the different motivations of the militants. One was a very religious person, in common parlance he could be referred to as a religious fanatic. Another was a champion of Punjabiyat. By far all were deeply religious and derived their strength from their common history and heritage. One cannot feel but a little disturbed while reading some of the interviews as we can see the workings of communalism and the ghosts of the 1947 blood bath rear their head. The state comes out looking as very repressive and inefficient. Once a friend told me that the reason the police uses torture is that they are very inefficient in information gathering and hence resort to the most primitive means i.e. torture. Another point coming out was that most militants were in it as a reaction to state repression. But very few had a clear idea what objective they were fighting for, while they knew what they were fighting against. Along with the glimpse into the Khalistani militant community, she also gives us a glimpse into the rarefied ivory towers of academia. This happens in the last three or four chapters, which I found very interesting. As she contends, the study of anthropology was, in the past, heavily influenced by European colonialism. As a result anthropology was interested in "constructing" group identities. A clear example is the British's classification of Sikhs and others as "martial races". With the demise of the old colonialism, anthropology broke free of that yoke, and with the creation of the liberal nation state in the west, was more interested now in deconstructing group identities. This was completely at odds with the various nationalist/resistance movements in the third worlds which rallied