Intersection of Faith, Gender, and Activism: Challenging Hegemony by Giving “Voice” to the Victims of State Violence in Punjab
by Navkiran Kaur Chima
International Studies Major, Miami University (Ohio)
Mallika Kaur’s Faith, Gender, and Activism in the Punjab Conflict: The Wheat Fields Still Whisper is a strikingly intense book that engages beyond the customary telling of Sikh history and the political turbulence of the 1980s. Instead, it delivers a creative and raw telling of “history” through both traditional historiography and, more importantly, ethnography of the comparatively “voiceless” and marginalized—in this case, the Sikhs of Punjab, Sikh women, and those activists confronting the might of the Indian state. Faith, gender, and activism serve as three common themes which are interwoven through this work, and have relevance to other cases of marginalization and human rights violations throughout the globe as well. Through these themes, the previously “voiceless” are given an opportunity to be seen, speak up, and demand justice.
Recommended Citation:
Navkiran K. Chima, “Intersection of Faith, Gender, and Activism: Challenging Hegemony by Giving ‘Voice’ to the Victims of State Violence in Punjab,” (book colloquium review of Mallika Kaur’s Faith, Gender, and Activism in the Punjab Conflict) , Sikh Research Journal, vol. 5 no. 2 (Fall 2020), pp. 87-91.