Thread by @vjgtweets

With respect to the diaspora, my somewhat naive (i.e. based on personal convos and twitter) view is as follows: All dharmic peoples in America operate against a backdrop of a preexisting negative view of non-Abrahamic spiritual systems (cf. #HindooHistory) 1/n

https://twitter.com/omarali50/status/1520450364809510912

Add to this the underlying political incentive for newly arrived immigrant groups to create a strong identity for purposes of protecting and lobbying for their own interests-- however construed-- and latent antagonism (not all unjustified) towards the Indian state b/c of 1984 2/n

and you have the perfect storm. For a segment of the Sikh diaspora, this has generated a dynamic of what Jan Assmann-- renowned Egyptologist and Biblical scholar-- has called "antagonistic acculturation" (AA) with respect to hinduism. 3/n

AA is the label he Assmann uses to describe the process by which the early monotheistic religions (i.e. secondary religions) distinguished themselves from the primary religions (e.g. Greco-Roman polytheism, Semitic/Egyptian polytheism) from which they emerged. 4/n

And while Sikhi certainly displays elements of a secondary religion (founding event, centrality of scripture, concentration of power in a "church" that retains authority over said scripture), it is fundamentally different in that it does not espouse the Mosaic Distinction. 5/n

The Mosaic Distinction is what Assmann considers the truly revolutionary aspect of the monotheistic religions, namely the argument that all other gods but the One True God are false. 6/n

While there are certainly some Sikhs today who would frame Sikhi's relationship to the broader hindu spiritual system in this way, a straightforward reading of Gurbani IMO suggests that this is revisionist (e.g. the importance of Bhagauti/Chandi/Durga) 7/n

There's little doubt that this dynamic of antagonistic acculturation has yielded political benefits, especially as elite spaces dominated by the left have turned progressively anti-hindu (academia and journalism in particular). The explicit message is "we are not like _them_" 8/n

Obviously I think this is hugely unfortunate, but speaking as a neutral observer, I think there are serious costs to AA from a Sikh perspective as well, insofar as it inculcates a hostility/suspicion towards the broader dharmic spiritual corpus, which Gurbani builds on 9/n

For example, as someone who grew up mostly reading Vedantic texts, the consonance with Gurbani is frankly quite obvious, but I've been pretty surprised in my personal conversations with Sikh friends to hear that most of them are simply unaware of Vedantic ideas. 10/n

In the absence of that background and exposure to the broader puranic universe that the Gurus themselves were immersed in, it is far easier to characterize Sikhi as a protestant-like revolution against the pagan hindus. 11/n

I should add that there's another social dynamic here which is that the Indian diaspora in America is for the most part provincial, which I think contributes to the relatively higher degree of hindu-sikh tension in the diaspora than In India 12/n

In India, it's far more common to have mixed families, and there's also a long history in Punjab of shared traditions between all communities. Immigration patterns disrupted this since people tend to concentrate in specific geographic areas 13/n

To sum up, the issue is at once political (i.e. how community interests are defined), theological (what is the relationship b/w Sikhi and "hinduism", and sociological. Not a simple thing to address, but one that we must think about seriously and approach with open hearts /end

Addendum:

1) The Assmann references are from "The Price of Monotheism" (highly recommended)

2) I am open to engagement, but if you respond with simple-minded, chauvinistic nonsense I will block.

3) This is about the DIASPORA, not India. Indian followers: please keep in mind.

4) The hindu community in America is subject to the same dynamics. But lacking a unifying, centripetal force in the form of a "church" or set of fixed doctrinal beliefs, the effects are very different. Will do a separate thread on this at some point.

5) In addition to my own reading, my views on this topic have been heavily influenced by @Nanak_Naam. See this tweet, e.g.:

https://twitter.com/vjgtweets/status/1411774227842170883?s=20&t=XhLwHCDJEI57MZIt6LTOnQ

6) If you find this stuff interest, subscribe to my OTHER substack, "Frontier Dharma" at frontierdharma.substack.com.

I haven't written anything there yet, but it's the place where I plan to write on issues like the one discussed in this thread.