A revised version of the author's doctoral dissertation submitted in the Department of Political Science at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, this book aims to “account for the construction, demise and persistence of a Sikh national identity within India and the diaspora” (p. xii).
In the introduction, Shani registers his dissatisfaction with existing interpretations of Sikh nationalism, and in subsequent chapters, he presents his “rethinking” of the theme. The first part of the book (chapters 2–4) focuses on the Punjab and starts with the figure of Guru Nanak (1469–1539). Based largely on W. H. McLeod's reading of early Sikh history, he reports how the Nanak panth (“devotees of a specific spiritual leader,” p. 20) came into being as one among many panths of the time. For Shani, the inauguration of “the new order of the Khalsa” (p. 24) by Guru Gobind Singh (1666–1708) resulted in...
