Education, Religion and Gender: The Sikh Kanya Mahavidyalaya in Punjab

Abstract

Schools are truly ‘microcosms of society’ since they reflect the larger dynamics of society. Women’s position in society also got replicated in their low participation in education among other fields. This article contextualises women’s education in the nineteenth-century Punjab. It briefly discusses approaches followed by various stakeholders like the Christian missionaries, the British and the social reformers in addressing this issue. Somehow, religious education remained intertwined with women’s education. The article seeks to demonstrate how religious socialisation happens through certain school processes and practices generating religious identities mediated by notions of gender. Established during the late nineteenth century, the Sikh Kanya Mahavidyalaya in Ferozepur started in a local Gurdwara but later emerged as a significant institution of girls’ education in Punjab. It nurtured ‘obedient’ and ‘religiously-oriented’ Sikh girls who then transmitted those values to the family and larger society. That is how it also cultivated a favourable environment for the schooling of girls. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, the article seeks to explore the dynamics of Sikh identities that not only get constructed but also get established within a school setting. Factors like religion and gender intersect to create a complex web influencing the realm of education.