ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the relationship between a popular Punjabi folk genre called dhadi and practices of Sikh self-representation. The dhadi genre is just one of a number of popular Punjabi musical forms, yet it is particularly suited to address the relationship between popular culture and religious practices because of its rather ambiguous place in the contemporary landscape of religious politics in Punjab. While today, the genre is closely affi liated with the Khalsa Sikhs, and most dhadi singers have taken amrit (baptism), dhadi aesthetics and narrative repertoires refl ect a broader spectrum of religious and cultural practices of saint veneration in Punjab. Indeed, dhadi singers have a reputation of being mirasi bards from the lower social strata and “carriers” of a pluralistic Punjabi vernacular oral tradition. More recently this particular form has become associated with a rather exclusivist project of a militant Sikh separatist movement. This connection is very explicit in songs staged at Sikh gurdwaras, today more frequently in diaspora settings than in Punjab itself. The “militant link” is also manifest in some of the newly arranged videos and songs that are currently circulating on the Internet. As dhadi goes YouTube, and people in chat rooms comment on explicitly militant dhadi videos with “they rock” or “damn Khalsa is awesome,” the contexts of dhadi musical production and reception have obviously changed fundamentally compared to what used to be locally and regionally defi ned notions of aesthetic receptivity. Before I get into a discussion of the linkages between dhadi performative practice, Sikh religiosity and modern Sikh identity politics, let me begin with a few remarks on this particular circulation of dhadi sounds today.
