ABSTRACT
This chapter examines Bhai Vir Singh's novella, Sundri (1898), from the perspective of Sikh women's religious identity construction. Vir Singh played a crucial role in the Singh Sabha reform movement (1880–1920), a time of Sikh religious ferment and reformation. Sikh women's upliftment and enlightenment were central caveats within the aims of the larger movement; Sundri, Vir Singh's fictional heroine, became an important and idealized site of female identity construction. Through Sundri's example, pious action and unadulterated Sikh identity, a model of ‘true’, homogeneous Sikh womanhood came to be forged, one that was distinct from her Hindu and Muslim counterparts. Vir Singh's Sundri will be juxtaposed with a pixelated version, a recent animated film by the same name from Vismaad Films. As Vir Singh's novella played a significant role in creating a female ideal during the heyday of the Singh Sabha reform, the animated Sundri too can be understood as a highly particularized, contemporary construct of Sikh women's identity, created more than a century later, but similarly, during a period of intense scrutiny of Sikh women's religious identity.
