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Book Reviews - Sikhs In Asia Pacific P - 1234567891011
 

These figure in seven out of eighteen appendices of the book and extend manifold humanitarian services, such as offering food, shelter and religious assurances to Sikhs in critical times. The author's 'travels' broadly confirm Ballantyne's findings (2007) that large-scale enrolment of 'turbaned keshadhari Sikhs' 'became a potent signifier' of British imperial presence in the region. Their employment in British army and local police opened gates of migration while others flocked there as doormen and security guards in various establishments including mines and rubber plantations. Not a few were traced in bullock cart driving, though even fewer became contractors or worked as labourers in railway lines while many others were engaged in agriculture and dairy farming. Moneylending is another profession where migrants have played a crucial role in few countries of Asia Pacific. Like foundation of sacred space, it was one their home baggage which they managed to carry to Malaya (nowadays Malaysia), but achieved sharper edge in recent days in the Philippines. Agriculturist moneylenders were nothing unknown in colonial Punjab. It is likely that some of their successors could make room as microfinancers in different islands of the Philippines, besides Manila, the capital of the country. Kahlon was not lukewarm in tracing where Sikhs were 'professionally organized and successful in various walks of life such as business, education, civil services, military, education and the corporate sector'. Like Dusenbery (2008), he endorsed immigrant Sikhs' rise as 'a model minority community' in Singapore. They were predominantly local Sikhs of second or third generation who were ready to bear the community's educational expenses. The author found them socially progressive, economically successful and culturally conscious of their distinct heritage in Singapore. Their counterparts in Burma (nowadays Myanmar), Indonesia and Fiji did not add any new feather to their credit. In spite of long and intimate ties with these locations and moderate degree of success of a section of them in certain business and allied sectors, the author finds that their lack of access to modern educational facility and inability to question politically dominant bhumiputras' claims explain their growing marginalisation at the local level. It had sometimes made local Sikhs thrice-migrants to greener pasturages, such as Australia, Japan and other trans-Atlantic sites. In his journeys, Kahlon looked forward to meeting Sikhs with five Ks, but felt no discomfort when he found them without external markers. The author was not committed to restrict his narrative to Sikh success stories. On the contrary, he had shown that some of them were still negotiating with economic adversity or were haunted by local police in distant lands for being 'over-stayers' in their present residential location. The study brings out how the author has critically studied the impact of education leading to numerous changes in the socio-economic perceptions of migrant Sikhs...

 
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