Legacies of a martial race: Sikh investment and implication in the US police state.

This article examines how the legacy of the Sikh "martial race"—a British colonial racial classification portraying Sikhs as naturally suited for military service—shapes contemporary Sikh subjectivity and commemorative practices in the United States. It focuses on how US Sikh advocacy organizations mobilize this legacy to campaign for the inclusion of Sikh identity markers (turban and unshorn hair) in military and police uniforms, framing Sikh service as a pathway to national belonging. Through case studies of the deaths of Houston police officer Sandeep Dhaliwal and migrant child Gurupreet Kaur, the article highlights selective memorialization that valorizes Sikh state actors while marginalizing others, revealing how commemoration is tied to proximity to state power and participation in US imperialism. The analysis critiques how such commemorative frameworks obscure Sikh complicity in historical and ongoing imperial violence, limiting possibilities for more critical and inclusive Sikh subjectivities.