Art and Architecture of South Asia Changes and Continuity

South Asia Across the Disciplines

by R.N. Dhar

This rich cultural history set in Punjab examines a little-studied body of popular literature to illustrate both the durability of a vernacular literary tradition and the limits of colonial dominance in British India. Farina Mir asks how "qisse," a vibrant genre of epics and romances, flourished in colonial Punjab despite British efforts to marginalize the Punjabi language. She explores topics including Punjabi linguistic practices, print and performance, and the symbolic content of "qisse." She finds that although the British denied Punjabi language and literature almost all forms of state patronage, the resilience of this popular genre came from its old but dynamic corpus of stories, their representations of place, and the moral sensibility that suffused them. Her multidisciplinary study reframes inquiry into cultural formations in late-colonial north India away from a focus on religious communal identities and nationalist politics and toward a widespread, ecumenical, and place-centered poetics of belonging in the region.

Genres: History, India, Pakistan

280 pages, Hardcover

First published July 4, 2010

Reviews

[Mandeep Kalra · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent cultural history of the Punjabi language during British Raj. Farina Mir, drawing upon extensive archival and literary textual research limns the creation of the Punjabi literary formation (exemplified by the Punjabi epic, Heer-Ranjha) and the extraordinary resilience of the Punjabi language.

Only annexed by the British in 1849, Punjab was an exception to their general language policy in Britain. Urdu and not the vernacular Punjabi was declared to be official language of the province, and it was used for provincial administration. One reason the British did this was because they already had a cadre of bureaucrats well-versed in Urdu, who they could immediately shift to the newly conquered Punjab. Moreover, they saw Punjabi as the particular language of their erstwhile enemies and former rulers of Punjab, the Sikhs. Because of this language policy, Urdu became the prestige language and the one of advancement in Punjab. Punjabi lost all forms of state patronage.

But despite this, the Punjabi language proved to be remarkably resilient. One of Mir's contributions is to show how it and the Punjabi literary formation operated outside of the confines of the colonial state, thus highlighting its limits.

Although it lagged behind the concomitant Urdu one, the Punjabi book trade continued to prosper. Poets continued to produce their own versions of the Heer-Ranjha story. And in an excellent section, Mir demonstrates how Punjabis of different castes and religious affiliations, gathered together, made up the audiences of oral performances of the Heer-Ranjha tale. Far from being the language of just the Sikhs, Punjabi was spoken and enjoyed by Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs alike. Indeed, the Punjabi literary formation contributed to a place-centered sense of belonging that transcended religious lines.

Mir then very deftly utilizes literary analysis of the various Heer-Ranjhas tracts produced and performed during British Raj to interrogate what other historians have had to say about women and zat during this time period. She also traces the Sufi, Hindu, and Sikh religious symbolism in these tracts. Finally, Mir examines the role of Punjabi in post-colonial India and Pakistan.

While she writes clearly, sometimes Mir's monograph gets a bit too dissertationy as she spends too much time summarizing the findings and arguments of other academics and then contrasting her contentions with theirs. Some of these historiographical debates could have been confined to the endnotes. Also, at times, Mir conjectures too much. Whenever, she does this, for example, with how the Punjabi book trade operated, it is for the understandable reason that the record has not been preserved. Nevertheless, I felt like this happened one too many times.

Regardless, Mir's monograph is a brilliant and enjoyable work that contributes much to our knowledge of British colonial Punjab.

[Noorie Dhingra · Rating 3 out of 5]

dense / took me two years to get into but well-researched knowledge