THE SIKH SEPARATIST INSURGENCY IN INDIA by JUGDEP S CHIMA
THE SIKH SEPARATIST INSURGENCY IN INDIA. Political Leadership and Ethnonationalist Movements
JUGDEP S CHIMA Associate Editor for South Asia, Asian Survey, University of California, Berkeley
The Punjab crisis, a two-decade long armed insurgency that emerged as a violent ethnonationalist movement in the 1980s and gradually transformed into a secessionist struggle, resulted in an estimated 25,000 casualties in Punjab . This ethnonationalist movement, on one hand, ended the perceived notion of looking at Punjab as the model of political stability in independent India and, on the other, raised several lingering socio-political questions which have great effect on Indian politics for decades to come, including the prospects of recurring ethnic insurgencies.
It describes in detail the trends which led to the emergence of the Punjab crisis, the various dynamics through which the movement
sustained itself and the changing nature of patterns of political leadership which eventually resulted in its decline in the mid-1990s.
Providing a microhistorical analysis of the Punjab crisis, this book argues that the trajectories of ethnonationalist movements are largely
determined by the interaction between self-interested ethnic and state political elites, who not only react to the structural choices they face,
but whose purposeful actions and decisions ultimately affect the course of ethnic group state relations. It consolidates this theoretical
preposition through a comparative analysis of four contemporary global ethnonationalist movements those occurring in Chechnya , Northern
Ireland , Kashmir, and Assam .
Look inside via Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sikh-Separatist-Insurgency-India/dp/8132103025
Dalit Chetna : Sarot te Saruup by Ronki Ram
Ronki Ram’s Dalit Chetna : Sarot te Saruup (Dalit Consciousness: Sources and Form) in Punjabi is out. This book is a detailed account of how Dalit consciousness emerged in Punjab, what turns it has taken over the last nine decades since the beginning of glorious Ad Dharm movement led by Babu Mangu Ram Mugowal and the rise of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar movement in Punjab spearheaded by Seth Kishan Dass of Bootan Mandi. The Book also provides an exhaustive account of some of the pioneer Dalit poets, prose writers and Dalit autobiographies as well as activists. Dalit Deras and the question of emerging Dalit identity figures prominantly in this field study based book in Punjabi.
The book is published by Lokgeet Parkashan, S.C.O. 26-27, Sector 34 A, Chandigarh-160022 (India) Ph. +911725077427, 5077428 e-mail and is very reasonably priced Rs. 200. Total Pages: 264.
Son Preference. Sex Selection, Gender and Culture in South Asia by Navtej K. Purewal
The preference for male children transcends many societies and cultures, making it an issue of local and global dimensions. While son preference is not a new phenomenon and has existed historically in many parts of Asia, its contemporary expressions illustrate the gendered outcomes of social power relations as they interact and intersect with culture, economy and technologies.
Son Preference brings together key debates on the subject of son preference by assessing existing work in the field and providing new insights through primary research. The book covers a broad range of social science discussions and draws upon textual and ethnographic material from India.
son
Call for Papers: Immigration and Visual Culture
agency, an online, peer-reviewed and interdisciplinary journal, invites submissions for a special issue on Immigration and Visual Culture. Technologies such as photography and film have played a crucial role in representing, constructing, and reifying the immigrant subject and immigrant experiences. Recent technological innovations, from YouTube and social networking sites to DVD and video downloading to surveillance technologies, have changed the ways in which immigrant subjectivities and experiences are constructed and disseminated.
agency invites submissions of essays examining the relationship between immigration and visual culture. How have immigrant subjectivities and experiences been represented and constructed by visual culture? How have immigrant subjectivities and experiences been transformed by technological innovations? In what ways does visual culture participate in the surveillance and regulation of immigrants and immigrations? What opportunities does visual culture provide for the articulation of immigrant identities or the resistance of dominant discourses of immigration?
agency is an interdisciplinary journal of the humanities and social sciences, and we will consider submissions working within or across any disciplines associated with the humanities and social sciences (and beyond). The ideal agency essay is scholarly and rigorous but also accessible and engagingly written.
Submissions should be 4000-5000 words and should be formatted in accordance with the seventh edition of the MLA Handbook.
The deadline for submissions is 1 May 2010. Please submit submissions via email to the editor, Dr. Douglas Ivison, at douglas.ivison@lakeheadu.ca.
agency is published by Lakehead University’s Advanced Institute for Globalization and Culture (http://theagency.lakeheadu.ca).
The Death of Sacred Texts: Ritual Disposal and Renovation of Texts in World Religions
Edited by Kristina Myrvold, Lund University, Sweden
• The Death of Sacred Texts draws attention to a much neglected topic in the study of sacred texts: the religious and ritual attitudes towards texts which have become old and damaged and can no longer be used for reading practices and in religious worship. This book approaches religious texts and scriptures by focusing on their physical properties and the dynamic interactions of devices and habits that lie beneath and within a given text. In the last decades a growing body of research studies has directed attention to the multiple uses and ways people encounter written texts and how they make them alive, even as social actors, in different times and cultures.
Considering that religious people seem to have all the motives for giving their sacred texts a respectful symbolic treatment, scholars have paid surprisingly little attention to the ritual procedures of disposing and renovating old texts. This book fills this gap, providing empirical data and theoretical analyses of historical and contemporary religious attitudes towards, and practices of text disposals within seven world religions: Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. Exploring the cultural and historical variations of rituals for religious scriptures and texts (such as burials, cremations and immersion into rivers) and the underlying beliefs within the religious traditions, this book investigates how these religious practices and stances respond to modernization and globalization processes when new technologies have made it possible to mass-produce and publish religious texts on the Internet.
• Contents: Introduction, Kristina Myrvold; Accounts of a dying scroll: on Jewish handling of sacred texts in need of restoration or disposal, Marianne Schleicher; Relating, revering and removing: Muslim views on the use, power and disposal of divine words, Jonas Svensson; A fitting ceremony: Christian concerns for Bible disposal, Dorina Miller Parmenter; The death of the Dharma: Buddhist sutra burials in early medieval Japan, D. Max Moerman; Rites of burial and immersion: Hindu rituals on disposing of sacred texts in Vrindavan, Måns Broo; Is a manuscript an object or a living being? Jain views on the life and use of sacred texts, Nalini Balbir; Making the scripture a person: re-inventing death rituals of Guru Granth Sahib in Sikhism, Kristina Myrvold; Disposing of non-disposable texts: conclusions and prospects for further study, James W. Watts; Index
Pre-order your copy: https://www.ashgate.com/default.aspx?page=637&calctitle=1&pageSubject=544&sort=pubdate&forthcoming=1&title_id=10521&edition_id=12399
Violence Against Women in South Asian Communities: Issues for Policy and Practice
Edited by Ravi K Thiara and Aisha K Gill, Foreword by Professor Liz Kelly CBE
‘This book is powerful, challenging and inspirational, and is an important contribution to debates on the complex intersections between ethnicity, gender and inequality, as well as on human rights and violence against women. Thiara and Gill and the contributors to this text skillfully unpick the flawed thinking and policy initiatives directed at gender-based violence over the past 30 years and especially in the post 9/11 period community cohesion and anti-terrorism initiatives.’
- Dr Lorraine Radford, Head of Research, NSPCC
‘This is a stimulating and provocative collection which explores the difficult concepts of ‘multiculturalism’, ‘ethnic identity’ and ‘secularisation’ in relation to gendered violence. The authors challenge myths and stereotypes about the ‘Asian’ experience in relation to interpersonal violence without oversimplifying or homogenising black and minority ethnic (BME) women’s experiences. Despite cataloguing the ongoing struggles against racism and misogyny, and the intersection of both, the editors conclude the text with optimism; an additional reason to recommend this text to all policy makers, practitioners, academics and students, as well as those interested in the provenance of BME anti-violence organisations and current UK policy.’
- Dr Melanie McCarry, School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol
Sikh Diaspora – Call for Contributors
I was recently approached by one of the editors of Brill’s History of Religions Series about the possibility of producing an edited volume on Sikh diaspora. As many of your know, the Brill series is a well-established and prestigious one. Nevertheless, a volume on Sikhism is notably absent from its long series list. A book on Sikh diaspora would begin to fill this gap.
I am issuing a call for contributors for such a volume. I am seeking papers with not only substantive content, but those that offer some theoretical or methodological reflections (broadly construed). I welcome contributions from a wide range of methodological and theoretical perspectives – from history to urban planning, from gender studies to performance studies, from comparative religion to the psychology religion, or from ethnomusicology to ethnographic studies. Papers of a theoretical nature dealing with the conceptual categories such as “diaspora” or “trans-nationalism” as they relate to Sikh diaspora are also welcome.
If you have a paper you are looking to publish, or have a conference paper you plan to develop for publication, please consider contributing to this project.
If this is something to which you would like to contribute, please let me know the general subject matter of the proposed paper. I would like to get a sense of the level of interest and participation in this project before proceeding further.
Dr. Michael Hawley, Associate Professor and Coordinator, Religious Studies, Mount Royal University, Email: mhawley@mtroyal.ca
Sonata for Four Hands by Amarjit Chandan
Amarjit Chandan’s long-awaited first full-length collection to be published in Britain comes with a preface by the distinguished writer John Berger, long-time admirer of Chandan’s work. Ironic, lyrical, sometimes angry or regretful, these poems, written in Punjabi but by a poet settled in Britain, add a new dimension to contemporary poetry.
Foreword by John Berger
Cover by Gurvinder Singh
ISBN: 978-1-906570-34-7
978-1-906570-35-4
Publication date: 1 October (pbk & hbk)
Dimensions: 138 x 216 mm
Pages: 160
The heart of Punjab – book reviews
Reviews of an authentic account of a Punjabi village and the first sizeable document about the historical and revolutionary Sikh National College
By heart of Punjab I do not mean Lahore, the terribly enlarged heart of Punjab. I mean a “Punjabi village” which by its community life and tradition, language and idiom — including a farmers and craftsman’s working life, vocabulary and folklore — represents the heart of Punjab.
Dr. Shamsher Singh Babra is a renowned economist, has been a Divisional Head at the World Bank, a visiting fellow at Oxford, a consultant at the UNO and has appeared as an expert at the British House of Lords. His Punjabi book, Vichchoray da Dagh, is about Chotian Galotian, his native village in Sialkot at Gujranwala-Sialkot district border where he lived until his graduation from Sikh National College Lahore 1947. Unblossomed Buds, his other book in English, is the first sizeable document about the historical and revolutionary Sikh National College. It is also the key to Vichchoray da Dagh, which is arguably the best book written about a Punjabi village with the ability to thrill and move its readers to tears.
The Punjabi village — as my generation born in the nineteen thirties, or the author’s, born in the twenties knew it — is almost dead now. Punjabi village died without anyone writing its obituary or, as in this case, its elegy. It is a historical document because, with an economist’s discipline, the distinguished doctor has collected data from fellow villagers all over the world.
http://jang.com.pk/thenews/jun2009-weekly/nos-28-06-2009/lit.htm#1
The third Sikh ghallughara: ‘Terror in Punjab’ by Ram Narayan Kumar
Book review by Pritam Singh
June marks the 25th anniversary of Operation Blue Star, the fancy name given by the Indian state to the military action it took at Amritsar’s Harmandir Sahib, or the Golden Temple, the Sikhs’ holiest shrine, starting on 3 June 1984. A quarter-century on, how do we describe this action, and what meaning do we attach to it? Do we describe it, as the ideologists of the Indian state continue to do, as a holy task undertaken by the Indian military to clear the temple of the militants who had taken control of it? Or do we describe it, as some Indian nationalists and leftists do, as a sad and necessary action to defeat an imperialist conspiracy to disintegrate India? Do we celebrate it, as some Hindu nationalists do, as a successful assertion of India’s Hindu strength against the Sikh minority’s separatist aspirations? Or do we condemn it, as Sikh and Punjabi nationalists do, as a genocidal attack on Sikh dignity, assertion and identity? Perhaps we decry it, as most human-rights defenders and leftists do, as a human tragedy resulting in the deaths of thousands of human beings – pilgrims, priests, Sikh combatants and Indian army men.
http://www.himalmag.com/The-third-Sikh-ghallughara-Terror-in-Punjab-by-Ram-Narayan-Kumar_nw2960.html
Digitised books on APNA Web
The following are some of the recent titles that have been uploaded on APNA Web:
ENGLISH BOOKS:
- The Panjab Chiefs – Sir Lepel H. Griffin
- Forty-One Years in India – From Subaltern to Commander-in Chief – Field Marshall Lord Roberts
- Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet – Captain Knight
- Early Travels in India 1583-1619 – William Foster
- Across India – Oliver Optic
- A Ride to India – Across Persia and Baluchistan – Harry D. Windt
- A Travels in Kashmir and the Panjab – Baron Charles Von Hugel
- A History of Punjabi Literature – Sant Singh Sekhon & Kartar Singh Duggal
- The Punjab Peasant in Prosperity and Debt – Malcolm Layall Darling
GURMUKHI BOOKS:
- Paare Gunhi Mitti – Zahid Nawazr
- Bracket De Baharvar – Jatinder Kaur
- Heer Sial – Swarn Singh Bains
- Pagri Sanbhaal Jatta To’n Azaadi Wal Autobiography of S. Ajit Singh, Uncle of Shaheed Bhagat Singh – Edited by: Jagmohan Singh
- Suran De Sodagar – Iqbal Mahal
- Inkalab Da Baani: Shaheed Bhagat Singh – Dr. Sohinder Bir
SHAHMUKHI BOOKS:
- Inkar: Pash
- Koi Dam Yaad Na Keeta: Zubair Ahmed
- Waila Simran Da: Samina Asma
- Suran De Sodagar – Iqbal Mahal
Interview with Tej Purewal on Son Preference
The Sunday Tribune Sunday, May 17, 2009 The daughter’s case by Nonika Singh
Punjab is a readymade topic for researchers,” quips academician author, a lecturer in development studies, University of Manchester. Documenting the obsession of Punjabis with a male child in a book titled Son Preference, this proud Punjaban is dismayed with the social inequalities that criss cross the social fabric of the state. “When it comes to social equilibrium, Punjab is a total disgrace”, she says. Born and brought up in the US, studying Punjab wasn’t a natural choice for Purewal. Till the early 1990s it didn’t even blink on her radar. It was only when she co-authored Teach yourself Panjabi with her father-in-law Surjit Singh Kalra, a well-known Punjabi writer, and did her doctoral thesis on Amritsar (it later became a book — Living On The Margins) that she became aware of the strong currents of Punjabiyat in her being.
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2009/20090517/spectrum/book2.htm
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