Lajpat Rai in USA 1914 -1919: Life and Work of a Political Exile
by Harish K. Puri
The five year long stay of Lajpat Rai in America (including a six month sojourn in Japan) was a period of an unanticipated exile contrived by conditions created by the World War. When he sailed from London for New York in November 1914, it was proposed to be a six month trip to collect material for a book on America. But he was not allowed to return to India until the end of 1919. The nature of his life and work in USA was shaped as much by the constraints and challenges in the American situation as by his priorities and the state of his mind. A contextual approach to the study of his work for the national cause of India in USA may be more appropriate for the present exploration.
Read full article: Puri lala lajpat rai
About the author: Harish K. Puri retired as Professor of Political Science and Chairman Dr. B. R. Ambedkar Chair, Guru Nanak Dev University. His research publications include seven books and over 120 research papers and popular articles. Noticeable among the books are Ghadar Movement, Ideology, Organization and Strategy; Terrorism in Punjab – Understanding Grass root Reality (co-authored); Social and Political Movements (edited) and many more.
Punjabi Khoj Garh
Punjabi Khojgarh is centre of research, publication and advocacy on the history, culture, literature, music, and art of the Punjab. It was established on the 10th March 2001 under the initiative of celebrated poet and historian Mr Iqbal Qasier . It is maintained by the Punjabi Khojgarh Trust and individuals who work voluntarily to maintain and upkeep the Centre. They have lauched a new blog:
http://punjabikhojgarh.blogspot.com/
Photos of Khojgarh and from a recent conference on Guru Nanak which drew guests and speakers from around the globe including India.
PUNJABI POETRY ON WAR by Amarjit Chandan
I hail from a cursed land – partitioned land of five rivers – the Punjab. Since 1947, the East Punjab is in India, and the West Punjab is in Pakistan. Being the gateway from the northwest to the Indian sub-continent, for three millennia foreign invaders played havoc to its natives. First came the Aryans about fifteen centuries before the birth of Christ and occupied most of northern Hindustan. Other races – the Persians, the Greeks under Alexander the Great, Bactrians, Scythians, Mongol Huns, Mughals, and Afghans, followed them. In the end came the British. They occupied the Punjab in 1849 ruling over it for a century and left in 1947 dismembering it.
Summing up Punjabi people’s centuries old catastrophic history in just five sentences may seem rigorous, but even volumes will betray inadequacy of language to express the loss. A royal throne looted from Delhi and gifted to the Sultan of Turkey by Nadir Shah of Iran lying in the Topkapi Palace museum in Istanbul is a URL [universal resource locator] link to the troubled history of the Punjab.
Read full article: http://sikhfoundation.org/article-Amarjit_Chandan.asp
Revealed: the woman who terrified the British Empire
A new biography explains how Jind Kaur, last queen of the Punjab, died in Victorian London By Jerome Taylor
The Independent, Monday, 25 May 2009
On 1 August 1863, shortly after 6:15 in the evening, a frail and partially-blind queen who had spent much of her life raging against the British Empire, died in her bed on the top floor of a Kensington townhouse.
It was a peculiar and remarkably quiet end for a woman once the scourge of the British Raj in India. Only 15 years earlier, Jind Kaur, the Maharani of the Punjab, had encouraged the Sikh Empire to wage two disastrous wars against the British which led to the annexation of the Punjab and Jind being torn from her son when he was just nine-years-old.
Adopted by a dour colonial surgeon, that son, Duleep Singh, swiftly shed his Punjabi customs, converted to Christianity and moved to England to live the life of a respectable country squire, shooting grouse on his estate and hosting decadent parties for Britain’s Victorian elite. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/revealed-the-woman-who-terrified-the-british-empire-1690412.html
Get the book: Sovereign, Squire and Rebel: Maharajah Duleep Singh and the Heirs of a Lost Kingdom by Peter Bance (2009) http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sovereign-Squire-Rebel-Maharajah-Kingdom/dp/0956127002/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1244583908&sr=8-1
Harish K. Puri, ‘The Scheduled Castes in the Sikh Community – A Historical Perspective’
East Punjab is a Sikh majority state. After its re-organisation in 1966, (when the Hindi speaking areas were separated to constitute the new state of Haryana and some of the hill areas were transferred to Himachal Pradesh), the religious composition of the state was radically altered. The Sikhs constituted 63 per cent of the state’s population at present. Their share in the rural population is higher; about 72 per cent. The Dalits or the Scheduled Castes have a high proportion of population in the state, 28.3 percent in 1991 which is projected to have increased to over 30 percent in 2001, the highest among the states in India. Over 80 per cent of them lived in the rural areas. Punjab’s villages are, therefore, predominantly Sikh and Dalit. An understanding of the status of the Scheduled Castes in the Sikh community in particular, and the impact of Sikhism on dalits in Punjab in general, should help us in appreciation of the regional specificity of the status and conditions of life of the Scheduled Castes in the state as also the limitations of the book view of caste.
Read full article: Puri scheduled castes in sikh community
Moving Journeys An Exhibition of Photographs of the Colonial Punjab
Bakshi Mulray (Governor of Gilgit) & Mehal Singh (Commanding Radur Regiment) in the Vale of Kashmir
Venue: Old Social Science Wing, LUMS Time: 6 pm, June 4, 2009
RSVP: kalra@lums.edu.pk
Photographs of the Punjab taken by London’s Royal Geographical Society (RGS) members during the late 19th and early 20th centuries form the core of the exhibition. The RGS images provide a glimpse of the Punjab province through the ages, capturing the changes brought on by different empires and the impact of internal and external migration. To help interpret the pictures, the exhibition also makes use of travelogues collected and written by RGS members during the colonial period.
The images record a wide range of events in the Punjab?s past and reflect the way these were linked to British history. For instance, during both World Wars, over 50% of the Indian Army was recruited from this region. Workshops held with Punjabi veterans of military service for Britain were consulted and their testimonies have been used to interpret this aspect of Punjabi history. India and Pakistan?s stormy relationship is traced in images relating to 1947?s Partition when over 500,000 people died in the violent upheavals and the region saw 15 million people migrate.
The RGS has allowed the exhibition to be produced and shown across Pakistan and the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences is proud to be able to host and launch the exhibition in Pakistan.
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
Singh will be King! By Akrita Reyar
A sympathetic piece by Zee news.
There are ever only a few men, in history or even in contemporary times, who have been so prodigiously placed in a position of the greatest power and at a time when the wheel of history is set for a decisive turn.
Neither a man of lineage, nor wealth or even mighty inheritance, Dr Manmohan Singh had little to boast, but for his sharp intellect, quiet wisdom combined with an unalloyed determination to serve his nation that was standing at crossroads, when destiny beckoned him to shape India’s course.
Read full article: http://www.zeenews.com/zee-exclusive/2009-05-14/521279news.html
A related piece discussing the dominance of Punjabi culture appeared in Express Buzz last month, Oye India, Singh is King by VIR SANGHVI. It is interesting to note the different comments expressed in Express Buzz and Sikhchic who picked up the piece and also posted it on their website. Links to both are below.
The last time I went to Colombo (Sri Lanka) a few years ago, I looked at the streets and the people and said to myself, I could be in India. Though a large part of the population of northern Sri Lanka is of Tamil origin, it was Kerala that much of the south reminded me of.
But I still had a nagging feeling that something was different: that somehow I was not in India.
It took me a while to figure it out. But then it hit me with a compelling suddenness: not one woman was wearing a salwar kameez (the Punjabi two-piece shirt-and-trouser version commonly worn by Sikh women)
Kanwal Dhaliwal – painter and sculpter
Do have a look at the Kanwal Dhaliwal’s website http://www.art-d-kanwal.com/
He is a contemporary Indian artist living in London and draws on many themes including the co-existence of multiple identities which creates both diversity and conflict.
Micro-History: The Evolution of a New Genre by Bhagwan Josh
Presented at the Professor JS Grewal Seminar, 19-21st March, 2009. Guru Nanak Dev University Amritsar
In their attempts to come to terms with multi-dimensional power relations and the changes that occur within them over time, Societies as well social groups continue to grapple with the following important questions: Who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going? This ‘we’ is pre-eminently a cultural artefact. Many a times these are called questions that concern the identity of a society or a social group. In the process of debates and discussions while answering these questions, societies generate stories or narratives about themselves as well as about others in their immediate or distant environment. Poets and writers of the past and the present, balladeers of the bygone days as well as historians of the modern period, have all fulfilled this deep-seated social need by shaping up suitable and desirable ‘mirrors’ of the past. Creating stories or narratives in the pre-colonial period took the form of various genres.
Read full paper: micro-history-b-josh
Baba Nanak Remembered by Shafqat Tanvir Mirza
‘Baba Nanak Remembered’ by Shafqat Tanvir Mirza in The Dawn, April 23, 2009.
Book review – Rural Development in Punjab: A Success Story Going Astray
Eds Autar S. Dhesi and Gurmail Singh. Routledge India.
FOR long, Punjab remained a source of inspiration for rest of the states in India. The role played by its sturdy farmers to make the country self-dependent in the food sector is an amazing success story. Owing to its hard-working people, Punjab remained a leader state for several decades in the country. Following its rising status, various states strived hard to move ahead on the development front.
Read full review in The Sunday Tribune: http://www.tribuneindia.com/2009/20090412/spectrum/book4.htm
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