Within the book, 'The Sikh World', Dr. Anne Murphy, Associate Professor in the Department of History at UBC and, explores Sikh participation in the practice of modern Punjabi literature, and the way this has provided a domain for the articulation of progressive interests and secular aspirations in her chapter, 'The Possibility of the Secular: Sikh Engagements With Modern Punjabi Literature'.
In this Q&A with Language Sciences, Dr. Murphy breaks down modern Punjabi language and literature, its relation with Sikh religion and more!
In what ways has modern Punjabi served as the vehicle for literary production?
The story of modern Punjabi literature begins in the colonial period, when new genres and subjects began to shape writing in the Punjabi language. In the dynamic print environment of colonial India, the Punjabi language thus served as a vehicle for diverse kinds of writing, despite being given little support from the state: the language of the colonial state of Punjab was Urdu. Significant attention has been given to the agonistic works of this period, which prefigure the division of the cultural and linguistic region of Punjab between the postcolonial states of India and Pakistan in accordance with religious identity. Such work, however, represents only a small part of the work produced in the Punjabi language in the colonial period, which was published widely in serial publications and later in books. One domain of significant activity was in modern literary production: work that engaged with global modern literary forms while simultaneously being grounded in Punjabi and South Asian literary commitments and cultural practices. This continued apace in the postcolonial period, particularly in India.
How does modern Punjabi literature function as a cultural historical practice?
Modern Punjabi literature, like many other modern literatures of South Asia, embraces modern literary sensibilities and commitments. In particular, it has been shaped by a pragativādī or progressive vision that has shaped South Asian modern vernacular literature in foundational terms, reflecting the prominence of All-India Progressive Writer’s Association founded in London in 1935 and meeting for the first time in Lucknow in India in 1936. This progressive commitment entails a revolutionary perspective on the past and present, towards the achievement of a new future not constrained by the hierarchies and inequalities of the past. In building this future, South Asian intellectuals in the closing decade of the colonial period sought to engage the past in critical terms. At the same time, they embraced it, as they embraced the lives and experiences of the marginalized. This was not a turn away from the past, but instead a move through the past, to a future. In this way, modern Punjabi literature, too, has engaged in critical terms with the past, and has acted as a kind of critical cultural historical practice, both documenting and engaging in analytical terms with Punjabi pasts.
Can you expand on the affinities between Sikh religion, and the relationship with progressive, Leftist thought?
Sikh intellectuals have observed the affinities between Sikh traditions and progressive thought, as embodied in the transformative vision of the Sikh Gurus, active from the fifteenth century to the beginning of the eighteenth. The compositions of the Sikh Gurus speak out against caste discrimination, for example, and foreground the importance of a community of equals. While all such ideals were fully realized, such as can be seen with the continuing problem of caste in the Indian state of Punjab today, these resources have proved powerful for those seeking to enact social change. For many Sikh intellectuals who have contributed significantly to modern Punjabi literature, their commitment to the construction of a more equal world is thus not simply a reflection of a modern Leftist ethos, but instead reflects a generations-long religious and social commitment that is grounded in a Punjabi and Sikh way of being in the world. Such affinities are not exclusive to Sikhism: religious modernists and progressives from South Asia have established strong affinities between a range of religious traditions and the quest for a more egalitarian world. Najm Hosain Syed (b. 1936), for example, is a Lahore, Pakistan-based poet, playwright and critic whose work grounds Leftist critique in Punjabi classical Sufi literature and its performance. In this way we see how social change, and the Left, function as emic systems of thought and practice in South Asia; any history of the global Left must account for such local articulations.
Why is the secular so important in Sikh engagements with modern Punjabi literature?
The secular promise of modern Punjabi literature was, in many ways, first articulated here in Canada and the United States, in the revolutionary vision of the Ghadar (“revolutionary”) activists who were prominent in the South Asian settler communities of the west coast in the beginning of the twentieth century. These activists, as articulated in their poetry published here in North America, sought the formation of a free, independent, and secular India, where religion would not divide. This tradition of the secular has remained as a foundational aspect of modern Punjabi literary production around the world. Punjabis today are divided from each other by the international border that divides the Punjabi region between India and Pakistan, a line drawn in accordance with religious identity. The aspirational and progressive ethos of Punjabi literature has sought to overcome the differences that have divided Punjabis along class, gender, and religious lines. For many Sikh intellectuals, the secular thus represents a possibility, and a creative act: a way to write against a border that divides.
Who are some notable Sikh authors/writers who have played a defining role in the formation of modern Punjabi literature in late colonial and post-Partition India?
Kartar Singh Duggal (1917-2012) was a leading short story writer and novelist in the first generation of writers in the years leading up to Partition/independence and in the early decades of the post-colonial period, with roots in the Rawalpindi area of the now Pakistani Punjab. Known for his realist fiction, and his attention to the experience of the marginalized and dispossessed, he was also a devout Sikh. The work he published in the period of conflict in Punjab is indicative of his passionate engagement with his world, and the complexity of his understanding of it. His work is the focus on my book chapter, to understand the complexity of his position on the political issues of his time, as a Sikh, and as a progressive.
Written by Kelsea Franzke