08:

Colonial and Partition Era Overview

  • Review of last lecture (19th Century Movements)

    • Nirankaris
    • Namdharis
    • Singh Sabha ikhs and Anti-Colonialism
    • Ram Singh Namdhari
    • Rakab Ganj Gurdwara
    • Jallianwala Bagh Massacre
    • Udham Singh
    • Key to the Golden Temple Treasury
    • Akali Movement
    • Gurdwara Reform Movement
    • Ghadar Movement
    • Komagata Maru incident / Guru Nanak Jahaz Sikh Diaspora
    • Sikh Migration Waves
    • Guru Nanak Mining and Trust Company
    • Khalsa Diwan Society
    • Komagata Maru / Guru Nanak Jahaz
    • Ghadar Party
    • Gurdwaras of the Pacific

  • Today’s Agenda

    • Discussion: Colonial Impact on Musical practices
    • Sikhs politics leading up to Independence
    • Partition and Impact
    • Gendered Violence of Partition
    • Literary Works Discussion

Sikh-Muslim Musical Relations and Lineages

  • Painting discussion: William Carpenter (1854)

  • Photo reference: Noble Media Network (2023)

  • Sikh-Muslim Musical Relation

    • Darbar Sahib:
    • Sikh musicians (ragis)
    • Muslim musicians (rababis)
    • Rababis – musicians of the rabab

  • Image source: Purewal, 2011

    • Major Sikh line of Gurus and associated musicians (from Guru Nanak to Guru Gobind Singh and early followers):
    • Guru Nanak
    • Bhai Mardana
    • Guru Angad
    • Guru Amar Das
    • Guru Ram Das
    • Guru Arjan
    • Guru Hargobind
    • Bhai Sajada, Bhai Rajada
    • Bhai Saloo, Bhai Banoo
    • Bhai Satta, Bhai Balwand
    • Bhai Babuk
    • Guru Har Rai
    • Bhai Nathan, Bhai Abdul
    • Guru Harkishan
    • Guru Tegh Bahadur
    • Guru Gobind Singh
    • Bhai Sadha, Bhai Madha

  • Image source: Purewal, 2011 (continued) – additional names depicted (illustrative list of individuals associated with musical and spiritual practices around the Sikh tradition)

    • Bhai Sardar
    • Bhai Sadha, Bhai Madha
    • Guru Tegh Bahadur, Guru Gobind Singh
    • Bhai Bhaag
    • Bhai Atra
    • Bhai Chanda
    • Bhai Buta
    • Bhai Budha
    • Bhai Chand
    • Bhai Saeed Sooma
    • Innayat Bibi
    • Bhai Chand
    • Bhai Sunder Giani
    • Parveen, Shameem
    • Bhai Bakshi Bhai Mhd. Shafi Shaam Bhai Mhd. Hussain Jatti
    • Bhai Rehmat All Deisho
    • Bhai Ghulam Mhd.
    • Chand Gyaan
    • Roohi Moin Shahida Aneela Aalia Naeem
    • Mohsin Ehsan Aiman Areeba Bakhtawar
    • Muneeba Rabia Nauseen Mehreen Yasir Sameen
    • Hira
    • Naheed
    • Shaukat
    • Noman Shaan
    • Mano Mhd. Ali Farry
    • Asthma Ansar Hamza Hasan
    • Sikander Amber Seher Shehzad Husain Habib
    • Salma
    • Najma
    • Razia
    • Zakia
    • Talat
    • Tahir
    • Miraj
    • Amjad
    • Sajida
    • Majida
    • Lubna
    • Afzal
    • Farhat Aasif
    • Boy Aqsa
    • Zain
    • Hasan
    • Imran Rizwan
    • Irfan Ahmed Ainee
    • Tara Saima
    • Sohni Qamardin
    • Irshad Ali
    • Parveen
    • Jameel
    • Parvaiz Billay Nazir Bubbly
    • Zeeshan Ali Janoo

  • Akali Movement: Gurdwara Reform Movement

    • Akali Dal Party
    • Sikh Gurdwaras Act of 1925
    • Shiromani Gurdwara Prabhandak Committee (SGPC)

Akali Movement: Wins, Challenges, and Political Dynamics

  • Challenges of Akali Movement’s Win
    • SGPC Committee – religious affairs
    • Akali Dal Party – political party
    • Secular-Religious dichotomy
    • Religion and Politics split
    • Panth
    • Quam
    • From Panth to Quam

Sikh Stance Leading up to Partition

  • Key terms: Khalistan (concepts discussed), Azad Punjab

Partition Context: Players and Outcomes

  • What happened?

    • Akalis
    • Indian Congress Party

  • PARTITION AND THE RADCLIFFE LINE

    • British-Indian Empire, 1947
    • 500 Miles
    • PAKISTAN
    • Radcliffe Partition Lines 1947
    • Burma separated from British India (1937 reference)
    • Geography map references: ARABIAN SEA, INDIAN OCEAN, BAY OF BENGAL

  • TRTWORLD

    • Title: Cyril Radcliffe - The man who partitioned British India
    • YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agR_h5MTycM

  • Impact and Devastation

    • 14,000,00014{,}000{,}000 displaced
    • 1,000,0001{,}000{,}000 deaths
    • Largest displacement of people in the 20th Century
    • Artificial boundaries
    • Religious Nationalism
    • Gendered Violence
    • Nation-State Model of Polity

  • And what heaven is there for me?

    • A Sikh heaven or a Muslim heaven?

  • Partition for Sikhs and Loss

    • Historical Gurdwaras: Nankana Sahib
    • First Gurdwara at Kartarpur
    • Panja Sahib
    • Agricultural land in West Punjab
    • Fragmented Punjab – River and Water conflict
    • Caught in a majority-minority framework of India
    • Lahore Sikh-Muslim musical relation, e.g., Darbar Sahib

  • Demise of Sikh-Muslim Musical Relation

    • Is 1947 a decisive moment? Or a final blow to a process of religious transformation that had already started?
    • Navtej Purewal (2011: p.376) argument: “The demise of the rababi and other boundary-crossing traditions should instead be said to have begun as early as the late nineteenth century, making the 1947 partition the final blow to a lengthy process of institutionalization of religious practice and performance undermining such traditions, which crossed formal religious boundaries-in-the-making.”

  • OXFORD PUNJABIYAT: An Idea of Punjab

    • Farina Mir and Anshu Malhotra's analysis
    • Examples: Punjabiyyat reconsidered – History, Culture, and Practice; edited by Anshu Malhotra and Farina Mir

  • Amrita Pritam

    • The Revenue Stamp (autobiography concept)
    • Jnanpith laureate, winner of India's prestigious literary award
    • Ajj Akhaan Waris Shah Nu (Today I call Waris Shah)
    • Translation: Today I ask Waris Shah
    • Poem/collection: Pinjar, The Skeleton and Other Stories (Tara Press)

  • Excerpt: Ajj Akhaan Waris Shah Nu (Today I ask Waris Shah) – Amrita Pritam (content summary)

    • Today, I call Waris Shah, “Speak from inside your grave”
    • Urges Waris Shah to address Punjab’s grief
    • Describes field corpses, blood in Chenab, poison in rivers, and a land irrigated by gore
    • Vivid imagery of trauma and sorrow

  • Other Literary Works

    • Shauna Singh Baldwin: What the Body Remembers (2000 novel)
    • Set against Punjab’s Partition
    • Diasporic: Montreal

  • Some Ways of Reading Art & Culture

    • Window to thinking of self, other, and the world around us
    • Understanding structures of society, power formations, discourse and ideology
    • Commentary and critique of power structures and relations

Key Backdrop of the Novel (Can you hear the nightbird call?)

  • Colonial period (1914)
  • Guru Nanak Jahaz / Komagata Maru
  • Diaspora
  • Partition
  • Post-Partition (1984 Amritsar: Operation Blue Star; 1985 Delhi Air India bombing)

Themes in the Novel

  • The violence and upheaval of colonialism and language
  • Gendered violence and partition and trauma
  • Tensions between religious pluralism and religious nationalism
  • Emotional cost of diasporic separations and migrant experiences

Critical Thinking with Some Quotes

  • Quote 1 (Badami, p.33): “For this you need both languages, the language of our soul and that of the goras. This way you will be a two-edged sword.”

  • Quote 2 (Badami, p.7): “…her mother had said that gods from all religions were holy and it would not hurt to pray to them now and again.”

  • Prompt: Think with Reading from Week 1 (Review): “Women’s ‘popular practices’ as critique: Vernacular religion in Indian and Pakistani Punjab”

  • Vernacular Religious Practices

    • Vernacular religious practices as forms of critique and identity

  • Prayer Scene

Khamosh Pani (Silent Water) – Film Context and Analysis (Lecture Context)

  • Context and terminology

    • khamosh: silent
    • pani: water

  • Setting

    • Post-Partition Punjab, Pakistan, 1979
    • Village Charkhi, near Rawalpindi
    • Partition memory flashes

  • Language

    • Punjabi

  • Filmmaker

    • Sabiha Sumar
    • Born in Karachi; parents born in Bombay
    • Pakistani filmmaker and producer of independent films

  • Characters and Context

    • Voiceover: “Waheguru, Waheguru, Satnam” – Sikh chants
    • Key characters: chachi (aunt), Panja Sahib (Sikh gurdwara in Punjab, Pakistan)
    • Political figures: Zulfiqar Bhutto, General Zia
    • Ayesha – main protagonist (played by Kiron Kher)
    • Saleem – Ayesha’s son; Zubeida – Saleem’s girlfriend; Shabnam – close friend; Amin – husband of Shabnam and postman; Jaswant – Veero’s brother
    • Allabi and her daughter Shanno – neighbors who fetch water
    • Mehboob – barber

Preparation for Next Lecture: Khamosh Pani

1) Why doesn’t Ayesha go to fetch water from the well? Why does she refuse to go back with her brother?
2) Pay attention to the following scenes for discussion:

  • The prayer scene at the tree, followed by the scene at the mosque
  • Ayesha in her final scene, followed by Saleem
  • The juxtaposition of Zubeida and Saleem in the ultimate film scene (note silence and sound; contrast; how scenes are juxtaposed with neighboring scenes; political and symbolic messaging)
    3) What were among Ayesha’s belongings that were moved from the drawer into the box towards the end of the film?
    4) How is silence used in the film and what does it metaphorically mobilize?

Preparation for the Next Lecture: Film Analysis and Ecofeminism Readings

  • Film Analysis next lecture: Preparation Chapter 1

    • Punjab: Eco-cosmopolitan Feminism, pp. 23-51 in Rahman, Shazia. 2019. Place and Postcolonial Ecofeminism: Pakistani Women’s Literary and Cinematic Fictions. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

  • Preparation for next lecture: Watch Documentary: Amritsar 1984 Unheard Voices by United Sikhs

    • Library Reading List or YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKI2Ojx_DpY

Discussion Prompts (Colonial and Partition Period)

  • How was life in Punjabi village portrayed early in the novel?
  • How did migration abroad come about?
  • What happened to Nimmo’s mother?
  • What do you make of the lack of resolution at the end of the novel?

Lecture Take-Away Questions

  • Explain the wins as well as the challenges that arose from the Akali Movement.
  • What were some Sikh political ideas that circulated in the lead up to independence?
  • What was the impact and devastation of Partition?
  • Explain how colonial restructuring of religion led to the gendered violence of Partition.
  • What were some of the losses for Sikhs?