Understanding Punjab: A Historian’s Viewpoint
Sumail Singh Sidhu
The author has ended
up unintentionally pushing into background the specificity of
Punjabi radical tradition for the purposes of peasant protest in her
analysis. For instance, the impact of the Akali movement is treated
in essentially political terms alongside relevant questions that
arose about the manner of being a Sikh
Mridula Mukherjee’s
recent work on peasants in India’s non-violent revolution is a
welcome departure from the dominant tendency of treating the region
of Punjab as exotic – over-theorised and under-studied – an
exclusive, virgin area in recent scholarship. In part the relatively
late focus on Punjab effectively turned it into a testing ground of
other conceptual tendencies marked in studying the rest of India.
Variations of the colonial construction hypothesis, as seen in
Richard G. Fox and Harjot S. Oberoi among others, have been found
wanting in providing evidence from Punjab history in order to
authenticate their conceptual categories as well as theoretical
claims. Moreover, the close proximity of Punjab Studies with the
question of exclusivist identity or separatist politics, although
fruitful in opening up the space for social history of modern
Punjab, sidestepped the stellar position and activism of Punjabi
peasants during the colonial period.
Peasants in
India’s Non-Violent Revolution operates on
multiple axes. It is a robustly combative polemic against the
Subalternists as well as to a lesser extent
Marxist historiography
on the course of Indian anti-imperialist national movement.
 Second,
it is an advance over earlier works on Punjab peasantry’s political
trajectory and situates their struggle in a comparativist mode
within the Indian scene. Third, it provides a comparison of the
peasant movement in British Punjab with the princely state of
Patiala regarding the specificity of issues involved; the different
political contexts and the efficacy of stsrategies and methods
employed. These broad historiographical contestations serve the
purpose of making ‘an intervention in the theoretical debates
regarding the role of the peasants in revolutionary transformations
in the modern world.’ Although aware of the perils of
classification, shifting conceptual categories and the dangers of
treating a case study as a veritable model, the author makes an
effort to account for ‘a revolution based on a strategy of
non-violent action in which the central role was assigned to the
peasants.’
This narrative of the
political world of the Punjab peasant rests upon the official
records, newspapers, pamphlets, posters, private and institutional
papers. However, the extensively quoted oral testimonies of peasant
leaders, organisers and activists leavens the trajectory of the
coming into being of ‘modern’ peasant organisations in mid-1920s and
their progressive deepening, expansion and radicalising impact till
1947. Interestingly, this modernity was geographically confined to
the central Punjab districts where peasant proprietors provided the
essential armature for the kisan sabhas in striking contrast
with western Punjab where Muslim landlords held thorough sway over
social dynamics. The south-eastern districts also reflected almost
similar social formations. The latter areas were strongholds of
loyalist Unionists. The tenants lacked resources to resist this
formidable bloc. Seen in this manner, this study weaves the peasant
dimension into the workings of Punjab politics in the early 20th
century. One would also like to add that this narrative is
potentially fertile to opening up the social history of Punjab with
an emphasis refreshingly different from the pre-sent Punjab Studies
and Sikh Studies approach in vogue.
While the author has
diligently constructed her case in light of the historiographical
polemic around agrarian movements and their ‘organic and
dialectical’ relations with the national movement, it seems that she
has treated the Punjab experience to demonstrate the working of the
Gandhian method of non-violence; ‘autonomy’ of peasants vis a vis
‘control’ from above; role of outsiders, organisation, ideology and
so on, thus unintentionally pushing into background the specificity
of Punjabi radical tradition for the purposes of peasant protest in
her analysis. For instance, the impact of the Akali movement is
treated in essentially political terms alongside relevant questions
that arose about the manner of being a Sikh; the emerging relations
between anti-imperial political consciousness and egalitarian Sikh
values, as championed by radical Akali faction which later on moved
towards the left wing ideology; the popular discourse about
anti-imperialist nationalism right from 1907-08 agitation to
Ghadarites to Akalis to Communists is saturated with references to
and the contest over the thrust of Sikh history; the particular
agitational methods worked out during the Akali movement e.g.
dewans, langar, and sending jathas through the
countryside, were adopted by the peasant organisers in a seamless
manner.
 The sites chosen for
demonstrative action by peasants reflect the inspiration of the
preceding generation of Akali
activists. Even the testimonies employed by the author have
substantive details of the Akali
experience in the Punjab countryside. Nevertheless the exploration
of these linkages, though pivotal in etching the peasant consciousness in Punjab, is in this work a relatively under-studied
dimension. However, to be fair to author, she is primarily
interested in the politically organised dimension of their becoming
modern. Mukherjee authoritatively deals with the working-out of
Congress-Communist strategies on the peasant question. Since the
subjects of the study turn out to be Sikh peasant proprietors of
central Punjab, the Akalis are also key players. In this way, these
three political formations are contesting the value and legacy of
the Akali movement – the ignominious retreat of the dhadhi jatha;
Ruldu Khan’s inspiration from Akali movement and Sikh religious
tradition; Communists claiming to be authentic Akalis in Patiala
state, among others aspects, are mentioned by the author. The Akali
movement is turned into a reference point to determine the veracity
of the claims to being ‘better Akalis’, thereby reconstituting and
desectarianising Sikh ideology through their praxis.
The social history of
colonial Punjab is slowly gaining ascendancy through new studies on
gender, religious identity, caste question, and so on. Crucially,
the Punjabi peasants are shown to occupy considerable social space
for these phenomena to inscribe themselves. On the whole, this work
makes a substantial contribution to agrarian studies in India and
deserves serious attention in understanding Punjab.
(The author is a
scholar from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and is currently
teaching at Khalsa College, Delhi)
2
May, 2007
|
Read Also