Virdee

This book revisits the partition of the British Indian province of Punjab, its attendant violence and, as a consequence, the divided and dislocated Punjabi lives. Navigating nostalgia and trauma, dreams and laments, identity(s) and homeland(s), it explores the partition of the very idea of Punjabiyat. It was Punjab (along with Bengal) that was divided to create the new nations of India and Pakistan. In subsequent years, religious and linguistic sub-divisions followed - arguably, no other region of the sub-continent has had its linguistic and ethnic history submerged within respective national and religious identity(s). None paid the price of partition like the pluralistic, pre-partition Punjab. This work analyses the dissonance, distortion and dilution witnessed by Punjab and presents a detailed narrative of its past.