Beyond Punjab: Sikhs in East and Northeast India PDF
Preview Beyond Punjab: Sikhs in East and Northeast India
Beyond Punjab This book focuses on Sikh communities in east and northeast India. It stud- ies settlements in Bihar, Odisha, West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, and Manipur to understand the Indian Sikhs through the lens of their dispersal to the plains and hills far from Punjab. Drawing on robust historical and ethnographic sources such as official documents, media accounts, memoirs, and reports produced by local Sikh institutions, the author studies the social composition of the immigrants and surveys the extent of their success in retaining their community identity and recreating their memories of home at their new locations. He uses a nuanced notion of the internal diaspora to look at the complex relationships between home, host, and community. As an important addition to the study of Sikhism, this book fills a signifi- cant gap and widens the frontiers of Sikh Studies. It will be indispensable for students and researchers of sociology and social anthropology, history, migration and diaspora studies, religion, especially Sikh Studies, cultural studies, as well as the Sikh diaspora worldwide. Himadri Banerjee, formerly Guru Nanak Professor of Indian History, Department of History, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India. Beyond Punjab Sikhs in East and Northeast India Himadri Banerjee First published 2023 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 Himadri Banerjee The right of Himadri Banerjee to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-032-35663-1 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-38983-7 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-34784-2 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003347842 Typeset in Sabon by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India For Bula and her fifty years’ life with me Contents Preface viii Glossary x Introduction: Beyond Punjab xvii 1 Bihar 1 2 Odisha 27 3 Kolkata 55 4 Assam 80 5 Shillong 107 6 Manipur 131 Conclusion 157 Bibliography 164 Index 180 Preface My journeys with the Sikhs residing beyond Punjab in India began and witnessed a few turnings and twists. These started in the early 1980s through my gleaning of different genres of printed literary works portray- ing their authors’ wide-ranging perceptions of the history of the Sikhs of Punjab. Initially, I had preferred to restrict my search to sources available in four neighbouring Indian languages, viz. Assamese, Bengali, Hindi, and Odia, which are known for many commonalities and differences. In the early 1990s, I had the privilege of accessing many similar materials on the Sikh past preserved in the Marathi Grantha Sangrahalaya, Mumbai, and the Deccan College Library, Pune. I was excited to bring out two sepa- rate volumes, delineating how the perceptions of the history of the Sikhs of Punjab were widely read and shared among a section of educated middle- class Indians. Residing in distant parts of India, the Sikhs struggled to forge many overarching imagined linkages among themselves. In the late 1990s, I decided to restrict my first volume to Assamese, Bengali, and Odia sources to keep its size small and handy. I decided to reserve the Hindi and Marathi materials for another volume. By the end of July 1999, the final draft of the manuscript of the first vol- ume of The Other Sikhs was ready for the publisher. Instead of delivering it immediately, I sent a copy to three social science scholar friends. One drew my attention to a few Sikh groups: if their emigration from Punjab and set- tlements outside the region were critically studied, unknown aspects of their history might come to the fore. That call to explore uncharted terrain has led, two decades later, to this second volume of The Other Sikhs. Initially, I had planned to include eight provinces of eastern and north- eastern India, namely Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, and Nagaland. I visited most of the major Sikh settlement locations of these states. Later on, I had to modify the plan to exclude Jharkhand and Nagaland for different reasons, but looked forward to include these Sikh settlements in another ongoing study dealing with the larger process of Sikh dispersion beyond Punjab in the rest of India. Preface ix During these years, support has come in many forms, and I have incurred debts to many individuals and institutions. I may miss some of their names if I try to remember them separately. With these words, I humbly submit my work to readers. Himadri Banerjee Guwahati, October 1, 2021.
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