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Title: Punjabi Identity: Continuity and Change by Gurharpal Singh, Ian Talbot, European Conference on Modern South Asian Studies 1994 University of ISBN: 8-1730411-7-2 Publisher: South Asia Books Pub. Date: 01 July, 1996 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $26.00

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Summary: What does it mean to be 'Punjabi'?
Comment: Punjabi Identity: Continuity and Change is a collection of papers presented at the 13th European Conference of Modern South Asian Studies. Although the conference was held in France, the book reflects the UK-centric nature of current European research on the Punjab and Punjabis: only one contributor, CNRS Research Director Denis Matringe, is based outside the British Isles. Nonetheless, in issues addressed if not contributors' geography, this is a wide-ranging attempt to 'promote an integrated study of the "three Punjabs"' (p.1) of pre-independence, India and Pakistan, and the diaspora.

The book begins with two studies of colonialism's impact on Punjab. First is co-editor Ian Talbot's 'State, Society and Identity: The British Punjab, 1875-1937', an examination of the conflict between urban and rural political traditions in Punjab in which he succinctly describes the surprising success of the latter in resisting the torrent of modernising tendencies unleashed by the British, at least until faced by developments from outside the state during the Second World War. British and European influences are seen to have received a happier welcome in Matringe's 'Punjabi Lyricism and Sikh Reformism: Bhai Vir Singh's Poetry in the 1920s'. Here, the author reveals how local poets created a Punjab 'dripping with love and mysticism...[despite the] explosions of communal and political violence' (p.52) more commonly recorded-and therefore remembered-by the political authorities of the day.

The next five essays take up post-independence developments in a partitioned Punjab. In 'Pakistan or Punjabistan: Crisis of National Identity', Yunas Samad argues that the creation of the former was accompanied by the establishment of a still seemingly unshakable Punjabi hegemony. However, in the following essay, 'Punjabis in Sind: Identity and Power', Sarah Armstrong is at pains to point out that Punjabi identity in Sind is qualitatively different and must be understood as a mix of both Punjabi culture and, typically, resistance to local pro-Sindhi policies. The book's focus then shifts to East (Indian) Punjab. In 'Re-examining the Punjab Problem', co-editor Gurharpal Singh focuses on 'Sikh ethno-nationalism' (p.118) as a means of understanding the 1980s' outbreak of violence in Punjab. As such, he continues, India itself is best understood as an 'ethnic democracy in which 'hegemonic control and [violent] control is exercised over ethnic and religious minorities...' (p.122). Both Joyce Pettigrew and Shinder Singh Thandi then delve deeper into the actors involved in the recent violence afflicting Punjab. In 'The State and Local Groupings in the Sikh Rural Areas, Post-1984', Pettigrew reveals that most militant groups' concentration on vertical rather than horizontal loyalties and associations condemned them to isolation and eventual demise. In 'Counterinsurgency and Political Violence in Punjab, 1980-94', Thandi argues that only by returning to attempts at political and socio-economic rather than militaristic solutions will lasting peace be achieved in the region.

The concluding two essays look outside South Asia to the Punjabi diaspora. In 'Interrogating Identity: Cultural Translation, Writing, and Subaltern Politics', Arvind-pal Singh uses the experience of this particular diaspora to illustrate our need to 'rethink the colonial experience in a radically different way: namely in terms of what remains unthought in the process of cultural translation-indeed of translation as an interpretive process-given that language is the site of production of culture as a text' (pp.223-224). This is followed by 'The 1990s: A Time to Separate British Punjabi and British Kashmiri Identity', a study by Nasreen Ali, Pat Ellis and Zafar Khan which argues for just what the title suggests; the need for British policy-makers and others to differentiate between these two immigrant groups and, thus, the perception and treatment of their respective needs and agenda.

Most collections of essays stand or fall on the editor's critical faculties of selection. Many such works are too often self-selecting, a round-up of papers only tenuously related to one another, published together quickly and cheaply by contributors keen to get into print and publishers hopeful of catching readers of the latest trend. On the other hand, many readers are too often dissatisfied if virtually every article in a collection does not appear relevant to their particular area of interest.

Happily, Punjabi Identity is mostly successful in avoiding the pitfalls listed above. This reader found virtually every article strong enough to stand on its own and together-with one or two exceptions-helpful in trying to understand how the divergent historical experiences, competing religious traditions and geographical differences of Punjabis both 'home and away' are all contributory parts of a common contemporary Punjabi identity. As such, the book succeeds in it stated aim of promoting an integrated study of the 'three Punjabs'.

Yet, just what Punjabi identity is (or may be argued to include) remains unanswered, and this collection would have benefited greatly from a concluding overview/exposition by co-editors Singh and Talbot. Nonetheless, students and scholars of this highly visible and vitally important community, both in South Asia and around the world, will find reading Punjabi Identity a rewarding experience.