Routledge Handbook of Punjab Studies

List of Illustrations x

Preface and Acknowledgements xii

Notes on Contributors xvi

1 Introduction 1

PRITAM SINGH AND MEENA DHANDA

Punjab, Partition and Beyond 27

2 Towards an Ecologically Sustainable Present and Future for Punjab 29

PRITAM SINGH

3 From a Border Region to the Power Engine: Punjab as the Centrefold of the Pakistani State 41

IFTIKHAR MALIK

4 Partition and the Search for a Sikh State: From Azad Punjab to Punjabi Suba 50

TAN TAI YONG

5 Microhistory and Memory: A Pioneer’s Life Story of Migration and Home 60

KARAMJIT SINGH

6 Memorialising Sikh and Punjab History in the Public Realm 68

RANVEER (RAV) SINGH

7 Hindutva in Punjab: Appropriation and Resistance 78

CHRISTINE MOLINER

8 The Anti-colonialism of Bhagat Singh 87

SATVINDER S. JUSS

Economic Development: Labour, Resources and Challenges 97

9 Prospects for Punjab’s Economic Development 99

LAKHWINDER SINGH AND NIRVIKAR SINGH

10 Rural Commercial Capital in Punjab: Emergence, Disruption and Reconstitution 109

MUHAMMAD ALI JAN

11 Structure of Industrialisation in Punjab 118

VARINDER JAIN

12 Agro-Industrialisation in Indian Punjab: Rationale, Factors and Policy Options 127

SUKHPAL SINGH

13 Industrial Development and Labour Structure: Evidence from the Industrial Sector of Indian Punjab 137

JATINDER SINGH

14 Water Resources in Punjab: Status, Use and Challenges 153

RANJIT SINGH GHUMAN AND DEEPRATAN SINGH KHARA

15 Sustainable Agriculture in Punjab: Questions from an Ecological Justice Perspective 164

NADIA SINGH

16 Evaluation of the Environmental Impacts of the Changed Cropping Pattern Arising from the Green Revolution Policy in Punjab: 1966–67 to 2020–21 174

RAJ MANN

Political Contestations and Movements 193

17 Communist Movement in Punjab 195

BHAGWAN JOSH

18 Dynamics of Coexistence of Competing Identities in Punjab Politics 204

PRAMOD KUMAR

19 Trolley Times in Farmers’ Protest and Beyond 218

JASDEEP SINGH

20 Subaltern Religious Movements in the Punjab 232

MARK JUERGENSMEYER AND SANTOSH K. SINGH

21 Sikh Militancy 241

RADHIKA CHOPRA

22 Living the Past in the Digital Present: The Anti-Sikh Violence of 1984 and Mediated Memory 249

SHRUTI DEVGAN

23 From Suppression to Service: Ethnicity and Counter-insurgency in the Punjab Conflict 259

DIPIN KAUR

Cultural Repositioning: Language, Literature and the Arts 269

24 Punjabi as an Anti-establishment Language in Pakistan 271

TARIQ RAHMAN

25 Beyond the Nation: Punjabi Language and Literature in India, Pakistan, and Beyond 280

ANNE MURPHY

26 Twentieth-Century Punjabi Literature: Key Signposts 289

AKSHAYA KUMAR

27 Print, Publication, and Punjabi Literary Periodicals 298

AMITOJ KAUR CHANDI

28 Fascinating Contours of Literary Creativity of Punjabi Dalits 309

RAJKUMAR HANS

29 Anticolonialism and Protest Poetry in Punjab 317

SARA KAZMI

30 Patriarchal Masculinity, Homosocial Intimacy, and Male Failure in Punjabi Cinema 327

HARJANT S. GILL

31 The Defiant Voices from the Margins: The Punjabi Plays of Lakht Pasha 340

QAISAR ABBAS

32 Listening to Nature and the Cosmos Through Gurbani 350

GURMINDER K. BHOGAL

Religion, Caste and Gender 359

33 Sikh Theology Through a Feminist Lens 361

NIKKY-GUNINDER KAUR SINGH

34 Gender, Sect, and Society in Nineteenth-Century Punjab 370

ANSHU MALHOTRA

35 Ideal Wives, Birth Control, and Sexuality in Pre-1947 Punjabi Literature 381

NIKITA ARORA

36 Social Inequalities in the Indian Punjab: Structures and Fluidities 390

SURINDER S. JODHKA

37 Christianity in Punjab and Punjabi Christians 400

ELEANOR NESBITT

38 Tribal Communities in Punjab: Past and Present 411

BIRINDER PAL SINGH

Diasporic Dilemmas 421

39 The Quandary of Caste for Sikhs in the UK 423

MEENA DHANDA

40 Navigating Belonging: Sikhs’ Understandings of the Multicultural Landscape in Britain 435

JASKIRAN KAUR BHOGAL

41 Decolonial Queer Politics of Punjabi Diasporas 444

SANDEEP BAKSHI

42 Punjabi Diaspora–Homeland Connections: Transnationalism, Transformation, and Significance 454

SHINDER S. THANDI

43 Precarity and Politization of Punjabi Diasporas 465

MICHAEL NIJHAWAN

44 Unpacking the White Gaze in Recent Diasporic Punjabi Women’s Memoirs 474

POOJA MARWAHA AND KAVERI QURESHI

45 Gender-Based Violence in Diaspora Sikh Punjabi Communities 485

JAGBIR JHUTTI-JOHAL

Biography

Pritam Singh is Professor Emeritus of Economics at Oxford Brookes Business School, UK. Professor Singh is on the editorial board of several leading journals in South Asian/Punjab studies and eco-socialist studies. He has held visiting positions at the University of Oxford, UK; the University of Uberlandia, Brazil; Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia; and Jawaharlal Nehru University, India. In 2015, the World Association of Political Economy honoured him with the Distinguished Achievement Award in Political Economy, and in 2021, the University of California (Riverside) honoured him with a Lifetime Achievement Award for his distinguished contribution to Sikh and Punjab studies.

Meena Dhanda is Professor of Philosophy and Cultural Politics at the University of Wolverhampton, UK, and is also Visiting Professor in the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK. Her transdisciplinary research lies at the intersections of caste, class, gender and race.

"The Routledge Handbook of Punjab Studies (2026) is of great historical significance in the interdisciplinary field. Forty-eight scholars from Canada, Europe, India, Pakistan, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States have tried to capture the multi-dimensionality of the concept of the Punjab as a knowledge project that encompasses all forms of historical and socio-economic transformations, political agendas, cultural products and Diaspora experiences that define the Punjab across time and space.The handbook is divided into six thematic sections (partition, economic development, political movements, cultural expression, religion, social hierarchies and diaspora). Despite the limitations of such a gigantic project in overcoming disciplinary fragmentation to arrive at a holistic and critical understanding of the region, it is a remarkable success."

-- Mazhar Abbas, The News on Sunday, Karachi. 17th May 2026.