Vernacular Culture in Punjab

Farina Mir. The Social Space of Language: Vernacular Culture in British Colonial Punjab. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010. 294 pp. $40.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-520-26269-0. Reviewed by Lisa Mitchell Published on H-Asia (May, 2012) Commissioned by Sumit Guha (The University of Texas at Austin) Farina Mir’s history of the vibrant Punjabi during the colonial period (as some colonial ad‐ qissa genre of oral and later printed literary pro‐ ministrators predicted), nor became the founda‐ duction contributes to an important growing body tion for an ethno-linguistic political assertion (as of work that explores colonial-era domains that happened elsewhere). Not only did Punjabi not existed beyond the direct interest and interven‐ quietly disappear, but it also carried out what Mir tion of the British colonial state. Utilizing late shows to be a vibrant parallel life to the official nineteenth- and early twentieth-century primary language of state patronage in the Punjab, Urdu. sources that have not featured prominently with‐ She traces this historical process by focusing on in histories of the colonial era, Mir’s careful atten‐ Punjabi’s literary and linguistic resilience rather tion to the Punjabi language and its role within than framing her analysis in terms of resistance, what she calls the “Punjabi literary formation” of‐ and argues that “Punjabi’s survival and continu‐ fers an important complement to the histories of ous vitality through the colonial period signals a literary production in Indian languages that re‐ discernible limit to colonial dominance in British ceived direct colonial administrative patronage, India” (p. 4). In the process of mapping these lim‐ such as Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, and Urdu. Her fo‐ its, she illuminates a wide range of significant cul‐ cus on the Punjabi language and its literary for‐ tural and literary practices that cannot easily be mations also provides an extremely effective in‐ assimilated into a nationalist, religious commu‐ tervention within the many histories of the Pun‐ nal, or state formation framework, but that none‐ jab that primarily examine the emergence of reli‐ theless have helped to shape the life-worlds, affec‐ gious communal divisions. tive experiences, and perspectives of those who Mir frames her arguments in relation to the participate within the Punjabi literary formation. question of why Punjabi neither died a quiet In critiquing a deterministic narrative of colo‐ death in the face of the lack of state patronage nial state intervention and influence on language, H-Net Reviews and suggesting that the history of Punjabi literary Asian languages endowed with literary traditions production “defies the narrow definition of poli‐ similar to Punjabi). She argues that the Punjabi lit‐ tics routinely associated with language,” her ap‐ erary formation’s distance from colonial institu‐ proach raises a new set of questions and frame‐ tions and venues enabled greater continuity with work for analysis that scholars working in other precolonial practices and structures of meaning regions would do well to consider in their respec‐ in the Punjab. Chapter 2 explores the develop‐ tive contexts of research (p. 194). In asking why ment of the world of Punjabi print culture from affective ties to the Punjabi language did not the mid-nineteenth century onward, highlighting translate into a viable “ground for ethno-linguistic the instability of Punjabi as a linguistic category claims in Pakistan and India,” she argues more and, at the same time, arguing that Punjabi liter‐ generally that “affective attachments to language ary production reflects remarkable continuity be‐ and state-centric politics need not be linked” (pp. tween the precolonial and colonial eras “despite 183, 185-186). the radical changes being wrought on Punjab soci‐ The centerpiece of her archival sources is a ety.” The instability reflected “the colonial state’s corpus of seventy-five late nineteenth- and early absence of will to codify or standardize the lan‐ twentieth-century editions of the Hir-Ranjha nar‐ guage,” while the continuity similarly “points to rative, the story of the lovers Ranjha and Hir, easi‐ the relative independence of Punjabi literary cul‐ ly the oldest and most popular staple of the Pun‐ ture and to the resilience of its practices” (p. 64). jabi qissa genre and a fexible narrative that can In chapter 3, a chapter that would stand well be seen to reflect a wide range of “ways of being” on its own for use in teaching, Mir elaborates her crucial to understanding colonial Punjab. In read‐ key concept, the “Punjabi literary formation”--or ing these narratives with the goal of identifying “those individuals who shared the practices of the historical imagination they reveal, Mir is able producing, circulating, performing, and consum‐ to illustrate key themes, such as the importance of ing Punjabi literary texts” (p. 6). Here she draws zat (caste, kinship group, essence, or nature) as from Sheldon Pollock’s “sociotextual community,” the “critical determinant of self and community” Mary Poovey’s notion of “cultural formation,” and rather than religion; representations of women Michael Warner’s distinction between “publics” “that defied the conservative reformist discourse and “counterpublics,” but also introduces a set of of the day”; the role of the local (as opposed to the alternative notions of “politics” and alternative nation or region) in constituting the “relationship relationships between literary production and between individual, community, and territory”; forms of power (particularly state power). Most and “notions of religious identity that could ac‐ provocatively, in emphasizing Punjabi’s indepen‐ commodate multiplicity” (p. 25). Her portrait of dence from the state, she illustrates a series of al‐ the Hir-Ranjha narratives shows them to be rich ternative explanations for the Punjabi literary for‐ sites for expressing and managing conflicts, struc‐ mation’s resilience that include pleasure and en‐ turing and modeling gender relations and other tertainment, as well as devotional practices, social forms of sociality, articulating norms and shared relationships, occupations, and forms of com‐ values across religious traditions, and navigating merce. In part because many of these factors have and contesting other important paths of everyday been more difficult to locate in the historical practice. record, her argument forces us to confront the Chapter 1 explains how the colonial state role of the state in preserving the particular types came to deny Punjabi the formal patronage it ex‐ of sources that historians have found most com‐ tended to Urdu (and to many other regional South fortable to use, and interrogate the ways in which this has in turn shaped the kinds of historical ex‐ 2 H-Net Reviews planations historians have been able to provide. texts of the readers and writers of these texts and “This is perhaps the Punjabi literary formation’s their relationships not only to Punjabi, but also to most unique feature,” she writes. “While it had Persian, Urdu, Hindi, and even English. We get a amazing traction in Punjabi society, incorporated glimpse of this in Mir’s conclusion, in which she a diverse range of people around the practices of addresses some of the postcolonial implications of literature, and represented shared social and cul‐ the affective relationship to Punjabi, with particu‐ tural values, these values did not translate into lar attention to the Punjabi Suba (Punjabi state) political action in state arenas” (p. 99, emphasis in movement of the 1950s and 1960s. original). In effect, her attention to literary pro‐ Mir’s work will be of interest not only to those duction in a language that was actively neglected with an interest in Punjabi or in literary produc‐ by the state presents us with a methodology that tion in South Asia, but also to those seeking to un‐ could (and should) be applied even to literary pro‐ derstand cultural formations and the production duction in languages that have fallen within the of life-worlds more generally, and to those looking patronage of the state. What roles have pleasure, for new ways of approaching historical questions devotion, social relations, commerce, and employ‐ using literary sources. The book would work well ment played in contexts where literary publics in both graduate and advanced undergraduate have engaged in action directed toward the state? courses on South Asian culture, history, language, Chapters 4 and 5 elaborate on this historical use or literary production, or graduate courses on the of literary sources by taking up questions of public sphere, colonialism, language and affect, or “place and personhood” and “piety and devotion” historical methodology. respectively, further illustrating her methodologi‐ cal approach. decision to Despite framing her intervention as an atten‐ tion to the continuities within Punjabi literary focus production during a time of rapid transformation, on Mir ends up also attending to the many domains instead and practices that have been, in fact, transformed which during the colonial period, including new pat‐ terns of patronage; the emergence of new types of (194), institutions; and the impact of new technologies (183), and forms of circulation (such as print); and their : relationships to the public sphere. Although a [ longer historical genealogy was not her goal, her focus exclusively on Punjabi texts in the context (125)] of a multilingual world in transition does not al‐ - ways provide us with the larger linguistic context s that might help us make sense of the Punjabi qis‐ - sa genre’s relationship to earlier Perso-Arabic tra‐ ditions or to the other colonial-era languages with (64). which it coexisted and interacted. Although be‐ C yond the scope of her close readings of the Hir- [ Ranjha qissa texts themselves, her rich portraits ] of the “ways of being” reflected in the narratives makes us want to know more of the lives and con‐ are 3 H-Net Reviews , , , ’ - - If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the network, at https://networks.h-net.org/h-asia Citation: Lisa Mitchell.

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