*Includes pictures *Includes contemporary accounts *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading British India ultimately covered some 54 percent of the landmass and 77 percent of the population. By the time the British began to contemplate a withdrawal from India, 565 princely states were officially recognized, in addition to thousands of zamindaris and jagirs, which were in effect feudal estates. The stature of each Princely State was defined by the number of guns fired in salute upon a ceremonial occasion honoring one or other of the princes. These ranged from nine-gun to twenty-one-gun salutes and, in a great many cases, no salute at all. The Princely States were reasonably evenly spread between ancient Muslim and Hindu dynasties, but bearing in mind the minority status of Muslims in India, Muslims were disproportionately represented. This tended to grant Muslims an equally disproportionate share of what power was devolved to local leaderships, and it positioned powerful Muslim leaders to exert a similarly unequal influence on British policy. It stands to reason, therefore, as India began the countdown to independence after World War II, that the Indian Muslim leadership would begin to express anxiety over the prospect of universal suffrage and majority rule. At less than 20 percent of the population, Indian Muslims would inevitably find themselves overwhelmed by the Hindu majority, and as the British prepared to divest themselves of India, ancient enmities between Hindu and Muslim, long papered over by the secular and remote government of Britain, began once again to surface. While the conflict between India and Pakistan is multi-faceted, there has always been great division over the Punjab. The word "Punjab" derives from the Persian words "Punj," meaning "five," and "äb," meaning river, combined into the "Land of the Five Rivers." These rivers are the five major tributaries of the River Indus - the Jehlum, the Chenab, the Ravi, the Beas and the Sutlej. They flow southwest off the southern slopes of the Himalayas, meeting the Arabian Sea just south of the modern Pakistani port city of Karachi. This is the valley of the Indus River, the site of some of the oldest and most accomplished civilizations in the world. The Punjab is defined by the floodplains of the five rivers that give the area its name, and as a result, it is one of the most fertile regions of South Asia. However, since the 1947 partition of India, the "Land of Five Rivers" is something of a misnomer, as the partition not only divided India but also the Punjab. The eastern part of Punjab remained a province of India, while the western section was ceded to the newly created Pakistan. As a contiguous region, the Punjab retains its essential character, but now the Indian state of Punjab has only two rivers, the Beas and the Sutlej, and the Pakistani province has the Jhelum, Chenab and Ravi. The Punjab: The History of the Punjabis and the Contested Region on the Border Between India and Pakistan looks at the region and the origins of the Punjabis, as well as how it became one of the most contested spots in the world. Along with pictures and a bibliography, you will learn about the Punjab like never before.

An unprecedented historical account of undivided Punjab, from the death of Aurangzeb to the Partition. For centuries, the fertile land of five rivers in the north of the Indian subcontinent was coveted by numerous empires and invaders. In this, the first major account of undivided Punjab, award-winning historian, biographer and scholar, Rajmohan Gandhi, gives us its history during its most tumultuous phase from the death of Aurangzeb, in the early eighteenth century, to its brutal partition in 1947, coinciding with the departure of the British. Relying on fresh sources as well as previous accounts provided from opposing perspectives, the author fashions a compelling narrative about the great events of the time in the region - the battles and tragedies that routinely disrupted the lives of ordinary Punjabis, the sacking of iconic cities like Lahore, Amritsar, Multan and Jalandhar by a succession of conquerors, the ravages wrought by invaders like Nadir Shah, the rise of the Sikhs culminating in the storied reign of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, Britain's successful wars against the Sikh kingdom, the Great Rebellion of 1857 and its effect on Punjab, imperialist machinations, the influence on the people by leaders of the independence movement like Mahatma Gandhi, Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Lala Lajpat Rai, as also key regional figures such as Fazl-i-Husain, Master Tara Singh, Sikander Hayat Khan and Khizr Hayat Tiwana, the devastation of Partition - and much else besides. Believing that modern India and Pakistan cannot be understood without comprehending the Punjab that was, the author also delves into the idea of Punjabiyat - Punjabiness - the literature and poetry of creative giants like Bulleh Shah, Waris Shah, Iqbal, Amrita Pritam and Saadat Hasan Manto, the spiritual teachings of the Sikh Gurus and Sufi saints and, above all, the testimonials and narratives of ordinary Punjabis, to create an unforgettable portrait of a place - undivided Punjab - that continues to fascinate us (even though it broke up more than six decades ago) and of its hard-tested and resilient people, Hindu, Muslim and Sikh.

What is Punjabiyat? What are the different notions of Punjab? This volume analyses these ideas and explores the different aspects that constitute Punjab as a region conceptually in history, culture, and practice. Each essay examines a different Punjabi culture—language-based and literary; religious and those that define a 'community'; rural, urban, and middle class; and historical, contemporary, and cosmopolitan. Together, these essays unravel the complex foundations of Punjabiyat. The volume also shows how the recent history of Punjab—partition, aspirations of statehood, and a large and assertive diaspora—has had a discernible impact on the region's scholarship. Departing from conventional studies on Punjab, this book presents fresh perspectives and new insights into its regional culture.

Punjab was the arena of one of the first major armed conflicts of post-colonial India. During its deadliest decade, as many as 250,000 people were killed. This book makes an urgent intervention in the history of the conflict, which to date has been characterized by a fixation on sensational violence—or ignored altogether. Mallika Kaur unearths the stories of three people who found themselves at the center of Punjab’s human rights movement: Baljit Kaur, who armed herself with a video camera to record essential evidence of the conflict; Justice Ajit Singh Bains, who became a beloved “people’s judge”; and Inderjit Singh Jaijee, who returned to Punjab to document abuses even as other elites were fleeing. Together, they are credited with saving countless lives. Braiding oral histories, personal snapshots, and primary documents recovered from at-risk archives, Kaur shows that when entire conflicts are marginalized, we miss essential stories: stories of faith, feminist action, and the power of citizen-activists.

In 1801, at the age of just 20 years old, Ranjit Singh became the Maharaja of the Punjab Empire and subsequently became one of the greatest figures in the history of India. He was a fiercely brave leader, capturing the city of Lahore before becoming Maharaja and overcoming a variety of challenges during his 40-year rule, such as harsh terrain, an ethnically and religiously diverse population and strong aggressors including the British and the Afghans. Despite such challenges, Ranjit Singh was able to unite Punjab's various factions yet rule a nation that was strictly secular; the Maharaja was benevolent to his subjects no matter their ethnicity or religion and sought to promote interfaith unity through policies of equality and non-discrimination. Aside from building his own nation, Ranjit built solid strategic relations with his most challenging aggressor - the British. Through stamina and political will, he managed to establish a formal treaty between the two and secured from 1809 Britain's protection against third party attempts to conquer the Punjab. Following Ranjit Singh's death in 1839, the Empire fell into decline. Just six years later, the Punjabis attacked the British, and in 1845 they were beaten and forced to sign the Treaty of Lahore, essentially conceding control to the British.Ranjit Singh's personal characteristics and leadership skills were what held the Punjab nation together in a tumultuous period in history. Mohamed Sheikh's new account of Singh's life illustrates these characteristics and skills and illuminates the man who singlehandedly created and sustained the Empire.