Since 1947 is an ambitious and insightful examination of Punjabi migrant life in Delhi from the time of partition to the end of resettlement in 1965. Undoubtedly, “partition” has come to be a ubiquitous theme in modern Punjab studies. To this extent, Ravinder Kaur's work lies on well-trodden ground. It is Kaur's focus on the complex web of narrative by surviving Punjabi migrants, however, that sets her work apart. Since 1947 fills a discernable gap in modern Punjabi studies.
Since 1947 presents a thematic organization of the subject rather than a historical rehearsal of the period. Indeed, this approach reflects the core of the present study: to call into question the established and accepted master narrative of “the partition experience” of Punjabi migrants. The introductory chapter, “Narrating Everyday Forms of the Past,” situates the present study and lays much of the theoretical and methodological groundwork for the remainder of the volume.
Chapter 2, “State and Community in the Narratives of Displacement,” investigates the effect of partition on community networks and the de-/re-construction of community boundaries. Kaur readily and rightly acknowledges that communities take new forms, but she problematizes the remaking of communities among Punjabi migrants in terms of omission. She asks, why are the extrapersonal contributions of the state absent from personal narratives of displacement? In answering this question, Kaur pursues two threads of analysis: “one, to prop up the state as the principal organizer in the Partition resettlement process, and, two, to follow the absence of the state in personal narratives publicly and privately told by the survivors” (p. 42).
Drawing on the work of Paul Virilo, chapter 3, “The Last Journey: Exploring Social Class in Partition Migration,” explores the intersection of “speed” and social class in partition narratives. Here, Kaur's analysis is astute and insightful as she delineates how the means by which partition's migrants arrived in Delhi (on foot, by train, in the air) inform the migrant's understanding of the past and with their place in the new Indian state. The issues of class and caste are likewise taken up in Kaur's treatment of “untouchable” migrants of partition in chapter 6. This is one of the highlights of the present volume, and perhaps the most methodologically challenging. In “Missing Fields: The ‘Untouchable’ Migrants of Partition,” Kaur locates untouchable refugees in Delhi and attempts to reconstruct their story of partition migration, a story that has hitherto been largely unwritten.
“Governmental Policies and Practices of Resettlement” (chapter 4) is explicitly postcolonial in its analysis. Kaur argues that the “state was not alone in … nation building” because migrants themselves were actively engaged in this process (p. 85). “Restoration of Loss,” as the title of the fifth chapter suggests, deals with the recurring themes of loss and restoration in partition narratives. Kaur draws attention to the multiple levels on which loss has been experienced by Punjabi migrants, and the subsequent complexity of attempts at restoration.
In “Claims of Locality: At Home in Delhi” (chapter 7), Kaur makes a persuasive case that the widely (master-) narrated “parent–child” model for understanding the relationship between partitions' migrants to Delhi and the Indian state is too simplistic. Casting refugees “as their own agents,” Kaur, through migrants' letters, newspapers, and personal interviews, makes real the affectively charged complexities of the refugee—state relationship.
Chapter 8, “Ethnic Amnesia: Identity Making among Punjabi Hindus,” sketches that complexities of ethnic identification among Punjabi migrants in Delhi. Kaur argues that “Punjabi Hindus … identification with the Indian nation-state has become inextricably deeper that that among their Sikh counterparts” (p. 217). Unlike Punjabi Sikhs, Kaur suggests that Punjabi Hindu survivors of partition have “delinked” themselves from their Punjabi ethnicity and that their identity has been reworked not into “being ‘Hindu’ in a religious sense,” but into a “nationalized context of being a patriotic Indian” (p. 217). The book concludes with “A Community Narrative,” offering a summary of the book's argument, as well as a reflective commentary on the Lajpat Nagar community/district of Delhi at 2002.
Kaur has produced a theoretically broad and well-grounded volume. She draws on theorists from a variety of disciplines—postcolonial studies, women's studies, psychology, narrative theory—and locates her own work clearly in relation to others in the field. Her conceptual categories are carefully nuanced, and she engages in critical discussion of problematic terms (e.g. state, community, narrative, discourse, migrant, refugee, etc.) where appropriate. Moreover, Kaur's ethnographic fieldwork breaks new and exciting ground in the area of Punjab studies. Since 1947 is a welcome addition to a growing body of subaltern scholarship relating to South Asia. This book is sure to be of interest to those working in the areas of oral and narrative history, migration studies, sociology, gender studies, or ethnography.
