Table Of ContentBeyond Punjab
This book focuses on Sikh communities in east and northeast India. It stud-
ies settlements in Bihar, Odisha, West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, and
Manipur to understand the Indian Sikhs through the lens of their dispersal
to the plains and hills far from Punjab. Drawing on robust historical and
ethnographic sources such as official documents, media accounts, memoirs,
and reports produced by local Sikh institutions, the author studies the social
composition of the immigrants and surveys the extent of their success in
retaining their community identity and recreating their memories of home
at their new locations. He uses a nuanced notion of the internal diaspora
to look at the complex relationships between home, host, and community.
As an important addition to the study of Sikhism, this book fills a signifi-
cant gap and widens the frontiers of Sikh Studies. It will be indispensable
for students and researchers of sociology and social anthropology, history,
migration and diaspora studies, religion, especially Sikh Studies, cultural
studies, as well as the Sikh diaspora worldwide.
Himadri Banerjee, formerly Guru Nanak Professor of Indian History,
Department of History, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India.
Beyond Punjab
Sikhs in East and Northeast India
Himadri Banerjee
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 Himadri Banerjee
The right of Himadri Banerjee to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in
accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form
or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and
are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-032-35663-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-38983-7 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-34784-2 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003347842
Typeset in Sabon
by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India
For Bula and her fifty years’ life with me
Contents
Preface viii
Glossary x
Introduction: Beyond Punjab xvii
1 Bihar 1
2 Odisha 27
3 Kolkata 55
4 Assam 80
5 Shillong 107
6 Manipur 131
Conclusion 157
Bibliography 164
Index 180
Preface
My journeys with the Sikhs residing beyond Punjab in India began and
witnessed a few turnings and twists. These started in the early 1980s
through my gleaning of different genres of printed literary works portray-
ing their authors’ wide-ranging perceptions of the history of the Sikhs of
Punjab. Initially, I had preferred to restrict my search to sources available
in four neighbouring Indian languages, viz. Assamese, Bengali, Hindi, and
Odia, which are known for many commonalities and differences. In the
early 1990s, I had the privilege of accessing many similar materials on the
Sikh past preserved in the Marathi Grantha Sangrahalaya, Mumbai, and
the Deccan College Library, Pune. I was excited to bring out two sepa-
rate volumes, delineating how the perceptions of the history of the Sikhs of
Punjab were widely read and shared among a section of educated middle-
class Indians. Residing in distant parts of India, the Sikhs struggled to forge
many overarching imagined linkages among themselves. In the late 1990s, I
decided to restrict my first volume to Assamese, Bengali, and Odia sources
to keep its size small and handy. I decided to reserve the Hindi and Marathi
materials for another volume.
By the end of July 1999, the final draft of the manuscript of the first vol-
ume of The Other Sikhs was ready for the publisher. Instead of delivering it
immediately, I sent a copy to three social science scholar friends. One drew
my attention to a few Sikh groups: if their emigration from Punjab and set-
tlements outside the region were critically studied, unknown aspects of their
history might come to the fore. That call to explore uncharted terrain has
led, two decades later, to this second volume of The Other Sikhs.
Initially, I had planned to include eight provinces of eastern and north-
eastern India, namely Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal, Assam,
Meghalaya, Manipur, and Nagaland. I visited most of the major Sikh
settlement locations of these states. Later on, I had to modify the plan to
exclude Jharkhand and Nagaland for different reasons, but looked forward
to include these Sikh settlements in another ongoing study dealing with the
larger process of Sikh dispersion beyond Punjab in the rest of India.
Preface ix
During these years, support has come in many forms, and I have incurred
debts to many individuals and institutions. I may miss some of their names
if I try to remember them separately. With these words, I humbly submit my
work to readers.
Himadri Banerjee
Guwahati, October 1, 2021.
