To be sure, Partition itself was the product of a utopic plan enacting Enlightenment notions about the rational ordering of society. It promised to produce order out of a religiously and linguistically mixed society. It promised a homeland to those out-of-place in nationalist India.
Many who moved did so out of faith in this project, out of conviction, at times against the wishes of their families (most famously, Jinnah’s only daughter did not move). Indeed, the deliberate sacrifice of home and bonds was the price that made the result – participation in the creation of a new nation-state – all the more sacred. (See oral histories in Anam Zakaria,
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Prem Gorkhi was as empathetic in real life as in his writings
The renowned writer of short stories in Punjabi believed in an intimate relationship with his fellow travellers. He used to encourage young writers to write with commitment and thorough involvement and would caution them against joining the mad rush for publication, writes Ronki Ram
Prem Gorkhi (15 June 1947 – 25 April 2021) wrote for the socially excluded and lowest of the low, those who often remained outside the canvas of the mainstream writers.
Born Prem Nimana, into a humble Dalit home in a village called Ladhowali in Punjab’s Kapurthala district, he was one of the six children of Arjun Das and Rakhi. Gorkhi fought against all odds to acquire an education and excel in the Punjabi literary world.
Lal Singh Dil’s poetry is the voice of the voiceless
Lal Singh Dil continued to capture the nuances of the exploitative system around him till his last moment. The medium that he chose to give expression to his experiences and observations during his life full of struggles was the subtlety of poetry, writes Ronki Ram
Revolutionary poet Lal Singh Dil (11 April 1943 – 14 August 2007) left an indelible mark through his poetry on the struggle for equality, social justice and freedom that began in the late 1960s in Punjab, popularly known as Naxalite
lehar (movement). He was born in his maternal village, Ghungrali Sikhãn, near Samrala, a small town on the Chandigarh-Ludhiana highway in Punjab. He belonged to a Ramdassia Chamãr family. Ramdassia Chamãrs and other Dalits were mostly deprived of agricultural land and other sources of livelihood. As was the case with other members of his community, the mainstay of Dil’s family was manual labour on the agricultural lands
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