The enigmatic title of this book is taken from a beautiful verse that best reflects the spiritual and humanist vision of the Adi Granth, the holy book of the Sikhs. Na ko bairi nahi bigana, sagal sangh ham ko ban ayee.
The question of identity of different religions, minorities, regions are becoming more and more complex and contentious in the contemporary world. Political, social, economic relations of mino-rities and religious groups vis-á-vis the majority is always strenuous specially if the grievances are nurtured over time and have varied hues.
Friends and admirers of Indu Banga have come together to offer her a ‘bouquet’ of scholarly articles as a homage for her contribution to the history of India and the history of Punjab. Reeta Grewal and Sheena Pall in 2005 published these articles in two volumes.
History has morphed enormously from a mere reconstruction of battles and icons into a social science with multi-dimensional tropes, so historians are in the pursuit of a specific trope which eventually becomes their area of expertise.
I bring from the East what is practically an unknown religion’. This is what Max Arthur Macauliffe wrote in his Preface to The Sikh Religion: Its Gurus, Sacred Writings and Authors, first published in 1909. While the Sikhs and their religion are no longer unknown as a result of worldwide dispersal of the Sikh community and the distinct markers of identity that they carry with them,
Dhadhi parampara, according to Nijhawan, is ‘a tradition or genre of bardic performance that constitutes one of the extant forms of oral epic performance in South Asia. The contents of dhadhi song and narrative are mostly heroic tales of legendary and historical figures’.