#Punjabi Diaspora

[tweedsmuir-library]

April is Sikh Heritage Month

Come down to the School Library to find out more about Sikhs, Sikhism, and the history and ongoing contributions of Sikhs in Canada.

[languagexs]

Exploring the Mirpuri Community: Insights about the Language Importance

Unraveling the Mirpuri Story: Exploring a Vibrant Global Community From the lush valleys of Mirpur District to thriving diaspora communities around the world, the Mirpuri people have an incredible story to tell. This article dives deep into the rich culture, history, and experiences that have defined the Mirpuri identity across borders and generations. Get ready to embark on an enlightening…

[writingwithcolor]

Would it be problematic for me to have a black girl convert to sikhi over the course of the story with the assistance of her Sikh friend & the friend’s family and then get married to said friend in the future? I don’t want it to seem like she did it simply to be with her friend so I thought that maybe if I showed how she enjoys hearing things about the religion (for example how sikhi emphasizes treating everyone equally and also the protection of those facing injustice) from her friend that it could seem more natural but could that be seen as fetishizing? The black girl has been friends with the family for 10+ years (aka since she was 8) and also wasn’t raised following any religion (but not as an atheist either) so I feel the conversion would be somewhat easy for her but if any of what I’ve wrote is problematic I’ll change it! I’m still doing research so if I messed anything up I’m extremely sorry. Thank you in advance!

Black woman converts to become Sikh - Is this problematic?

If SK thinks these circumstances are okay from the Sikhism standpoint, then absolutely it is fine. Black people are all individual and different people throughout the diaspora. We are not some collective monolith with a build-in set of interests, beliefs and rules on what we can and cannot do! The real question to me is if someone can convert to Sikhism and if so, how being Black factors into the lifestyle.

On that note, I will hand the mic to SK and also welcome Black Sikh followers to chime in.

-Colette

Sikhi accept converts

Short answer: No, it is not problematic. Sikhi accepts converts. There’s nothing wrong with being drawn to a faith because of certain aspects and then looking deeper and choosing to convert.

Longer answer: Conversion into a completely new faith is rarely easy. I would say Sikhi is a harder faith to convert to because there are few resources in other languages and many Sikhs are unaccustomed to converts. As in most, if not all, religions, there is a gap between what is said and how it’s practiced.

Despite the messages about fighting injustice and treating others equally, many Sikh converts, especially Black Sikhs, deal with prejudice. This is not even unique to converts - Afghan & Kashmiri Sikhs have also faced ignorant comments from Punjabi Sikhs who aren’t aware of Sikh communities outside Punjab. The 1980’s-1990’s Sikh genocide disconnected many Sikhs in Punjab from the revolutionary messages of justice and equality laid out in Sikh holy texts.

A challenge unique to Black Sikhs is that the way kesdhari Sikhs take care of their hair and tie it in turbans can be a challenge for someone with Black hair. I would recommend Gurpreet Kaur’s writing.

Resources

Being Black & Sikh

Articles by Gurpreet Kaur

I would also suggest checking out The Black Sikh Collective on Tumblr, Instagram & Facebook for more perspectives of Black Sikhs.

-SK If this answer was helpful, SK accepts tips here: https://ko-fi.com/skaur | Venmo & Cashapp: skaur1699

[metamatar]

it's funny but when i was young and growing up in tamil nadu and maharashtra but punjabi by heritage i was legit giving myself for a lack of a better word diaspora style neuroses. punjabi culture as presented to me by my extended family or mainstream culture was either refugee partition trauma or genuinely noxious live big gaddi guddi gedi stuff in the era of honey singh. people expect you to be like charismatic and in love with food and willing to have a good time when you're punjabi and i was a fucking teenage nerd. what i could do was like idolise periyarism and ambedkarism instead.

[handweavers]

it is strange to think that even in malaysia i am still in the diaspora, even at home i am in the diaspora - my family hasn't lived in the place where we are "truly" from since the late 1800s... and before that, reading about migrations of punjabi clans and finding out the clans my family are part of migrated north from the sindh region of what is now pakistan between the 1300s-1600s... how long do you have to live in a place before you are allowed to call it home? for you to say you're "from" there? a hundred years, two hundred, four hundred, a thousand? at what point do you stop being from one place and start being from somewhere else? the lines feel so arbitrary

[thozhar]

Gulf migration is not just a major phenomenon in Kerala; north Indian states also see massive migration to the Gulf. Uttar Pradesh and Bihar accounted for the biggest share (30% and 15%) of all Indian workers migrating to GCC1 countries in 2016-17 (Khan 2023)—a trend which continues today. Remittances from the Gulf have brought about significant growth in Bihar’s economy (Khan 2023)—as part of a migrant’s family, I have observed a tangible shift in the quality of life, education, houses, and so on, in Siwan. In Bihar, three districts—Siwan, Gopalganj, and Chapra—send the majority of Gulf migrants from the state, mostly for manual labor (Khan 2023). Bihar also sees internal migration of daily wagers to Delhi, Bombay, and other parts of India. Gulf migration from India’s northern regions, like elsewhere in India, began after the oil boom in the 1970s. Before this time, migration was limited to a few places such as Assam, Calcutta, Bokaro, and Barauni—my own grandfather worked in the Bokaro steel factory.

Despite the role of Gulf migration and internal migration in north Indian regions, we see a representational void in popular culture. Bollywood films on migration largely use rural settings, focussing on people who work in the USA, Europe, or Canada. The narratives centre these migrants’ love for the land and use dialogue such as ‘mitti ki khusbu‘ (fragrance of homeland). Few Bollywood films, like Dor and Silvat, portray internal migration and Gulf migration. While Bollywood films frequently centre diasporic experiences such as Gujaratis in the USA and Punjabis in Canada, they fail in portraying Bihari migrants, be they indentured labourers in the diaspora, daily wagers in Bengal, or Gulf migrants. The regional Bhojpuri film industry fares no better in this regard. ‘A good chunk of the budget is spent on songs since Bhojpuri songs have an even larger viewership that goes beyond the Bhojpuri-speaking public’, notes Ahmed (2022), marking a context where there is little purchase for Gulf migration to be used as a reference to narrate human stories of longing, sacrifice, and family.

One reason for this biased representation of migration is that we see ‘migration’ as a monolith. In academic discourse, too, migration is often depicted as a commonplace phenomenon, but I believe it is crucial to make nuanced distinctions in the usage of the terms ‘migration’ and ‘migrant’. The term ‘migration’ is a broad umbrella term that may oversimplify the diverse experiences within this category. My specific concern is about Gulf migrants, as their migration often occurs under challenging circumstances. For individuals from my region, heading to the Gulf is typically a last resort. This kind of migration leads to many difficulties, especially when it distances migrants from their family for much of their lifetime. The term ‘migration’, therefore, inadequately captures the profound differences between, for instance, migrating to the USA for educational purposes and migrating to the Gulf for labour jobs. Bihar has a rich history of migration, dating back to the era of indentured labor known as girmitiya. Following the abolition of slavery in 1883, colonial powers engaged in the recruitment of laborers for their other colonies through agreements (Jha 2019). Girmitiya distinguishes itself from the migration. People who are going to the Arabian Gulf as blue-collar labourers are also called ‘Gulf migrants’—a term that erases how their conditions are very close to slavery. This is why, as a son who rarely saw his father, I prefer to call myself a ‘victim of migration’ rather than just a ‘part of migration’. It is this sense of victimhood and lack of control over one’s life that I saw missing in Bollywood and Bhojpuri cinema.

— Watching 'Malabari Films' in Bihar: Gulf Migration and Transregional Connections

[aelloposchrysopterus]

What's your favorite book?

I'd have to say Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard, by Kiran Desai. It's a book set in modern-day Punjab written by a diaspora Punjabi that I feel does a good job of unpacking some aspects of Punjabi culture around religion, love, and the patriarchy. It's also a very fun book to read.

What's yours?

[unnervinglyferal]

i grew up eating cream of wheat/semolina. apparently it’s (similar to?) a traditional punjabi dessert, so, by virtue of being diaspora and a picky eater, i got it for breakfast. my mother would cook it in milk (or butter? but not ghee, i didn’t grow up with ghee) and serve it with raisins and honey. it was good and i ate it for years; it might be the kind of thing your daughter would like to eat when she’s old enough for real food but can’t be relied upon to chew it fully. if it’s cooked right, it’s basically just a thick paste, one step up from baby food

-flore

I don't think I've ever heard of it being fed to babies around here, I'll have to check on that. But we're going to have to look at that once she starts getting into real food.

[mohit34434543]

culture of India

India, often referred to as the land of diversity, is a cultural kaleidoscope that has fascinated and enchanted people from across the globe for centuries. Its rich heritage, traditions, languages, art forms, and cuisines reflect a civilization that has evolved over millennia, leaving an indelible mark on the world. In this blog, we embark on a journey to unravel the multifaceted culture ,culture of India delving into its historical roots, religious practices, artistic expressions, and modern-day manifestations.

Historical Background:

The cultural history of India can be traced back to ancient times, with evidence of human habitation dating back to the Stone Age. The subcontinent has witnessed the rise and fall of numerous civilizations, including the Indus Valley Civilization, which flourished around 3300 BCE. Subsequent waves of migration and settlement by various ethnic groups, including Aryans, Dravidians, Greeks, Persians, and Mongols, contributed to the diversity of India's cultural landscape.

Religious Diversity:

India is the birthplace of major religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism, and has also been a melting pot of diverse faiths, including Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism. The religious tolerance and syncretism prevalent in India have resulted in a vibrant tapestry of rituals, festivals, and spiritual practices that coexist harmoniously. From the grand celebrations of Diwali and Eid to the solemnity of Buddhist retreats and Sikh gurdwaras, religion permeates every aspect of Indian life, shaping its customs, beliefs, and social structures.

Art and Architecture:

Indian art and architecture are renowned for their intricacy, symbolism, and spiritual significance. The ancient rock-cut temples of Ajanta and Ellora, the majestic forts and palaces of Rajasthan, and the exquisite carvings of temples in Khajuraho are testaments to India's rich architectural heritage. The country's artistic traditions encompass a wide array of mediums, including painting, sculpture, pottery, textiles, and performing arts such as dance, music, and theater. Classical dance forms like Bharatanatyam, Kathak, Odissi, and Kuchipudi, with their roots in mythology and spirituality, continue to captivate audiences worldwide with their grace and elegance.

Cuisien:

Indian cuisine is as diverse as its culture, with each region boasting its own unique flavors, ingredients, and cooking techniques. From the fiery curries of the south to the aromatic biryanis of the north, Indian food is a gastronomic delight that tantalizes the taste buds with its rich spices and bold flavors. Staples like rice, wheat, lentils, and vegetables form the foundation of Indian meals, which are often accompanied by chutneys, pickles, and dairy products like yogurt and paneer. Street food is also a ubiquitous part of Indian culinary

culture, offering a tantalizing array of snacks and sweets that cater to every palate.

Literature and Language:

India has a rich literary tradition dating back thousands of years, with ancient texts like the Vedas, Upanishads, and epics like the Ramayana and Mahabharata shaping the cultural consciousness of the nation. Sanskrit, the classical language of ancient India, has been the vehicle for some of the world's most profound philosophical and literary works. Over the centuries, regional languages like Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Bengali, Marathi, Gujarati, and Punjabi have flourished, producing a wealth of literature in poetry, prose, and drama. The Indian diaspora has also made significant contributions to world literature, with writers like Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, and Jhumpa Lahiri garnering international acclaim for their works.

Modern Cultural Expressions:

While India's cultural heritage is deeply rooted in tradition and history, it is also a dynamic and evolving entity that continues to adapt and innovate in response to changing times. The advent of globalization, urbanization, and technology has ushered in new forms of cultural expression, from Bollywood films and indie music to contemporary art and fashion. Social media platforms like Instagram and YouTube have provided a platform for young Indian artists, musicians, and influencers to showcase their talents and connect with audiences around the world. Despite the challenges of modernization, India remains proud of its cultural heritage, embracing both tradition and innovation in equal measure.

Conclusion: India's cultural tapestry is a testament to the resilience, creativity, and diversity of its people. Across the length and breadth of the subcontinent, from the snow-capped Himalayas to the sun-drenched beaches of Kerala, the spirit of India's cultural heritage continues to thrive, enriching the lives of millions and inspiring generations to come. As we celebrate the vibrant mosaic of traditions, languages, and customs that make up the fabric of Indian society, let us also recognize the importance of preserving and safeguarding this invaluable legacy for future generations to cherish and embrace.

[whileiamdying]

Mississippi Masala: The Ocean of Comings and Goings

By Bilal Qureshi MAY 25, 2022

often remark that my Punjabi parents immigrated to the American South woefully unaware that they’d brought us to a place with an incurable preexisting condition. Racism doesn’t belong exclusively to the South—the former Confederacy—but it was implemented at industrial scale across the region’s economic, political, and cultural life. Alongside this landscape’s sublime natural beauty—rivers, fields, and bayous—sits the history of America’s unsparing brutality against its Black citizens. On the other side of the world, in South Asia, as well as among its global diasporas, anti-Blackness is embedded in ideas of colorism and caste, in tribal imaginaries and policed lines of “suitable” marriages.

The possibility to live—and to love—across racial borders is the theme of Mira Nair’s extraordinarily prescient and sexy second feature film, Mississippi Masala (1991). Three decades later, it speaks to a new generation as groundbreaking filmic heritage—but also with an almost eerie, prophetic wisdom for how to live beyond the confinements of identity and color. Even by today’s standards, the film is a radical triumph of cinematic representation, centering as it does Black and Brown filmmaking, acting, and storytelling. It is also a genre-defying outlier that would likely be as difficult to get financed and produced today as it was then. Part comedy, part drama, rooted in memoir and colonial history, the film that Nair imagined was a low-budget independent one with global settings and ambitions. The notion of representation—perhaps more accurately described as a correction of earlier misrepresentations—wasn’t its point or its currency. Race was its very subject. Nair has said she wanted to confront the “hierarchy of color” in America, India, and East Africa with the film—the kinds of limitations that she had experienced firsthand by living, studying (first sociology, then film), and making documentaries in both India and the United States. In a shift that began with her first feature film, Salaam Bombay! (1988), Nair set out to transform those real-world issues into fictionalized worlds, translating her sociological observations into works suffused with beauty, music, and, in the case of Mississippi Masala, humid sensuality.

Nair first engaged with the questions at the heart of the film when she came to the United States from India to study at Harvard in the mid-1970s. As a new arrival to the country’s color line, she has recalled, both its Black and white communities were accessible to her, and yet she belonged to neither. The experience of being outside that specific American binary would be a formative and fertile site of dislocation for the young filmmaker. Nair trained in documentary under the mentorship of D. A. Pennebaker, among others, and her first films were immersive explorations of questions that haunted her own life. The pangs of exile and homesickness for lost motherlands became the foundation of So Far from India (1983), and the boundaries of “respectability” for women in Indian society the subject of India Cabaret (1985). Salaam Bombay!—made in collaboration with her fellow Indian-born classmate, the photographer and screenwriter Sooni Taraporevala—carried her Direct Cinema training to extraordinary new heights. Working, from a script by Taraporevala, with nonactors on location in the streets of Mumbai, Nair found a filmic language that could merge the rigor of realism with the haunting emotion of fiction. It would become the creative model for Nair and Taraporevala’s translation of the real-life phenomenon of Indian-owned motels in the American South into a spicy cinematic blend of migration, rebellion, and romance.

During research trips across Mississippi, Louisiana, and South Carolina that Nair made in 1989, she discovered that many of the Indian motel owners in the South had come to the United States from Uganda following their expulsion by President Idi Amin in 1972. Ten years after the East African country gained its independence from British rule, Amin had blamed his country’s economic woes on its privileged and financially successful South Asian community. In the racial politics of empire, the British had privileged the Indian workers they had imported to East Africa, creating racial hierarchies Amin now wanted to destroy by way of politicizing race anew. In a line that is repeated in the screenplay, the mission was “Africa for Africans,” and for tens of thousands of Asian families, it was an uprooting and dislocation from which some would never recover.

In Mississippi Masala, the classically trained British Indian actor Roshan Seth plays Jay, the immigrant father who is the focal point of the “past” of the film’s dual narrative, which is beautifully balanced in the way that it interweaves the perspectives of two generations. In the film’s harrowing overture, Jay—along with his wife, Kinnu (Sharmila Tagore), and their daughter, Mina (Sarita Choudhury)—is being forced to flee Kampala, and he laments that it will always be the only home he has known. With stoic reserve, holding back tears, Seth conveys the gravity of the loss, as the camera captures the lush beauty of the family’s garden and the faces of those they must leave behind. Throughout the film, as Kinnu, Tagore—an acclaimed Indian film star and frequent Satyajit Ray collaborator—is a composed counterpoint to Seth’s troubled Jay in her character’s strength and resilience. When the film picks up with the family two decades later, Kinnu is shown managing the family’s liquor store, while an aging Jay writes to petition Uganda’s new government to reclaim his lost property. Nair’s camera pans up from his writing desk to reveal through his window the parking lot of a roadside Mississippi motel. This is where Jay works and exists in a permanent state of nostalgia, until he is jolted awake by Mina’s demands for a home and a life of her own.

Even as Jay dreams in sepia-toned memories, the film itself never descends into saccharine longing or scored sentimentality. The rigor of the research and on-location filmmaking in both Mississippi and Kampala is reflected in an unvarnished and immersive visual style. While Nair herself clearly understood the fabric of the lives of the Gujarati Hindu families she was portraying, she has discussed how Denzel Washington became a critical collaborator in ensuring that southern Black life was rendered with equal attention to detail, cultural specificity, and dignity. The result is a film whose homes and communities are etched with a palpable sense of reality.

All of Mississippi Masala’s disparate threads are bound together by a distinctly sultry southern love story, which naturally remains the best-remembered feature of the film. The meet-cute of Mina and Washington’s character, Demetrius, is quite literally a traffic collision, a not-so-subtle suggestion that, without a bit of movie magic and melodrama, these two southerners might never have been maneuvered into the exchanged numbers and glances, and palpable wanting, that still burn the screen today. The film is fueled by the gorgeousness and megawatt charisma of both its stars, the young Washington paired with Choudhury in a prodigious debut as a woman at the edge of adulthood—her mane of wavy hair, their sweaty night of dancing to Keith Sweat, aimless late-night phone calls, dark skin in white bedsheets, secret meetings, consummated desires.

In the background of the R&B song of young, electric love are the film’s quieter, deeper notes on migration. A string leitmotif by the classical Indian violinist L. Subramaniam recurs whenever the vistas of Lake Victoria across the family’s lost garden in Kampala appear on-screen in brief flashbacks. Nair’s mastery with music has only deepened with time, resulting in films that integrate archival and original music with a free-form alertness that is distinctly her own. Both for the African American people living amid strip malls in the dilapidated neighborhoods of a region to which their ancestors were brought by bondage, and for the Indian families forced by Amin to flee their homes, exile is expressed in stereo. As Jay pines for the country he lost, Demetrius’s brother dreams of visiting Africa and saluting Nelson Mandela—disparate but recognizable longings and family histories shared over a southern barbecue, American bridges.

There wouldn’t be racial borders, however, if they weren’t policed, and the policing authorities here come from across the racial spectrum. When Mina and Demetrius’s relationship is discovered by nosy Indian uncles, those boundaries flare up. From the Black ex-girlfriend who asks why the good Black men can’t date Black women, to the Indian uncles who barge into Demetrius and Mina’s hotel room, to the gossiping aunties who during phone calls mock Mina’s rebellious scandal, there is a veritable chorus of condemnation. It is portrayed with great comedic timing and wit, including from Nair herself, who delivers some of the sharpest lines of disapproval in the role of “Gossip 1.” But the implications of those judgments remain unfunny by design. The film’s remarkable achievement is the way it never buckles under the thematic weight of these uncomfortable truths. Nair always delivers her cerebral punches with a lightness and warmth that are precisely calibrated. These are the markers of a filmmaker in full control of the tone, color, production design, and, always, music to accompany the emotional demands of her material, and that facility has only gotten sharper in such masterpieces as Monsoon Wedding (2001).

Mississippi Masala showed at festivals in late 1991 and was released commercially in American cinemas in February 1992, within weeks of Wayne’s World and Basic Instinct. Working outside Hollywood’s conventions, Nair joined an extraordinary flowering in independent filmmaking that continues to be celebrated. The year 1991 had been a landmark one for Black cinema already, with the release of Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust, Mario Van Peebles’s New Jack City, and John Singleton’s Boyz n the Hood. Spike Lee’s opus Malcolm X, with Washington in the title role, would be released in the U.S. in late 1992. Nair’s film was shown at the same 1992 Sundance Film Festival at which a landmark panel about LGBTQ representation heralded a movement, named New Queer Cinema by moderator B. Ruby Rich, devoted to reclaiming stories of love and suffering from Hollywood’s gaze. These were parallel currents that echoed larger shifts and openings happening in global culture. The collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of apartheid in South Africa, India’s economic liberalization, and the rise of a youthful southern Democrat in the U.S. following a decade of Republican rule were stirrings of a new order. The possibilities were being felt all over the world as Nair’s film of southern futures arrived. Described by the New York Times at the time as “sweetly pungent” and by the Washington Post as a “savory multiracial stew,” Mississippi Masala opened in American cinemas to rave, if exoticizing, reviews, less than a decade after Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi and Steven Spielberg’s portrayal of Indian characters eating monkey brains during a ritual dinner in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Realistic international cinema featuring everyday South Asian life—as opposed to the Indian musical tradition or Hollywood’s tropes about foreignness—had almost no precedents or peers at the time. The depiction of South Asian characters as ordinary working-class Americans navigating questions of family, money, and love remains a radical achievement. Mississippi Masala also manages to decenter whiteness altogether. In a film about racial hierarchies, white characters appear only in the background, as the motel guests, patrons, and shopkeepers of Greenwood society. By design, this is first and foremost a film about Mina and Demetrius, and the families and communities that formed them. Despite all the extraordinary accomplishments in the streaming age by the current generation of filmmakers of color, Mississippi Masala’s layered portrayal of race and love still feels unparalleled. To hear its characters speak candidly about the real lines that divide them, and reflect on the costs of crossing those lines, is to recognize the rigorous thinking—and living—that informed the screenplay. Even more disappointing than the lack of contemporary equals to the film, perhaps, are the offscreen parallels in South Asian communities like my own, where colorism and anti-Blackness are stubborn traditions yet to be fully dismantled. Stories of interracial love are still rarely told on-screen, and these relationships—the masala mixes—are still not visible enough to become as normalized as they deserve to be.

One of Nair’s first films, So Far from India, was filmed between New York City and Gujarat. It opens with a folk musician in the streets of Ahmedabad, a sequence that serves as a prelude to the film, about an Indian immigrant and the wife he has left behind. Nair, as narrator, translates his singing about the ocean of comings and goings. With Mississippi Masala, Nair positioned herself as both a great chronicler and a great navigator of that vast ocean of comings and goings. America is one of Nair’s homes, and she has made several films about the immigrant experience there, including her adaptations of Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake (2006) and Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2012). Each has sought to look at the country through the eyes of those usually on the margins in order to dramatize and problematize the idea of the American dream. It is these poetic and cinematic ruminations on identities in flux that feel like her most enduring, almost personal, gifts to hyphenated viewers like myself.

When I was younger, I thought Mississippi Masala embodied Mina’s rebellion, the promise of independence, and the freedom to choose whom and how to love. But now, twenty years after I first saw the film, at university, Jay’s longing for home and his incurable displacement feel equally, achingly resonant. With the limitations of America laid bare by the gift of adulthood, migration is no longer only a hurtling forward toward the rush of freedoms; it is now also the unknowable costs borne by my parents, the homes and selves they left behind.

The film’s closing credits, braiding Jay’s return to Kampala with glimpses of Mina and Demetrius kissing in the warmth of the southern sun, capture Nair’s exquisite feat of balancing—and blending—in Mississippi Masala. For a film traversing so many geographies and registers, there is finally a seamless harmony between father and daughter, between tradition and future, between here and there. As seen anew in restored colors, Mississippi Masala endures not for its spicy and pungent aromas of cultural specificity or representational breakthrough but for this profound commitment to multiplicity. It is a timeless song for and to those who live—and love—in multitudes.

[gkfarming]

Haryana was part of the Kuru Kingdom during the Vedic era during 1200 BCE.

Haryana has been inhabited since the pre-historic period. Haryana was part of the Indus Valley civilization during the Bronze Age period. The ancient sites of Rakhigarhi and Bhirrana are some of the oldest Indus Valley civilization sites.(5) Haryana was part of the Kuru Kingdom during the Vedic era during 1200 BCE.(6)(7)(8) The area now Haryana has been ruled by some of the major empires of India. The Pushyabhuti dynasty ruled the region in the 7th century, with its capital at Thanesar. Harsha was a prominent king of the dynasty.(9) The Tomara dynasty ruled the region from 8th to 12th century. The Chahamanas of Shakambhari defeated them in the 12th century.(10)

Harsha Ka Tila mound, ruins from the reign of 7th century ruler Harsha.

Lal kot built by Anangpal Tomar in 1052

Portrait of Hem Chandra Vikramaditya, who fought and won across North India from the Punjab to Bengal, winning 22 straight battles.(11)

In 1192, Chahamanas were defeated by Ghurids in Second Battle of Tarain.(10) In 1398, Timur attacked and sacked the cities of Sirsa, Fatehabad, Sunam, Kaithal and Panipat.(12)(13) In the First Battle of Panipat (1526), Babur defeated the Lodis. Hem Chandra Vikramaditya claimed royal status after defeating Akbar's Mughal forces on 7 October 1556 in the Battle of Delhi. In the Second Battle of Panipat (1556), Akbar defeated the local Haryanvi Hindu Emperor of Delhi, who belonged to Rewari. Hem Chandra Vikramaditya had won 22 battles across India from Punjab to Bengal, defeating the Mughals and Afghans. Hemu had defeated Akbar's forces twice at Agra and the Battle of Delhi in 1556 to become the last Hindu Emperor of India with a formal coronation at Purana Quila in Delhi on 7 October 1556. In the Third Battle of Panipat (1761), the Afghan king Ahmad Shah Abdali defeated the Marathas.(14)

In 1966, the Punjab Reorganisation Act (1966) came into effect, resulting in the creation of the state of Haryana on 1 November 1966.(15)

Distribution

Haryanvis within Haryana

See also: Demography of Haryana

The main communities in Haryana are Gujjar, Jat, Brahmin, Agarwal, Ahir, Chamar, Nai, Ror,Rajput, Saini, Kumhar, Bishnoi etc.(16) Punjabi khatri and Sindhi refugees who migrated from Pakistan had settled in large numbers in Haryana and delhi.

Haryanvi diaspora overseas

(icon)

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (July 2021)

See also: Indian disaspora overseas

There is increasingly large diaspora of Haryanvis in Australia, Canada, Singapore, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, UAE, UK, USA, etc.

In Australia, the community lives mainly in Sydney and Melbourne, has set up Association of Haryanvis in Australia (AHA) which organise events.(17)

In Singapore, the community has set up the Singapore Haryanvi Kunba organisation in 2012 which also has a Facebook group of same name. Singapore has Arya Samaj and several Hindu temples.

Culture

Main article: Haryanvi culture

Language

Main article: Haryanvi language

Haryanvi, like Khariboli and Braj is a branch of the Western Hindi dialect, and it is written in Devanagari script.(18)

Folk music and dance

Main article: Music of Haryana

Folk music is integral part of Haryanvi culture. Folk song are sung during occasion of child birth, wedding, festival, and Satsang (singing religious songs).(2) Some haryanvi folk songs which are sung by young woman and girls are Phagan, katak, Samman, Jatki, Jachcha, Bande-Bandee, Santhene. Some songs which are sung by older women are Mangal geet, Bhajan, Sagai, bhat, Kuan pujan, Sanjhi and Holi. Folk songs are sung in Tar or Mandra stan.(19) Some dances are Khoriya, Chaupaiya, Loor, Been, Ghoomar, Dhamal, Phaag, Sawan and Gugga.(19)

Cuisine

Haryana is agricultural state known for producing foodgrains such as wheat, barley, pearl millet, maize, rice and high-quality dairy. Daily village meal in Haryana consist of a simple thali of roti, paired with a leafy stir-fry (saag in dishes such as gajar methi or aloo palak), condiments such as chaas, chutney, pickles. Some known Haryanvi dishes are green choliya (green chickpeas), bathua yogurt, bajre ki roti, sangri ki sabzi (beans), kachri ki chutney (wild cucumber) and bajre ki khichdi. Some sweets are panjiri and pinni prepared by unrefined sugar like bura and shakkar and diary. Malpua are popular during festivals.(20)

Clothes

See also: History of clothing in the Indian subcontinent and History of Textile industry in India

Traditional attire for men is turban, shirt, dhoti, jutti and cotton or woollen shawl. Traditional attire for female is typically an orhna (veil), shirt or angia (short blouse), ghagri (heavy long skirt) and Jitti. Saris are also worn. Traditionally the Khaddar (coarse cotton weave cloth) is a frequently used as the fabric.(21)(22)

Cinema

See also: Haryanvi cinema and List of Haryanvi-language films

The First movie of Haryanvi cinema is Dharti which was released in 1968. The first financially successful Haryanvi movie was Chandrawal (1984) which spurted the continuing production of Haryanvi films, although none have been as successful.(23) Other films such as Phool Badan and Chora Haryane Ka followed with only about one out of twelve films being profitable at the box office.(23) In 2000, Aswini Chowdhary won the Indira Gandhi Award for Best Debut Film of a Director at the National Film Awards for the Haryanvi film Laddo.(24) In 2010 the government of Haryana announced they were considering establishing a film board to promote Haryanvi-language films.(25)

[mchiti]

u know, I L O V E football because I love the game and I admire the players, who are after all just people like us who got to success. many of them weren't born into privilege and you relate to their experiences - like I relate to moroccan players born into diaspora myself. It's just upsetting to realise rich people behind football who invest on it and gain profit from it were born into that privilege and use football, my favourite thing in the world, as a way to hold onto that.

Now, you might have heard about the UK's plan to deport migrants in literal concentration camps in Rwanda? - The fact their prime minister, Sunak, he's also of Indian Punjabi descent btw -

Seeing the pictures of an uk minister - another conservative of Indian descent!! - visiting those camps, smiling, shaking heads with Paul Kagame, the president of Rwanda, just makes me SICK. Uk setting money into Kagame's hands (a 120M pounds deal, BTW) to solve "the migrants issue" for them.

And you know what also belongs to Rwanda's government?

The "Visit Rwanda" sponsor campaign you can see onto Arsenal and PSG shirts. Just another african government making affairs with european governments in spite of the life of their african brothers and sisters and sportwashing it in the name of football.

[zalimaaa]

Can you recommend some books you’ve read recently ☺️

brick lane by monica ali

and the mountains echoed by khaled hosseini

honour by elif shafak

erotic stories for punjabi widows by balli kaur jaswal (don’t take this title too seriously 😭)

i’ve been rlly into diaspora stories recently this list shows it lmao. i hope you like at least one of these recs!

[handweavers]

trying to explain to other diaspora sikhs that the statistical majority of punjabis aren't sikh actually so the idea that being a "real" punjabi = sikh & "most punjabis are sikh" isn't true bc there are several million more punjabi muslims than sikhs but they're mostly in pakistan so you pretend they don't exist/they don't count as punjabi

[apnapunjabmediaus]

Stay Connected with the Latest Punjab News: Your Guide to Punjabi Newspapers and Epapers

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Punjab News Paper Today | Apna Punjab Media: Keeping up with "Punjab News Paper Today" through platforms like Apna Punjab Media ensures you receive the most recent and relevant news. This source offers timely updates and comprehensive coverage of the latest stories from Punjab, keeping you well-informed about important developments.

In summary, whether you prefer traditional print or the convenience of digital formats, there are numerous ways to stay connected with the latest news from Punjab. Punjabi News Papers, Punjabi Epapers, live updates, and localized publications in Canada make it easier than ever to remain engaged with your roots and current events.

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