FAISALABAD: Dr Anne Murphy from the University of British Columbia, Canada, raised the question of region’s standing in the scheme of things in the global context, emphasizing that the region must remain central to all the work to recognise diversity of sociocultural phenomenon.

“There is a need for specificity and locatedness even in our understanding of broad linkages as each of them is self-distinctive and important. The very name of this place (Lyallpur) refers to historical trajectories that are not only specific to this place but are also more broadly regional and global in nature,” she said in her keynote address on the opening day of the first International Lyallpur History Conference – Retrospect and Prospect: A Journey through Time on Monday.

Dr Murphy remembered Joshua Fazal Din who launched the Punjabi Darbar magazine in Shahmukhi script from Lyallpur in 1928, who had been forgotten in this part of Punjab. He was a lawyer and opted for Pakistan after the Partition. However, he went to chair the All Punjabi Indian Conference in India in 1959. A lawyer by profession, he was author of books in Punjabi, English and Urdu both before and after the Partition.

“He was Christian but also a humanist with concerns for social justice and ethics as evident in his works,” she says Joshua was the author of two collections of short stories, including Nikkian Kahania in Shahmukhi and a novel Prabha, published in 1949 in Gurmukhi as well as Shahmukhi. However, his books were removed from all exams in Pakistan by the powers that be.

Dr Murphy talked at length about his stories, including those on themes of caste, untouchables, social diversity, describing life in British India.

Putting Joshua Fazal Din in context of the local history, he said, “this is regional history as well as local history but it also takes on the world and this is all this conference is about”.

Musadaq Zulqarnain, the president of the Lyallpur Literary Council, spoke about how they started Faisalabad Literary Festival 11 years ago and embraced Lyallpur Sulaikh Mela. He spoke of the region of Lyallpur that has witnessed multiple migrations.

In the plenary session, titled importance of regional history, Musadaq said “the importance of regions is lost when talking about just ‘global things’. “Cultures belong to regions and they should be embraced,” he stressed. He claimed that there was no serious violence in this region during the Partition and the Sikh community was safely escorted out of the area.

Dr Ali Qasmi from LUMS, in his address, referred to study, saying important industrial hubs in Punjab like Gujranwala, Kasur and Sheikhupura in over the past 40 to 50 years failed to develop as important urban cultural and intellectual centres because of the way Lahore expanded, having all the major facilities. He said due to Lahore’s connectivity with motorways, the industrialists in Kasur and Gujranwala would rather live close to areas like Thokar Niaz Baig in Lahore because in a short time, they could travel to their industry in their native cities. “The ruling elite of these cities has shifted to Lahore which had social cultural impacts on them.”

Dr Qasmi said that in these regions, massive engineering occurred, which led to unprecedented state intrusion into sociocultural life of the natives, change in social hierarchy and dispossession of the locals. He said as the historians failed to document history of the natives, the fiction writers like Punjabi novelists Zahid Hassan and Nain Sukh recorded it in their fiction.

“We must provincialise south Asia, we must decenter Islamabad, we must decenter Delhi, we must decenter Lahore,” he stressed.

MIGRATION: Pippa Virdee from the De Montfort University, UK, spoke on the recurrent topics of migration and lost history.

“My focus has been Lyallpur and Ludhiana as they, in many ways, can be called twin cities due to commonalities, industry, textile and Ghanta Ghars since the colonial period,” she said during a session on “migration and post-partition dynamics in Punjab”.

She said very little was known about the Sandal Bar area before the colonialism and settlements of the colonies. She questioned what would have happened if settlements were not established. She said people from overpopulated central Punjab were brought to this area to create the breadbasket of colonial India. Many army personnel were also given land in these areas.

“History of population movement in these areas except the partition has not much been explored as we focus on politico-economic aspects and historiography.”

Ms Virdee said overshadowed by the Partition, migration before 1947 was not given attention though it too had a huge impact on the people. Referring to the work of Darshan Singh Tatla, she tells the story of a character whose grandfather migrated to Sandal Bar (from what is now Indian side) and then they had to migrate again in 1947 back to India before moving to England.

COMMUNAL IDENTITIES: Aamir Riaz, in a session on “revolutionary voices, labour movements and communal identities”, saidLyallpur had witnessed forced migration of more than 400,000 people in 1947 but the no exact data was available, thanks to the powers that be. “I rely on the 1941 census. According to this census, the district Lyallpur had a population of about 1.4m. Out of this, Muslims were 877,000 and scheduled caste people were 68,000 while Christians were 51,000, Sikhs were 262,737, 18.8pc while Hindus were 9.7pc.”

Riaz pointed out religious extremism and narrow nationalism under whose influence politics depended on exclusive approach but not inclusivity and diversity.

“Religious extremists and narrow nationalists are exerting significant influence in South Asia and they have become more powerful by the day.”

He pointed out that there was an issue in our freedom struggle as the concept of nation building concept was missing in it. He called the partition of India actually the partition of Punjab.

Published in Dawn, August 27th, 2024