Punjabiyat, often translated as “Punjabiness,” is a shifting sense of belonging to Punjab—not a single identity shared in the same way by everyone. It can draw on place, language, culture, religion, caste, class, memory, or several of these at once. The 2024 book Punjabi Centuries: Tracing Histories of Punjab explores why those meanings are complicated by Partition, later political change, and the experiences of people in India, Pakistan, and the diaspora.
What does Punjabiyat mean?
There is no single settled definition. Oxford Academic describes Punjabiyat as “a loosely defined term often used to describe a sentiment of belonging or attachment to Punjab and/or the foundations of a shared, cross-religious, cross-caste, cross-class culture.” That is a scholarly framing, not a universal test for who counts as Punjabi.
For one person, Punjabiyat may be rooted in the place where they live; for another, it may be carried through family memory, language, cultural practice, or a homeland imagined from elsewhere. These affiliations can overlap, but they do not have to. The meaning also depends on who is using the term, where they are, and what history they are invoking.
Why do borders and history make it complex?
The division of colonial Punjab in 1947 made belonging inseparable from rupture. Partition divided the region between India and Pakistan and shaped different experiences of home, loss, and national identity. The region’s political geography changed again with the 1966 reorganization associated with the Punjabi Suba demand. As a result, “Punjab” can refer to a present-day territory, a wider cultural region, or a remembered homeland—and those meanings do not always line up.
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People may therefore hold attachment to Punjab alongside a distinct religious or national identity, or remember a Punjab that crosses today’s political borders. Sikh, Hindu, and diaspora communities can imagine homeland differently. These differences do not cancel out the possibility of shared cultural ties; they help explain why the idea remains emotionally charged.
Is Punjabiyat based on language, religion, or culture?
It may involve all of them, but none alone defines it for everyone. Language and cultural practices can provide common reference points across religious communities, while religion, caste, and class shape people’s experiences and claims of belonging. A broad appeal to shared culture can create a meeting ground, but it can also leave unresolved whose histories and practices are being represented.
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Language itself carries a border history. Punjabi is written in Gurmukhi in Indian Punjab and in Shahmukhi—a modified Persian/Urdu script—in Pakistan. Script, translation, and transliteration are not merely technical choices in this context; they can signal cultural and political affiliations as well as make communication possible.
Can Punjabiyat cross the India–Pakistan border?
Cultural connection can cross it, but the border has not disappeared. Anne Murphy describes Punjabiyat as aspiration, aesthetic, accommodation, and a meeting ground in response to the international border created in 1947. Her account also stresses the difficulty of cross-border movement and the role of diaspora communities and other “third spaces” in keeping connections alive.
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Fauzia Rafiq’s novel Skeena, published in Shahmukhi, then Gurmukhi, and in English, offers a concrete example of literary circulation across scripts and audiences. Translation can create points of contact, but it should not be mistaken for proof that political divisions or the obstacles they create have been overcome.
How can shared ties coexist with Partition trauma?
Punjabiyat can hold connection and pain at the same time. In an Indian Express explainer, foreign policy and strategic affairs expert C. Raja Mohan said: “While there are traumatic memories of Partition, there are also bonds of empathy, and a shared culture.” At Kartarpur Sahib, Pakistan Punjab chief minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif told Sikh pilgrims: “You are from Punjab [India], I am from Pakistan, but I am also a true Punjabi.” These statements express attachment across a political divide without erasing the different histories or national identities on either side.
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What does Punjabi Centuries add?
Edited by Anshu Malhotra, Punjabi Centuries: Tracing Histories of Punjab approaches Punjab through historical and cultural studies rather than offering one final definition of Punjabiyat. Orient BlackSwan lists the English-language hardback as a 2024 publication of 404 pages, ISBN 9789354428043. Its contributors, based in India, the UK, the US, and Canada, examine India, Pakistan, and diaspora communities from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to the present.
The volume’s subjects—including economic change, Punjabi-language politics, gender, migration, music, literature, religion, caste, print culture, sacred landscapes, and colonial and contemporary history—show why a single lens is insufficient. Read together, these topics make Punjabiyat legible as an evolving set of affiliations shaped by borders, social differences, cultural exchange, and memory.
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Sources and further reading
- Anshu Malhotra’s excerpt from Punjabi Centuries at Scroll.in
- Orient BlackSwan catalogue entry for Punjabi Centuries: Tracing Histories of Punjab
- Oxford Academic, Punjab Reconsidered: History, Culture, and Practice
- Anne Murphy, “Punjab, Punjabi, Punjabiyat,” at Rungh
- The Indian Express explainer on Punjabiyat and India–Pakistan cultural ties
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