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Routledge Critical Sikh Studies
BHAI VIR SINGH (1872–1957)
RELIGIOUS AND LITERARY MODERNITIES
IN COLONIAL AND POST-COLONIAL
INDIAN PUNJAB
Edited by Anshu Malhotra and Anne Murphy
Bhai Vir Singh (1872–1957)
This volume brings together works by established and emerging scholars
to consider the work and impact of Bhai Vir Singh. Bhai Vir Singh (1872–
1957) was a major force in the shaping of modern Sikh and Punjabi cul-
ture, language, and politics in the undivided colonial Punjab, prior to the
Partition of the province in 1947, and in the post-colonial state of India.
The chapters in this book explore how he both reflected and shaped his
time and context and address some of the ongoing legacy of his work in the
lives of contemporary Sikhs. The contributors analyze the varied genres,
literary, and historical that were adopted and adapted by Bhai Vir Singh
to foreground and enhance Sikh religiosity and identity. These include his
novels, didactic pamphlets, journalistic writing, prefatory and exegetical
work on spiritual and secular historical documents, and his poems and lyr-
ics, among others. This book will be of particular interest to those working
in Sikh studies, South Asian studies, and post-colonial studies.
Anshu Malhotra is a Professor in the Department of Global Studies and
Kundan Kaur Kapany Professor and Chair of Sikh and Punjab Studies at the
University of California at Santa Barbara, USA.
Anne Murphy is an Associate Professor in the Department of History at
the University of British Columbia, Canada, and holds the Chair of Punjabi
Language, Literature, and Sikh Studies.
Routledge Critical Sikh Studies
Encounters Across the Disciplines
Series editors: Pal Ahluwalia and Arvind-Pal Mandair
Routledge Critical Sikh Studies is an interdisciplinary book series dedi-
cated to publishing new and innovative research on Sikh formations in the
Punjabi and wider global context. Key to the approach of this series is the
concept of ‘encounter’, which can be applied to Sikh Studies in two ways.
First, that the term ‘Sikh’ designates a critical point of intersection with
the world, and secondly, that the so-called ‘Sikh world’ has itself evolved
through constant encounters: material, conceptual and spiritual. This idea
of encounter is increasingly accentuated in the era of modernity, in the
sense that it touches every aspect of Sikh existence and is potentially open
to being studied by any discipline, or even a range of disciplines. The notion
of encounter is also particularly relevant, as the Sikh lifeworld is being
forced to expand beyond its comfort zones and traditional boundaries.
Today’s ‘encounters’ are being registered in every field of study, including
philosophical and religious encounters with other traditions of thought and
practice; encounters with science, technology and media; encounters with
secularism; encounters with new political and social systems, languages,
literatures and groups; even intra-social encounters with new movements
within the Sikh traditions. The series editors, therefore, welcome contribu-
tions that work across disciplines, allowing scholars working broadly in
Sikh and Punjab Studies to explore wider theoretical debates and thematic
concepts from across the Humanities and Social Sciences.
Global Sikhs
Histories, Practices and Identities
Edited by Opinderjit Kaur Takhar and Doris R. Jakobsh
Bhai Vir Singh (1872–1957)
Religious and Literary Modernities in Colonial and Post-Colonial Indian
Punjab
Edited by Anshu Malhotra and Anne Murphy
For more information about this series please visit: https://www.routledge.
com/Routledge-Critical-Sikh-Studies/book-series/RCSSEAD
Bhai Vir Singh (1872–1957)
Religious and Literary Modernities
in Colonial and Post-Colonial
Indian Punjab
Edited by
Anshu Malhotra and Anne Murphy
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group,
an informa business
© 2023 selection and editorial matter, Anshu Malhotra and Anne
Murphy; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Anshu Malhotra and Anne Murphy to be identified as
the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their
individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77
and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 9781032267784 (hbk)
ISBN: 9781032288772 (pbk)
ISBN: 9781003298939 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003298939
Typeset in Sabon LT Std
by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.
Contents
Contributors vii
1 Introduction: Bhai Vir Singh as an Author, Scholar,
and Reformist 1
ANSHU MALHOTRA AND ANNE MURPHY
2 Innovation in Punjabi Literature: Considerations
on the Advent of Literary Modernity 25
FARINA MIR
3 Print Publics, Literary Experiments, and Community
Formation in the Work of Bhai Vir Singh 47
ARTI MINOCHA
4 The Conversion Loop: Gender, Identity,
and Storytelling in Bhai Vir Singh’s Sundarī 65
ANSHU MALHOTRA
5 Revisiting The Khalsa Samachar (1899-1900):
Women’s Issues and Concerns 88
PARNEET KAUR DHILLON AND JASPAL KAUR DHANJU
6 Didacticism and Punjabi Theatre: Bhai Vir Singh’s
Experimental Raja Lakhdata Singh 104
GUNJEET AURORA MEHTA
7 Beyond the Past: Poetry as a Notation of the Present 119
ANNE MURPHY
vi Contents
8 Intertextuality and Reception History: Connecting
Bhai Vir Singh’s Srī Kalgīdhar Camatkār to
Gurbilās Literature 135
JULIE VIG
9 Vir Singh’s Publication of the Gurpratāp Sūraj Granth 150
JVALA SINGH
10 Bhai Vir Singh’s Puratan Janamsakhi: Sikh Book Culture
and the Historical Turn 166
HARJEET SINGH GREWAL
11 Transcendence and the Modern Sikh Subject:
Analyzing Bhai Vir Singh’s Theology 185
ARVIND-PAL S. MANDAIR
12 The Manifold Lives of Bhai Vir Singh’s Sundri 213
DORIS R. JAKOBSH
Index 233
Contributors
Jaspal Kaur Dhanju is Formerly Professor, Department of History,
Professor in-charge Maharana Pratap Chair and Dean Research, Punjabi
University, Patiala, Punjab, India.
Parneet Kaur Dhillon is an Assistant Professor in the Department of
History and Punjab Historical Studies at Punjabi University, Patiala,
Punjab, India.
Harjeet Singh Grewal is an Assistant Professor in Sikh Studies in the
Department of Classics and Religion at the University of Calgary,
Canada.
Doris R. Jakobsh is a Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at
the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada.
Anshu Malhotra is a Professor and Kundan Kaur Kapany Chair in Sikh
and Punjab Studies in the Department of Global Studies, University of
California, Santa Barbara, USA.
Arvind-Pal S. Mandair is a Professor at the University of Michigan, Ann
Arbor, USA, where he holds the Tara Singh and Balwant Kaur Chattha
and Gurbax Singh and Kirpal Kaur Brar Sikh Studies Endowed
Professorship in Sikh Studies.
Gunjeet Aurora Mehta teaches at Niagara College-Toronto, Canada. She
was the former Dean, PG programmes at Salesian College, Siliguri,
India.
Arti Minocha is an Associate Professor at the Department of English, Lady
Shri Ram College, Delhi University, India.
Farina Mir is an Associate Professor in the Department of History at the
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA.
Anne Murphy (PhD, Columbia University) is an Associate Professor in the
Department of History at the University of British Columbia, Canada.
Jvala Singh is a Punjabi language lecturer at UC Berkeley and PhD candidate
at the University of British Columbia, Canada, where he is examining
pre-colonial Sikh historical narratives.
Julie Vig is an Assistant Professor of Humanities, Religious Studies, and
South Asian Cultures at York University, Toronto, Canada.
viii Contributors
Figure 0.1 Some of the personal belongings of Bhai Vir Singh including different
ittar (perfume) bottles, kangha, brush, pens, pencil, keys, personal kir-
pan, a plate, and other items
Photo credit: In the collection of Bhai Vir Singh Sahitya Sadan, New Delhi
Contributors ix
Figure 0.2 Bhai Vir Singh’s desk
Photo credit: Tejinder Singh Bawa, Bhai Vir Singh Niwas Asthan, Amritsar.
