197 A.

Chandan: Punjabi Autobiographies

Punjabi Autobiographies
Amarjit Chandan
Punjabi poet, writer and commentator

_________________________________________________________________
This article looks into the autobiographical accounts of Punjabis written mainly in
the Punjabi language in the 19th and 20th centuries1. It begins with a brief history
of the known accounts prior to the 19th century, leading into the discussion of
major factors that shaped the mindset of the people of the region in the 19th and
20th centuries and the genres of autobiographical accounts that resulted. The
works of various authors are then loosely categorized and summarized under the
headings: Education, Identity, Women writers, The Impact of 1947 and 1984, and
Political Activists. The article concludes with the work of the five most influential
writers from the period, whose contributions are considered institutional in terms
of scope and magnitude.
_________________________________________________________________

Biographical references in Punjabi literature can be traced back to very

early times. The life story of Pūraṇ Bhagat, the legendary Pūraṇ Bhagat,
son of Rājā Śālivāhana who ruled Sialkot, which was handed down in the
form of folk ballads, is probably the earliest example of the genre under
discussion. It has been variously dated to the 1st century BCE (in the time
of King Vikramāditya; see Meyer et al., 1908, 335) or to the 4th/5th century
CE (Serebryakov, 1968, 11‐14).
Bābā Farīd (1173‐1266), whose poetry is included in the Gurū Granth,
was the first to write down details of his own life, though further
information can be gleaned from the stories about him that circulated after

1In the modern history of Punjab, socio‐political and literary movements were

multi‐religious, multi‐lingual and multi‐scriptural. Even Sikhs chose to write in

Urdu, English, Braj and Hindi besides Punjabi. Academic studies so far have
discussed the concept of Punjabi identity at length without reaching at its logical
end – the question of nationhood not based on religion. Mulk Raj Anand, Punjabi‐
English writer and Igor Serebryakov, Russian Indologist, in the interviews
conducted by me in London and Moscow in 1982 and 1989 respectively, agreed
that the literature produced by a Punjabi in any language ought to be categorised
as Punjabi literature. In that context I have attempted an inclusive bibliography.
– Author
JSPS 27:2 198

his death. Biographical accounts, particularly of Bābā (later Gurū) Nānak

(1469‐1539), began to be composed some 50 years after his death in the
form of the janamsākhīs (lit. birth stories), which provide a hagiographic
outlook on Gurū Nānakʹs life and the early days of Sikhism. The first
person narrative of a spiritual mission by Gurū Gobind Siṅgh (the tenth
gurū) appears under the title of Apṇī Kathā (My Story) in the hagiographic
text that is now known as the Dasam Granth (Book of the Tenth [Gurū];
believed to have been compiled by Bhāī Manī Siṅgh after the death of
Gurū Gobind Siṅgh). These elements continue to appear in Kesar Siṅgh
Chibbar’s Bansāvalīnāmā (Family Trees [of the Ten Gurūs], completed in
1769), who also documented the compilation history of the Dasam Granth.
Ratan Siṅgh Bhaṅgu, arguably the first Sikh historian, included brief
autobiographical accounts in his book Srī Gurpanth Prakāś (c. 1810).
Detailed autobiographical accounts began to flourish in the early 20th
century, when Western literary genres such as fiction, one‐act plays,
essays, and autobiographies began to be published by the new generation
of English‐educated Punjabis. A plethora of autobiographies by Sikh
writers, theologians, political activists, civil servants, administrators,
academics, educators, lawyers, and performing artists were written in the
latter half of the century. The confessional accounts came later.
Notable autobiographies by Sikh authors that sum up and help us
understand the social and cultural history of 20th‐century Punjab include:
Sahib Singh (1892‐1977) and Teja Singh (1894‐1958), both gurbāṇī
(utterances of the gurūs) exegetes; the political activists Sohan Singh
Bhakna (1870‐1968) and Sohan Singh Josh (1898‐1982); the educators and
writers Gurbakhsh Singh (1895‐1977), Sant Singh Sekhon (1908‐1997), and
Harbhajan Singh (1920‐2002); the historian, journalist, and translator
Khushwant Singh (1915‐2014); and the administrator, writer, and
architect of post‐1947 East Punjab, Mohinder Singh Randhawa (1909‐
1988).
A writer or a journalist taking up activism was an entirely new
phenomenon that became characteristic of modern Punjab. During the
first half of the 20th century, most of the Sikh authors were leading players
in the national political struggle of Punjab. Their autobiographies are the
primary source of this historical narrative.
Punjabi literature in the latter half of the century was predominantly
under the influence of the progressive political movement that had been
initiated in 1936 by Gurbakhsh Singh, Sohan Singh Josh, Sant Singh
Sekhon et al. Prior to this date, the progressives had been writers and
199 A. Chandan: Punjabi Autobiographies

poets who wrote on patriotic and social reform topics in traditional forms.
All such autobiographies by Punjabi writers of Sikh background,
including avowed Marxists, owe their basic world outlook to traditional
Sikh values.
Sohan Singh Josh wrote specifically on Sikh culture as his main source
of inspiration, although he later became an atheist. Ajit Singh, Sohan
Singh Bhakna, and Sohan Singh Josh, among others, were the founders of
the anticolonial movement that arose in the early decades of the 20th
century, and thus influenced all the successive movements led by the
Ghadar movement, the Akali movement (or Gurdwara Reform
Movement), Kirti Kisan Sabha, and the Congress‐Socialist parties,
including those of post‐1947 East Punjab.
Six autobiographies that appeared in Punjabi during the pre‐1947
period were products of the peasants’ agitation (1907) and the Ghadar
movement (1913). Their political affiliation ranged from Bharat Mata
Society and Akali Dal to Congress‐Socialist and communist parties.
Most of these are intimate memoirs written in prisons under the
harshest conditions. Sohan Singh Bhakna dictated his autobiography Merī
Rām Kahāṇī (My Life Story, 1930) to his fellow prisoner Arjan Singh Gargaj
while he was on hunger strike in solidarity with Bhagat Singh (a
renowned revolutionary of the Indian independence movement). Both
Teja Singh (1952) and Harbhajan Singh (1994) start their accounts by
praying to God to guide them to remain truthful but at the same time not
to be hurtful to others, and to help them avoid ego and jealousy in their
writings. Hira Singh Dard sees the purpose of writing his memoirs Merīān
Kujh Itihāsik Yādān (Some of My Historical Reminiscences, 1955), upon the
insistence of his friends, in the refutation of the theory of natural leaders.
Dara Singh, a wrestler turned actor and the first sportsman to be
nominated to the Rajya Sabha (upper house of the Indian parliament),
wrote his Merī Atam Kathā (My Autobiography, 1990) as an “inspirational
story” for young people.

New Perspective on Western Thought

Sikhs studying at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, London, and

California in the 1920s came into contact with Western thought and
learned to interact with it. Sher Singh Giani (1939), Gurbakhsh Singh
(1947, 1959), Lal Singh Kamla Akali (no date), Narain Singh (Bar at Law;
1966), Mohinder Singh Randhawa (1985), and Khushwant Singh (2002)
JSPS 27:2 200

also wrote the first travelogues of Europe and North America, creating a
new genre by Sikh authors.

Sikh Education

Authors of Punjabi autobiographies such as Teja Singh, Sahib Singh,

Niranjan Singh, Sant Singh Sekhon, Giani Lal Singh, Piar Singh, and
Pritam Singh were pioneers in the promotion of education for the region.
Khalsa College in Amritsar, established in 1892, was seen as the
nursery of loyal and educated young Sikh men to serve the British Empire.
Its functioning was always fraught with antagonism between the pro‐
British management (especially after the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of
1919 in which more than thousand peaceful protestors were killed by the
British Army) and the pro‐Akali faculty led by Niranjan Singh (1892‐
1979). The rift culminated in the founding of the Sikh National College in
Lahore by the latter in 1938.
Niranjan Singh was the younger brother of Master Tara Singh, the
Sikh leader, but their politics differed widely. Being a khādī (homespun
cotton)‐clad member of the Gandhian Congress, Niranjan Singh described
his short‐lived experience as principal of the Sikh National College as one
of emerging like a bubble and ending as such in 1947. In its brief existence
of ten years, the college attracted the very best faculty, including
professors such as Victor Gordon Kiernan (1913‐2009), Kishan Singh
(1911‐1993), Randhir Singh (1922‐2016), and Pritam Singh (1918‐2008).
Teja Singh gives a first‐person account of Max Arthur Macauliffe, the
Gurū Granth’s English translator. Sahib Singh is known for his work on
Gurbāṇī Viākaraṇ (Gurbani Grammar, 1932), Tīkā (an exegesis of the Gurū
Granth in ten volumes), Srī Gurū Granth Darpaṇ (The Gurū Granth Mirror),
and his biographies of Sikh gurūs. In Merī Jivan Kahānī (My Life Story,
1977), he narrates how the idea of working on the grammar (Gurbāṇī
Viākaraṇ) and the interpretation of the Gurū Granth (Srī Gurū Granth
Darpaṇ) came upon him while he was doing the kathā (exegesis) of the
Gurū Granth in 1920.

Women Writers

Despite the avowed equality of women in the Sikh religion, the issue of
their participation in higher education was not adequately addressed
until the first half of the 20th century, and the groundwork for this was
201 A. Chandan: Punjabi Autobiographies

not laid until the late 19th century. Takhat Singh (1870‐1937) of Firozpur
(with the partnership of his wife Harnam Kaur and later of Agya Kaur)
was a pioneer in women’s education in the 19th century. He established
the first school for girls in Punjab in the year 1892 at Firozpur. The school,
which had started as an open‐air school, was gradually expanded into a
boarding school, high school, and college that was completed in 1904 and
came to be known as the Sikh Kanya Mahavidalya (Sikh Girls College).
Despite several small initiatives to educate women, even in the 20th
century, higher education for women remained largely restricted to well‐
off, educated families, especially in the rural areas of Punjab. But
notwithstanding their limited exposure to education, quite a few women
writers did in fact emerge in the 20th century. Born in the pre‐1947 era,
they published their autobiographies in the last quarter of the century.

Amrita Pritam (1919‐2005) was the first female poet to make a name for
herself in the field of literature. Her autobiography Rasīdi Tiket (The
Revenue Stamp, 1976) caused some sensation through its revelation of her
one‐sided love affairs with Muslim men and her rebellious life style.

Kailash Puri (1925‐2017) wrote books that were mainly concerned with
sex. The Punjabi language is generally inhibited in this field and the task
of writing on a subject that was so dominated by men in conversation and
writing proved to be a challenge for her. Her autobiography Bār Jāo Lakh
Berīā (I Offer Myself a Thousand Times, 1996) as well as the English‐
language publication Pool of Life: The Autobiography of a Punjabi Agony Aunt
(with Eleanor Nesbitt, 2013) give a glimpse of her own life and of that of
other working Punjabi women in the diaspora.

Prabhjot Kaur (1924‐2016), in her autobiography Jīṇā vī ikk Adā hai (Life
as an Art, 1996), details her long, dysfunctional marriage with a novelist
and military attaché, and her successful career as an author.

Ajit Caur (b. 1934) made her mark as a writer of short stories, winning the
Sahitya Akademi award for her autobiography Khānābadoś (The Nomad,
1982; ET: Pebbles in a Tin Drum, 1995). Its sequel, Kūṛ Kabāṛ (A Load of
Rubbish), was published in 1997.
JSPS 27:2 202

Dalip Kaur Tiwana (1935‐2020), with a prolific output in fiction, also

published her autobiography Naṅge Pairān dā Safar (A Barefoot Journey,
1980).

Kana Singh (b. 1937), known for her sensuous, erotic, and lyrical poetry,
shows prudence in her memoirs Cit Cetā (I Remember, 2013), which are
written with a tinge of Pothohari dialect.

Sikh Identity

Both Khushwant Singh (1915‐2014), who stood close to Master Tara

Singh, and Jaswant Singh Neki (1925‐2015), a psychiatrist and poet, toyed
with the idea of a Sikh homeland in the early 1950s, but both evade their
past by failing to conduct a self‐analysis in their autobiographies. Their
work shows how the assertion of Sikh identity manifested itself in the
Gurdwara Reform Movement (1920s), and later on in the prisons, as the
right to wear turbans and Sikh articles of faith – a struggle that continued
up to the early 1940s. Sikh sovereignty became a part of a limited political
discourse in the latter half of the 20th century.

The Impact of Partition and 1984

All Sikh autobiographies that cover 1947 share the pain of the catastrophe
associated with the Partition of India, which the authors found beyond
comprehension. Likewise, Harbhajan Singh, in his autobiography Colā
Tākiānvālā (The Patched Robe, 1994), includes his journal entries and
poems written on the storming of the Darbār Sāhib at Amritsar and the
anti‐Sikh pogroms that took place throughout India following Indira
Gandhi’s assassination in 1984. Jaswant Singh Neki, in his book of poetry
entitled Koī Naun Nān Jāṇe Merā (No Body Knows My Name, 2000),
chronicles the anguish of a tormented soul witnessing the tragedy of 1984.

Political Activists

Gurdit Singh
Zulmī Kāthā (The Story of Tyranny, 1921) was the first “life story”
published in Punjabi. Gurdit Singh (1860‐1954), the author, was an
entrepreneur turned political activist. Its English translation, Voyage of
Komagatamaru or India’s Slavery Abroad, appeared five years later. Written
203 A. Chandan: Punjabi Autobiographies

as “a duty to point out how the authorities had insulted peaceful Indian
immigrants of SS Komagatamaru,” the book was a rebuttal of the
Government of India’s Report of the Komagata Maru Committee of Inquiry
(January 1915).

Jawala Singh
Jawala Singh (1866‐1938) was the first vice president of the Ghadar Party
(1913) and the founding president of the Kirti Kisan Sabha, a peasants
union in Punjab (1937). He was tried in the First Lahore Conspiracy Case,
in which he was sentenced to lifelong deportation and forfeiture of all
property. A special tribunal described him as one of the party’s “brains”.
His book Ghadar dī Lalkār (Ghadar’s Challenge, 1995) details the harsh
treatment meted out to the Punjabi political prisoners at the hands of the
state authorities, from the governor down to the jailers.

Sohan Singh Bhakna

Sohan Singh Bhakna (1870‐1968) was the founding President of the
Ghadar Party, which was established in 1913 in California. He was
sentenced to death in the First Lahore Conspiracy Case in 1915. Later, the
sentence was commuted to lifelong deportation to the Andaman Islands,
where he spent seven years; he was subsequently released from Lahore
jail in 1930, having been imprisoned for a total of 26 years. Sohan Singh
wrote more than four successive autobiographical accounts, mainly in
Urdu. Punjabi versions of three accounts were published with twenty‐
year gaps between them. Merī Rām Kahāṇī (My Life Story) reads like a
good literary piece with several poignant details such as his love affair
with a Muslim female dancer from Amritsar in his youth and seeing his
mother for the first time in years while he was in Multan jail as a
condemned prisoner. Is Jagat Yātrā Mein Ankhoṇ Dekhī aur Āp Bītī
(Eyewitness Account of My Journey in This World) was written in Urdu
after his release from prison in 1951 and published in Punjabi as Merī Āp
Bītī (ed. and trans. by Amarjit Chandan, 2014). The third instalment, Jīvan
Saṅgrām (Life Struggle), was published in 1965 (ed. and trans. by
Malwinderjit Singh).

Wasakha Singh
Sant Wasakha Singh (1877‐1957), one of the founders of the Ghadar Party,
finished writing his full‐length autobiography around 1921, although it
did not appear until 2001, when the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak
JSPS 27:2 204

Committee published it under the title Atam Kathā (Autobiography). In

the autobiographical genre, it was the first ever work in Punjabi. It was
also unique in the sense that it was written in the form of poetry. Around
the same time and in the same poetic genre Sadhu Daya Singh Arif (1894‐
1946) published his autobiography Zindagi Bilās (Joy of Life). Thanks to
Wasakha Singh’s efforts in the Khalsa Diwan Society (founded 1906 in
British Columbia, Canada), the first Sikh gurdvārā (place of worship) in
the United States was built in Stockton, California, in October 1912.

Bhai Randhir Singh

Bhai Randhir Singh (1878‐1961), a revolutionary and a Sikh mystic
scholar, was the only leader of the Ghadar Party to reside in Punjab. He
was sentenced to lifelong imprisonment in the Second Lahore Conspiracy
Case. His Punjabi‐written autobiography Jail Cithiāṇ (Letters from Prison,
1936), a collection of 26 letters written from prison during his 16 years of
imprisonment, reveals his personal spiritual experiences and contains
accounts of his suffering.

Ajit Singh
Ajit Singh (1881‐1947), paternal uncle of Bhagat Singh, rose to a legendary
status in 1907 when he led the Pagrī Sambhāl Jaṭā (“Take Care of [Thy]
Turban”) peasant agitation. In 1909, Ajit Singh escaped to Iran and spent
most of his remaining his life in self‐imposed exile in Europe and South
America. He returned home in 1946, only to die at the very midnight
when India gained freedom on August 15, 1947. He wrote his
autobiography, Buried Alive, in English in May 1947. It was published in
Punjabi translation in 2001.

Hira Singh Dard

Hira Singh Dard (1889‐1965), a journalist and writer, launched a monthly
literary journal named Phulvāṛī (Flower Garden) in 1924, which became a
landmark in Punjabi literary journalism. He was also the secretary of the
Sikh League and a member of the SGPC, the central organization
responsible for the upkeep of Sikh places of worship (the gurdvārās). He
published books of didactic poetry, fiction, and prose.

Harjap Singh
Harjap Singh (1892‐1982) took the helm of the Ghadar Party in 1919 in San
Francisco. Then in its second phase, the party was in disarray after all the
205 A. Chandan: Punjabi Autobiographies

top leaders had been imprisoned in Punjab following the failed February
1915 uprising (the Ghadar Mutiny). In early 1926, he headed a five‐
member delegation sent by the Ghadar Party to study at the Communist
University of Toilers of the East, run by the Third (Communist)
International in Moscow. His memoirs Jail Diary ate Hor Likhtān (Jail Diary
& Other Writings, 1999) chart his life journey from 1909, when he went to
the United States, to his time in prison. More than 90 activists of the
Ghadar Party or Kirti Kisan Sabha – the majority of them Sikhs – received
their political and military training in Moscow during 1924 and 1940.
Harjap Singh is exceptional on two counts: firstly, because he writes in
detail about the specifics of their training there, and secondly because he
brands Stalin as a “traitor to the cause of the international working class”
for disbanding the Third International.

Sohan Singh Josh

Sohan Singh Josh (1898‐1982) was elected the General Secretary of the
Shriomani Akali Dal and a member of the SGPC at the very young age of
20. He was the first general secretary of the Kirti Kisan Sabha (KKS –
Workers and Peasants Party), which was established in April 1928. He
was arrested in March 1929 in connection with the Meerut Conspiracy
Case and served five years in jail. He was the first communist to be elected
to the Punjab Legislative Assembly in 1937. He edited Kirti (1926‐28)
organ of the KKS and Parbhat (The Morning) a literary magazine in
Punjabi from Amritsar. He was the editor of a weekly communist paper
Jang‐i‐Azadi (War of Freedom) started in 1940 in Lahore and after partition
daily Nawan Zamana (New Age) published in Jalandhar. As a translator of
Marxist texts, he had a knack for linguistics and coined many new terms
in Punjabi.
Josh wrote both in Punjabi and in English. His notable books on
contemporary history, in which he himself played an important part, are
Akālī Morciān da Itihās (A History of Akali Agitations, 1972), Kāmāgātā
Māru dā Dukhānt (The Tragic Story of the Komagata Maru, 1976), Bhagat
Siṅgh nāl Meriān Mulākātān (My Meetings with Bhagat Singh, 1977), and
A History of the Hindustan Ghadar Party (2 vols.), which was published in
English in 1977/1978. His equally English‐written autobiography, My
Tryst with Secularism (1991), was published posthumously.
JSPS 27:2 206

Gurmukh Singh Musafir

Gurmukh Singh Musafir (1899‐1976), a writer and statesman, was
appointed head of the Akāl Takhat (the central seat of religious authority
for the Sikhs) from 1930 to 1931. He also served for a time as secretary of
the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) as well as
general secretary of the Shiromani Akali Dal (Sikh centrist political party).
In 1966, he was appointed chief minister of the reorganized state of East
Punjab. His published works include nine collections of poems and eight
of short stories. His autobiography Dhūṛ Dhūṛ Paindā (Along Dusty
Roads), written in 1963, was published posthumously.

Naina Singh Dhoot

The memoirs of Naina Singh Dhoot (1904‐1989) are the only recorded
published personal testimony that is available in English translation. He
remained a grassroots activist of the Punjabi communist movement for
more than five decades (1936–1989), organising small Jaṭ (the landowning
caste) farmers and industrial workers. He studied at the Communist
University of the Toilers of the East in Moscow from 1933 to 1936, having
been sent there by the Ghadar Party of Argentina.

Arjan Singh Gargaj

Arjan Singh Gargaj (1908‐1963) was a political activist and journalist. His
memoirs Do Payr Ghat Turnā (Walking with Grace, 1961) and Shahid de Bol
(Martyr’s Words, 1962) read like a Who’s Who of the freedom struggle.
Kulwant Singh Virk, a master of Punjabi short fiction who wrote the
preface to the last book, praised Arjan Singh Gargaj for “opening the door
to the events from 1919 to 1947”.

Writers as Institutions

Teja Singh
Teja Singh (1894‐1958), essayist, literary critic, translator, teacher,
educationist, scholar, publicist, and activist, dominated the Punjabi
literary scene for a whole generation. Sikh history and theology were his
special fields. His autobiography Ārsī (Handheld Mirror) was published
in 1952.
207 A. Chandan: Punjabi Autobiographies

Gurbakhsh Singh
Gurbakhsh Singh (1895‐1977), the author of more than 50 books, is
considered the father of modern Punjabi prose. He was the initiator of an
entire movement in the social and cultural life of (mainly Sikh) Punjabis,
the so‐called Preet Lehar (“Movement of Love”). His monthly magazine
Prīt Laṛī (The Love Link) started in 1933 and influenced two generations
of Punjabi writers. His autobiographical accounts appeared under the
titles Merīān Abhull Yādān (Unforgettable, 1947) and Meri Jivan Kahani (My
Life Story, I, II, & III, 1959‐64‐66).

Nanak Singh
The most popular Punjabi novelist Nanak Singh (1897‐1971), with more
than 65 novels to his credit, began his literary career by publishing eight
collections of poems – the first being Sadgurū Maehima (In the Praise of the
True Gurū, 1918), a set of hymns that sold over a hundred thousand times.
He wrote his autobiography Merī Dunīyā (My World) in 1949, followed
by the short sequel Merī Jivan Patāri Coṇ (From the Basket of My Life) in
1956.

Sant Singh Sekhon

Sant Singh Sekhon (1908‐1997), writer, literary critic, and historian, charts
the entire cultural and literary history of 20th‐century Punjab in his
autobiography Umar dā Pandh (Journey of My Life, 1989).

Mohinder Singh Randhawa

Mohinder Singh Randhawa (1909‐1988), an administrator and writer,
joined the Indian Civil Service (also known as the Imperial Civil Service)
in 1934 in London. He was appointed as the Deputy Commissioner of
Delhi when India was on the eve of independence. He is known for
realizing the Herculean task of rebuilding partition‐ravaged East Punjab
by helping the half a million displaced farmers to resettle (in his capacity
as the Director General of Rehabilitation), for adorning the newly built
city of Chandigarh with its museum and rose garden (designed by Le
Corbusier), and for creating India’s first agricultural university – the
Punjab Agricultural University in Ludhiana. He is acknowledged as the
father of the Green Revolution in East Punjab. His autobiography Āp Bītī
(It Happened with Me, 1985) is written in simple, idiomatic, and lucid
Punjabi. Its chapters on Punjab’s partition, Punjabi political leadership,
JSPS 27:2 208

independence, the displacement of Punjabis, and their rehabilitation

make up the body of the book.

Conclusion

The 19th and 20th centuries were crucial periods in Sikh history, setting
the stage for their globalization. The most notable events that defined the
Sikh psyche during these periods were the loss of the Sikh Empire to the
British in 1849, the Sikh involvement in both World Wars, the Ghadar
movement to free the Indian subcontinent from colonialism, the genocide
and mass exodus during the partition of Punjab in 1947, and the Indian
state‐sponsored pogroms of June and November 1984.
While dealing with such external factors, Sikhs derived their
individual strength from the essence of their lives, the Gurū Granth and
the Khālsā (“The Collective”), continually keeping their focus on the
inward journey as reflected in their autobiographical accounts. These
accounts are a testimony to how they dealt with war and adversities,
while rebuilding their torn lives and keeping the needs of society – such
as education and justice – in the focus of their attention.
Women were the backbone of the families that kept them going and
their spirit alive, and although their education took a backseat during the
grief‐stricken centuries, they made the best of what was availed to them.
They wrote about personal relationships, subjugation and liberation,
failures and triumphs, and their inward journeys that helped them cope.
Collectively the autobiographies attest to the Sikhs’ resilience and to
the fact that they steadily gave the common good priority over all other
causes. Driven by the love of their gurū, or the love of their people, or both,
they simply marched on.
Even though this text attempts to document the available
autobiographical accounts, the environment of their actors, and their
genres; it also leads to a reflection on what is missing. For a people who
have gone through historical events of such magnitude, not much has
been written, for instance about their accounts of World War I and II, in
which over 100,000 Punjabi soldiers perished. Accounts in humanities, to
which Punjabis have contributed so heavily (e.g. in the fields of
architecture, art, cinema, literature, music and science) are equally scant.
209 A. Chandan: Punjabi Autobiographies

Acknowledgment

My special thanks go to Gurmeet Kaur, author of Fascinating Folktales of

Punjab, for her critical editorial assistance with this article.

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Gargaj, Arjan Singh, Do Payr Ghat Turnā, Delhi, 1961.

Gargaj, Arjan Singh, Śahīd de Bol (Martyr’s Words), Delhi, 1962.

Gargaj, Arjan Singh, Merā Āpna Āp (My Self), Delhi, 1969.

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Ludhiana, 2014.

Gujral, Satish, A Brush with Life, New Delhi, 1997.

Hameed, Shahid, Gayé Dinoṅ ki Musāfāt (Days Gone By), Lahore, 2016.

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Jaggi, Rattan Singh, Paunī Sadī dā Paindā (Three Quarters of a Century),

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211 A. Chandan: Punjabi Autobiographies

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JSPS 27:2 212

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213 A. Chandan: Punjabi Autobiographies

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