Many parts of Punjab: Harlen Singh’s Archive of Resistance, Flexibility and Remember | Bharat News

As Canadian-based Harlen Singh, fresh tensions can be created between India and Pakistan, which can build history, for the first time of the non-fiction ‘The Lost Heer’, for the first time, the silent stories of women of colonial Punjab have been highlighted. Dr. From Premdevi, possibly from the first female doctor to Khadija Begum of Punjab-‘Paid Punjabi Lady Ma’, which describes the bouncing of Singh’s seven-year Instagram Archive to challenge the male-centered narratives. The author talks to Sharmila Ganeson Ram about his singing grandmother and other unseeded women, whose life and heritage boundaries cross the boundaries.Your book ‘The Lost Heer’ is dedicated to ‘Bibi’. Tell us about it. Did he play a role in shaping your curiosity about history?The Lost Heer is dedicated to my grandmother, whom I lovingly called Bibi. She was born in Sheikhupura and grew up in Lahore among the cities that became part of Pakistan in 1947. That year, she became a refugee, forced to leave her home, her community and a world behind, after which only her memories will remain. His folk songs carried out centuries of feelings, his cuisine preserved rituals of daily life and his stories painted the vivid paintings of places I had never seen, but could almost touch through his words. When I told him that I had presented the manuscript of ‘The Lost Heer’, he gifted me to my mother’s precious Phulkari. Sadly, Bibi died before the book was published. But his voice, his soul and his stories live on every page.You started working voluntarily in the 1947 partition collection in Delhi when you returned to India from Canada in 2014. Was there a seed for the Instagram page ‘The Lost Heer’ project launched in 2018?Yes. I was in India on a summer vacation. Searching for ways to re -connect with history, I grew up hearing in pieces, especially from Bibi, I voluntarily worked for the 1947 partition collection. It was a significant turn. I interviewed the survivors of partition, many of them were killed by women, and how unheard of public narratives. Women emphasized the loss of their local cuisine, folk songs, dialects and all intimate domestic things. Legendary with silence, grief, flexibility and a calm dignity, their stories were different from men, which were usually stories of wealth. It planted seeds for the ‘The Lost Heer’ project, which I launched on Instagram in 2018 to make a place to find out the history of women from colonial Punjab. It eventually increased in the book.‘The Lost Heer’ provoked the mythological lover of Punjab. What is the symbol of Heer in your book?Heer is much higher than a romantic figure – it is a symbol of disregarding, choice and emotional power in the oral and literary tradition of Punjab. I not only wanted to recover her as a sad lover, but also protests as a woman who speaks and claims the agency. Like Heer, many women lived through upheaval in colonial Punjab – displacement, violence, cultural losses – but their voice was rarely recorded. He was often remembered through men around him. By inviting Heer, I wanted to show that these voices were not lost. For me, Heer represents a superior Punjaban, a chorus of women, whose truth has long been buried under the noise of history.As a male writer who told women’s stories in colonial Punjab, was there moments of doubt or hesitation?Absolutely. I often questioned if I could really catch the nuances of their experiences, and can I unknowingly a modern or male gaze on history, which were not mine to claim. What I was directed was, there was a deep commitment to listen with care, humility and respect. Most of the ‘The Lost Heer’ is based on the years of recollecting with oral history, family memories and the silence of women’s stories through stories. I was most killed how many times the agency of these women was ignored-their options, flexibility, and emotional complexity decreased in the stereotypes of sorrow or sacrifice. These women were active partners in history, even when their options were painful limited limited. The goal was never to speak for women, but I had to hold a place for their stories to speak through me.From teachers to campaigners, from editors, your book social reformer Dr. Premdevi and writer Khadija Begum reveals the lives of many notable hairs including Ferozuddin. Which stories have gone the most or surprised you?The story of Hardevi Roshanlal made M. A child widow, she moved from Lahore to London in the 1880s, where she first experienced ‘freedom’ from Purdah. She learned the Montessori system, returned to Lahore in 1888 and established a press and started the first female magazine ‘Bharat Bhagini’ from Punjab. He did not stop there. Hardvi also wrote a Hindi travelogue called ‘Landon Yatra’, which shares her experiences abroad to read Punjabi women. Later, she turned into an anticolonial activist, organizing women’s meetings within Purdah and was plotting against the British during rapid disturbances in Punjab around 1907–1908. Her story showed how the women agency took many forms between social and political upheaval – education, publication, political activism.Given the lack of documentation of women’s voices, how difficult the research process was?Many of these stories were hidden in silence, absent from the official archives, or scattered in fragmented sources. To highlight them, I had to go beyond traditional history and clue together from a wide range of materials: old newspapers, pension records, private letters, family papers, oral admirers, etc. I call this process ‘informed imagination’. It is about gathering these pieces carefully, sometimes to imagine the life behind the full -back without wandering from the name, date, or brief mention, and historical credibility.You write that “controlling women’s sexuality” was an important concern in colonial Punjab …Controlling the sexuality of women in colonial Punjab was closely connected to the Purdah system, which banned the women’s movement and implemented their solitude as a marker of respect. Victorian ethics clashed with local customs during this period, which introduces new ideas of Vinay. A major controversy was taking Punjabi women taking a naked bath in rivers-a long-standing communal practice is seen as abusive by colonial authorities and missionaries. Due to this, men were fined who failed to control their women and even argued in 1893 Lahore Congress. Religious reform groups such as Arya Samaj and Singh Sabha affected by Victorian values ​​pushed dress reforms, instead of traditional clothing with choli such as a completely covered dress. While women’s body became a battleground for competition ideas, women of Punjab continued to navigate, interact and sometimes protest these norms in their subtle ways. From Purdah parties to early feminist magazines, elite women were engaged in various ways with both colonial power and local reforms. Which forms of the agency stood for you?What was for me was how they used the places available for them. For example, Purdah parties may look like locations of solitude, but they were also sites of social networking and collective organization. Women exchanged ideas, interacted with new inventions, supported reformist reasons, and sometimes engaged in micro resistance to colonial or patriarchal control: to highlight a racist memeshib or reduce polygamy. Similarly, through editing and writing in early feminist magazines, they challenged the norms about education and women’s rights, which were attached to colonial and local reform movements on their terms.How did caste, religion and class in colonial Punjab shape women experiences and how to echo these layered identity in South Asia today?The upper caste women faced strict controls like Purdah and arranged for marriage but often had access to education and improvement circles. Low caste women faced economic difficulty and various social pressures, sometimes with more freedom than strict gender norms. Religious identity- Singh, Hindus, Muslims – which are the front layers, are all influenced by colonial laws regulating personal and social life. Today, these intersection identities still affect women’s opportunities and challenges in South Asia, which have been seen in the ongoing debate about issues such as triple talc, polygamy and access to religious places.Recent works like ‘The Cayers of 1984’ have attracted attention to the voices of women after Operation Blue Star. In the context of today’s stressful Indo-Pak and Indo-Cancer relations, historical story-especially through the lens of unseeded women-with a bridge beyond the boundaries in your idea?The historical story that focuses on unseeded women can act as bridges on stressful borders by highlighting shared human experiences such as disadvantages and flexibility. Women’s stories from Punjab – whether partitions, operation blue stars, or migration – now cross the political partition and challenge narrow nationalism. These stories remind us that history is not only about nations, but about people, often women whose life and heritage rarely accept official politics. I believe that the story frozen in sympathy and complexity can promote treatment and connection, which can help us imagine futures, where shared history becomes a foundation for peace rather than partitions.What is next for the ‘The Lost Heer’ project? Do you imagine taking these stories into new forms – perhaps in stage, screen or classrooms?The collection is still increasing. Thousands of stories remain unspecified, untouched and remain untouched in archives, family collections and oral history. I hope these stories will find new life in the stage, screen, or classrooms, reaching the broad audience and connecting the future generations deeply with their history and heritage.