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Thursday, August 8, 2019
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com MICHIGAN IN COLOR

Punjab. Literally the land of 
five rivers. . . or, well, it used to 
be. You see, even the name of 
our homeland brings pain these 
days. How can I tell you the pain 
of Punjab? Quite honestly, it is 
a pain that I can hardly even 
understand. My experience as 
a member of the Punjabi dias-
pora has been filled with tragic 
realizations, one after the other. 
In the moments where I realize 
that my Bebe Ji (maternal grand-
mother) did not just “develop” a 
brain tumor, but she likely devel-
oped it after growing up and 
spending much of her life in the 
“Cancer belt” of Punjab, a region 
so named due to the presence of 
villages having cancer rates near 
100 percent. This, of course, is 
the result of Indian state-man-

dated pesticides that used by 
farmers in the region. Mind you, 
those pesticides were not needed 
when farmers were able to grow 
the crops they wanted on their 
land. The Green Revolution and 
the Indian State, in collabora-
tion with powers in the West like 
Rockefeller, the U.S. and others, 
forced these farmers to adhere 
to Western standards of farming 
that were designed for high yield. 
What they did not realize was 
that these farmers had the wis-
dom of their ancestors and knew 
how to take care of this land. 
These crops and the water they 
require are drying up a water 
table that has allowed Punjab to 
be one of the most fertile places 
on earth, yet soon Punjab will be 
a desert. The land of five rivers 
reduced to none. The pain I feel 
comes from the fact that on this 
issue alone I could talk for days 
on end about farmer suicide, can-

cer rates, and how farming fami-
lies are slowly being destroyed 
by the Indian state. There are so 
many more issues in my ances-
tral homeland.
And you see it was these farm-
ers that invented this bhangra 
that you all enjoy so much, or 
perhaps you’ll recognize it more 
if I refer to it as “bong-ra”. You 
see, those same farmers that 
used to dance so joyously when 
their crops were successful are 
the ones committing suicide as 
their work only brings profits 
in their dreams these days. The 
five rivers are now diverted from 
the land of Punjab and sold back 
to Punjabi farmers. And yet that 
same water is sent to the rest of 
India for free. Yet I see so many 
engage in Punjabi culture with-
out even realizing that the deriv-
atives of my culture that they 
participate in may be all that is 
left of it in a few decades. All I ask 

is that you realize how little is 
left of authentic Punjabi culture 
and the fact that the Indian state 
is systematically destroying Pun-
jabi land and culture in a pure act 
of empire. The links to Palestin-
ians being robbed of their water 
by the Israeli state should be rec-
ognized, but this also just proves 
that Imperial states are not cre-
ative in their violence.
And of course, now we see 
Kashmir 
being 
prepared 
for 
full-on occupation as the Indian 
state, using their philosophy of 
Hindutva, attempts to finally 
complete its colonial project of 
destroying the one of the Mus-
lim-majority state in the South 
Asian region. Of course, I cannot 
do Kashmir justice in a few lines, 
but I plead to all of you to educate 
yourself on what is happening to 
my Kashmiris and Palestinians 
and support their resistance and 
efforts to finally be free. But I 

digress . . . 
This is not a claim of cultural 
appropriation. This is a plea to 
simply recognize that the mini-
mizing of Punjabi culture to 
songs about “Patiala peg” and 
whatever other intoxicant y’all 
want to romanticize this week 
is just another violence on top 
of what Punjab has been put 
through for the past 72 years if 
you want to only speak of Indian 
state-sponsored violence. I just 
hope that I will see some respon-
sibility in how Punjabi culture 
is represented in spaces and not 
simply minimized to hype music 
and getting hammered. For those 
of us that spend every day learn-
ing more and more about how 
much we lost, please remember 
us next time you understand 
Punjabi culture within this mini-
malistic lens. The spirit of Pun-
jab cannot be boxed in, no matter 
how hard y’all try.

On Punjab

HARNOOR SINGH
MiC Assistant Editor

Courtesy of Harnoor Singh
“I took it at Dr. Hari Singh Sevak Senior Secondary School in Kot Kapoora, Punjab (school named after my Nana ji, parental grandfather in my mom’s hometown)”