A study of the transformations in Punjab created by biotechnological revolutions, economic restructuring, persistent migrations, and political upheaval in the late 20th century. Drawing on fieldwork-based interviews, as well as local history archives, it presents a different framework to analyse the politics and social history of Punjab.

This book is a study of the transformations in Punjab created by biotechnological revolutions, economic restructuring, persistent migrations, and political upheaval in the late 20th century. The sacred centre at Amritsar, the transnational settlement of Southall and a Doaba village form the terrain for this -- three sites that can seen as metonymic spaces of identity that transcend geographic boundaries, and form the structure of this book.

Relations between the rural, the sacred and the transnational, fostered through migration, marriage and material exchange, existed well...