Modern Indian state that lies south of
the state of Jammu and Kashmir on the
border of Pakistan. Modern Punjab is
one of the so-called linguistic states, created to unite people with a common
language and culture (in this case,
Punjabi) under one state government.
The present state of Punjab was created
in 1966, when the former state (also
called Punjab) was divided into three
areas: Punjab (the Punjabi-speaking
region), the state of Haryana (from the
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Punjab
Farmers harvesting wheat in a field in Punjab.
Hindi-speaking regions), and Himachal
Pradesh (from the hill regions). The
Punjab region is replete with history, for it
has been the traditional route by which
invaders have gained access to the northern Indian plains. The first of these were
the Aryans, who coined its name from the
five rivers (pancab) flowing through it.
The abundant water from these rivers,
carried by an extensive irrigation network, has made the Punjab exceptionally
fertile, and today it remains the largest
wheat-growing area of India.
The Punjab is famous as the birthplace
of the Sikh religious community, and is
today the only Sikh-majority state. The
partition of India into Hindu and Muslim
states in 1947 hit the Sikhs the hardest,
since the division essentially carved their
homeland in half. In the aftermath of the
partition millions of people became
refugees, and many of them fell victim to
the atrocities of the time. For most of the
1980s, Sikh proindependence groups
waged an undeclared war against the
Indian government. In one of the most
dramatic events of this period, the Akal
Takht, the traditional symbol for Sikh temporal power, was stormed by the Indian
army in June 1984, and the Indian prime
minister, Indira Gandhi, was assassinated
four months later. By the mid-1990s this
movement seemed to have been quelled,
although no one can predict whether this
is permanent. Punjab is most famous for
the Sikh Harmandir (Golden Temple) in
Amritsar, a short distance from the
Jallianwala Bagh, site of a massacre that
was one of the pivotal events in the struggle for Indian independence. For general
information about Punjab and all the
regions of India, an accessible reference is
Christine Nivin et al., India. 8th ed., Lonely
Planet, 1998.