Synopses & Reviews
Changing Homelands offers a startling new perspective on what was and was not politically possible in late colonial India. In this highly readable account of the partition in the Punjab, Neeti Nair rejects the idea that essential differences between the Hindu and Muslim communities made political settlement impossible. Far from being an inevitable solution, the idea of partition was a very late, stunning surprise to the majority of Hindus in the region.
In tracing the political and social history of the Punjab from the early years of the twentieth century, Nair overturns the entrenched view that Muslims were responsible for the partition of India. Some powerful Punjabi Hindus also preferred partition and contributed to its adoption. Almost no one, however, foresaw the deaths and devastation that would follow in its wake.
Though much has been written on the politics of the Muslim and Sikh communities in the Punjab, Nair is the first historian to focus on the Hindu minority, both before and long after the divide of 1947. She engages with politics in post-Partition India by drawing from oral histories that reveal the complex relationship between memory and history--a relationship that continues to inform politics between India and Pakistan.
Review
This engagingly written book places Punjabi Hindus at the center of Partition scholarship. Nair's often devastating examination of the complex considerations and unfathomable burdens that weighed on the minds of millions as they 'chose' to migrate reveals fresh thinking about religion and politics in South Asia. Mridu Rai, author of < i=""> Hindu Rulers, Muslim Subjects: Islam, Rights, and the History of Kashmir <>
Review
Nair's powerful book claims that for Punjab's Hindus there was nothing inevitable about the coming of partition. She offers new and challenging interpretations of major events and personalities, which will transform our understandings of Punjab's relationship to the Indian nationalist movement. Her discussion of Punjab's partition and the subsequent memory of partition among Delhi Hindus is a tour de force. David Gilmartin, author of < i=""> Empire and Islam: Punjab and the Making of Pakistan <>
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An extremely able work. A. G. Noorani
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Gives you new food for thought. Frontline
Review
The well-researched study, providing a wealth of information drawn from a wide variety of sources, serves more than a purely academic purpose. It gives the lay reader a clearer understanding of the subcontinent's history in its crucial phase, the part of history that continues to be distorted by diverse groups of holy crusaders. Syed Badrul Ahsan - Daily Star
Review
Neeti Nair's Changing Homelands: Hindu Politics and the Partition of India raises the pivotal question of Punjabi Hindus who, being "suddenly" rendered a minority in their land, had to migrate to what became/remained India. The case of the Punjabi Hindus is atypical--they were minority Hindus in Muslim-majority Punjab, who had to migrate to become part of a majoritarian Hindu community in India. In India today, where Muslims constitute the major minority, it is hard to imagine Hindus as a minority. The book can help us imagine, across time, the fate of such a large minoritarian Punjabi Hinduism. This is historically significant as the present state of minority Hinduism in Pakistan (chiefly in Sindh) is too miniscule to provide a useful comparative point of analysis. Nair's book helps sensitize us to the enormous contingency of majority and minority formation--and perhaps no question is more significant for South Asian polities today...Nair's book demonstrates the compound causal assemblages and nexuses that led to Partition rather than the teleology of "communalism"--and the chief value of this type of analysis might lie in the fact that the identified political elements can then be meaningfully re-assembled in a way that can moderate conflict, guilt and misunderstanding in the present. J. Sri Raman - The Hindu
Review
As a history of activities of Hindus in the Punjab, this book is a useful addition to understanding the history of the Punjab. Nikhil Govind - India International Centre Quarterly
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[An] extremely impressive study of the Partition of India...Nair's accomplishment in Changing Homelands is, above all else, her meticulously close attention to detail as she patiently unravels a number of vital strands in this larger tangle. She delivers a necessarily dense and complex, but very readable, narrative of what transpired in the Punjab (her focus), primarily over roughly a half century. R. D. Long - Choice
Review
The book makes a serious claim that the partition of Punjab should not be seen merely in relation to the "known" politics of the Muslim League; rather, to understand the events of 1947, one needs to look at the complex politics of colonial Punjab, particularly the ideas, beliefs and moves of those Punjabi leaders, who claimed to represent the interests of "Hindus." ...The modes by which "politics," an organized and collective activity, is performed in a colonial context is another important and perhaps the most fascinating theme of the book. One finds an engaging discussion on three well-known political figures--Lala Lajpat Rai, Swami Shraddhanand and Bhagat Singh. Nair does not take the conventional route to approach these figures; rather, she tries to place them in their own context to unpack those political aspects, which are not associated with the established images of these leaders...Nair makes a powerful claim that the given histories of Partition need to be questioned to understand the processual nature of such events. In this sense, Nair makes a serious contribution to Partition Studies--an emerging field of intellectual engagement with histories and memories of the Partition of the Indian subcontinent. Geoffrey Kain - South Asian Review
Review
It is an excellent work of meticulous research. Its argument is sharp and well executed. In many ways, what Joya Chatterji accomplished in her book, Bengal Divided (1994), Nair does for Punjab. Nair's is a fine illustration of Rancière's dissensus: it derails the received wisdom on Partition. Nair cogently builds her argument by dwelling on Punjabi Hindu politics. She discusses diverse ideological currents among Punjabi Hindus (and Sikhs) and attends to their entanglements, inconsistencies and evolution. Hilal Ahmed - The Book Review
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Nair offers fresh interpretations of Punjab's relationship with the national movement. Irfan Ahmad - South Asia
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Historian Neeti Nair's Changing Homelands, a fine addition to the new generation of Partition scholarship, adeptly navigates sensitive historical terrain to shed new light on the complicated story of Punjab's Hindus, and the relation of Punjab to the larger Indian national movement...Nair traces the evolution of the term 'communalism' in anti-colonial nationalist politics from the first decade of the twentieth century, thereby complicating the easy synonymy the term has come to occupy with exclusionary bigotry today. This is crucial work if we are to dissipate the polarized debates that we have inherited and often perpetuate. In excavating the role played by the politics of Punjab's influential Hindu minority, even as she attempts to impart multiple dimensions to the key players and situations involved, Nair puts forward an original, bold and responsible interpretation which adds considerably to the existing literature that focuses overwhelmingly on Muslim politics and the role of the British in 'explaining' Partition and the inception of communal politics in India. Sohini Majumdar - Refugee Watch Online
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It challenges the conventional understanding on the political causes leading to division of a nation into two...The account is to a large extent groundbreaking and adds a new perspective to the existing discourse on India's partition. There is an underlying inquisitiveness embedded throughout this exhaustive account for which the author deserves critical appreciation...The author's arguments are imposing and sure to draw attention. Her language is clear and engaging and her bibliography offers a rich assortment including several primary documents which authenticate the narrative and add further value to the overall broader arguments. Sahana Ghosh - Contemporary South Asia
Review
Neeti Nair confidently handles the tangled responses of Punjabi Hindu politicians to the issue of minority rights and safeguards in the late colonial era, thereby shedding fresh light on Punjab's relationship to the Indian nationalist movement...Nair consults a variety of source materials and offers original interpretations for her readers.
Priyanka Singh - Canadian Journal of History
Synopsis
Neeti Nair's account of the partition in the Punjab rejects the idea that essential differences between the Hindu and Muslim communities made political settlement impossible. Far from being an inevitable solution, partition--though advocated by some powerful Hindus--was a stunning surprise to the majority of Hindus in the region.
About the Author
Neeti Nair is Associate Professor of History at the University of Virginia.
University of Virginia