ABSTRACT
This chapter reads Bhai Vir Singh's literary oeuvre in conjunction with his contributions to the newly emergent Punjabi print-public spheres and the consolidation of identities in the charged communal dynamics of the late colonial period. Critical literature on the print and public spheres in colonial Punjab has described these as imitative of the prototype of Western models and as “derivative” discourses. It is through the example of Bhai Vir Singh that we can argue otherwise. This chapter argues that the print sphere made it possible for newer subjectivities and modes of agency to emerge and it is through this politically critical idea of agency that Bhai Vir Singh's work can be examined. It explores agency that was, at this point, located at the intersection of new print spheres, literary and generic experiments, and community formation. Thus, a “hybrid” literary modernity emerged in response to multiple stimuli – local, transnational, oral, scriptural, mythological, and performative.
