ABSTRACT
In a close and contextual reading, this chapter examines selected literature – chiefly poetry – produced in response to different peasant struggles in Punjab from 1907 to the farmers’ protest of 2020–2021. In so doing, it demonstrates how, informed by the politics of resistance and social justice, writers record and make social history – of protest, resilience, and solidarity – available to the masses. Drawing from the folk, the sacred, the political, the imaginary, and the natural worlds, and above all, the lived experiences, they weave together the personal and the sociopolitical through vivid narratives that, rising above petty differences and vested interests, try to strike a chord in readers, listeners, and viewers. Punjabi literature – in particular, poetry – sutures together politics and aesthetics and, to this end, we argue that its performative nature and its performance make poetry a mainstay of agitations.
