Every year, the month of August shows we are driven by irresistible euphoria and take freedom as a paramount value. This is manifest in the official and semi-official Independence Day celebrations which reflect pomp and show more than substance. The poverty of substance is rooted in the near lack of national narrative that expresses the absence of sense of history among our economic, political and intellectual elite, at the helm. The narrative that captures the soul of colonial experience in all it multidimensionality can in no way be acceptable to our elite which represents the continuation of civil and military institutions, and social classes created by the occupying colonial forces. Not just that. The entire state apparatus that is functionally dysfunctional is a carry-over from the era of colonialism which lasted from mid-nineteenth century to mid-twentieth century in the regions that now constitute the territories of Pakistan. The colonial apparatus was not designed to cater to the historical needs of the people. Its aim on the one hand was to extract maximum economic surplus through the introduction of capitalist mode of production and on the other to make the subjugated internalise the notion of the European way of life as advanced and superior. But sadly we don’t see these factors accounted for when it comes to our narrative of colonialism.

The extractive nature of colonial enterprise in Punjab can clearly be seen in the canal colony network. It encompassed an area stretching from the banks of the river Sutlej to the river Chenab forming an arc over the river Ravi in the western part of the united Punjab, called the West Punjab. The area spread over hundreds of miles in between three rivers and was largely covered by thick wild growth which wasn’t less than a sprawling natural jungle. The area was neatly divided into Bars (Bar means outer area/unpopulated space/jungle etc). The area around the river Sutlej up to present day Arifwala in district Pakpatan was called Neeli Bar.

From Pattoki in district Kasur to Khanewal along the left side of the river Ravi was Ganji Bar. The stretch from the right bank of the river Ravi to the river bed of the Chenab was known as Sandal Bar which starting from the western side of Sheikhupura went down to Jhang and Shorkot in the south west. The Ganji Bar was rightly proud of its history; it had Harappa, the metropolis of ancient pre-Aryan Harappa civilization. It produces the finest animals. Ganji Bar’s buffalo is the stuff of legends. The people of Ravi love livestock so much that even the gentlest of them would try to rustle a fine animal whenever and wherever he sees it. Remember the story found in the Rigveda? The forebears of these very people, much to the chagrin of Lord Indira, stole the Aryan’s cows and hid them in a cave.

The Sandal Bar has been a star in the cultural firmament of the modern Punjab: it’s the birthplace of the two greatest legends, namely Heer Ranjha and Sahiban Mirza, apart from producing countless lords and fighters (Rath), the celebrated rebel Dullah Bhatti being one of them. Baba Guru Nanak, the seer, celebrates, in one of his sacred verses, the drone of bumblebees in the spring that he sees all over the Bar. Poet Hafiz Barkhurdar, in his tale of Sahiban, says: “Totay bolan bar day, vani jhingaran mor (the Bar’s parrots chatter and the peacocks scream in the treetops)”. About the final fateful journey Mirza undertook from the banks of the river Ravi to the vicinity of the river Chenab through the wild forest, the poet says: “Pandh Sandal da cheeria, khauf khatar da rah (He pierced the Sandal Bar. Fear and danger arched over the way). Poet Damodar Das Gulati, inhabitant of Sandal Bar, who was the first to compose the story of Heer, describes his young heroine thus: “Bagga shienh phiray vich jhall day, dhrohi paundi jain di” (a dreaded white loin roams the wild jungle (of the Bar), spreading fear far and wide). Later, here is what Waris Shah, the resident of the same Bar, says about Heer, his immortal heroine: “sayyan naal latakdi maan matti jiwin hirnian trathian Bar vichon (she, drunk with pride, struts in the company of her friends as if a startled gazelle jumps up in the Bar)”.

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In the whole region, the agriculture was patchy being dependent on floodwater, rains and wells (Persian wheel). Seasonal crops along with livestock happened to be the mainstay of the economy. The sight of unutilised fertile land with rivers running through it whetted the colonial administration’s appetite for an increased agricultural production which it needed to devour back home in the UK. So in a short span of time they prepared a plan; a complex network of all-season canals was laid and huge tract of virgin land was brought under cultivation. Local tribal chiefs and loyal biggies were awarded big chunks of lands while local working classes were largely ignored on the pretext of not having sufficient agricultural know-how. In the worst cases, they were ejected from the common land. The new segment of toadies was chuffed as it suddenly found unearned new wealth out of nowhere. A large number of farmers from what is now East Punjab, especially Jalandhar Doab, which reeled from the impact of increased population and dwindling land holdings, were given incentive to migrate to the Bar. People from northern part of the Punjab were also persuaded to move to the newly settled areas in the Bar and the princely state of Bahawalpur. This massive relocation of population resulted in big socio-economic and cultural transformations in a few decades that changed the topography of the region beyond recognition. The Bar with its newly settled land was treated by the occupying force as a milch cow. The process of colonisation created new social and economic classes loyal to the colonial structure imposed from above. What was largesse for the toadies proved to an impoverishment for the poor as it denied them their historical rights enshrined in the tradition. — soofi01@hotmail.com