Dravidianism & Progressive Culture
The exact figure of ‘four thousand years’ points towards Dravidianist theories of regional history prevalent among progressive Punjabi intellectuals in post-colonial Pakistan. For Sahotra, centring the Indus Valley civilisation was crucial to his anti-colonial Dalit Marxism. The Preface is informed by Dravidianist theories of Dalit origin, according to which Dalit communities were the original inhabitants of North Indian lands, dispossessed and declared ‘Untouchable’ by Aryan invaders who arrived circa 2000 BCE.
In the early decades following Independence, dominant nationalism increasingly defined ‘Pakistan’ through the prism of a state-sanctioned Sunni Islam, and a standardised, Persianised Urdu. Nevertheless, well into the 1970s, progressive intellectuals continued to lay claim to ‘Pakistan’ as an ideological site where alternative anti-colonial and emancipatory futures could be imagined. In this Preface, Sahotra’s ‘Dalit manifesto’ of sorts boldly rejects the temporality of the nation. He begins his account four thousand years in the past, with the Indus Valley Civilisation.
As the state sought to emphasise Pakistan’s connections with historical Islam via the Arabs and the Persians, the Indus Valley remains became symbolic of alternative histories of the region. Cultural workers on the Left wrote poetry celebrating the egalitarian, ‘classless’ cities of Harappa and Mohenjo Daro, and linguistic studies were undertaken to link Punjabi with the proto-Dravidian language of the Indus Civilisation.
▴ Muhammad Asif Khan’s important study on the historical development of the Punjabi language titled “Punjabi Boli Da Pachokarr” (The Origins of the Punjabi Language). The cover juxtaposes images of the Indus Valley script and other ancient languages of the region. image credit: apnaorg.com
▴ The cover of Ainul Haq Faridkoti’s linguistic study, “Urdu Zubaan Ki Qadeem Tareekh” (The Ancient History of the Urdu Language). Faridkoti pushed against colonial linguistic analyses that ascribed an Indo-Aryan origin to Urdu and other North Indian languages like Punjabi. Faridkoti argued that Urdu and Punjabi were Dravidian languages, alongside others such as Brahui and Tamil that clearly exhibited Dravidian syntax and structure. Image courtesy: Rekhta.org
▴ The archaeological site at Harappa in Punjab, Pakistan.
▴ The front and back of the two-horned bull seal from Indus Valley site excavations. Ainul Haq Faridkoti had a keen interest in the Indus Valley seals, and tried to draw on them to find more evidence for his theory. The Indus Valley script remains undeciphered to this day.
▴ Cover for a report published on the “Harappa Conference” organised by the MKP’s Dehaat Mazdoor Unit. The cover reads: “Harappa Conference: A Report on the Harappa Conference; Some Essays; Some Poems”. The Dehaat Mazdoor Unit’s choice to hold its conference in Harappa was a move to claim the archaeological remains as a symbolic site for Dalit and indigenous cultural politics.
▴ Another image from the Harappa Conference report. The cover identifies a pitchfork as the emblem for the Dehaat Mazdoor Unit. Often, the sickle, or ‘daantri’ in Punjabi, is the ubiquitous symbol for agrarian movements on the Marxist Left. However, the Dehaat Mazdoor’s Unit choice of the pitchfork marks its Dalit emphasis. A simple tool for lifting and moving loose material like straw, manure, or leaves, the implement is used in the most menial form of agricultural labour, which is usually reserved for landless Dalit workers.