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PUNJABI IDENTITY: Continuity and Change. Edited by Gurharpal Singh and Ian Talbot. New Delhi: Manohar Publishers and Distributors. 1996. 258 pp. (Graphs). 18.50, paper ISBN 81-7304-117-2.
THIS COLLECTION illustrates why scholarly essays, with rare exceptions, belong in journals, not books. There are stimulating pieces here, which deserve to be noticed by librarians, precised in indexes and browsed through by scholars from various disciplines. As it is, they will probably lie hidden in this volume. At the same time, some essays in the book would probably not have stood up to the scrutiny of tough journal editors and their referees.
For me, the most provocative piece is Joyce Pettigrew's "The State and Local Groupings in the Sikh Rural Areas, post-1984." As ever, Pettigrew is deeply engaged and committed. Her sympathies are with the separatistguerrillas-in her words, "the Sikh nationalist movement" (p. 157). Pettigrew attempts organized responses to difficult questions: what was going on among guerrilla groups after the storming of the Golden Temple in 1984?...