The Lost Heer: Documenting the lost women of colonial Punjab

The Second Generation

Wow the world has changed a LOT since my last episode which was a few months ago. Its changed even in the past few days.

Moving forward, I’m going to pivot to focus on stories that we don’t see on the news. There are so many stories to capture during this historic time, and I hope this podcast will be a place to document them. I’ll feature stories of what quarantine looks like for different families and households. I’ll also be looking to talk about how communities are coming together to address the crisis we are in, and of course hoping to do so from an angle that is not usually represented in media, which TBH is pretty dreadful these days

Today’s episode, I admit is not focused on COVID response, but is someone who is doing incredibly fascinating work. His name is Harleen Singh and he runs an Instagram page that documents life in pre-partition India, with a focus on women.

I discovered it a year ago and was blown away. As someone who was born and brought up in Canada, I learned very little about Indian history, colonialism, and partition until literally a few years ago. Most of the knowledge I have of South Asian history has been from my parents or a few books or articles I’ve read that talk about this topic. When I saw his page, I was blown away. In our discussion, Harleen and I talk about how he has archived the history and lives of people in the pre-partition era. We also talk about the fact that his research focuses on Punjabi women, and how their lives were not documented since history is often written by men.

The photo on the episode cover is a colourized photograph of a woman peeking from the window in her house in Lahore. Taken in the 1870s by JL Kipling, it is one of the earliest domestic photographs of a woman in Punjab.

Check out Harleen's page on Instagram @thesingingsingh