Sikh Ethnonationalism and the Political Economy of Punjab. By Shinder Purewal. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. 227p. $29.95

Extract

The reader of this book wonders whether Shinder Purewal chose the title with a view to appropriately reflect his analytical approach, or simply because categories such as “ethnicity” and “ethnonationalism” reflect a mainstream paradigm in the social sciences of the 1980s and 1990s. Purewal has chosen the concept of “Sikh ethnonationalism” in the title of the book only to reject what the reviewer feels are its most basic assumptions and, instead, privileged a rather traditional Marxian politicaleconomy approach that relies heavily on class as the fundamental analytical and explanatory category. From this perspective, ethnicity is merely a resource for the dominant class to mobilize the masses for its own narrow economic and political interest. Therefore, “The Political Economy of Punjab” is much more fitting for the author's main argument.