Labour Geography of the National Question in Times of Decolonisation: Sharecropper Politics in Western Punjab, c. 1945–1953

Abstract

AbstractThis article examines the labour geographies of nationalism through sharecropper “articulations” of anti‐colonialism. I study the Punjab Kisan (peasant) Committee at the eve and dawn of Pakistan’s independence from British colonialism. I analyse their actions and claims through newsletters, activist memoirs, and colonial reports. I situate them in relation to other social and political forces: the state, landlords, and Muslim nationalists. Whereas labour geography has often ignored nationalism, I outline an approach for the sub‐field to address this gap. First, subaltern nationalisms re‐articulate labour, land, gender, and religion in place‐specific ways. Second, exclusionary and liberatory nationalisms are variegated responses to the dynamics of being integrated to an imperialist world‐economy. This study found these multi‐religious peasant committees articulated sovereignty over labour, land, and social reproduction with the national question. Further, this article contributes to the subaltern and labour historiography of Pakistan.