Having spent 11 years working in most of the regions in China, 2016 was an opportunity for me to visit and work in India for the first time. This blog records my impressions of the Punjab region which straddles both India and Pakistan and, in the north of India, is a state in its own right and home to the Sikhs and comprising two thirds of the population .

New to such a large country with its diverse religions, cultures and history extending back thousands of years it was obvious that I needed to do a lot of background reading.

As I was placed in Amritsar in the northern Punjab state, my reading had this geographical focus. First I needed to understand why, when the British left in 1947 the whole country was partitioned into two separate and independent countries.

Next I needed to know much more about India’s caste system, as I was told that Indian names indicate which caste a person belongs to. And having been told about the lowest class, India’s ‘untouchables’ I was keen to learn more about them. The following books were all extremely valuable in increasing my understanding.

• Yasmin Khan: The Great Partition  An historian’s account of this cataclysmic event in the subcontinent’s modern history.
• Ved Mehta: The Ledge Between the Streams Punjabi life in the capital city Lahore pre-1947 is evoked through the eyes of a boy growing up in this period then the violent impact of Partition which sees his upper class Hindu family lose their home and forced to flee for their lives.
• Kushwant Singh: Night Train to Pakistan  Historical novel in which Singh creates a pre-Partition Punjabi village comprising Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims and Christians all living happily together. Then the devastating impact of Partition on the villagers.           
• I Shall Not Hear the Nightingale Set in Amritsar in 1942 during the  ‘Quit India’ independence struggle and centres on a Sikh middle class family.
• Rohinton Mistry: A Fine Balance Set during Indira Gandhi’s Emergency in the 1970s, it follows the lives of four characters from different classes, two of whom Ishvar and Om, are ‘Dalits’ who bond together in this turbulent period marked by political unrest, corruption and human rights violations perpetrated in Indira Gandhi’s mass sterilisation and beautification campaigns.
• Sujatha Gidla: Ants among Elephants The author, born an ‘untouchable’ or ‘dalit’ (the lowest of the Hindu social classes in India), writes about the experiences of her family and friends in ‘the terrible reality’ of India’s social caste system which she claims continues to prevail today. Dalits comprise 280 million or almost 30% of India’s 1.3 billion people.

The only people who see the whole picture, are those who step out of the frame — Salman Rushdie