Singing from the same hymnbook: South Asian Canadian solidarity in the long sixties in British Columbia

Abstract

This essay breaks new ground in writing the history of the long sixties by bringing in a strand of the Third World diasporic activism shaped by transnational mobility. It alludes to the role of the Naxalite movement in politicizing the youth of the Panjab, many of whom moved to Canada in the late 1960s and 1970s encouraged by changes in Canada’s immigration policies. This new wave of immigrants was confronted with racism and labour exploitation upon arrival. In response, they quickly formed new Left-wing organizations to defend their rights. The literary association of progressive Panjabi writers in British Columbia and other places was one such institution. It directly involved itself in political and cultural activism, besides literary activities by crossing racial and communal boundaries to create intercommunity solidarities. These Panjabi writers were also chroniclers of the global consciousness of their times as well as the local histories of resistance by their diasporic community. Through text and performance, their intercommunity cultural solidarity activism organically connected them to an older North American radical tradition of the anarcho-syndicalist Wobblies. The archive of the literary production of progressive Panjabi writers has been used in the essay alongside the video interviews recorded by the author with members of Panjabi theatre groups, musicians of a former rock band, a visual artist and photographer, and the founder of a local folk music festival. It brings to the fore new voices, perspectives, and experiences that shaped the intercommunity cultural solidarity activism of the long sixties in British Columbia.