Sacrifices of Hindus, Sikhs created new Punjab
The most crucial was the emergence of Sant Fateh Singh as Akali leader and Lal Bahadur Shastri becoming the Prime Minister.
Updated At : 02:39 AM Nov 24, 2025 IST
Purpose: A jatha of Sikh volunteers of the Punjabi Suba movement. wikimedia commons
In my research on Indian and Punjabi politics and economics, I found that one of the most intriguing developments after 1947 was how consensus slowly grew around forming a Punjabi-speaking state. When momentous change happens, it usually results from both grassroots movements and shifts among those in power, i.e. the convergence of pressure from below and the movement from above. Antonio Gramsci, the great Italian Marxist thinker and revolutionary, theorised this process of reaching a social consensus as the emergence of an idea as hegemonic.
