Read Your Way Through Amritsar
A golden city in the plains of Punjab, Amritsar hums with memory and devotion. Harleen Singh, author of The Lost Heer, recommends books that capture its past and pulse.
Read Your Way Around South Asia is a series exploring South Asian cities through books (inspired by the NYTimes’ series ‘Read Your Way Around The World’. )
Amritsar, the holiest city of the Sikhs and once the commercial entrepôt of North India, began as a humble hamlet in the 16th century. Founded in 1574 by Guru Ramdas, the fourth Sikh guru, the city, then called Ramdaspur, developed around the sacred tank dug by the Guru himself. The Amrit Sarovar (tank of ambrosial nectar) gave the city its name. By the time of Guru Arjan, Guru Ramdas’s son, a shrine called Harmandir Sahib was constructed at the center of the tank, culminating in 1604. Over two centuries later, in 1830, Maharaja Ranjit Singh oversaw its reconstruction and covered it with gold leaf, transforming it into the famed “Golden Temple” that European travellers wrote about with wonder.
By the dawn of the 20th century, Amritsar had grown beyond its religious significance. It was a bustling, multicultural trade junction. Interestingly, Sikhs were never the majority within the city itself, residing mostly in surrounding villages. The city’s commercial life was led by Hindu Khatris, its earliest residents and premier bankers, who were later joined by Marwari traders from Bikaner and Jaisalmer in the 19th century. Meanwhile, recurring famines in Kashmir drove thousands of Kashmiri Muslims to settle in Amritsar. They helped establish the city as a hub of shawl and carpet production and also left a deep cultural imprint, from their cuisine and tea culture to their Punjabized identity.
For most of their history, Amritsar and Lahore were twin cities. The arrival of the railways in 1863 shrank the journey from a full day to just under two hours. Lahoris would come to Amritsar for the Diwali and Baisakhi fairs, and Amritsaris travelled to Lahore for Mela Chiragan and Basant. There were thousands who travelled daily between the two cities by 1947: for work, trade, and family ties. Marriages too often took place across the two cities, with biradaris maintaining strong links. This harmony was shattered on April 13, 1919, when General Reginald Dyer ordered troops to fire on a peaceful gathering in Jallianwala Bagh. Hundreds were killed and many more wounded. In the aftermath, Amritsar endured curfews, martial law, and public flogging. News of the massacre triggered international outrage and catalyzed India’s first major anti-colonial mass movement.
In 1947, the British abruptly divided India, severing Amritsar from Lahore via the Radcliffe Line. The Amritsar-Lahore road was literally sliced apart. The city, which was over 47% Muslim in 1941, saw almost all of its Muslim population flee. Months of arson turned Amritsar into ruins. With most of its Muslim gone, Amritsar saw incoming Hindu and Sikh refugees from Pakistan, particularly from the Frontier and Peshawar regions, who still cling on to their stories from Peshawar and Hindko dialect.
Books That Bring Amritsar to Life
For first-time visitors to Amritsar, my personal favourite recommendation is Amritsar: A Year in a Timeless City by Davinder Singh and Nihal Parasher. Structured month by month, the book begins with Lohri festivities in January, accompanied by beloved Amritsari winter treats like Gur ka Halwa and Singara fish, and carries you through every season: spring, summer, monsoon, all the way to Christmas. It also has a lovely section introducing contemporary Amritsaris, people who bring the city alive today. It’s warm, nostalgic, and full of flavour.
Another powerful read is Stephen Alter’s Amritsar to Lahore: A Journey Across the India-Pakistan Border. Though not exclusively about Amritsar, Alter’s travelogue, from Delhi to Lahore, captures the psychic scars of Partition and the cultural shifts along the way. As a third-generation American in India, his outsider-insider perspective adds to the richness of this travelogue.
Ian Talbot’s Divided Cities: Partition and Its Aftermath in Lahore and Amritsar is indispensable for an academic understanding of how Partition transformed Amritsar. Focusing on 1947–1957, Talbot shows how the once-linked twin cities of Lahore and Amritsar redefined their identities as frontier towns.
Manju Kapur’s novel Difficult Daughters is a literary gem set between Amritsar and Lahore at the cusp of Independence. It captures the emotional terrain of the time through complex, strong female characters rooted in the city’s history.
Jallianwala Bagh and Its Echoes in Literature and History
The 1919 massacre still echoes in Amritsar. I’ve had conversations with descendants of survivors and eyewitnesses who still remember the trauma. Kim Wagner’s Amritsar 1919 is a nuanced account focusing on the Amritsari victims rather than just colonial actors. A sequel of sorts is The Case That Shook the Empire by Raghu and Pushpa Palat, which chronicles Sir Sankaran Nair’s legal battle against Sir Michael O’Dwyer, the Lieutenant Governor at the time of the massacre.
There is a forgotten gem I truly love: The 1920 Report of the Commissioners Appointed by the Punjab Sub-Committee of the Indian National Congress, now public domain and freely available online, contains over 100 eyewitness accounts of survivors, and it informed the later Hunter Committee Enquiry.
For those interested in the story of vengeance, The Patient Assassin by Anita Anand is an engaging biography of Sardar Udham Singh, who avenged the massacre by killing O’Dwyer in London. This book is gripping. It reads like a thriller, and inspired the web series Sardar Udham.
On the literary front, Rakshanda Jalil’s Jallianwala Bagh: Literary Responses in Prose and Poetry collects powerful translations of works written in the immediate aftermath. Navtej Sarna’s haunting novel Crimson Spring offers a modern retelling that humanizes the nameless victims of the massacres and captures the tragedy of those left behind. Sa’adat Hasan Manto’s short story Tamasha, his first ever, was written in Amritsar and fictionalizes the massacre’s haunting trauma. A visual companion to these narratives is Eyewitness at Amritsar by Amandeep Singh Madra and Paramjit Singh, which brings together rare images and archival maps of Amritsar during the time of the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre.
On the Golden Temple and Sikh History
The Golden Temple, or Harmandir Sahib, stands not only as a spiritual site but as an architectural marvel. One of the most treasured (and now out-of-print) books on the subject is The Golden Temple of Amritsar: Reflections of the Past (1808–1959) by Amandeep Singh Madra and Paramjit Singh. It presents 70 unique eyewitness accounts and a rich pictorial history spanning over a century. This brilliantly illustrated book offers images from private and public collections, and takes the reader back in time.
Also highly recommended is Amritsar: A City in Remembrance by Gurmeet and Raghu Rai, a nostalgic portrait of the city combining Raghu Rai’s iconic photography with historical insight from conservationist Gurmeet Rai, who herself worked in the conservation of Amritsar’s Rambagh Gate and Gobindgarh Fort.
For readers seeking a broader historical context, Khushwant Singh’s A History of the Sikhs (in two volumes) remains a seminal work tracing the rise of Sikhism and the empire that brought Amritsar to prominence. For deeper insights into the Sikh Empire and the role of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, Patwant Singh’s Empire of the Sikhs offers a rich and engaging narrative.
Harleen Singh’s Amritsar Reading List
Amritsar: A Year in a Timeless City by Davinder Singh and Nihal Parasher
Amritsar to Lahore: A Journey Across the India-Pakistan Border by Stephen Alter
Divided Cities: Partition and Its Aftermath in Lahore and Amritsar by Ian Talbot
Difficult Daughters by Manju Kapur
The Case That Shook the Empire by Raghu and Pushpa Palat
The Patient Assassin by Anita Anand
Jallianwala Bagh: Literary Responses in Prose and Poetry by Rakshanda Jalil
Crimson Spring by Navtej Sarna
Eyewitness at Amritsar by Amandeep Singh Madra and Paramjit Singh
Tamasha by Sa’adat Hasan Manto
A History of the Sikhs (in two volumes) by Khushwant Singh
The Golden Temple of Amritsar: Reflections of the Past (1808–1959) by Amandeep Singh Madra and Paramjit Singh
Amritsar: A City in Remembrance by Gurmeet and Raghu Rai
Empire of the Sikhs by Patwant Singh
Not the financial gatekeep. Liberal institutions are so predictable.