Bhai Vir Singh and modern Punjabi drama: An analysis of the play Raja Lakhdata Singh

Bhai Vir Singh's didactic play Raja Lakhdata Singh (1910) is one of the earliest modern Punjabi plays. The play was written in order to make the Sikhs aware of the ills assailing the community and to help set them on a path of reform. As an early play, the text is worthy of analysis in terms of the message it tries to propagate as well as its textual form and structure. This paper pursues this line of inquiry and will also comment on the dramatic and theatrical conventions prevalent in Punjab at the time, in order to understand the formative years of modern Punjabi drama.