It is generally accepted the logic of identity and community formation underwent a change in the colonial period, as more exclusivist ideas of religion were enforced through colonial administration and governance. Yet we are limited in our inability to name and theorize fully the exact ways in which the logic of identity functioned in the pre-colonial period, on the one hand, and, on the other, the ways in which aspects of pre-modern communitarian and personal affiliation continued under colonialism and afterwards. Papers in this panel will explore aspects of these issues in North India, a region known both for its hybrid vernacular culture and religious divisions that lead to the bloody partition of Punjab in 1947. This panel will also discuss the notion of encounters in the context of cultural exchanges and mobility of early modern and modern northern Indian literary cultures.