Gurtej Singh IAS

Gurtej Singh is a former IAS officer who became one of the Panth's best known writers and speakers on Sikh politics. Sikh Siyasat, which has carried his talks and interviews for years, calls him a Sikh intellectual and a former IAS officer. Most of what is known of his life comes from his own web profile, so it is attributed to him below.

Who he is. By his own account he was born on 30 March 1947, took an MA in history at Panjab University, and taught history at Panjab University Chandigarh, Lyallpur Khalsa College Jalandhar and Gurmat College Patiala. He trained for the Indian Police Service in 1970 and joined the Indian Administrative Service in 1971.

Key moments

• 1982: the SGPC designated him Professor of Sikhism, a title he says he gave up on 15 March 2004.
• 1983 to 1997: he says he worked in politics, as general secretary and spokesman of the Shiromani Akali Dal from 1989 to 1991 and again from 1995 to 1997, when it was known as Shiromani Akali Dal Panthic. He contested the Faridkot seat in the 1991 Lok Sabha elections, which were aborted.
• His books include Tandav of the Centaur (1997), a study of the Sikh situation in modern times, and Chakravyuh: Web of Indian Secularism (2000), which he describes as an interpretation of the role of the Sikh leadership. He edited Sikhism: An Oecumenical Religion (1993) and co-edited Shahid Bilas Sant Jarnail Singh (2001), and edited the Sikh Studies journal and the monthly Vishav Sikh Bulletin.
• He says he prepared the Sikh Marriage Act for Pakistan, which was promulgated as the Sikh Marriage Ordinance 2008.
• Sikh Siyasat lists him as a panellist in its talk shows on the Anand Marriage Act in 2012 and 2013, as the interviewee in a December 2015 interview on the Sarbat Khalsa institution, and as a speaker at an April 2018 conference seeking the remains of Maharaja Duleep Singh.

His own position. He describes himself as politically a votary of self-determined political status for the Sikhs, the Sikh homeland of Sirdar Kapur Singh's conception, and socially an advocate of a casteless, non-exploitative, egalitarian society. These are his stated views, not findings of this record.