Dr Harjinder Singh Dilgeer

Dr Harjinder Singh Dilgeer is a Sikh historian and writer. The Open Library catalogue lists, among his titles, a history of the Shiromani Akali Dal (1978), The Akal Takht (1980), The Sikh Culture (1994), The Sikh Reference Book (1997), Who Are the Sikhs? (1999) and, with Gurjit Sahota, Guru Nanak Sahib's Life and Teachings (2019). He is a living person, and we give only what published sources say.

With Dr Awatar Singh Sekhon he wrote The Sikhs' Struggle for Sovereignty: An Historical Perspective, edited by A. T. Kerr. The site All About Sikhs cites it for the 1981 firing at Mehta Chowk, where it gives 12 Sikhs killed according to some sources and 22 according to others. Wikipedia, whose page on him carries maintenance tags for missing citations, says he has directed the Sikh History Research Board and the SGPC's Sikh Reference Library and edited the journal The Sikhs: Past and Present. We could not check those posts against a second source.

His case on the Damdami Taksal: In a Punjabi essay posted in English translation on the Sikh Philosophy Network in November 2012, he argues that Giani Kartar Singh began calling his group Damdami Taksal only shortly before his death in 1977, and that before 1977 the words never existed. He says that Giani Gurbachan Singh named the Bhindran jatha in 1939, that Giani Kartar Singh set up his own dera at Chowk Mehta, and that no early record makes Baba Deep Singh head of any taksal, while Baba Gurbaksh Singh, he says, has no association with the Damdami Taksal. The Taksal's website opens its list of leaders with Guru Gobind Singh Sahib and then names Baba Deep Singh Shaheed and Baba Gurbaksh Singh Shaheed.

Key moments

• 1978: the Open Library dates his history of the Shiromani Akali Dal to this year, The Akal Takht to 1980 and The Sikh Reference Book to 1997.
• 9 November 2012: the translation of his essay on the Damdami Taksal is posted, by Chaan Pardesi, with Gurcharan Singh Kulim named as translator.

Remembered for: his reference works on Sikh history, and for the dissenting history of the Damdami Taksal that Taksal supporters and critics still argue over.