Patwant Singh

Patwant Singh was an Indian writer, publisher and Sikh historian, born in 1925 into a builder's family in Delhi. He first made his name outside Sikh affairs. In the 1950s he built a magazine publishing firm in Bombay, and from 1957 he edited Design, a journal of architecture, planning and the visual arts, which he ran for 31 years, until 1988. He moved back to Delhi in 1962 and turned to political commentary. In 1974 he helped set up a statutory body in Delhi to monitor building projects and conserve historic structures (Wikipedia).

After 1984 he turned his pen to Sikh affairs, beginning with Punjab: The Fatal Miscalculation (1985), which he edited and opened with an essay (SikhNet). Wikipedia records that during Operation Blue Star he tried to mediate between what it calls Sikh hard-liners and the Indian army; the other sources opened do not mention this.

His books on the Sikhs

• The Golden Temple (1989), on Sri Harmandir Sahib, written to clear up misconceptions about Sikhism (Wikipedia).
• Gurdwaras in India and Around the World (1992).
• Of Dreams and Demons (1994), a memoir.
• The Sikhs (1999), a survey from South Asia before the Gurus to the present day, published in London and India in 1999 and in the United States and Canada in 2000. SikhNet calls it a best seller.
• Garland Around My Neck (2001), written with Harinder Kaur Sekhon, on Bhagat Puran Singh.
• Empire of the Sikhs: The Life and Times of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, with Jyoti M. Rai, his last book, launched in Washington in June 2009.

He died at his home in New Delhi in August 2009, aged 84, after a cardiac arrest (SikhNet). Sources differ on the day: Wikipedia gives 8 August and the Lutyens Trust gives 7 August.

What he is remembered for. Readers outside the Panth met Sikh history through The Sikhs. Delhi's conservationists remember him for Design and for the 1974 body that watches over the capital's buildings.