Dr Ranbir Singh Sandhu

Dr Ranbir Singh Sandhu is a Sikh author and translator from Columbus, Ohio, known for one book: Struggle for Justice: Speeches and Conversations of Sant Jarnail Singh Khalsa Bhindranwale (1999). He is a living public figure, and what is published about him is mostly his own work and two project entries.

Key moments

• After 1984: in an interview posted by the 1984 Living History project in 2014 he describes how the events of that year drew him into organising in the Sikh American community, including a meeting at Madison Square Garden in New York, where he first bought tapes of Bhindranwale's speeches.
• 1999: Struggle for Justice is published. Open Library lists the publisher as the Sikh Educational and Religious Foundation.
• The 1984 Sikh Archive says he translated at least forty-four of Bhindranwale's speeches, given between early 1982 and May 1984.

His method, as described: a review written by a relative of the author, who describes him as professor emeritus at Ohio State University, says he used authenticated taped speeches, translated them in sequence, filled gaps with newspaper reports and footnoted his sources on every page. That review is not an independent assessment, and we found no independent review of the translation.

His reading of spring 1984: the 1984 Sikh Archive reports that Sandhu sees Bhindranwale's threatening remarks about Hindus in spring 1984 as a "call of desperation", made while the Arya Samaj press was demanding an attack on the Golden Temple and out of keeping with his earlier stance. He also concluded that Punjab's Hindu villagers were largely peaceful and that the two communities lived in harmony. These are his views, as the Archive reports them.

Remembered for: putting Bhindranwale's own recorded words in English, a source that other Panthic and diaspora writers cite.