Sardar Jagjit Singh

Sardar Jagjit Singh (1904 to 1997) was a Sikh scholar and writer best known for The Sikh Revolution (1981), an English-language argument that the Sikh Gurus began a revolution in society and not only a religion.

According to the Sikh Research Institute he held a B.S. in chemistry from Khalsa College, Amritsar, and an M.S. in chemistry from Panjab University, Lahore, and began his career as a lecturer at Sikh National College, Lahore. During the freedom struggle he aligned himself with the Ghadar movement; his mentors Wasakha Singh and Sohan Singh Bhakna encouraged him to write Gadar di Lahir (1956), an account of the movement.

Key points

• 1956: Gadar di Lahir published.
• 1981: The Sikh Revolution published; Open Library lists a Bahri Publications edition. The Sikh Research Institute says it places the mission of the Gurus on the world stage, draws on Weberian analysis and on Sikh oral and textual traditions, and was the first broad thesis of its kind in English. That description is the Institute's.
• 1985 to 1988: Perspectives of Sikh Studies (1985), Zat Pat te Sikh (1986) and In the Caravan of Revolutions (1988).
• 1989: named by the Institute of Sikh Studies, Chandigarh, as one of its founders. The Institute says it was set up to answer the vilification of the Sikhs in the 1980s and misreadings of Sikh doctrine by some Western scholars.
• 1999: Dynamics of Sikh Revolution appears after his death. Open Library also lists a 2006 edition from the Nanakshahi Trust under the title Percussions of History.

Remembered for: the "Sikh revolution" thesis, the argument that the Gurus' mission began a revolution in society and not only a religion, and as a founder of the Institute of Sikh Studies.