Dr. Ganda Singh (1900-1987) was a pioneering Sikh historian whose rigorous, source-based works shaped modern Sikh history.
Courses
Foundations of Sikh History
An introductory survey of Sikh history from the birth of Guru Nanak Sahib in 1469 through the era of the Ten Gurus, the founding of the Khalsa, the eighteenth-century struggle, the Sikh Empire, and the colonial and modern periods. The course teaches not only events and dates but also the historical method of the…
The Khalsa & the Eighteenth Century
This course studies the most formative century of Sikh history. It begins with the founding of the Khalsa by Guru Gobind Singh in 1699 and ends as the Sikhs approached sovereign statehood. In these decades the community took on a clear identity with its own ideals and institutions. It survived years of persecution…
Miri-Piri: The Spiritual and the Temporal
A close study of the Sikh teaching that the spiritual and the worldly belong together: the two swords of Guru Hargobind Ji, the Akal Takht, the saint-soldier ideal, and what just power (Halimi Raj, Deg Teg) means in Sikh life.
Justice, Tyranny, and the Sikh Response
A graduate-level, plain-English course on the Sikh tradition of standing against injustice. It studies the historical martyrdom of Guru Tegh Bahadur in 1675 as a sacrifice for others' freedom of conscience, the ethic of dharam (righteous duty) in public life, the high bar Sikh tradition sets before resistance to…
Sovereignty and the Khalsa
This course is a historical and doctrinal study of the Sikh idea of sovereignty. It asks what Sikhs have meant by the words ਰਾਜ ਕਰੇਗਾ ਖਾਲਸਾ, the Khalsa shall rule, and how that claim sits beside the older Gurbani idea of ਹਲੇਮੀ ਰਾਜ, a humble and just rule. We examine the belief that sovereignty belongs not to a…
From Misls to the Sarkar-i-Khalsa: Sikh Statecraft, 1716–1849
How Sikhs actually governed — the misl confederacies of the eighteenth century, the Dal Khalsa, and the Sarkar-i-Khalsa under Maharaja Ranjit Singh: justice, revenue, religious pluralism, and the lessons and limits of that statecraft.
Documenting Sikh History
Source-based historiography in the work of Dr. Ganda Singh — archives, evidence, and the discipline of Sikh history.