Giani Ditt Singh
Giani Ditt Singh (1850-1901) was a leading Singh Sabha reformer, writer and editor.
Portrait via Wikimedia Commons.
Courses
Guru Amar Das Ji: Social Reforms — Caste, Sati, Purdah, and Widow Remarriage
This course examines the social reform agenda of Guru Amar Das Ji, focusing on his challenges to four major oppressive practices of sixteenth-century Punjab: the caste system, sati (widow immolation), purdah (the veiling and seclusion of women), and the prohibition on widow remarriage. Students will explore both the theological foundations and the practical implementation of these reforms, situating them in their historical context and tracing their ongoing significance.
Guru Nanak's Social Revolution: Caste, Gender, and Equality
This course examines Guru Nanak's revolutionary social teachings on caste, gender, and human equality — situating these teachings in the historical context of early sixteenth-century Punjab and assessing their long-term impact on Sikh community life. Students examine primary textual evidence from Gurbani, the institutional innovations of the udasi period (sangat, langar, pangat), and scholarly assessments of how Guru Nanak's social vision compared to and differed from the broader Bhakti movement. Special attention is given to how these teachings were received by different communities and how they have been implemented — and sometimes compromised — in subsequent Sikh history.
The Colonial Era & the Singh Sabha Movement
This upper-level course traces the Sikh experience from the British annexation of Punjab in 1849 through the colonial period and the Singh Sabha renaissance to the Sikh Gurdwaras Act of 1925. Students study key reformers, institutions, the Tat Khalsa and Sanatan debates, and the Gurdwara Reform movement, with…
Sikh Apologetics: Advanced Methodology and Graduate Seminar
This graduate seminar surveys the methodological foundations of Sikh apologetics from the nineteenth-century Singh Sabha reform movement to contemporary interfaith discourse. Students engage primary sources — including Giani Ditt Singh's polemical writings and the Sikh Rahit Maryada — alongside secondary scholarship on religious identity and contested truth claims. The course trains scholars to deploy rigorous historical, philosophical, and textual methods when defending and clarifying Sikh theological distinctives.
Advanced Sikh-Christian Theological Dialogue
This graduate seminar conducts sustained, rigorous dialogue between Sikh and Christian theological traditions at the level of their foundational commitments: doctrines of God, revelation, soteriology, Christology, and eschatology. Students engage primary sources from both traditions alongside leading comparative theologians, developing the skills to conduct genuine interreligious dialogue that maintains Sikh distinctives without caricature of Christian thought. The course draws on Giani Ditt Singh's colonial-era Christian engagement as a historical baseline and advances beyond it.
