‘Dr Ganda Singh: Historian and Institution Builder’ by Mohinder Singh: Scholar who blended histories of Punjab, Sikhs

Salil Misra

History writing on Punjab, particularly for the medieval and modern periods, has oscillated between being the history of the region and of the Sikh community. Neither would be complete without the other. A history of Punjab without any reference to the Sikhs will be without much content. A history of the Sikhs without reference to Punjab will be without a context. And yet, for a long, long time, the two historical trajectories proceeded in parallel directions without meeting each other. Perhaps no other historian brought the two together as much as Ganda Singh did. He was one of the pioneers in the history of Punjab and of the Sikhs. It was therefore necessary to write the intellectual biography of this distinguished scholar. This task has now been performed most admirably by Mohinder Singh, himself a distinguished historian of the Akali movement and an admirer of Ganda Singh.

Ganda Singh started his professional career as a soldier when he enlisted for the army during the First World War, at the age of 19. After a decade-long stint in the army, he settled in Lahore and joined the editorial board of Phulwari, a monthly magazine in Punjabi. From journalism, Ganda Singh shifted to academics when he moved to Amritsar to join the Sikh History Research Department at Khalsa College. Soon, he migrated from Amritsar to his beloved Patiala, when he was invited by the PEPSU government to join as Director of Archives and Curator of Museum in Patiala in 1950. After retiring from there, Ganda Singh became the principal of Khalsa College in Patiala and was also the founder Director of Punjab Historical Studies in the university. He spent the remaining years of his life in Patiala, which became his home. Under his leadership, Patiala acquired a new identity in academic circles. As against Amritsar, which specialised in Sikh-centred history writing, Patiala developed its own genre of history writing in which Sikh history was blended harmoniously with the history of Punjab; and that of Punjab with Indian history.

Ganda Singh specialised in creating linkages, rather than studying different histories in isolation. He liberated Sikh history from the clutches of isolation. He did it both as a historian and an institution builder.

Ganda Singh was perhaps one of the earliest historians to make great use of Persian records to study medieval Punjab. He was a polymath who wrote and edited books in English, Hindi, Urdu and Punjabi languages. Even though his historical training happened in medieval history at Aligarh Muslim University, he also made a great contribution towards a scientific understanding of the history of modern Punjab. In particular, his effort was geared towards removing misunderstanding and setting the record straight on many controversies on Punjab and Sikh history. Many myths and folklores regarding the martyrdom of Guru Arjan Dev and Guru Tegh Bahadur were put to rest by him. For Ganda Singh, data was supreme. Facts could be established only after they were put through the test of data and evidence. Ganda Singh wrote an authoritative book on Banda Bahadur in which he demolished many myths and set the record straight in highlighting Banda Bahadur’s contribution to the establishment of a Sikh polity in Punjab.

In addition to writing books, making clarifications and removing misunderstandings, Ganda Singh also collected and published an enormous amount of documents to promote historical research on Punjab. He compiled the correspondence of Duleep Singh, the son of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. These documents throw enough light on the decline of the Sikh empire and the British takeover in the mid-19th century. On the role of the Sikhs in the Rebellion of 1857, Ganda Singh took on the orthodox view that the Sikhs had fought on the side of the British. As against this, he demonstrated through his writings that whereas the feudal lords and the Sikh chieftains had certainly sided with the British, the same could not be said about the common Punjabis — Sikhs and non-Sikhs — who participated in the Rebellion against the British. He also published many documents on the Akali movement of the 1920s in which many myths and controversies were put to rest.

Quite apart from writing historical narratives and generating historical documents to promote research among the scholars, Ganda Singh also made his contribution as an institution builder. In 1965, he launched the Punjab History Conference at Punjabi University, Patiala, along the lines of the Indian History Congress. The Conference has been active for the last six decades and has played an important role in the production of historical knowledge on Punjab. Towards the same end, Ganda Singh also launched the publication of the bi-annual research journal, ‘The Punjab Past and Present’, which brought together at one place important historical scholarship on Punjab.

Ganda Singh wrote mostly on political themes which were often contentious. But his writing never became political. He successfully resisted all pressures of populism and wrote history that was based entirely on data and evidence. His approach towards history writing was completely non-partisan. If at all there was a bias, it was in favour of the craft of history writing in which his data was supreme. His self-image was that of a professional historian committed to his vocation and he resisted all the temptations of any political patronage. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1984 for his contribution towards the history of Sikhs and Punjab. However, he returned the award as a mark of protest against Operation Bluestar.

Punjab, the land of five rivers, has been host to diverse traditions of history writings. They have all played their part in creating different images of the region. Much like the five rivers, there have been five ideological streams which have nourished these histories: Sikhism focusing on the community; regionalism focusing on the region; sectarianism focusing on religious separatism; nationalism focusing on Punjab’s linkages with the Indian nation; and internationalism focusing on the Punjabi diaspora. Out of this range, Ganda Singh tried to create a tradition of history writing that would highlight linkages between community, region and the nation. He was truly the saviour of Punjabi history from many pitfalls. Mohinder Singh needs to be congratulated for bringing his contribution to the attention of those interested in the history of Punjab.