Historical Writings on the Sikhs (1784-2011) : Western Entreprise & Indian Response

Modern historical writing on the Sikhs started in the last quarter of the eighteenth century as a Western enterprise for purposes which were predominantly political and pragmatic, but nonetheless a part of the Western intellectual culture. Before the end of the nineteenth century, Indian writers appeared on the scene in response to this historiography. By now, Sikh studies are a common concern of the Indian and Western scholars. The first two parts relate to the major European writers till 1947, including Malcolm, Prinsep, Cunningham, Trumpp and Macauliffe. The Indian historians of the colonial period discussed in three parts include Latif, Banerjee, Sinha, Narang, Gupta, Chopra, Kohli, and Teja Singh and Ganda Singh. The expanding scope and the trends of Sikh studies are discussed in the last part which also gives a critical assessment of the recent controversies in Sikh studies about the basic issues of five centuries of Sikh history: life, mission and status of Guru Nanak; evolution and politicization of the Sikh movement under his successors; institution of the Khalsa; the Khalsa way of life; nature of the Singh Sabha movement; the issues of Sikh identity and Sikh ethnicity after 1947. The book will be of interest to historians of medieval, modern, and contemporary India as well as to scholars engaged in Sikh studies, and indispensable for researchers and teachers in India and abroad.