First published in 1963, this is the standard and well-established book in its subject. It is accessible to a general, non-scholarly audience, while being based on scholarly archival research. Volume 2 continues Khushwant Singh’s history of the Sikhs, taking up the thread at the death of Maharaja Ranjit Singh in 1839, and focusing on the continuing Sikh Struggle for survival as a separate community. The development of religious, sociological, and political movements under British expansionism and the threat of Muslim domination are explored. The author chronicles the years following Indian independence, marked by the demand for a distinct Sikh state, and presents the events leading up to and following ‘Operation Blue Star’ when the Indian army entered the Golden Temple in 1984.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Khushwant Singh
Khushwant Singh was born in 1915 in Hadali, Punjab. After university education in Lahore and London, he practiced at the Lahore High court before joining the Indian Ministry of External Affairs. He began a distinguished career as a journalist with all India Radio in 1951. Since then he has been founder-editor of Yojana, editor of the Illustrated Weekly of India and the Hindustan Times and chief editor of New Delhi. Today he is India’s best known columnist. Khushwant Singh has also had an extremely successful career as a writer. His published works include the classic two-volume A History of the Sikhs, the novels Train to Pakistan, Delhi and The Company of Women, his autobiography, Truth, Love and a Little Malice, and a number of translated works and non-fiction books on Delhi, nature, Sikh history and religion, and current affairs. Khushwant Singh was Member of Parliament from 1980 to 1986. Among other honours he was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1974 by the President of India (he returned the decoration in 1984 in protest against the Union Government’s siege of the Golden Temple, Amritsar).
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