Gurbachan Singh Talib

Gurbachan Singh Talib was born on 7 April 1911 in the village of Moonak, then part of the princely state of Patiala (now in Sangrur district), Punjab to Sardar Nihal Singh and Nand Kaur. He received his early education in Moonak and Patiala. He pursued higher education at the renowned Khalsa College, Amritsar, where he earned his M.A. in English Literature.

Talib began his professional journey as lecturer at the Sikh National College at Lahore. He served at various institutions, including his alma mater, Khalsa College, Amritsar, Sikh National College, Lahore, Lyallpur Khalsa College, Jalandhar, and National College, Sirsa. After the partition of 1947, he moved to Patiala and joined Mahendra College as a professor of English.

Throughout his career, he served as the principal of several colleges—Khalsa College, Bombay (1949-1953), Khalsa College, Delhi (1953-1954), Government Bikram College of Commerce, Patiala, and the Government Ranbir College, Sangrur. A significant phase of his career was his association with Kurukshetra University, where he was Reader in English and later Professor and Head of the Department of English from 1962 to 1969. He then became the first Guru Nanak Professor of Sikh Studies at Panjab University, Chandigarh, a chair he held from 1969 to 1973. Subsequently, he served as Professor and Head of the Department of Guru Nanak Sikh Studies at Punjabi University, Patiala, from 1976 until his retirement in 1982. He was also Dean of the Faculty of Religious Studies at Punjabi University. He was a member of the Sahitya Akademi's General Council and its Executive Board, the Kendriya Punjabi Lekhak Sabha, and the Punjabi Sahitya Akademi, Ludhiana.

Source(s):{{Cite book |last=Dilagīra |first=Harajindara Siṅgha |url=https://archive.org/details/sikhreferenceboo0000dila |title=The Sikh reference book |date=1997 |publisher=Edmonton, Alb., Canada : Sikh Educational Trust for Sikh University Centre, Denmark; Amritsar : Available from Singh Bros. |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-9695964-2-4 |pages=404}}

• The Idea of Sikh State ( 1946)
• Anapachhate Rah (1952)
• Adhunik Punjabi Sahit (Punjabi Kav) (1955)
• Pavittar Jivan Kathavan (1971)
• Baba Shaikh Farid (1975)
• Muslim League Attack on the Sikhs and Hindus in Punjab, 1947 (1950) It was first published in 1950 by the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC).{{cite book |author1=Gyanendra Pandey |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZdLhnFet4w4C&pg=PA86 |title=Remembering Partition: Violence, Nationalism and History in India |author2=Professor of History Gyanendra Pandey |date=22 November 2001 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-00250-9 |page=86 |quote=A Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) report on the 'Muslim League' attack on Sikhs and Hindus in 1947, published in 1950, was equally ardent in its acclaim of the 'epic resistance' offered by Sikh men and women in village after village throughout Punjab.}} This book details the witness accounts of the Hindus and Sikhs who fled their homes in the West Punjab,{{cite book |author=Farahnaz Ispahani |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=o36uDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA16 |title=Purifying the Land of the Pure: A History of Pakistan's Religious Minorities |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2017 |isbn=978-0-19-062165-0 |pages=16– |quote=....information collated by a Sikh religious organization, the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC), in a 453-page book, Muslim League Attack on Sikhs and Hindus in the Punjab 1947, indicates “that the main Muslim communal party, the Muslim League, wanted the whole of Punjab and therefore planned the expulsion by all means of Sikhs and Hindus from the areas that were assigned to Pakistan...}} the North-West Frontier Province, Sindh and parts of Jammu & Kashmir.
• The Impact of Guru Gobind Singh on Indian Society (1966)
• Guru Nanak: His Personality and Vision (1969)
• Bhai Vir Singh: Life, Times and Works (1973)
• Baba Sheikh Farid (1974)
• Guru Tegh Bahadur: Background and Supreme Sacrifice (1976)
• Japuji: The immortal Prayer-chant (1977)
• Translation in English of the Guru Granth Sahib (four volumes)

• Padma Bhushan (1985)
• Sahitya Akademi Fellowship (1984)
• SADDA Award (South Asia Diaspora Distribution Agency)
• Punjabi Sahitya Sameekhya Board Award - 1973
• Punjab State Award for Literature - 1962

He was honored by the Punjab Government as an "eminent educationist and writer" in 1967. Punjabi University also conferred upon him the degree of D.Litt. (honoris causa).

• Jodh Singh. Gurbachan Singh Talib:Jivan te Rachna. Patiala, 1988
• Singh, Harbans. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism: A-D. India: Punjabi University, 1992.
• Wīra Siṅgha. Bhai Vir Singh: Life, Times, & Works. India: Publication Bureau, Panjab University, 1973.

• [http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/history-of-sikhism/118-gurbachan-singh-1911-1986-a.html History of Sikhism]
• [http://www.sikh-history.com/sikhhist/personalities/literature/talib.html Personalities of Sikhism]

{{Sikhism}}{{Modern Sikh writers}}{{PadmaBhushanAwardRecipients 1980–89}}

{{Authority control}}

{{India-writer-stub}}{{Sikh-bio-stub}}{{reli-studies-bio-stub}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Singh Talib, Gurbachan}}

Category:1911 births

Category:1986 deaths

Category:20th-century Indian biographers

Category:Recipients of the Padma Bhushan in literature & education

Category:Sikh writers

Category:Religious studies scholars

Category:Indian religious writers

Category:Writers from Punjab, India

Category:Indian scholars of Sikhism