Darshan Tatla 1947-2021

My friend and colleague, Darshan Singh Tatla, who has died aged 74, was a pioneer of Punjab and Sikh Studies, a scholar who published extensively on the global Sikh diaspora, who in 1984 co-founded the (still flourishing) UK-based Punjab Research Group and (in 2003) the Punjab Centre for Migration Studies at Lyallpur Khalsa College, Jalandhar, Punjab. He also helped found the journal that was initially entitled International Journal of Punjab Studies (now the Journal of Sikh and Punjab Studies).

Darshan came to Fitzwilliam in 1974 as an affiliated student in Economics. He took his MA Cantab. in 1984.  Born in Bharowal in Ludhiana district, Punjab, India, he had attended the village school and taken a first degree (in science) at Lajpat Rai Memorial College in Jagraon, followed by a master’s in economics from Punjabi University, Patiala. After his Cambridge degree he received an MA from the University of Birmingham and a PhD from the University of Warwick. This was published in 1994 as The Sikh Diaspora: The Search for Statehood.

He lectured from 1985 to 1996 in South Birmingham College and later held positions in Punjabi University, Coventry University and the University of Birmingham while challenged by hearing impairment and increasingly poor health.

Darshan longed for rural Punjab and, from the late 1990s, spent an increasing part of each year in his village, where he enjoyed growing fruit and vegetables and welcoming friends.

His many publications, in Punjabi and in English, included (with Gurharpal Singh, 2006) Sikhs in Britain: The Making of a Community plus annotated bibliographies, oral histories, and articles on, for example, Sikh nationalism, Sikh religious leaders, community literature, philanthropy and Sikhs in fiction. 

In 2017 he received a lifetime achievement award from the University of California Riverside for his contributions to the study of the Sikh diaspora. Dashan is lovingly remembered for his unstinting encouragement to younger scholars.  He is survived by his wife, Gurmeet Kaur, whom he married in 1968, their three children, six grandchildren and one great-granddaughter.