Gobind Sadan
On 21 February, 2025, scholars, government officials, and devotees of Baba Virsa Singh gathered at India International Centre for the release of the book Dynamics of a Socio-economic Revolution: Gobind Sadan. The years-long research project was sponsored by the venerable institution Indian Council for Historical Research. It marked a new phase in documenting what Baba Virsa Singh said and demonstrated in his practical work. The International Centre for Spiritual Culture recently released a major book on Gobind Sadan in Russian—Light of the Spiurit, and now with this book released in India there is also an academic framework in English for study of Baba Virsa Singh’s mission.
Dr. Surjit Kaur Jolly, author of the book, is Secretary of The Gobind Sadan Institute for Advanced Studies in Comparative Religion, retired Principal of Shyama Prasad Mukherji College of the University of Delhi, and Senior Fellow of the Indian Council of Historical Researach and Pradhanmantri Museum and Archives, as well as a long-time devotee of Baba Virsa Singh Ji Maharaj. She gathered a tremendous amount of material from Gobind Sadan’s archives of photos, published works, newspaper clippings, interviews, and the like and organized them into a well-documented study of the scope and impact of Babaji’s work.
Chief Guest of the book launch was Honorable Iqbal Singh Lalpura, Chairman of the National Minorities Commission. He remembered meeting Baba Virsa Singh in 1991 and spoke appreciatively of his inter-religious work. He said, “The prophets kept coming when there was darkness. God Himself came down to earth in them. They seemed separate, but all were messengers of God. Baba Virsa Singh gave the message of respecting all religions.”
Ralph Singh, Founding President of Gobind Sadan USA, spoke very beautifully about the spiritual base of Baba Virsa Singh’s revolutionary mission. As Baba Virsa Singh’s first foreign disciple, he said he was a subject of the “experiment” to transform human consciousness. His touching talk is being posted on YouTube under the title “Gobind Sadan—Revealing the Presence of God to a broken world.”
Dr. Madhu Joshi spoke touchingly about Dr. Jolly’s documenting the merging of spirituality and social life at Gobind Sadan. She and other scholars all expressed their desire to come to Gobind Sadan to see and do further research on it as a living model of social and economic uplift based on Guru Nanak’s practical programme.