Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh is the Crawford Professor and chair of Religious Studies at Colby College. Dr Singh has published extensively in the field of Sikh Studies. Her Birth of the Khalsa (SUNY 2005) Feminine Principle in the Sikh Vision of the Transcendent (Cambridge University Press, 1993), and her gender-inclusive translations of Sikh scriptural hymns The Name of My Beloved (HarperCollins, 1995), republished Hymns of the Sikh Gurus (Penguin Classics, 2018) were ground-breaking in challenging patriarchy.

On International Woman’s day, Professor Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh joined the UKPHA Bookclub to explore and challenge the numerous ways that women are denied the equality the Gurus had envisaged for them. Drawing upon her work on the Guru Granth Sahib she discussed how the female was exalted by the Gurus to ensure equality. She highlighted how this ideal of equality has failed to translate into everyday reality, as she explored and challenged the numerous ways that women are denied the equality the Gurus had envisaged for them.