I believe the translation-cum-transliteration was first produced during the tenure of the Amritsar Singh Sabha. To quote Mandair on this point:
'The Amritsar Singh-Sabha (Sanataan) was set up and backed by conservative Sikhs belonging to the Khatri Caste, many of whom were descendants of early Sikh Gurus. They included men such as Baba Khem Singh Bedi, a direct descendant of Guru Nanak, Thakar Singh Sandhanwalia, Avtar Singh Vahira and Giani Gian Singh, a noted Sikh scholar of the time. The conservation of this Amritsar based group stemmed from the fact that they saw the Sikh Panth as one among the myriad streams constituting "Sanataan Dharma," the so-called eternal tradition that identifies its source of authority as the Veda. These self-styled 'Sanataan Sikhs' can be traced to those groups that refused to take Khalsa initiation on the grounds that the "Khande-Ka-Pahul" ceremony polluted their ritual boundaries and threatened their Caste status which they regarded as primary. Though they resented the democratic tendency within the Khalsa groups, they continued to co-exist within the broader Sikh Panth even as they remained aloof from the mainstream Khalsa practices.'
Mandair, 'Sikhism: A Guide for the Perplexed,' pg. 83.
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