This Sikh man brought I-Day celebrations to Los Angeles

India's Independence Day celebrations have become a huge event across America. “But till 1980, there were little community celebrations. In Los Angeles, we held first community celebrations only in 1981. I contacted 17 other community leaders and we organized India Day celebrations jointly with the India Tourism office. Over 5,000 people showed up,'' recalls Inder Singh, 85, who went on to become a prominent community leader.
An accounts officer with the Punjab government, Inder Singh had left Chandigarh for Los Angeles to study computers in 1968. “There were very few Indians here back then and there were no collective celebrations of any event, so I took the initiative for India Day celebrations,'' he says.
Indian Americans came together on a single platform only with the formation of the National Federation of Indian Associations (NFIA) in 1980, says Singh who later became its president in 1988.
Singh and his colleagues then brought the global Indian diaspora together on a platform by forming the Global Organization of People of Indian Origin (GOPIO) in 1989.
“We brought diaspora leaders from North America, Europe and the Caribbean to New York in 1989 to set up GOPIO. It was the first such NRI organization,'' he says.
Singh also played a major role in getting recognition for the Gadar movement by the Indian government which issued a stamp on its 100th anniversary in 2013 and earmarked $4 million for upgrading the historic Gadar Hall in San Francisco to a museum.
But August 15 is a traumatic day in his personal life. “I was in seventh grade in Patoki village 50 miles from Lahore which was 80 percent Sikh and 18 percent Muslim. On the morning of August 16, 1947, when we woke up, we found that half of the village had disappeared.When we went out, we saw people in long queues going towards India. My mother, two brothers and sisters picked up whatever we could and left.But my father and elder brother said they would stay back.
“On the way, we saw people being killed by raiders. I saw my cousin killed. For three days being killed. For three days and nights, we didn't stop anywhere because it was risky and it was raining heavily .
Whosoever could not walk or was injured was left behind to be killed by raiders or to die a slow death.'' Singh adds, “When our family reached the border, a police inspector who knew my father, took us to a border village and gave us a house vacated by Muslims who had fled to Pakistan. After giving us food, he told us that my father has been killed.
We were told it happened on August 18. We cried throughout the night''.That night still haunts him.