UK Sikh gets MBE for boosting interfaith bonds

A 30-year-old UK Sikh,

Onkardeep Singh

, has been awarded an MBE (Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) for groundbreaking interfaith work. His name figures among 33 people of Indian origin in the

Queen's New Year

’s Honours List 2018, in which individuals of merit from throughout UK are chosen by the government. The award is conferred at a ceremony at Buckingham Palace.

The Honours List mentions that Singh has got the award for services to the community, particularly by young people. Singh elaborates on his work: “The voluntary work I've done over the last 15 years has been varied, but it had one theme: of creating a world and society that works better together. In recent years much of the effort has been in working with other faiths to co-create events and also to share viewpoints on a variety of topics. I have also been involved with supporting world peace initiatives, and feel much more work is needed in this area in a world where we see so much division and conflict.”


The honour comes as a surprise to Singh, a founding member of City Sikhs, which is the largest network of

Sikh professionals

in the UK. “I feel honoured and privileged. I think about all the people I know who are working on a variety of projects with the same goals. I feel like I have done nothing special compared to them. It would also not be possible without the wonderful people that I work with.”

He also uses his skills as a design and technology professional to benefit a variety of communities and voluntary organizations by developing websites.

The honours' list includes six Singhs and one Kaur. Assessing the diversity in the list, he said, “Of 1,123 honours given this year, 7 recipients are Sikhs, that's approximately 0.6%. According to the last census, there are approximately 432k Sikhs among the 65m population of UK, which comes out to be around 0.7%. So it is more or less representative in that sense. What is probably not so balanced is the male to female split, and it would be great to see more

Sikh women

honoured in the future.”

Singh is however glad to see that

ethnic minorities

are being recognized for their work benefiting Britain and the world. On whether he feels some responsibility as a role model to the

Sikh youth

with this award, he says, “I don't see myself as a role model, but being honoured with an MBE does make me want to do more and use the recognition to help support the work I'm doing for the benefit of everyone”.

Due to his commitment to boosting social cohesion, he was the first Sikh speaker to be invited to to largest yearly faith based events in UK such as Limmud (Jewish), Living Islam and Greenbelt (Christian).

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