October 2004
Nirmal Singh
Nirmal
Singh was born in the Year 1931 in the City of Amritsar. In 1946, he
joined F.C. College, Lahore. However due to the Partition of India &
Pakistan in 1947, like many Sikhs, Nirmal had to move to Delhi. In
Delhi he joined Delhi University for Bachelors in Sciences and later
Osmania University for Bachelors in Engineering. Subsequently he
acquired graduate qualifications in Management and Technology.
Soon after his Engineering degree, Nirmal joined the Corps of
Electrical & Mechanical Engineers, Indian Army. While serving in the
Army, in 1958 he was responsible for an extensive study on equipment
reliability. His study was broadly accepted by the General Staff of
the armed forces. Then he was selected for a faculty position at the
Military College of Electronics and Mechanical Engineering. There he
introduced teaching of Management and Industrial Engineering in the
years 1960-1961. After his Technical Staff College Course (M Tech)
he was drafted to assist the newly created Department of Defense
Supplies set up in the aftermath of '65 operations for promoting
indigenous production of military hardware. A massive undertaking
that has paid off after its long gestation was a great learning
experience and many of the approaches he then developed have stood
the test of time and laid the foundation for creating the
infrastructure for manufacture of defense hardware in the private
sector. Later he led a Technology Mission to the UK for design
evaluation, quality assurance and management of the contract for a
series of value engineered Light Armored Vehicles by Vickers, GKN
and Rolls Royce as principal suppliers. On his return from the U.K.,
he was selected to head Planning & Evaluation division in the
Department of Defense Production where he was involved with major
policy formulation processes; planning of projects; performance
evaluation of Defense Production programs; budgets; systemic changes
and so on.
In
1978 Nirmal decided to take early retirement from the Department of
Defense and join Administrative Staff College of India, Hyderabad.
He was Professor, Chair - Operations Management and Dean for all the
consultancy work of the College. At this position, he had
instrumental role in the effort of launching development programs
for the Cabinet Ministers and Secretaries in the Rajiv Gandhi
Administration. Besides being a highly sought after consultant, his
work on Management Consultancy was greatly regarded. The Planning
Commission adopted one of his papers as a working document for a
Group created in 1986 to promote development of management
consultancy in the country. He was also considered a National
Resource person for research in consultancy development.
Then in 1988, Nirmal with
his wife and three daughters moved to the United States. He started
out as a management consultant traveling Monday through Friday. It
was a hard life in a new environment and he had to learn a lot about
American business practices, regulatory requirements and work
culture very quickly to succeed as a consultant. Soon, his work
started receiving attention and appreciation. He soon was invited to
join a company which was in severe problems at that time: of
declining business, poor cash flow, difficulty in making payroll,
heavy debt burden, union at war with the management et al. However,
with Nirmal's strategic management, hard work and motivating
leadership, the company turned around in a few years. The success
brought several offers for acquisition of the business, which
eventually accomplished, Nirmal Singh decided to retire. Since then
he has devoted himself almost exclusively to issues confronting and
the
needs of his own community.
He got involved with inter faith activity and has been working on
sharing information about Sikh faith, its history, culture and
values with the larger American Community. He has offered seminars
on Sikhs and Sikhism at Hartford Seminary, at retreats for inter
faith ministers, for the Connecticut Council for Inter-religious
Understanding and others. He has made presentations on Sikh
perspectives at several inter faith conferences e.g. Eco Justice
Network; Wisdom House; Imam Hussain Day; Global Dharma Conference;
Farmington Forum for Religions and others. He was invited to
Pakistan,
earlier this year, along with a group of well known Christian,
Jewish and Muslim scholars from the US and UK to participate in
conference (s) on faith perspectives on global issues of peace and
justice. He was invited to present a paper on the vision of the Sikh
Gurus and Syed Nursi on the virtue of "contentment" in a conference
convened by Istanbul Foundation for Science & Culture at Istanbul,
Turkey in Early October. He was also asked to address the inaugural
session and was accorded photographic coverage on the front page of
leading Turkish newspapers.
He served the Connecticut
Sikh Association as Chair, Nomination Committee and then President
and it was in his time that the sangat (Sikh Congregation) came
together to buy a new building and set up the Gurdwara at
Southington, CT. He organized the first Sikh cultural program, named
'sawan rut aaeyi' in Connecticut. Since then he has succeeded in
opening the window on Sikh culture to the mainstream and in the
current year Sikh youth were invited to participate in several
cultural events organized and attended mainly by the mainstream. At
the invitation of Hindu University of America he accepted to offer a
course on Sikhism for their Graduate and Doctoral programs. The
course will be offered through distance education mode initially and
is likely to be announced later this year. He was also invited by
Educators Society for Heritage of India to a conference at Rutgers
University in Sep where he presented his findings on the problems
relating to the treatment of Sikhs and Sikhism in North American
school and college education. He hopes to continue to generate
awareness and catalyze activism to get the related issues given
consideration.
He was one of the first
Sikhs to be on TV after the events of September, the 11th, to
clarify mistaken Sikh identity problem. He called Fox news as soon
as he saw the arrest of a Sikh in Rhode Island, in their nightly
news on September, the 12th. The next morning the crew came to his
home, covered his interview and the evening news opened with the
image of him reciting a passage from the Sikh Scriptures - Guru
Granth Sahib at his home. He made several other appearances on
NBC, CBS and PBS in addition to interviews on Connecticut Public
Radio and Connecticut Radio Network. He invited the Senate President
and the State Governor to the Gurdwara on Sep 20 and 21
respectively, which was very reassuring for the community.
He was honored with Indus
Stars Award - 2004 earlier this year. This award is given to
"luminaries in the New England's South Asian community who shine at
what they do," His citation says "through activism and writing, he
is helping, in his way, to tip the scale of religious tolerance
toward healing, inclusion and understanding."
His book Exploring
Sikh Spirituality & the Paradox of their Stereotyping in
Contemporary American Setting (co published with Sanbun, Delhi) has
gone into reprint thrice since its initial publication in March
2003.
Nirmal Singh and his wife live in Farmington,
Connecticut and he can be reached via email:
enveen@yahoo.com
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