For Bawa Singh Jagdev, it was a day to savour when he received a Volunteering award from the NSW Government’s Community Relations Commission (CRC) recently.

The Lifetime Achievement in Community Sector award was presented to Mr. Jagdev as part of the 2006 CRC Awards for Volunteering at a ceremony at NSW Parliament House on 8 February.

Mr. Jagdev, well-known in the Sikh and wider Indian Australian community, arrived in Australia in 1975 from Kenya.

From humble beginnings as a school teacher with the local Revesby Public School, Mr. Jagdev moved to being a lecturer at TAFE, and a part-time lecturer at the Sydney Technical University. In between he found time to represent the Sikh community in many issues to the Government of NSW.

He fondly recollects the days when there would be a tap on his shoulder addressing him as Mr. Singh from some stranger on the road, thanks to his typical Sikh look and the British rule in India.

However, he feels that then and even now there is not enough representation of the Sikh community in Australia. For one, he says there were hardly 20 Sikh families living around Sydney in 1976. This meant that there were no Gurudwaras. Along with some of his friends, he organised monthly religious meetings at an informal level. In 1978, they were able to cough up $18,000 to buy an old Church in Revesby.

Mr. Jagdev remembers a vicious article in the Sydney Morning Herald defaming the Amritsar Golden Temple in 1977. He was quick to respond in defense with a letter to the editor which was equally quickly brushed aside. However, Mr. Jagdev with his persistence got his article published. He remembers this incident as one of the triggers that drove home the point for the need of a large level Sikh representation to the Government and to the popular media.

In 1988, Mr. Jagdev was among the prime force to set up the Sikh Council of Australia (SCA) in Austral. It provides a united platform for the Sikhs in Australia for the purposes of liaising with the Government and non-Government agencies. In 1990, the Sikh Council acquired a 3-acre land and established a Gurudwara, where to this day, free meals and free accommodation are provided (for members of any ethnic group) for a limited period, true to the Sikh tradition.

Mr. Jagdev believes one of the success stories of the SCA was perhaps its defense of the Kirpan, a Sikh tradition that mandates wearing of a ceremonial sword tied to the hip, that was threatened by the knife legislation passed by NSW Government in 1997. He says it took more than a few meetings with the then NSW Premier Bob Carr, to convince him to amend the legislation to allow an average Sikh to carry the sword. He, however, concedes that for the 50-odd Sikh people working at the Department of Corrective Services, this negotiation against the knife legislation is far from over.

Mr. Jagdev fondly remembers another battle fought by the SCA in 2003 defending one of the earliest Sikh communities in Australia, the Woolgoolga banana farmers, who were to forego a part of their land for the proposed Pacific Highway 'Woolgoolga bypass'. Mr. Jagdev, who was invited to a senate committee meeting to present his views on behalf of the Woolgoolga farmers was successful in persuading the Government to chalk out a way that did not inconvenience the Sikh farmers’ lands.

Being the first Sikh to have received the prestigious CRC award for volunteering, Mr. Jagdev is relentless in pushing the boundaries even higher. He says that the SCA is planning an 'old people's home' in Austral that would consist of six independent rooms which would be available to interstate travellers, elderly people and new immigrants for a limited period of time.

Add this to the already existing Punjabi language schools, one in Austral and the other in Penrith, you have an idea of the power of volunteering. Mr. Jagdev says that more than funds it was the man hours that was essential for doing such acts. Mr. Jagdev considers himself fortunate to have been in a profession that had flexible working times, which he could use to his advantage to carry his passion of working for the Sikh community. You, however, can detect a hint of resignation in his voice when he says that not many young people are attracted to be a part of the community and that he could not do anything about it.

Still young at 72, Mr. Jagdev, who retired from professional service 4 years ago, has now devoted his time completely for serving the Sikh community.

http://www.indianlink.com.au/?q=node/2563