Sada-e-Watan
Sydney ™
sadaewatan@gmail.com
First Sikh Australian
Bawa Singh who receive OAM, Celebrates with Community and Members of the
Parliament
{Coverage by: Syed Zafar
Hussain, Editor-in-Chief Sada-e-Watan Sydney}
On January 26, 2012, Mr Bawa Singh Jagdev of Sydney became the first ever Sikh Australian who receive an OAM (the Medal of the Order of Australia) as part of the Australia Day Honours. He is the Secretary of Sikh Council of Australia and has campaigned tirelessly on issues of significance, not just to the Sikh community, but over the past three decades in Australia to the wider community as well. On Sat, 16 June 2012, First Sikh Australian Bawa Singh who receive OAM, Celebrates with Community and Members of the Parliament at the Function Centre at Lidcombe Sydney.
AUSTRALIA Day has become the quintessential day to
celebrate being Australian. How we celebrate can take many forms - attending a
citizenship ceremony, seeing a concert, watching a regatta, playing cricket in
the park, enjoying a barbecue with friends and family or watching the fireworks.
What is important is that we do celebrate our successes as a nation and that
each of us, in whatever way we want to.
The Order of Australia is an order of chivalry established on 14 February 1975
by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, "for the purpose of according recognition
to Australian citizens and other persons for achievement or for meritorious
service".
The Criteria for the Order of Australia are summed up as “demonstrated
achievement at a high level; made a contribution over and above what might be
reasonably expected through paid employment; or whose voluntary contribution to
the community stands out from others who may have also made a valuable
contribution.”
The badge of the Order of Australia is a convex disc representing the Golden
Wattle flower. At the centre is a ring, representing the sea, with the word
'Australia' below two branches of golden wattle. The whole disc is topped by the
Royal crown of St Edward. The ribbon of the Order is blue with a central stripe
of golden wattle flower designs.
Sikh-Aussie Awarded Medal of The Order of Australia
Being Australia Day, January 26 is always celebrated as a red letter day in the country. But for Sikh-Australians, this day in 2012 made history, as S. Bawa Singh Jagdev’s name appeared proudly in the roll of Australia Day Honours. Awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM), he has become the first ever Sikh-Australian to be bestowed with one of the country’s higher civilian honours.
“I truly feel humbled to be the recipient of this
prestigious award,” said Bawa Singh. “I may be the first Sikh or anyone from the
subcontinent to receive this honour, but I personally feel that the award
belongs to all those who helped me and worked alongside with me over the years
to solve our community problems, of which there were many, and achieve what as a
community we have accomplished. I thank them all.” He is the Secretary of the
Sikh Council of Australia, and has worked passionately to protect and gain
recognition for Sikh rights, alongside working on human rights and humanitarian
issues.
Already a recipient of the ‘Life time Achievement in Community Services Award’
from the Community Relations Commission of New South Wales ("NSW"), the
Sydney-based Sardar reflected, “Life has been an amazing journey for me thus
far, having lived a comfortable life across four continents. I was born in
Punjab, educated in the United Kingdom, worked in Africa and finally settled in
Australia.”
An academic who has taught in schools and colleges in various countries, Bawa
Singh is one of the pioneers of recent Sikh migration into Australia. Born in a
small village called Lohara (in district Jalandhar, Punjab), and earning his
professional qualifications at Panjab University, he initially migrated to Kenya
in 1959.
After further education at University of Exeter (United Kingdom), he returned to
Kenya, only to find an inclement political situation there. So in 1975, he, his
wife and two children moved to Sydney, adopting Australia as their new homeland.
He recalls: “When we first came here in 1975, there were just a handful of Sikh
families in the Sydney metropolitan area.” So along with some friends, he helped
establish the very first Sikh gurdwara in Revesby, Sydney, followed soon by the
Sikh Mission Centre at Austral.
In the early 1990s, he advocated strongly for the recognition of the Kirpan,
defending the right of every amritdhari Sikh to wear it in public. He worked
actively with the Community Relations Commission and the Premier’s office, which
resulted in the Knife Legislation of NSW being amended in 1998, granting
exemption to Sikhs, so they could carry their article of faith without breaking
the law.
With a vision for the future, Bawa Singh helped
establish an umbrella body for Sikhs in Australia, named the Sikh Council of
Australia Inc. Under the auspices of this organisation, he was instrumental in
organising the first World Sikh Conference in Sydney in 2004, lobbied for Sikh
employees of Public Works Department and also Department of Corrective Services,
to be allowed to wear the Sikh articles of faith at their workplace.
He was a strong advocate for Sikh banana farmers in Woolgoolga (in northern NSW)
who were going to be displaced by a new highway project and after numerous
meetings with the authorities and submissions to the Senate enquiry, he helped
the banana farmers receive an adequate monetary compensation. Currently, he is
involved in lobbying for consumer rights over misleading food labelling - whilst
some foods in supermarkets come with a ‘halaal’ certification, others are not
certified as ‘non-halaal’, depriving the consumer the right to choose.
Perhaps his most significant contribution came by way of gaining recognition of
the Sikh religion as a separate religion in Australia. For instance, an Anand
Karaj performed at a gurdwara was not formally recognised since Sikh celebrants
didn’t have any formal authority. Realising this, Sardar Bawa Singh (through the
Sikh Council of Australia) wrote to the Attorney General, who corrected the
anomaly. The Sikh Council of Australia has since been authorized by the
Australian government as the nominating authority for the appointment of the
marriage celebrants for the Sikhs.
It also goes to the credit of Bawa Singh that,
alongside addressing the issues of significance to Sikh-Australians, he has
lobbied actively for other communities too. He has made submissions for a ban of
smoking, defended the right of Muslim girls to wear the hijab to school,
supported the Hindu community when their temple at Auburn was attacked, and
raised funds for victims of disasters like the tsunami in 2004 and the floods in
Pakistan. It is only befitting, then, that he has now become the first ever Sikh
Australian to be awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia.
Way to go, Sardar Bawa Singh ji!
Source: Mantreep Kaur Singh in Sikh Chic, 27 January 2012 [
http://www.sikhchic.com ]
