Inderjit Singh

Inderjit Singh, known as Baron Singh of Wimbledon CBE, was born on 17th September 1932 at Rawalpindi. However, his father a medical Doctor by profession shifted to England in 1933. So, S. Inderjit Singh had his entire education in England. He studied Engineering at Birmingham University. Between 1955 and 1975 he worked in mining and civil engineering for the National Coal Board, for construction company Costain as a mine manager in India, and in local Government in London. He practiced as a journalist and also as a broadcaster on the BBC Radio 4. In his popular slot “Thought for the Day” he always urged religious tolerance. He co-founded the Inter Faith Network for the UK in 1987 to promote better relations between religions, and in 2008 he became the first Sikh to address a major conference at the Vatican. He set up the Network of Sikh Organisations in 1995, co-ordinating pastoral care for Sikhs in hospitals, prisons and the armed forces. Since then he has dedicated his life to Sikh and inter-faith activities. He has advices or has been a member of official bodies, including the Commission for Racial Equality and the Home Secretary’s Advisory Council on Race Relations.

He is Director of the Network of Sikh Organizations (UK) and regularly represents the Sikh community at civic occasions such as the Commonwealth Service and the Remembrance Day Service at the Cenotaph in Whitehall, London. Prince Charles, Anglican bishops and the Metropolitan police have consulted him. He is prominent in the national and international interfaith movement, a patron of the World Congress of Faiths and an executive committee member of the Inter Faith Network UK. He was invited to the wedding of Prince William of Wales and Kate Middleton as a representative for the Sikh faith. S. Inderjit Singh has won a numbers of awards and honours for his social and inter-faith activities. In 1989 he received the Templeton Award for services to spirituality. In 1991 he received the Inter faith Medallion for services to religious broadcasting. In 2004 he joined Benjamin Zephaniah and Peter Donohoe in being awarded an honorary doctorate(Doctor of Laws) from the University of Leicester. He came second to Bob Geldof in the BBC Radio 4’s 2004 People’s Lord poll. An Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) since June 1996, Singh was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2009 New Year Honours. On the recommendation of the House of Lords Appointments Commission, he was created a Crossbench (independent) life peer on 12 October 2011 taking the title Baron Singh of Wimbledon, of Wimbledon in the London Borough of Merton. He was introduced in the House of Lords on 24th October 2011, being the first member of the House of Lords to wear a turban. In the introduction ceremony, his Senior Supporter was The Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws and his Junior Supporter was The Lord Carey of Clifton. The fact that Lord Inderjit Singh is a British journalist and broadcaster, a prominent British Asian active in Sikh and interfaith activities, and a member of the House of Lords, makes all of us proud of him. He is married and has two daughters and five grandchildren. His wife Kanwaljit, a school inspector, has also done a lot of work in the field of education and interfaith understanding, for which she was awarded an OBE. The family lives in the detached Victorian house in Wimbledon, southwest London.