sikhpride

Jatinder Singh Uppal is a Sikh preacher, educationist and a social worker, based in Melbourne, Australia. He came into prominence when he arranged 31 saroop (Beed Sahib) of Sri Guru Granth Sahib from Punjab to Australia and provided these saroops to Sikhs living there. He wanted to give them an opportunity to install the Beeds of Sri Guru Granth Sahib at their places so that they could go through Gurbani and lead their lives inconformity with the teachings contained therein. S. Uppal had started his business of garment export in Bangkok. The business was going very well, when he came into contact with a Saintly personality, Giani Arjan Singh of Bangkok. He impressed upon him that he should baptize himself and become an Amritdhari Sikh. He accepted this advice and started a new phase of his life. This transformation convinced him that taking out Dasvandh for social and charitable purposes was an important principle of Sikh religion. He thought that if God becomes a partner in his business, he can never suffer loses. So he opened a separate account in which he could put his Dasvandh in the name of God and same could be utilized as and when needed. S. Uppal says that since then his business went on flourishing and its expansion towards other countries made him shift to Melbourne. Now, he is one of the most prosperous business tycoons. He has made a plan to help the needy Sikhs anywhere in the world. He established a trust ‘Sikhs Helping Sikhs’ (SHS) in 1997. One of the missions of the trust was to enlighten the Sikhs about their religion, its heritage and history, values and traditions and universal message given by our Guru. It was in this context that he started distributing books all over the Sikh world. Describing the functioning of his trust on the lines of the Church of England S. Uppal stressed upon the importance of Daswandh by each Sikh. He also emphasized upon the equality of gender and maintaining Sikh identity. He holds the view that the young generation need to motivated by making them aware about the religion trough Sakhis and story of martyrdom of brave Sikhs. With a view to help the needy people, he met a number of prominent and prosperous Sikh in India as well as other countries and prepared volunteers for this task. He himself offered Rs. 25 lakh per year for two years for a project to prepares Sikhs for appearing in competitions and entering various high profiles jobs and professions. Sikhs Helping Sikhs, a non-profit organization is aimed at benefitting the needy and deserving Sikhs and promoting integrity and unity among themselves. The trust not only helps the Sikhs, but also other people depending upon the availability of the funds. This visionary Gursikh has also launched another mission under the name ‘Save the Sikh’. In this project the Sikhs are to be saved by educating them. The needy students are given scholarships. Kalgidhar Society running Akal Academies in Punjab and other surrounding states is an associate in this project. As per this scheme everybody is asked to be a sponsor of child education just for 25 pounds a month. The fund so created is utilized for giving the scholarships. This unique service by S. Uppal has motivated a large number of persons to adopt these schemes and help the community to become educated and conversant with their Sikh religion. He is living in Melbourne with his family. The whole family including children is devout Sikh family engaged in sewa and simran. His daughter Manika Kaur, is a well known Gurbani singer, now married and settled in Dubai.