Jagdish Singh Chabra: A diligent community volunteer

By Amrick Singh | Tribute | Malaysia |

I have never written a note about the passing of anyone, but I felt very strongly that I must pen my thoughts on the passing away of a close and dear friend and associate that Sardar Jagdish Singh Chabra was to me personally and his commitment to the community at large.

I’ve known Jagdish for about 29 years. I got to know him and his family around 1992 when my family and I moved to USJ (Selangor, Malaysia). So happened that his son and my son were class mates in Form 3 to Form 6 and were also university mates in Universiti Malaya and remain best friends.

Our friendship grew with the formation of the Mighty Khalsa and the Miri Piri brigades (part of the Akal Purakh ki Fauj initiative started by Sikh Naujawan Sabha Malaysia). My youngest daughter Kavita Kaur use to go to their house in USJ 2 for Mighty Khalsa activities every other Sunday and our elder children use to attend the Miri Piri activities.

Jagdish Singh was also very supportive and contributed hugely to his wife Phenji Darshan Kaur’s pursuit of community work. He was also an active member of the father’s group who were coordinating the Miri Piri Brigade.

Very early on, Jagdish Singh and a few of us realised that we needed our own facilities as a meeting place for Sikhs in Subang Jaya.

To achieve this objective, we formed a protem committee and in 2008 registered Persatuan Sikh Subang Selangor with the aim of getting a piece of land from the government of Selangor. Despite many setbacks, we persisted and following a change of government in Selangor we obtained the land on which our Gurdwara Sahib Subang stands.

Jagdish served as an assistant secretary from its inception until a few years ago. He attended all meetings and also contributed actively during the meetings. He was very diligent in maintaining the minutes and the paper work of the Association. Even when he opted to stay out of the committee he paid close attention to all the proceedings of the association and the Gurdwara Sahib.

Besides being a founding member of the association, Jagdish was also a founding member of Koperasi Sikh Selangor Berhad.

I’m personally very indebted to him for his total support and sewa in all our activities. His demise will certainly be felt by the members of the association, Koperasi and the the Subang Community at large.

Amrick Singh is the committee president of Persatuan Sikh Subang Selangor which manages Gurdwara Sahib Subang

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Subang Sikhs to assist families battling poverty (Asia Samachar, 27 April 2021)

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