At an im­pres­sive gath­er­ing of who’s who of the Sikh world, at the Con­sti­tu­tion Club in Delhi, brought to­gether by the Kesh Prachar Samb­hal Sanstha a unique di­rec­tory of 500 Sikh role mod­els was re­leased by Sikh stal­warts from across the world and Shri Ni­tish Ku­mar, Chief Min­is­ter of Bi­har was ho­n­oured in ab­sen­tia for his yeo­man’ ser­vice to the Sikh world dur­ing the 350th birth an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions of Tenth Mas­ter Guru Gob­ind Singh Ji at Patna Sahib last year. 

The 500 Sikh Role Model di­rec­tory cov­ers 25 dif­fer­ent fields like Agri­cul­ture, In­dus­try, Pol­i­tics, Mu­sic, Sci­ence and tech­nol­ogy and pro­files Sikhs from re­spec­tive fields from across the world.

Surinder­jit Singh Pall, the chief ar­chi­tect of this di­rec­tory, per­haps the first of kind, said that “this di­rec­tory high­lights the achieve­ments and con­tri­bu­tion of the Sikh com­mu­nity for the de­vel­op­ment of  their com­mu­nity, self, coun­try of res­i­dence and hu­mankind in gen­eral.” 

A cur­sory look at the di­rec­tory shows that the gen­eral im­pres­sion that Sikhs are only brave with a lot of bravado is not the only qual­ity of these peo­ple hail­ing from the land of five rivers -the Pun­jab. They are an en­ter­pris­ing peo­ple who, de­spite their in­signif­i­cant per­cent­age of pop­u­la­tion, have won lau­rels in al­most all the spheres of life. The Di­rec­tory pro­vides nec­es­sary in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing Sikh re­li­gion, their his­tory, val­ues and tra­di­tions.

Kes Prachar Samb­hal Sanstha -lit­er­ally a body to take care of the dis­tinct iden­tity of the Sikhs took the ex­em­plary stop of ex­press­ing grat­i­tude to Shri Ni­tish Ku­mar for his and his gov­ern­men­t’s re­mark­able con­tri­bu­tion dur­ing the the cel­e­bra­tion of the 350th Birth An­niver­sary of Sri Guru Gob­ind Singh Ji at Takht Sri Patna Sahib, the birth-place of the Guru. 

The ci­ta­tion, call­ing him Guru Pyara, re­ceived in his ab­sence by the Res­i­dent Com­mis­sioner of Bi­har -Shri Bipin Ku­mar,  ex­tolled the love, hos­pi­tal­ity and warmth dis­played by the gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial­dom and the peo­ple of Bi­har. Most par­tic­i­pants are rev­er­ently re­fer­ring to it as “the most mem­o­rable re­li­gious events world­wide in con­tem­po­rary times.” The warmth and the de­vo­tion shown by every­one un­der his stew­ard­ship won the hearts of all the Sikhs of the world and elicited high ap­pre­ci­a­tion and ap­plause from all peo­ple.  ‘Guru Pyara’ will be a sym­bol of long last­ing as­so­ci­a­tion of love be­tween him and the Sikhs said Bhai Sa­haba Dr. Bibi In­der­jeet Kaur of Sikh Dharma, who had es­pe­cially come for this event from the United States.

Veer Bhupin­der Singh, a renowned Sikh preacher, Gi­ani Ke­wal Singh Ex-Jathedar Takht Sri Damdama Sahib, Tal­wandi Sabo, Bibi Har­jeet Kaur and S. Tar­lochan Singh Ex-MP, Ra­jya Sabha and Chair­man Na­tional Mi­nori­ties Com­mis­sion – all of whom spoke about the con­cept of role model as emerg­ing from Gur­bani, the qual­i­ties of a role model in Gur­bani and Sri Guru Gob­ind Singh as the Supreme role model.

Par­tic­i­pants in­cluded Sikh celebri­ties S. Tarvin­der Singh Sab­har­wal, S. Gul­barg Singh Bassi and S. Kul­bir Singh S. Gur­preet Singh from Chandi­garh, S. Ran­bir Singh from Luc­know, S. Jogin­der Singh from Al­la­habad, S. Push­pin­der Singh, Pres­i­dent Sikh Fo­rum Delhi, S. Prab­hjot Singh from Aus­tralia, S.S.S. Khu­rana, Ex chair­man Rail­way Board, S. Kul­winder Singh, Bhag­want Singh Dalawari, Rupin­der Singh Mar­cos and Prin­ci­pal Narinder­pal Singh.