Abstract
To avoid a financial burden on his family, Ajit opted for studies at Howard University supplementing a scholarship with work. The Civil Rights Movement was at its height; “both Howard and living in Washington, DC were important formative experiences: direct contact with the black situation made me aware of internal colonialism”. Significantly, his MA thesis focussed on the Indian steel industry, and “I reached the conclusion that to develop properly in the nineteenth century the Indian steel industry would have required protection, a policy which colonial administrations refused”. Ajit’s topic symbolically resonated with the ethos of the era, as steel epitomised the Indian drive for planned industrialisation, and generated resentment against the denial of national choice due to imperial subjugation. This early work initiated Ajit into his future research on industrial economics. Alongside, he encountered Shamsher Singh, another long-term friend, who connected Ajit with the Sikh community in Washington.
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Notes
- 1.
Sheila Rowbotham , writing in 2001, refers to “Ajit’s description of his village in India, which had collectively enabled him to continue his education” (Rowbotham 2001, pp. 97–98). However, this seems to be incorrect and probably based on a miscommunication or misunderstanding. The village or extended family had no hand whatever in supporting Ajit’s education, which was financed by a loan of Rs 10,000 drawn by his father from his future Provident Fund entitlement. Ajit promised he would not ask for any further financial assistance—that was the agreement between father and son. Biba shares the antecedent circumstances: her grandfather, Darji , had unilaterally arranged a match for her in Amritsar; their mother declined the proposal—she was not going marry her daughter into an Amritsar family , “Amritsari mothers-in-law are tyrants”. The family paid a price, as Darji effectively disinherited their father Gurbachan from any inheritance or other financial support, and so the responsibility fell exclusively on their father. (Reported by Ajit’s sister, Parveen “Biba” Kaur, see footnote 2.)
- 2.
Sardar Shamsher Singh Babra was a significant influence on Ajit since the early Washington years. Ninety at the time of writing, he has been referred to as “the grandpa of the Indian US Community” (Singh 2017) and has been based in Washington since his arrival there in 1955. He did his Ph.D. in economics from American University, Washington, joined the World Bank in 1962 and rose to head a division until he retired in 1987. Shamsher was a pioneering leader of the Sikh community. There were no gurdwaras in the USA then; Shamsher took on the task of acquiring land, raising donations, and provided substantial personal loans to build the first gurdwara on Embassy Row, Massachusetts Avenue in Washington and the first Sikh Cultural Centre. Born in Sialkot in 1927, he became a student leader at Lahore’s famous Sikh National College and an activist follower of the Akali leader Master Tara . After Partition, he got a Master’s Degree in mathematics in 1950 from Panjab University when that department was located in Delhi, served as a clerk at the Indian High Commission in London before moving to Washington . Shamsher Singh is also a man of letters and has written two highly regarded books dealing with hidden aspects of Punjab history and culture. Unblossomed Bud: A Saga of Intellectual Rebels. Sikh National College, Lahore 1938–1947 (S. Singh 1999); and (in Punjabi) Vichchoray da Dagh (S. Singh, n.d.) about his village in Punjab, which Nadir Ali (2009) regards as “arguably the best book written about a Punjabi village”. Ajit might have identified deeply with the subject matter of these books. Coincidentally, the book launch for the volume on the history of the Sikh Khalsa College was arranged at the Lahore School of Economics by its founder Dr. Shahid Amjad Chaudhry, earlier a colleague of Shamsher’s at the World Bank , and even earlier, a student (as was his brother Rashid Amjad later) of Ajit Singh at Queens’ College Cambridge. Shamsher Singh Babra , who was Ajit’s host and virtually his guardian in the early Washington years, and with whose family Ajit maintained a lifelong closeness, has provided a unique sketch of Ajit’s formative years there in his sensitive obituary (S. Singh 2015); and kindly added to it, in response to my specific queries, in personal communications by email.
- 3.
While pressing for Sikh autonomy and freedom from the political domination by other communities in any Independence package, Tara Singh conflated service of the community with service for the country, and vice versa (Grewal 2017, p. 10); he was opposed to the pre-Independence proposal for a separate Sikh entity, Khalistan , that would be a buffer state between Pakistan and India (ibid., p. 228).
- 4.
Shamsher Singh, personal communication, October 2015.
- 5.
See the official website of Howard University: https://www2.howard.edu/about/history.
- 6.
“Look! A real lion!”
- 7.
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Saith, A. (2019). Washington, First Stop: Sikhism, Racism and Steel. In: Ajit Singh of Cambridge and Chandigarh. Palgrave Studies in the History of Economic Thought. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12422-9_2
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