Gentleman Scholar who helped Sikhs connect

The legacy of a scholar is best preserved through the continuous engagement with their ideas, a sentiment beautifully reflected in the latest issue of Khalsa Samachar. Founded in 1899 by Bhai Sahib Vir Singh, this historic weekly—now published from Delhi—has dedicated its current issue to honouring the memory of the eminent Dr. I.J. Singh. The tribute features a special piece in Punjabi alongside two English articles: one by Inni Kaur and the other which wrote. I am deeply grateful to Dr. Mohinder Singh for facilitating this meaningful commemoration. For the presentation shared on my digital platforms, I took the liberty of modifying the magazine's cover page by superimposing a striking watercolour portrait of Dr. I.J. Singh, painted by the talented Sandeep Joshi, onto the original layout, and gave the other pages as they are.

Below is the full text of my article as featured in the weekly, shared here for a more seamless reading experience:

I J Singh: 28 April 1937-12 May 2026 A Tribute by Roopinder Singh

Changing “melded” with “welded” earned me a lesson and a lifelong friendship with Dr Inderjit (IJ) Singh, Professor Emeritus of anatomical sciences at New York University, a dentist who preferred teaching to practice, a Sikh who spoke through his articles and books, and above all, a gentleman.

Soon after I started working in New York, I edited an article and made the change mentioned above. I was invited to a meal cooked by IJ at his apartment near the United Nations. The difference between the two terms was gently explained, and a freewheeling discussion followed, lasting for hours.

Dr I J Singh © Sandeep Joshi. 2026 Watercolour on paper.

An intellectually curious person, he was well-versed in Western literature, especially Henry James, and loved Western classical music. I asked him about his parents and found out that he was 14 when they migrated from Sargodha, Pakistan, after Partition, and that his father became Secretary of the Punjab Public Service Commission soon after it was formed in the mid-1950s.

IJ loved literature but studied Dentistry at the Government Medical College, Amritsar, and then applied for a Murry & Leonie Guggenheim Foundation fellowship that took him to New York in 1960 to study paediatric dentistry. Subsequently, he acquired a PhD in anatomy from the University of Oregon Medical School and a DDS from Columbia University. A distinguished career in teaching followed.

IJ Singh had to explain his turban and religion so many times that he also had to graduate from being a cultural Sikh to one who studied the religion, so he could explain it. He was also an activist who participated in the 1970s in a gender-equality march led by Gloria Steinem, another against the Vietnam War, and others against racial inequality. He also joined the 1984 protests, and that was around the time I met him.

A thoroughly cosmopolitan man, he exposed me to some of the finer cultural nuances of life in New York. I, in turn, would introduce him to people who were visiting from India, and a lively interaction would follow. He would be perfectly at ease talking with anyone and could be devastating with his logic and disarmingly witty.

By the time I met him in New York, he was also an articulate spokesman for the Sikhs. IJ Singh’s exposure to and reading of other traditions enabled him to understand and appreciate them. Thus, when he spoke about the religion and customs of the Sikhs, he did so in a language that appealed to the American audiences. I remember working with him to prepare the leaflet that we distributed at the first Baisakhi parade in New York City. Thousands of these leaflets were distributed to Americans as we marched down Broadway.

A person of deep secular convictions, he found his tolerance strained when he interacted with zealots of any kind. He was a man of taste and took great pleasure in introducing me to several things that were novel to me at the time.

I remember him holding forth on Henry James once, to the extent that the venerable academic who devoted his life to studying the American writer exclaimed: “How come I haven’t read any paper of yours?” Dr Singh replied: “This is not my academic focus; I am on the faculty of New York University, where I am now Professor and Coordinator of Anatomical Sciences.” He wrote over a hundred academic papers.

Indeed, we are on an endless journey!

We kept in touch intermittently after I came back from New York in 1990, but thanks to the Internet, we were able to reconnect. He was always supportive of my endeavours and of what I wrote, and I reciprocated, sometimes interacting with him when he developed his papers.

Dr I J Singh was on the editorial board of the venerable Sikh Review of Calcutta and the Nishaan magazine in New Delhi. He also supported organisations such as the United Sikhs, Sikh RI, and SikhLens.

He had an outsized influence on younger generations of the Sikh diaspora, especially because he worked outside the traditional religious infrastructure and took great pains to explain and answer questions rationally.  Most found his presentation of Sikh thought and practices relatable, although he would ruffle a few orthodox feathers from time to time.

Five anthologies of his essays were published, including Sikhs and Sikhism: A View with a Bias (1997), The Sikh Way: A Pilgrim’s Progress (2002), Being and Becoming a Sikh (2003), The World According to Sikhi (2006), and Sikhi: The Journey & The Destination (2018). I read all of them and reviewed some.

Four of IJ Singh’s books are readily accessible in my library.

When I met IJ, he was single. His first marriage had dissolved after three years, and they had a daughter, Anna Piar, named after her two grandmothers. His answering machine had her message, so we heard her, yet never met her. After I had left New York, he would find Neena, his wife and companion for life. Many years later, when we met in Delhi, he spoke rather fondly of her. It was wonderful to reconnect physically, although we had always been in touch by email and phone. He had been invited by the Bhai Vir Singh Sahitya Sadan for a seminar, as were Bhayee Sikandar Singh and I.

His declining health and, in recent years, faculties, were a cause of concern, and he was 89 when he passed away in New York on 12 May 2026. Somehow, even as one did not meet him, one carried the image of this vital man who made a place for himself in the New World and became a bridge connecting those born there to their roots and interpreting their heritage for them.