He was lucky to have met Netaji

With the recent passing away of Sardar Sewa Singh Namdhari, India lost another link with Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s era. Not only that, he was a bridge between the Sikhs of Thailand and India. Till the last days of his eventful life, the memory of his meeting with Netaji was not diminished.

It was at his place in Bangkok in the 1940s that Netaji Bose came to interact with the local Indian community. Namdhari was then a young man doing business with his father. local Indians came in hordes to meet the charismatic Bose. Namdhari’s father, Sardar Pratap Singh’s house was chosen to host the meeting with Netaji, as more than 1,000 people could be accommodated. He was also greatly respected in the local Indian community. As an 18-year-old, Namdhari worked hard with his father to ensure that everything went off well when Netaji came to their place.

Once, while recalling that meeting, Namdhari said, “Netaji came to the meeting place exactly on time. The crowd went wild on seeing their hero in flesh and blood for the first time. People lifted him on their shoulders and started chanting slogans like, ‘Netaji zindabad’ and ‘Bharat mata ki jai’. Many in the crowd started weeping in the wake of his brilliant oratory. They felt helpless sitting thousands of miles away from their motherland.”

Netaji exhorted the Indian community to help so that he could fight the British. He spoke for over 30 minutes and the moment he completed his emotionally charged speech, the expatriate Indian community started giving everything they had with them. When almost everybody had contributed, he was taken aback that his main host Sardar Pratap Singh didn’t contribute anything. He asked his host the reason for not helping the cause of his motherland. Namdhari was present when Netaji asked this question. After a pause, Sardar Pratap Singh said that he was waiting to see how much money was collected. After that he would donate the same amount later.

Netaji was overwhelmed with this gesture and embraced his host. Even after the passage of so many decades of that meeting, Namdhari remembered every word Netaji spoke to his father: “Now, I am convinced that with sons like you, your motherland would be freed sooner than later”, Netaji had said.

Namdhari was born in Bangkok. His family was among the first Indian families who came to Thailand after 1920 and Bangkok was indeed the centre of migrant Sikhs. The early migrant were in to trading of cloths there. During that time there was no gurdwara, so religious prayers were held in the homes of the Sikhs in rotation on every Sunday, Sangran and all the Gurpurab days. Namdhari was proud of the fact that Thailand’s strong Indian community regarded Netaji as no less that God. Even though the generation that saw and greatly admired him is almost negligible, it is a legacy they have left to their successors. Unlike in India, one can still find photos of Netaji in his khakhi dress placed at vantage points in Indian homes.

Once India got freedom in 1947, Sewa Singh Namdhari shifted to Delhi, though part of his family remained back. And in Delhi, he was very active with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and remains head of Delhi unit in 60s. It was not a small thing that a Sikh working in RSS. He worked with the likes of Balasaheb Deoras, Kedar Nath Sahni, Vijay Kumar Malhotra and others. He was part of the famous cow protection movement that shook New Delhi in 1966 ,as most prominent personalities like Puri Shankaracharya and Prabhudatt Brahmachariji were on fast unto death.

For a while, he was also heading the Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s Delhi chapter. For a Sikh to head the RSS in the national capital was not a small achievement. During his frequent trips to Thailand, he exhorted the Indian community to remain in touch with India. As and when there was any calamity here, he visited Thailand to collect relief.