Lord Indarjit Singh

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

Presenter0:10

For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.

Presenter0:35

My castaway this week is Lord Inderjit Singh, creator of the Sikh Messenger magazine and co-founder of the Interfaith Network.

Presenter0:43

He also has the distinction of being the first member of the House of Lords to wear a turban, although given his family history he had to get used to standing out from the crowd pretty early on. The Sing family arrived in England from Raoulpindy in nineteen thirty three, and were, at the time, part of an Asian community in Birmingham that numbered little more than a thousand. His dad, an experienced doctor, initially found it impossible to get work.

Presenter1:06

And more than twenty five years later my castaway would find that race was still an issue, when, in spite of his first class degree in engineering, no one in the UK was willing to offer him a job either which might go some way to explaining why much of his time since has been spent trying to build bridges between apparently disparate communities and faiths.

Presenter1:26

He says If God had human emotions, I believe the dominant one would be total exasperation at the antics of our human tribe. So uh good morning and welcome, Indarjit Singh.

Presenter1:37

You're known to Radio Four listeners, then, for your contributions to Thought for the Day. When you do it, are you conscious of representing the Sikh perspective, or are you simply conscious of representing a spiritual perspective?

Lord Indarjit Singh1:51

I don't think there's much difference between the both, because the Sikh perspective is looking outwards at um the whole commonalities between religions.

Presenter2:03

The ethnic makeup of our nation is under scrutiny, I would say, almost like never before right now here in the UK. If I were to ask you to take the temperature from within Asian communities in Britain right now, what would you say that temperature is?

Lord Indarjit Singh2:18

It is pretty high. There is a lot of uh concern, particularly over the um rise of extremism. There is concern, and uh all communities feel that they're being targeted.

Presenter2:31

And as you know, a community leader, which is probably what I would categorise you maybe quite lazily as, you know, and people of your ilk.

Presenter2:41

It's an interesting role, isn't it? Because it largely is it's a self-appointed role. You know, people put themselves forward to say, well, I feel that I can speak on behalf of people, but but how much do you actually feel that you have the right to do that?

Lord Indarjit Singh2:55

Sikhs are all chiefs and not Indians. We all consider ourselves as leaders. Uh sometimes people come to me and say, You're our leader, now this is what you've got to do.

Presenter3:05

Do you feel the weight of that responsibility?

Lord Indarjit Singh3:07

There is a huge responsibility because particularly in the Lord to articulate a Sikh view, a Sikh perspective on a whole range of subjects under close scrutiny from a Sikh community in the wider world.

Presenter3:22

Let's take a look then at the music. Tell me about your first one this morning. Tell us a little bit about why you've chosen this disc.

Lord Indarjit Singh3:28

After all the misery of the war years and a rotten summer in 1946, we suddenly had a glorious summer in 1947. My brother had recovered from pneumonia. My mother who'd been ill, was better. Everything was sunny and wonderful. And we'd do nothing but play cricket in the park, in actually on the golf course, to the annoyance of the golfers all day long. It was a wonderful world, and this song actually shows the spirit of the times, not only within the Sing family, but also in the wider community.

Speaker 44:05

Oh what a beautiful morning. Oh what a beautiful day.

Speaker 44:14

I got a beautiful feeling everything's going my way.

Speaker 44:27

All the cattle are standing like statues. All the cattle are standing like statues.

Presenter4:36

That was the voice of Gordon McRae singing Oh, what a beautiful morning from the film version of Oklahoma. So, Indarjit Singh, tell me a bit about your father then. I mentioned in the introduction he was a doctor. What were the circumstances of him leaving for Britain in the early thirties?

Lord Indarjit Singh4:52

He was a strong supporter of the freedom movement in India, and he'd just qualified as a doctor in Amritsar, India, when there was an agitation to free the Gurdwaras, the Sikh temples, from domination by people who weren't Sikhs. And the way Sikhs did it, they'd go up to these places in a non-violent way, stand there to protest. They'd be violently beaten. And it was my father's job to bandage them up.

Presenter5:26

Really? And was was he caught up in any of the protests physically himself?

Lord Indarjit Singh5:26

Yeah.

Lord Indarjit Singh5:29

Not physically, but he incurred the wrath of the government and friends told him to get to East Africa and he went first to E East Africa, where he continued to speak up for Indian independence.

Lord Indarjit Singh5:47

He was called by the British authorities and said, What do we do with you? and on sort of friendly terms and he said, Well, I could do with British qualifications. Uh, let me go to England and that's how we ended up.

Presenter6:00

Do you have much of an idea of what your parents' expectations of England were?

Lord Indarjit Singh6:06

I think my parents were pretty realistic. They knew it wouldn't be easy, but I think it was a little tougher than they thought. He couldn't get a job in a hospital, so he had this bright idea of just setting up in his rented house and putting a board outside doctor and waiting for the first patient, who took some time in coming. And at one time it got so difficult that my mother pawned her jewellery to make ends meet.

Presenter6:37

And this board that your father put outside, when he had gone to the hospitals and when he had applied for the job as a qualified doctor, what happened? He just would never get the call back, wouldn't even get the interview. How did it go? Yeah.

Lord Indarjit Singh6:49

We got an interview, so and uh he wouldn't get a call back. There was no chance and he realized

Presenter6:55

And those first patients that did eventually, you know, take a look at the board that said, you know, doctor available, and came to knock on the front door, who were they?

Lord Indarjit Singh7:04

There were local people, but the word got round quickly that he was a pretty good doctor, and very good and considerate with the children.

Presenter7:14

Let's have some more music, Indojit Singh. We're on your second. Well, it's pretty obvious why you've chosen this. Just tell us a little bit about it.

Lord Indarjit Singh7:20

As you may have gathered, that um I and my brothers were all pretty mad on cricket. I used to remember the years by w which touring team came, forty-eight, uh, Australia, and then it came to the fifty when we came to the West Indies. They came and it was a bit of a shock to the cricketing system because it was all England and Australia. Suddenly you've got this West Indian team with the three W's, Weeks, Waddle and Walcott, and two wonderful spin bowlers. It showed a resurgence of cricket itself and a resurgence of spirit in the West Indies that we are someone.

Speaker 18:02

Cricket, lovely cricket.

Speaker 18:05

At last when I saw it

Speaker 18:08

Cricket, lovely cricket.

Speaker 18:11

And lost where I saw it.

Speaker 18:14

Yeah, let me try this best.

Speaker 18:16

For that one details.

Speaker 18:19

They gave the crowd plenty fun The second test and West Indies won With those little pals of mine

Presenter8:32

Lord Beginner with the Calypso Rhythm Kings and Victory Test match, also known as Cricket, lovely cricket, I think more colloquially. As well as being mad about cricket, also mad about boxing, too. You and your brothers made up half the school boxing team, and I'm wondering if you

Presenter8:46

Did you have to get good at boxing?

Lord Indarjit Singh8:47

I think that's the way it came about, wasn't it? That um there was a lot of teasing and bullying and um uh one day I found that I had a very strong left hand and uh we didn't stop.

Presenter8:49

Was it?

Presenter9:00

Did the bullying, did the teasing stop after that?

Lord Indarjit Singh9:02

They it certainly diminished considerably.

Presenter9:05

In the nineteen eighties you were involved in a case where a young boy well, it was a test case, really, had been denied the right to wear his turban in school, Young Seat Boy, known as the Mandler case, when you and your three brothers were at the local grammar school. How did you learn?

Lord Indarjit Singh9:20

Luke, were you wearing a turban? We were wearing turbans, and it was very surprising that at that time there was a great deal of respect for Sikhs and the turban because of the links with the British Army. Many people did know who Sikhs were. The discrimination came really in the fifties and sixties.

Presenter9:38

And so when you were involved in that case the young man it was a test case, and the young schoolboy won his case. It was regarded, I suppose, by a lot of people who weren't involved in it as something of a curiosity but I'm imagining among the Sikh community it was so much more than that.

Lord Indarjit Singh9:53

It was a great victory because there'd been discrimination in all sorts of areas before a Sikh graduate could not get a job on a bus if he was wearing a turban. It was that bad everywhere. I was in the witness box for a day and a half giving evidence about the religion and it was a victory that had repercussions throughout Sikh society.

Presenter10:18

Is it a surprise to you that now, almost more than ever, this is still a very hot topic? We we've very recently seen cases of Christians petitioning for the right to wear crosses in the workplace because they're being denied that. Young Muslim girls who want to wear the niqab in school

Presenter10:36

There are lots of other European nations that decide that the most sensible way forward and one that unites school pupils or unites the workforce is to keep religion out of schools and out of the workplace and that the place for it is in the temple or the church and in the home. But actually in those public spaces, it's much better if people don't.

Presenter10:56

decide to represent their faith.

Lord Indarjit Singh10:59

Now that's an argument that I cannot agree with at all, because what's the effect of that in France or in the United States where that is done? People pretend to be one thing at school and then show their prejudices outside. There's total ignorance about different religions in France and even more so in the United States. It's your third now. Tell me about your third song. Why have you chosen this?

Lord Indarjit Singh11:27

This is the a mining song, Sixteen Tons. Now, I thought that my father's practising in his own house, it was all a bit boring being a doctor. I wanted to do something much more exciting. And at that time, the mining industry, which had been run down during the war, was now being reactivated. There was a lot of adverts. Mining is the career for you. Do this for anyone who calls themselves a man. And foolishly, I succumbed to it and I went down my first mine. It was a horrible place, but being stubborn, I thought I'm going to carry on with this. And so that became my career.

Speaker 412:09

Some people say a man is made out of mud. A poor man's made out of muscle and blood. Muscle and blood and skin and bones. A mind that's weak and a back that's strong. You load sixteen tons. What do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt. Saint Peter, don't you call me, cause I can go. I owe my soul to the company store.

Presenter12:40

That was Tennessee Ernie Ford and sixteen tons. So, in Darjit Singh, the greatest immigrant cliche surely has to be the proud parents telling anyone who listen about my son the doctor or my daughter the doctor and there you were with a doctor for a father. Was there a sense of absolute expectation that you would follow him into that noble profession?

Lord Indarjit Singh13:00

I think that was the expectation, but I think my parents were very uh liberal in their views, very forward thinking. Um many parents would correct someone who's left-handed and say, No, you've got to use your right they wouldn't uh that whatever it is, they took it and uh they were convinced that I'd make something of it, probably more convinced than I was.

Presenter13:22

You went to university then. You went to study engineering and

Presenter13:26

How much did you socialize?'Cause I think you were living at home whilst you were at university, is that right?

Lord Indarjit Singh13:31

And at at one time I was living outside as well and um enjoyed the friends from different communities.

Presenter13:34

Yeah

Presenter13:38

Being a Sikh, there's, you know, obviously no drinking alcohol and no smoking. And did you experiment? Did you, you know, on the quiet, have the odd beer?

Lord Indarjit Singh13:46

Well, not having alcohol seemed good common sense to me, and it wasn't drummed into us in any way. Religion was never drummed into us. So, um, I was quite happy with not drinking. In fact, I used to be in charge of the budget when fellow mining students would go drinking because they wouldn't trust anyone else.

Presenter14:07

Um so a bright young man then, you graduate with a first class degree in uh engineering and you know that's at a point when for any of us, you know, we we might feel that the whole world is ahead of us. We've worked hard, we've got the best degree possible. It's nineteen fifty nine and you apply to the National Coal Board for a job as a a mine manager or

Lord Indarjit Singh14:27

Yes, I wanted to be a mine manager and I'd got this first class mine manager certificate and um it was a tough course going in sometimes into the most difficult areas of the mine. I think they used to try and test me a bit. So after all that I got the qualification and then I was called for an interview by the coal board and they told me to my face that the miners wouldn't like a Sikh mine manager. What about the scientific department? How did you feel? Surprisingly, I didn't feel devastated or anything because uh you get used to these uh ups and downs and challenges and uh at that time I was also thinking of having a look at India, the country of my birth, and uh trying to see something there. And there was a mining industry there as well, which was supposed to be good and well paid, so I I thought I could give that a try and I said no to the scientific job and went off to India.

Presenter15:29

Let's have some more music, Into Jut Singh. Tell me about this. We're on your fourth choice of the day.

Lord Indarjit Singh15:34

This is the on the street where you live from my fair lady.

Presenter15:38

Very romantic song.

Lord Indarjit Singh15:39

It is a very romantic one and we hadn't been married that long, I think, when we first uh heard it. And um my wife loved it, I loved it, and we went on using that song when in the family, when we went away on holiday, singing it in the car and so on.

Speaker 415:58

I have often walked down this street before, But the pavement always stayed beneath my feet before.

Speaker 416:10

All at once I'm eye several stories high, Knowing I'm on the street where you live.

Speaker 116:17

Uh

Speaker 416:21

Are there lilac trees in the heart of town?

Presenter16:27

On the Street Where You Live from the film version of My Fair Lady. That was Bill Shirley there. So, Indarjit Singh then. You've been married to your wife. You you mentioned that you both loved that song, and it was unabashedly romantic. You've been married for fifty three years, I think. Tell me how you met.

Lord Indarjit Singh16:44

I was on a visit from the mining area to my parents' home in Delhi, and my wife came along with her parents, and they were talking about something totally different. And then they mentioned about the girl wanting to get married, and I was on a balcony above, peering at the girl, and felt that she was very pretty. She'd been talking to my parents, and I'd been listening in a very free, open manner, about the political situation in India and everywhere. And I said, she's got some spirit, this is good.

Presenter17:20

It seems obvious that they were hoping that the two of you would make a good match. Did did they talk to you about that afterwards at this sort of apparently non-engineered engineered meeting?

Lord Indarjit Singh17:24

Yeah.

Lord Indarjit Singh17:30

Non-engineered engineers. Yes, that puts it perfectly. But and we got on well, so

Presenter17:35

You decided then to return to the UK with your young by then your your wife. It might seem surprising, given that the reason you'd had to leave was that you couldn't get a job, and given that there was this, you know, very open hostility to the idea that you could manage a British workforce in any sense. Why did you decide to come back?

Lord Indarjit Singh17:54

My wife was in this wilderness which she'd given birth to our first daughter, and we realized this is no place to bring anyone up, and let's go back to England, where we'd gone after marriage, and she enjoyed a lovely honeymoon, and she was quite keen as well.

Presenter18:12

And so you were bringing up your two young daughters in nineteen sixties Britain. Did you have a sense, both you and your wife, that you were bringing them into a significantly more enlightened Britain than the one that you'd previously had to deal with?

Lord Indarjit Singh18:28

They found it certainly more enlightened. The difficulties we found at school they didn't. There's still some prejudice, but they had lovely friends who they would invite home, and we rarely ever invited anyone because it was a different world.

Presenter18:30

Good thing.

Presenter18:46

The Race Relations Act then, as you will know, was first introduced into Britain in the mid sixties, but it only really became effective and robust when it was amended in in the nineteen seventies. I I wonder from your very experienced perspective which is better? Do you think it is attitudes in society meaning that we have to change the laws to keep up? Or do you think it is important that we change laws first and that they change attitudes?

Lord Indarjit Singh19:11

I think both give rise to each other, that attitudes have changed a lot in this country and laws tend to be passed to keep up with those. But there's some laws which should be passed anyway anything that that promotes the equality of people.

Presenter19:28

Were you ambitious for your daughters? Did you have plans for them?

Lord Indarjit Singh19:31

I wanted them to be doctors. And so knowing how people like me children rebel against what their parents want, I used to tell them they should be mining engineers or go into engineering of some sort. And they said, Forget it, we're going to be doctors. So it worked.

Presenter19:47

Let's go to some more music then in Darjit Singh. We're on your fifth of the morning. Tell me a little bit about this choice.

Lord Indarjit Singh19:53

This is the Avalla Nuruppaya. It's a verse taken from the Gurugranthsa, which is all written in verses. That is our holy scripture. And the verse was actually written by a Muslim. And it's incorporated into the Gurugranthsa because of the Sikh insistence that no one religion has a monopoly of truth. So our holy book contains writings of Hindu and Muslim saints as well as the Sikh Gurus. It was written by a potter by trade, and he compares in this song that the one divine potter created all humanity into vessels of different shapes. How can you say that one is better than the other when all are created by the same one divine potter?

Speaker 420:44

I love it.

Speaker 420:45

Upaya, quite seventh.

Presenter21:43

Aval Ala Nur Upaya sung there by Ishmit Singh. So in Darjit Singh, you've been a contributor to Radio 4's Thought for the Day for, what, thirty odd years now, I think. Is that right? Thought for the Day, of course, embraces, well, speakers of all faiths. Do you think it also should embrace some speakers of no faith? Would you be comfortable to make space for the odd humanist or the odd agnostic or the even the odd atheist?

Lord Indarjit Singh21:52

Yes.

Lord Indarjit Singh22:05

I personally would, but it's difficult because the odd agnostic could talk about just about anything and it's an ethical programme. So that would be difficult. Even with humanists, I've got some very good humanist friends and I can never get out of them what uh humanism is because they refer to different books which I've looked at and they all criticize other religions but don't put much themselves.

Presenter22:33

Of course, humanists and atheists have ethics too. I mean, that's not the monopoly of people who have faith.

Lord Indarjit Singh22:37

No faith. You don't have to be religious at all. You can be a very good person with good ethical standards. But the point about religion is that it's a satnav that gives you directions and reminds you to come back to those directions if you go astray. Because I've got a very flexible conscience and I can talk to it and say, now see things my way, and it usually does, but it's not really the right way. Let's have some music. What would you like to hear? This is walk tall of a Valduniken. On a Saturday evening, the family would always watch the Val Duniken show with his colourful jumpers and the song itself. Walking tall, walking straight, and looking the world in the eyes is about the only way to go. Never look down on people or never get overawed with by people.

Speaker 423:29

Walk tall, walk straight and look the world right in the eye That's what my mama told me when I was about me high She said son be a proud man and hold your head up high Walk tall, walk straight and look the world right in the eye All through the years that I grew up Ma taught these things to me But I was young and foolish then and much too blind to see I ignore the things she said as if I'd never heard

Presenter24:04

That was Valduniken and Walktole. So, Lord Singh, you were the first Sikh to be appointed then to the House of Lords. That happened in twenty eleven. At the time that you were told of the appointment, did you yourself have worries about

Lord Indarjit Singh24:18

Yeah.

Presenter24:18

Tokenism

Lord Indarjit Singh24:19

I did at the actual interview.

Lord Indarjit Singh24:22

They said, Do you realize that if we

Lord Indarjit Singh24:26

appoint you, you'll be the first at Tobin Seek. And I said, If you want a token seek, don't do it, because I want to be there on merit. And how did they reassure you of that? They were pleased that I said it, and then there was total silence for two or three months.

Presenter24:44

In a recent debate on Islamophobia and tackling the increase on attacks against Muslims, you said I'm quoting directly here that ever since nine eleven there's been a huge increase in the number of attacks on Sikhs and Sikh places of worship in cases of mistaken identity.

Presenter25:03

What is being done to confront that problem?

Lord Indarjit Singh25:06

Nothing by the authorities at all. Hate crime is deplorable, and we should not just look at one community. Whether it occurs in a large community or a small community, it still remains hate crime and it should be tackled.

Presenter25:24

Is there any evidence from your perspective that people Sikhs in Britain are beginning to feel more self conscious about obvious displays of their faith, about wearing their turban and so on?

Lord Indarjit Singh25:35

I think that is right, and that is right through society. In at one time in this country, even Muslim people would not wear the hijab and those symbols. The young Sikhs have now taken to sometimes wearing bigger turbans to assert themselves.

Presenter25:53

Is that

Lord Indarjit Singh26:00

And even some Sikh women have taken to wearing turbans. The symbols are i im important as a mark of identity, but the religion and the teachings go much beyond that, and I'd like to see more attention being paid by Sikhs to make their teachings known to others, because I think they are a healing balm for society.

Presenter26:24

Now, of course, the the House of Lords is

Presenter26:26

It's an indelicate word, but overstuffed. There isn't enough room for everybody else to put there. How do you find that just on a day-to-day level?

Lord Indarjit Singh26:29

That's what you put there.

Lord Indarjit Singh26:32

Well you have to pray to get a seat in the House of Lords because they start with prayers. And people who um quite antagonistic to religion still come in for prayers. It's the only way you can get a seat.

Presenter26:37

Right in

Presenter26:45

Tell me then about your next piece of music. What are we going to hear? It's your seventh of the morning in Darjeel.

Lord Indarjit Singh26:49

Big Yellow Taxi by Joni Mitchell. And um I first heard it through my daughters and it became a family favorite. And it reminds us of

Lord Indarjit Singh27:02

There are many things around us that we should value and we tend to value them after they've disappeared, people and things and a way of life. We should look and cherish what we have.

Speaker 427:15

Take paradise, put up a parking lot

Speaker 427:20

With a pink coattail, a boutique and a swingin' hot spot.

Speaker 427:26

Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone? It tastes paradise, put up a park in love

Speaker 427:40

Took all the trees, put'em in a tree museum.

Presenter27:45

That was Jenny Mitchell and Big Yellow Taxi. Indarjitsingh, you are a father to two daughters, as we know, and you are a grandfather to five grandchildren.

Lord Indarjit Singh27:51

Yeah.

Lord Indarjit Singh27:54

Five, yes.

Presenter27:54

Yeah.

Presenter27:55

Um tell me about, as as you see it among your five grandchildren, their connection to their heritage and their relationship with their Britishness. How would you describe it?

Lord Indarjit Singh28:05

I think they see themselves as British, but with a Sikh religion.

Presenter28:12

And is it important to you that that Sikh religion is at the centre of their life, or do you think that it is the natural progression of things that as their relationship to your family's heritage is diluted, that their religion too will become diluted?

Lord Indarjit Singh28:26

So far i it's uh not diluted, but I think there's always that danger or possibility uh that it may. I would like them to understand and keep to the ethics of Sikhism. Other the things aren't as important as the ethics, but if they want to change, they should have a good reason for changing, because you shouldn't

Lord Indarjit Singh28:51

lose something as we just heard in the song that um you might later cherish.

Presenter28:56

So many Radio Four listeners will know your voice and know your beliefs f from thought for the day. I'm wondering within your own family, as it extends, are you considered somebody who has wisdom? Are you the person who people will come to? You know, they think, well, this is a man who who shares his thoughts with millions.

Lord Indarjit Singh29:11

Within my family. No, because that's why I went out to speak. A wife and two daughters, difficult. No, seriously, we get on pretty well together and my youngest g grandchild is constantly chatting away about anything and everything.

Presenter29:26

But you're not considered the font of all wisdom within your family.

Lord Indarjit Singh29:29

No, I'm not.

Presenter29:31

Glad to hear it. Um, you're still working then. You're in your early eighties now, and I believe your wife still works part-time too.

Lord Indarjit Singh29:35

Yeah.

Lord Indarjit Singh29:38

Yes.

Presenter29:39

Yes. Any any plans to retire?

Lord Indarjit Singh29:41

I thought I was going to retire when I was appointed to the House of Lords. I'd heard it was a sort of retirement home. But I've I keep being given jobs there and things to do and uh it's not retiring, but it's interesting and worth doing, I think. So um I'll retire when I fall to bet.

Presenter30:01

And so I am imagining quite a practical man. You know, your engineering is your background. When you are sent to this island, as surely you will be shortly the desert island, I mean.

Speaker 130:09

Yeah.

Lord Indarjit Singh30:09

Yeah.

Speaker 130:09

Sure.

Presenter30:12

How will you cope? W will you be sort of engineering a bridge off it to the next nearest bit of land? Will you be working out how best to construct your shelter to make sure it's rainproof and so on?

Lord Indarjit Singh30:22

I've often been in near impossible situations in my life, and I just don't know how I got out of them. I've no doubt I'll survive or in my way, I think, muddle through and find perhaps a way of escaping the island or making something of it. Let's have your final piece of music then for the day. Tell me about this eighth disc. This is Island in the Sun by Harry Belafonte. That is something, a song that resonates with me because it's not only a song in which he speaks of his love for his island, but it the film and the song come from a story where a white politician is defeated and the black one comes in, a changing order of things, which with the West Indians, finding something that we are

Lord Indarjit Singh31:17

masters of our own destiny for the first time some new experience for them, and I think that that also has an implication for the demise of colonialism.

Speaker 431:28

Uh As morning breaks the heaven on high I lift my heavy load to the sky.

Speaker 431:37

Sun comes down with a burning glow, Mingles my sweat with the earth below.

Speaker 431:48

O island in the sun, Gill to me by my father's hand.

Speaker 431:57

All my days I will sing in praise of your harvest waters, your strength.

Presenter32:04

That was Island in the Sun, sung by Harry Belafonte. So, Indarjit Singh, I'm going to give you the books now. You have the complete works of Shakespeare, and I gather you want to take your religious text, the Guru Grand Saib, is that is that right? You're allowed to take one other book, too. What's your other book going to be?

Lord Indarjit Singh32:14

Yeah.

Lord Indarjit Singh32:17

That would certainly be the Bible.

Presenter32:19

Ah so you'll end up with it anyway.

Lord Indarjit Singh32:21

Yes.

Presenter32:21

Right, okay, it's yours then. And what luxury would make life on your island just a little bit more bearable?

Lord Indarjit Singh32:26

the luxury I spend ages writing and uh get infuriated when I see cartoonists with a few flicks of the pen.

Lord Indarjit Singh32:38

Saying something much better than I say it. Uh I am really envious of cartoonists. Problem is I can't draw. So I want to be able to draw draw cartoons and um show my skills in that. So I'd like the paper and pens to do that. And eventually if I'm get back to civilization, I can perhaps lobby for a cartoon of the day alongside Thought for the Day.

Presenter33:07

You can certainly have all the tools then for that. And finally, if you could save just one of these eight disks, which one would it be?

Lord Indarjit Singh33:16

I would uh like the Awul Allah Nurupayah, the one that stresses the equality of all human beings, because we're so far from it. We say yes, we believe in equality as long as giving equality to others doesn't affect me. Now we need to go much wider in that way. Equality between people, between respect for religions, no one should say mine's the only way. All that that one hymn, that one Shabbatin which was sung, says it all.

Presenter33:51

Right, we shall give you that then. Lord Interjit Singh, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Lord Indarjit Singh33:56

Thank you.

Presenter34:37

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