JP Singh

That’s the first time in the history of UC Berkeley that a Sikh Student Association was formed. It was Nineteen Seventy Eight.” JP Singh was a PhD students at UC Berkeley and describes the birth of the Association out of the student protests around a visit by then Indian Prime Minister Morarji Desai after the 1978 Sikh killings.

In the 30 years that followed, JP Singh became known as a specialist in GeoEngineering, Earthquake Engineering & Seismology, having worked on the TransAmerica Pyramid in San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge among many other projects around the world.
Here, he shares a wide-ranging and extremely informative interview about his interactions with those close to government decision-makers during his visit to India in January 1984; the role of the diaspora; the formation and disintegration of North American Sikh organizations and the attempts by Indian government agents to infiltrate these; him being disallowed from visiting India for his activism following November 1984; and the hurt he felt for losing some of his Hindu friendships.

“We cannot let 1984 die…and not just 1984…I think actually 1978 should live as well because that is where the whole thing started.