President of Hindustani Samaj & a veteran NRI in Moscow
“Unity in Diversity”
Kashmir Singh Ji was born and brought up in Amritsar, Punjab. As an avid reader he read several books, but Mikhail Sholokhov’s “Quiet Flows the Don”, made him dream and wish to come to the Soviet Union. A young Kashmir Singh thought that this dream would die with him, but destiny had some other plans for him. While he was doing his bachelor’s in History at DAV College in Amritsar, he got an offer from the Indo-Soviet Cultural Society based on merit to continue his higher studies at People’s Friendship University, Moscow, Russia. And this was the beginning of the materialization of Kashmir Ji’s dreams.
He came to Moscow on 18th September 1975, his first impression of the place was full of awe when he saw how the Soviet people had re-established themselves after the Second World War. He was kindly and lovingly received by all the Russians around him. One of his professors helped him to learn the Russian language faster by making him accompany him to all the events he attended, while the hostel warden provided him with a quiet space to study when his roommates were being noisy. He soon found a job at Moscow Radio as a Punjabi speaker and at the Raduga publications as a translator of Russian literature into Indian languages.
Kashmir Ji joined the Hindustani Samaj in 1985 as a member. Hindustani Samaj was established in May 1957 as a non-political, non-commercial, socio-cultural and literary organization, by the first group of Indian specialists, who came to Moscow to work in the Foreign Languages Publishing House, which was later renamed Progress Publishers, and in Radio Moscow. Shri Radha Mohan Bhattacharya – an actor in Bengali films and a literary figure was elected as the first President with Shri Bhisham Sahni, a well-known writer and the brother of famous Bollywood actor Balraj Sahni, as the General Secretary. Shri Ram Kumar Verma – a famous Hindi poet, playwright and professor at Allahabad University headed the Samaj for some time. Late Padmashree Dr M. L. Madhu had been leading the Samaj since 1976 with a small break of two years or so – in total about 30 years. Shri Soma Sundram, Habib-ul-Rehman, Dr Karanjit Singh, Prof. Dharam Rajan, Mr. Rothin Chatterjee and Sh Yogender Nagpal guided the activities of the Samaj for some years.
After the disintegration of the USSR the Samaj became inactive for some time, in 1994 Kashmir Ji along with his colleagues revived the Samaj with a new name: Indian Association, but it was later decided to keep the previous name. Since then the Samaj has been actively working in the socio-cultural sphere, they host competitions and events like, Anuvaad pratiyogita, Hindi scholars conference, Unity in Diversity cultural program, Kavi sammelan, etc. Kashmir Ji was unanimously elected by the general body of the Samaj as the President of the Samaj in 2015 and has been fulfilling his duty meticulously since then.
