Singh was born in 1932 at
Rawalpindi, then in the British Indian province of the
Punjab, and came to England with his parents in 1933. His father was a medical doctor. After attending Bishop Vesey's Grammar School in Sutton Coldfield, he studied
engineering at
Birmingham University. Between 1955 and 1975, he worked in
mining and
civil engineering for the
National Coal Board, for construction company
Costain as a mine manager in India, and in local government in London. He has advised, or been a member of, official bodies, including the
Commission for Racial Equality and the
Home Secretary’s Advisory Council on Race Relations. He is Director of the
Network of Sikh Organisations (UK) and regularly represents the Sikh community at civic occasions such as the
Commonwealth Service and the
Remembrance Day Service at the
Cenotaph in
Whitehall, London.
King Charles III,
Anglican bishops and the
Metropolitan police have consulted him. He is prominent in the national and international interfaith movement, a patron of the
World Congress of Faiths and an executive committee member of the
Inter Faith Network UK. He was invited to the
wedding of Prince William of Wales and Catherine Middleton and the
Coronation of Charles III and Camilla as a representative for the Sikh faith. His participation in the
Thought for the Day feature on
BBC Radio 4's
Today programme lasted from around 1984 to 2019. He left after editorial disagreements with the BBC. ==Awards and honours==