Son of Makhan Singh passes away in Nairobi
With Hindpal Singh Jabbal's demise, Kenya loses yet another luminary eyewitness to its colonial past.
Hindpal Singh Jabbal (1937-2025), though a history-maker in his own right who is now firmly etched in the illustrious past of Kenya, the elder son of the great Makhan Singh (1913-1973), was eyewitness to his father's trials and tribulations as a fierce freedom fighter and trade unionist pioneer of Kenya.
In solidarity with Makhan Singh's struggle for independence of Kenya, he was visited at his Dol Dol detention camp in 1961 by his father Sudh Singh (1893-1971), wife Satwant Kaur (1917-2000) and his three children Hindpal Singh (1937-2025), Inderjeet Kaur (b. 1945) and Swarajpal Singh (b. 1948).
He passed away in his humble and modest Nairobi apartment, a little shy of 88 in the new year's early morning hours of 2025 – and as quietly as his father lived as the 'Unquiet' revolutionary. His accounts of Makhan Singh's life and times are now immortalised in several biographical books and interviews.
Hindpal was former chairman of Kenya's Energy Regulatory Commission and for several years worked with the Kenya Power and Lighting Company (KPLC), now known as Kenya Power.
The most difinitive biography of Kenyan freedom fighter - ‘Unquiet, The Life and Times of Makhan Singh’ by Zarina Patel - that I designed from cover to cover in 2006, as my son Khalsa Fateh-Singh marvels at it still being hot on the shelves in 2024.
Khalsa Sahib-Singh talking Makhan Singh (1913-1973) with his son Hindpal Singh over a cup of Sunday afternoon tea in 2020.
Hindpal Singh Jabbal, Hon Sonia Birdi and Khalsa Lakhvir-Singh addressing the media at Gurdwara Nanaksar in Nairobi at a press conference in 2017 marking the 350th birth anniversary of Guru Gobind Singh, the last and final human Guru of the Sikhs.
🎥 Hindpal Singh Jabbal addressing the media at Gurdwara Nanaksar in Nairobi at a press conference in 2017 marking the 350th birth anniversary of Guru Gobind Singh, the last and final human Guru of the Sikhs - and speaking on the powerful identity of Sikhs in Kenya.