A LIFE-LONG activist for equal rights has died after an "inspirational" life.
Harbhajan Singh Johal, a founder member of the Indian Workers' Association, moved to Britain in 1957 and formed the Indo-Pak Friendship Society in Derby with others from the Indian and Pakistani communities.
He died aged 79 in hospital in the Punjab from a ruptured stomach ulcer. He had been on a break in India with his family and was having treatment for an insect bite.
Shangara Gahonia, secretary of the Indian Workers' Association, said his father and Mr Johal had been friends and activists for equal rights together.
He said: "I knew Mr Johal from 1968 when I came to this country. He came in 1957 and always seemed to be the first person to do things. He was well-educated and, despite the obstacles he faced, was very, very active."
Due to poor conditions for Indian workers in the 1950s and 1960s, there was a national movement to revive the Indian Workers' Association, which had started in the 1930s.
Mr Johal was one of the founding members of the Derby branch. The association aims to fight discrimination and Mr Johal spent his life fighting for the rights of working-class people.
Mr Gahonia said: "He inspired people like me to join. It was my privilege to have been the secretary of the IWA while he was president and learn from him first-hand."
Mr Gahonia said the work Mr Johal carried out was always carried out in his own time and at his expense.
He said: "He worked at Qualcast and would finish his night shift, go down to London on the bus to join with protests then he'd be back at work that night."
Mr Johal started the trade union movement at Qualcast and was responsible for instating the first Indian Union shop steward at the firm.
Mr Gahonia spoke of the obstacles people from ethnic minorities faced in the 1950s and 1960s. He said: "You couldn't buy a house. Signs said 'for sale to whites only'. Two of the bus companies wouldn't hire black people."
Mr Gahonia said: "There aren't many people left like him who worked for a particular cause his whole life without worrying about his own concerns. He didn't just worry about the rights of Sikhs, either, but of all human beings.
"The Indo-Pak Friendship Society he formed had Pakistanis and Muslims in it, too. He was concerned with the rights of people whether they were white or black, it didn't matter."
Mr Johal was also active in the anti-apartheid movement and raised funds for the miners during the strikes of 1984 and 1985.
The Indian Workers' Association and Mr Johal's wife, son and two daughters, have organised a memorial at the Indian Community Centre, Rawdon Street, on Sunday, from 2pm to 5pm.
