Didar singh bains biography books

In 1980, Didar Singh Bains pitched a plan for what he hoped would be an annual Sikh parade in his hometown of Yuba City, Calif.

But his peers, in a town of 19,000 about 40 miles north of Sacramento, pushed back, fearing violence and unrest.

"Some thought he was crazy," recalled Karm Bains, Didar Bain's son and a Sutter County supervisor, in a 2018 interview with NBC News. "People are going to throw rocks."

But Didar Bains thought differently.

"He said it's important for us to tell the people who we are," said Karm Bains. "We are fellow Americans, law-abiding citizens, and we want everything you want for your kids."

The annual celebration during the first weekend of November now draws some 100,000 Sikhs and others from across the country.

A farmer once deemed the "Peach King" and one of the most prominent American Sikh leaders, Didar Bains died Sept. 13 in Yuba City. He was 84.

Born in a small farming village in the Punjab region of India in 1938, Bains came to the U.S. in 1958 with $8 to his name, following his father who had left for America when Didar was 10, according to a tribute written by his daughter, Diljit Bains, in UC Davis’ Pioneering Punjabis Digital Archive.

From Imperial Valley to Yuba City, Didar Bains worked his way up the state and up the ladder. He eventually settled in Sutter County, with its topography and rivers reminding him of Punjab (Punjab translates to "Land of Five Waters"), Karm Bains said.

In 1962, while sending money to his family back in India, Bains also saved up enough to buy a 10-acre parcel in the south side of town. He soon leaned into growing peaches.

Peaches can be notoriously difficult to grow, Bains said. Just two days of frost in April wiped out half the crop this year, he said.

Pruning, thinning and harvesting peaches must be done within a very tight time fram

S. Didar Singh Bains who was a living legend has passed away.

I came to know him through Yogi Bhajan and during his visit to India  in 1983 he was an honoured guest in Rashtrapati Bhawan.

He was a towering personality and fully devoted towards Sikh cause. After the sad army attack on Golden temple  Bains led the protest marches at many places in the USA. He was made the Chairman of the World Sikh Council. Because of that, he was debarred from visit to India.

When I was in Los Angeles during the Olympics I went to his village Yuba city. He picked me up from the Airport and we spent hours to see his agriculture farm which was in miles.  I met his wife, a Mexicon who was controlling all the farms. I spent two days with him and remember how his young son at that time showed his anger against Indra Gandhi for the Army attack.

He at that young age gave me a letter addressed to PM in very harsh language.

It was the kindness of Sh. Narsimah Rao, Prime Minister who cleared his file and allowed him to visit India.

Once I organized his meeting with Sh. Atal Bihari Vajpayee. During my last visit to San Francisco, he was to come for the Museum inauguration but informed me on the telephone of his inability due to some reasons.

I pay all my respects to such a good friend a known philanthropist who got his name inscribed in Gunnies Book of Record. 

Tarlochan Singh

In 1980, Didar Singh Bains pitched a plan for what he hoped would be an annual Sikh parade in his hometown of Yuba City, Calif.

But his peers, in a town of 19,000 about 40 miles north of Sacramento, pushed back, fearing violence and unrest.

“Some thought he was crazy,” recalled Karm Bains, Didar Bain’s son and a Sutter County supervisor, in a 2018 interview with NBC News. “People are going to throw rocks.”

But Didar Bains thought differently.

“He said it’s important for us to tell the people who we are,” said Karm Bains. “We are fellow Americans, law-abiding citizens, and we want everything you want for your kids.”

The annual celebration during the first weekend of November now draws some 100,000 Sikhs and others from across the country.

A farmer once deemed the “Peach King” and one of the most prominent American Sikh leaders, Didar Bains died Sept. 13 in Yuba City. He was 84.

Born in a small farming village in the Punjab region of India in 1938, Bains came to the U.S. in 1958 with $8 to his name, following his father who had left for America when Didar was 10, according to a tribute written by his daughter, Diljit Bains, in UC Davis’ Pioneering Punjabis Digital Archive.

From Imperial Valley to Yuba City, Didar Bains worked his way up the state and up the ladder. He eventually settled in Sutter County, with its topography and rivers reminding him of Punjab (Punjab translates to “Land of Five Waters”), Karm Bains said.

In 1962, while sending money to his family back in India, Bains also saved up enough to buy a 10-acre parcel in the south side of town. He soon leaned into growing peaches.

Peaches can be notoriously difficult to grow, Bains said. Just two days of frost in April wiped out half the crop this year, he said.

Pruning, thinning and harvesting peaches must be done within a very tight time frame, Karm Bains said. Harvesting has to be done within a window

Arrival in Yuba City and Agricultural Success – “The Peach King”

Didar Singh Bains arrived in the United States in 1958 with eight dollars to his name and the belief that “money could grow on trees”. He was a young  jat—a Sikh farmer who believed that farming is next to godliness. When he took a whiff of the prime Columbian loam lining the fields of Sutter County, he knew he’d found paradise and home.

He started as a basic laborer with only a few words of English in his vocabulary. His first job in the USA involved working for farmers Roy Noreen and Steve Nelson driving tractors, irrigating, and pruning and laboring in their orchards for seventy-five cents per hour. Didar remained loyal to his family and worked tirelessly to help re-unite his parents and subsequently his mother Amar Kaur and his younger brother arrived in the USA in 1962.

Through sheer hard work and perseverance he quickly rose to the rank of foreman, where everyone acknowledged that he did the work of four men. Having a very limited education, he used his natural instincts, intelligence, and keen business acumen to purchase his first piece of land in 1962, then another, and another, and by 1978 he became the largest peach farmer in California and the world and became widely known as the “Peach King.

Didar’s willingness to take risks combined with his uncanny insight for identifying those parcels of land that would inevitably fall directly in the path of urban growth  has been long been  admired by real estate pundits.  At other times, often land that others had disregarded, was re-purposed by Didar into some of the region’s most productive farm land by matching the land  with the right process and product (crop).

After tremendous success in the USA, particularly in California, Didar set his sights to achieve similar success in Canada. He began with his first purchase of land in 1978, just outside of Vancouver, British Columbia, and continued to purchase and