“We founded the Forum in 1989 with a simple promise — to be the community voice of Sikhs in Yorkshire. Today, that promise belongs to every Sikh in this region.”

Dr Nirmal Singh Sekhon arrived in Bradford in the late 1970s and spent the next decade quietly building the relationships — between Gurdwaras, families, professionals and civic leaders — that would become the Forum. In 1989 he gathered representatives from across Yorkshire and put a name to the work. Thirty-seven years later he still chairs every meeting, still answers every letter, and still greets every family at Vaisakhi by name.

He has served as Chairman without interruption since the day the Forum was founded. In 2010 he was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire for services to the Sikh community in Yorkshire. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He sits on civic and interfaith panels across the region, and is the first person Bradford Cathedral, the City Council and West Yorkshire Police call when Sikh perspective is needed at the table.