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Indian Diaspora in the US: A street to be named after Dr Amarjit Singh Marwah
Hollywood Sikh Temple plans to honor Malibu resident Dr. Amarjit Singh Marwah for his years of community service by renaming a street in his honor and placing a star with his name on Hollywood Boulevard.
Dr. Amarjit Singh Marwah / LinkedIn @Dr. Rajwant Singh
A dentist from the Malwa belt in Punjab, India, who moved to the United States in 1950 and treated among others Hollywood actress Elizabeth Taylor, Sidney Poitier, and boxer Mohammed Ali and played a crucial role in the election of Dalip Singh Saund as the first man of Asian origin to sit in the US Congress, will soon have a street named after him.
According to Malibu Times, the Hollywood Sikh Temple plans to honor Malibu resident Dr. Amarjit Singh Marwah for his years of community service by renaming a street in his honor and placing a star with his name on Hollywood Boulevard. The newspaper has quoted a press release from the Hollywood Sikh Temple.
Originally from Kot Kapura in Punjab, 93-year-old Marwah arrived in the U.S. on a scholarship in 1950, according to a 2019 profile in The Malibu Times. He soon opened his popular dentistry practice in Los Angeles, which met with roaring success.
Dr Marwah, who was very close to Parkash Singh Badal, five-time Chief Minister of Punjab, often visited Punjab and his hometown, which he later adopted for its overall development under the Village Improvement Plan that was also promised government support.
I met him and interviewed him a couple of times during his visits to India where he would fondly remember his early childhood and college friends, including Parkash Singh Badal. During one of my interactions, he narrated how he joined members of the Punjabi community in the US to work hard to get Dalip Singh Saund elected to the US Congress.
Before he could do that, Dalip Singh Saund, who moved from the Chajjal Wadi area in Punjab to the USA, also played a pioneering role in getting people of Indian origin living in the US to get American citizenship. Dalip Singh Saund, who had completed his PhD in Mathematics, was among the first to get US citizenship. After the 1946 bill was passed, Dalip Singh Saund became a US citizen in 1949, thus clearing his way to becoming a member of the US Congress. He was thus the first Asian American, first Indian American, and first Sikh to be elected to the U.S. Congress. He retained his seat twice afterward.
Besides playing a stellar role in the Punjabi community in the United States, Dr Marwah devoted himself to philanthropy in Los Angeles, becoming a commissioner of cultural affairs for the city, chairing the Bombay-Los Angeles Sister City Committee, helping to get the first-ever minority – Dalip Singh Saund - elected to Congress and teaching at the University of Southern California.
“Marwah is responsible for getting historic recognition for 200 monuments throughout L.A., including Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and the Walk of Fame on Hollywood Boulevard. Even though it was a salaried position, he gave every cent back,” The Malibu Times reported.
The newspaper further said that Marwah also gifted one of his alma maters, Howard University, with an emergency dental clinic, paid the college tuition of more than 100 Indian American students, and funded the first Sikh temple in the U.S.–Hollywood Sikh Temple.
Hollywood Sikh Temple wrote in their press release that Marwah “has hosted hundreds of weddings, bar and bat Mitzvahs, political and philanthropic events …” The Malibu Times reported that Indira Gandhi was once Marwah and his late wife Kuljit’s guest.
The dentist owns a ranch along PCH in Malibu and several acres along PCH in Ventura County. He has lived at the Malibu address for more than 50 years, according to The Malibu Times, breeding Arabian horses on the property for a period and filling the home with art. He is known for his signature look, “a white turban and bow tie,” and drives a white Rolls Royce convertible, Malibu Times story said.
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