Recognising Our Unsung Sikh Heroes
Winners of the Australian Sikh Awards for Excellence 2026
Excellence in Agriculture
Amanpreet, Manjinder, and Kamaljit Singh Grewal
Born into a Punjabi farming family, the Grewals left India in 1988. Twelve years running a restaurant and greengrocer in New Zealand led them back to the land they knew. From a vineyard at Renmark they built Golden Grain Mills at Cullulleraine, now milling thousands of tonnes of Victorian wheat a year alongside almonds, citrus and berries. When drought struck in 2007 they shipped a traditional stone mill from Punjab rather than walk away. The mill buys from neighbouring farms and sustains regional jobs. For them, feeding people is service, a conviction rooted in their Sikh faith.
Excellence in Arts, Culture, or Music
Bali Padda
Bali Padda is a Sikh Australian director, producer and actor working across theatre and screen. His screen work includes the Logie nominated Optics and the Emmy nominated All Her Fault. He made his stage directing debut with Guards at the Taj at Riverside Parramatta, and has since directed and produced Sunderella, Champions, King James and Sex Magick. As a screen executive at Screen Australia and Screen NSW, and across four unpaid years chairing the MEAA Equity Diversity Committee, he has given seva to widening who tells Australian stories. In 2024 he founded Little Goat Arts and Entertainment, making space for nuanced, brave stories reflecting the richness of Australia’s diverse communities.
Excellence in Community Service
Harmohan Singh Walia
Harmohan Singh Walia, a Mechanical & Industrial Engineer by profession, has dedicated 35 years to community service, interfaith dialogue, and uplifting others through leadership and seva reflecting the Sikh values of humility, hard work, and giving back. An Olympic Torchbearer in Sydney 2000, a Punjabi radio broadcaster covering multicultural stations including SBS Punjabi and a community photographer covering 6,000+ events. Has compiled four coffee table books on Indo-Australian diaspora’s success. With resilience forged through life’s challenges, he continues to inspire youth and families to lead with integrity and compassion. Harmohan believes in building stronger, united communities rooted in love, respect, and faith.
Excellence In A Professional Field
Dr Narinder Pal Singh
Associate Professor Narinder Pal Singh is Head of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery at Westmead Hospital and Associate Professor at the University of Sydney. Raised in a farming family in Griffith, New South Wales, he has published over 90 scientific papers and delivered more than 270 international presentations, and has supervised 14 completed PhDs and Masters. He is an international authority on using Computational Fluid Dynamics and Artificial Intelligence to improve healthcare for underserved populations. His flagship project, DrumBeat.ai, applies AI to ear disease in rural and remote Aboriginal children, work that reflects seva and lifts health outcomes for communities Australian medicine has long underserved.
Excellence In Sports
Hasrat Kaur Gill
Hasrat Kaur Gill is one of Australian cricket’s fastest-rising young talents. Born in Amritsar and raised in Melbourne, she represents Victoria in the Women’s National Cricket League and Sydney Thunder in the Women’s Big Bash League, and has represented Australia at Under-19 level. She uses the platform sport has given her to widen it for others, showing young Sikh Australians, particularly girls, that elite sport is open to them without setting aside who they are. That visibility is its own form of seva, and her rise strengthens the case for a more representative national game.
Australian Sikh Woman of the Year
Bijinder Dugal OAM
Bijinder Dugal OAM is co-founding Director of AASHA Australia Foundation, a volunteer-run charity established in 2017 to support the health and wellbeing of older members of Australia’s Indian community. Its programs cover active ageing, dementia awareness, elder rights and social inclusion, and she has partnered with health and education organisations on elder abuse awareness and financial safety. She was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in the 2026 King’s Birthday Honours for service to aged welfare. Her work is sustained seva, easing isolation among older Australians and helping families care for their elders.
Young Australian Sikh of the Year
Maneet Singh
Maneet Singh is an award-winning industrial designer and lead designer at Orbitkey, an Australian design brand selling in more than 100 countries. A James Dyson Award national winner, Good Design Award winner and two-time Victorian Premier’s Design Award recipient, he designs in the spirit of seva, for the people design usually overlooks. His work includes AirLift, a pneumatic device letting a single healthcare worker reposition a patient safely, and Reverie, a dementia care system built on clinical Reminiscence Therapy. He steered Orbitkey’s largest Kickstarter campaign past one million Australian dollars and mentors the next generation of Sikh creatives.Lifetime Achievement (Posthumous)
Ajmer Singh Gill (1942-2026)
In the country towns where Late Sardar Ajmer Singh Gill JP first made his life in Australia, he was often the only man in a turban for miles. He spent the next four decades making sure no Sikh Australian would ever feel that alone.
He opened Sydney’s first camp to teach young Sikhs in 1998, and was a founding member of Sikh Youth Australia the year after, so the children of migrants would grow up knowing exactly who they were. He founded the Multicultural Communities Council of NSW, advised the Australian Defence Force on Sikhism, and led the National Sikh Council of Australia as its President.
In 2007 he secured approval, called on the community, and led the first Sikh contingent of 28 in the Sydney Anzac Day march, wearing his father’s war badges. He marched every year after. The man who once stood out alone had put his community into the national story, in step, in public, where everyone could see.
He passed away peacefully at his Victorian home, with his family beside him, aged 81.
The camp still runs. The contingent still marches. And every year his estate pays the fees of young Sikhs going to camp, through the scholarship in his name. His work is not finished.
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