A compassionate doctor, a fine man, a sensitive poet

After becoming an ophthalmologist, he served for 23 years in government medical colleges in Amritsar and Patiala, before opening his own legendary Dr Daljit Singh Eye Hospital in Amritsar, which has served tens of thousands of patients. Dr Daljit Singh was a pioneer in the surgery of cataract extraction and intraocular lens implantation. The first intraocular lens implantation in India was carried out by Dr Daljit Singh in 1976.

And he continued with this technique even when most of eye surgeons shifted to outer lenses. He remained the specialist doctor to the President of India and earned many awards, including highest medical award Dr B C Roy award in 1994 and was awarded Padam Shree earlier in 1987.

Apart from a successful doctor, who served poor patients at very affordable cost, Daljit Singh was a political and social commentator, political activist and a sensitive poet and rather than English, he chose his mother tongue Punjabi to express himself. His book on eye care was published by Punjabi University Patiala, but his other books of socio-political commentary were published by Amritsar publishers.

He wrote about three hundred poems in Punjabi in three collections, out of which I translated 90 selected poems in Hindi. But his prose books like “Duja Pasa, The Other Side” and Sach di Bhaal’-Search for Truth carries his most radical views on world polity. Some of these put him on the fringe, such as his belief that the 9/11 attack were stage managed by the US establishment.

He also believed that world politics is controlled by a few bankers and he appreciated that Cuba and North Korea had not fallen into their trap. Dr Daljit Singh wrote that Libyan leader Gaddafi and Iraq leader Saddam Hussain were killed because they were trying to build a parallel economy free from these influential bankers based in USA.

Dr Daljit Singh always remained sympathetic to the leftist movement in Punjab and any number of comrades could land up to him for medical or financial help. Bhagat Singh was his favourite hero and he wrote many poems as tribute to him. Idealist to the core, Dr Daljit Singh went along with Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) from its inception at his late age and became one of its most respectable face during 2014 parliamentary elections, when he was pitted against political bigwigs like Amarinder Singh and Arun Jaitley, but such was his conduct that not a single ugly word was spoken from his campaign against his rivals.

And he enjoyed such respect that he would even go to his rivals’ rallies to make contact with people for votes and no one would object. He lost the elections but won people’s hearts, yet his vote count was also large. More than 80 thousand votes he was able to get against such formidable rivals. He was part of AAP’s disciplinary committee in Punjab, but felt disillusioned. Though he joined Congress later, but practically he remained aloof from politics and limited himself to his writing.

AAP rebel MP Dr Dharamvir Gandhi, who was his student in 70’s at Amritsar Medical College, described him as “his mentor”. Till about two years ago, he was attending to patients in his hospital from 4 am to late evening. I met him last year at his home, when he had finally stopped going to hospital and was not keeping well, still he continued with his computer and writing. His wife Swarn Kaur predeceased him a decade ago, now his two sons and two daughters-in-law-all doctors at Dr Daljit Singh Eye Hospital to take care of his legacy.

In fact such is the fame of Daljit Singh that last year I saw Kashmiri youth and older victims of police brutalities of pellet guns coming over to his daughter-in-law Dr Indu Singh, a retinal expert attending to Kashmiri patients, who was explaining to them with moist eyes that their vision could not be restored.

Dr Daljit Singh eye hospital was a home to most of Punjabi writers for eye treatment with indoor free hospitality. They would never be charged, even when they could afford to pay personally or from government treasury in official capacity. Amritsar was known for two formidable social personalities, Dr Daljit Singh and playwright Gursharn Singh. The city now misses both! The writer is a retired JNU professor.