Didar Singh Bains, ‘Peach King’ who built Northern California’s Sikh community, dies

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

However his friends, in a city of 19,000 about 40 miles north of Sacramento, pushed again, fearing violence and unrest.

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

However Didar Bains thought in another way.

“He mentioned it’s necessary for us to inform the individuals who we’re,” mentioned Karm Bains. “We’re fellow Individuals, law-abiding residents, and we would like every part you need in your youngsters.”

The annual celebration throughout the first weekend of November now attracts some 100,000 Sikhs and others from throughout the nation.

A farmer as soon as deemed the “Peach King” and probably the most outstanding American Sikh leaders, Didar Bains died Sept. 13 in Yuba Metropolis. He was 84.

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

From Imperial Valley to Yuba Metropolis, Didar Bains labored his method up the state and up the ladder. He finally settled in Sutter County, with its topography and rivers reminding him of Punjab (Punjab interprets to “Land of 5 Waters”), Karm Bains mentioned.

In 1962, whereas sending cash to his household again in India, Bains additionally saved up sufficient to purchase a 10-acre parcel within the south facet of city. He quickly leaned into rising peaches.

Peaches will be notoriously troublesome to develop, Bains mentioned. Simply two days of frost in April worn out half the crop this yr, he mentioned.

Pruning, thinning and harvesting peaches have to be achieved inside a really tight timeframe, Karm Bains mentioned. Harvesting must be achieved inside a window as brief as three days.

However Didar Bains had a knack of discovering good soil. Mixed together with his work ethic and management expertise, his farm grew to a whole bunch of staff. By 1978, he had change into the biggest unbiased peach farmer in California, and maybe the world, incomes him the “Peach King” moniker.

Bains additionally expanded and diversified his farm, rising cranberries, raspberries and different crops in 13 counties all through California, in addition to Washington, Florida, British Columbia and India. His farm was the second-largest grower of cranberries for Ocean Spray, Diljit Bains wrote.

Kash Gill, Didar Bains’ nephew who turned town’s first Sikh mayor in 2009, recalled his uncle leaping in a tractor at 4:30 a.m. and staying in the orchards till 8:30 at evening.

“He mentioned, ‘This can be a method I can see each one in every of my timber,’” Gill mentioned. “He would drive the tractor, so he himself can see firsthand what kind of crop he has.”

As Bains’ enterprise grew, he additionally assumed the function of a group chief. He all the time emphasised three tenets of Sikhism: residing an sincere life, thanking God and sharing with these in want.

His farms employed a whole bunch of staff, lots of them Sikh immigrants getting their first job within the U.S. Lots of these staff had fled India after 1984, when hundreds of Sikhs had been massacred in three days of violence following the assassination of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who was killed by two Sikh bodyguards.

As a toddler, Gill would spend nights and weekends at his uncle’s home. In the course of the evening, Gill recalled, Bains would get calls from Sikh immigrants who had been detained after coming to the nation illegally and had one free cellphone name to make.

“Once they got here to America,” Gill mentioned, “there have been solely two issues they wanted to know: Didar Bains and Yuba Metropolis.”

Bains additionally helped a whole bunch of his family members, giving them housing, jobs and even land.

He turned the youngest president of the Stockton Gurdwara Sikh temple in 1965h. He raised funds to construct a Sikh temple in Yuba Metropolis within the Sixties, and based the World Sikh Group in 1984 to advocate for the group. He donated hundreds of thousands to assist construct Sikh temples worldwide, and hundreds extra to assist a Wisconsin police officer recuperate from a mass capturing at a Sikh temple in 2012.

When American Sikhs had been repeatedly focused after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror assaults by individuals who perceived them as Muslim., Bains and different Sikh leaders organized a gathering with President George W. Bush.

When Gill misplaced his metropolis council bid in 2004 by a small margin, Bains instructed him: “Strive once more.” Gill finally received a council seat in 2006 and have become mayor three years later.

“I may simply see a giant glow,” Gill recalled watching Bains at Gill’s swearing-in ceremony as a mayor.

In 2014, Gov. Jerry Brown honored Bains on the Sikh Temple of Sacramento.

“Didar’s youthful than me,” Brown instructed the group, in keeping with the Sacramento Bee. “The rationale I look youthful is as a result of I don’t work as arduous as he does.”

In Yuba Metropolis, Bains’ legacy is all over the place, even on the Walmart and Residence Depot shops that he helped deliver to town. He helped town develop as nicely, particularly in its western and northern ends, mentioned Dave Shaw, town’s present mayor. Tens of hundreds of American Sikhs now dwell within the metropolis and surrounding county.

The town earlier this yr celebrated the groundbreaking of a park named after Didar Bains — whose first identify interprets to “visionary” in Punjabi.

“He had a imaginative and prescient and a mind-set of the place he wished the folks to be,” Karm Bains mentioned. “I hope this isn’t the top of an period. Hopefully, it’s only a passing of the torch for the following era to come back.”

Didar Bains is survived by his spouse of 58 years, Santi Bains; sons Ajit and Karm; daughter Diljit; brothers Dilbag and Jaswant Bains; and sisters Gurmeet Gill, Resham Nagra and Surinder Dale.