Central Sikh Temple, Singapore

The Central Sikh Temple, also called the Central Sikh Gurdwara, is the main gurdwara of the Sikhs of Singapore. Established in 1912, it was first known as the Queen Street Gurdwara Sahib and later also as the Wadda Gurdwara, the Big Temple. It now stands at Towner Road and houses the Sri Guru Granth Sahib.

How it began: In 1912 a group of Sikhs decided to leave the Sikh Police Gurdwara Sahib at Pearl's Hill and build a new temple for the growing community, with the support of the Sindhi community and the Straits Settlements Police, Singapore Branch. The National Heritage Board adds that a Sindhi merchant, Wassiamull, helped the group buy a bungalow with a large compound on Queen Street.

Control of the temple: In its early years the temple had leadership problems among the Majha, Malwa and Doabha factions of the community. On 12 June 1917 the government took control of it, locked the safe and took the keys, and handed its management to the Muslim and Hindu Endowment Board, which the Sikhs saw as an insult. Attendance and donations to the langar fell. In the 1930s the community, led by General Sham Singh Rumi, held a public protest asking for control to be returned. The government passed the Queen Street Gurdwara Ordinance on 24 October 1940, and on 1 November 1940 a Board of Trustees representing the three factions was established.

Key moments

• 1955: an all-faction committee began planning a new temple and bought nine houses beside it; plans drawn in 1963 stopped after internal disagreement.
• 1977: for urban redevelopment the government acquired the Queen Street land and gave land at Towner Road in exchange. In December 1979 the Sri Guru Granth Sahib was moved to the former Bukit Ho Swee Community Centre on Seng Poh Road.
• 1 April 1983: Sant Baba Nahar Singh Sunehranwale, a priest from Punjab, laid the foundation stone of the new temple.
• 1984 to 1986: built at a cost of S$6.5 million and completed in 1986; Singapore Infopedia says this coincided with the 518th anniversary of Guru Nanak's birth (the source's own count; 1469 to 1986 is 517 years). The Sri Guru Granth Sahib moved in during April, and President Wee Kim Wee opened the temple on 16 November 1986.
• 8 May 1999: the National Heritage Board designated it a historic site.

The building and today: The prayer hall seats 400 to 500 under a 13-metre dome. A seven-storey tower beside it holds a dormitory, a library and museum and classrooms, and the annex houses the Dr Amar Kaur Memorial Clinic, the Singapore Sikh Education Foundation and the Sikh Youth Centre. The Central Sikh Gurdwara Board, which its own site says was incorporated by the Central Sikh Gurdwara Board Act, runs the temple together with Gurdwara Sahib Silat Road.