Ishar Bindra

Ishar Bindra (1921-2015) was a Sikh American investor, entrepreneur and philanthropist.

He was also the founder-trustee of the Sikh Forum of New York, senior vice president of the Hemkunt Foundation, and patron of the Sikh Art and Film Foundation.

Bindra has received numerous awards and has been recognized in many national and international events.

He was the first in his family to attend college and graduated from Dayanand Anglo Vedic College in 1939.

During his second year in college, he became engaged to Kuljeet Kaur.

Three years later, the two were married on February 20, 1940.

Bindra eventually became the father of seven children: Amrit, Pritam, Inderjeet, Kuldip, Virinder, Kanwaljeet, and Tejinder.

Towards the end of World War II, he became an officer of the Indian Army in Riwalpindi in the Ordnance Corps, where he was first stationed in Jahanpur, India, and later Singapore.

During the partitioning of India in which the country gained its independence from British rule while also separating from Pakistan, Bindra along with his family was forced from their homes in Northern Punjab.

Approximately five and half million people traveled each way across the New India-Pakistan border in Punjab.

In June 1948, Bindra left the army and started his career as a telecommunications engineer in India's Telephone Department.

He began as a technical assistant and quickly moved his way up to an officer heading the department and maintaining the telephone services of several major district headquarters, sub-district headquarters and business centers in India.

In 1960, Bindra was promoted to deputy divisional engineer at the Telephone Department in Ambala but quickly transferred to Srinagar in 1961 to become the assistant engineer Trunks Telelphone System.

He later held posts in Jammu, Patalia, Chandigarh, Ludhiana and Jalandhar.

In 1975, he transferred to Dharamsala and was promoted as divisional engineer, the pinnacle of his career in the Telecommunications industry.

On January 31, 1979, Bindra retired after 30 years of government service in the Telephone Department of India.

Soon after his retirement, Bindra moved to the United States and immediately started a business selling garments with his sons Kuldip Singh Bindra on Long Island, New York.

They introduced Indian fashions into the markets they sold in such as ghaghras, gauze kurtas, bagroo skirt (block-printed skirts), which all quickly became a very popular.

The business started with one booth at a flea market but quickly expanded to multiple booths, becoming profitable enough for them to expand their business into a garment wholesale company.

The company came to be known as Jeetish, a combination of Jeet (short his Ishar's wife's name Kuljeet) and Ish (short for Ishar).

The Jeetish Group of Companies began as an importer of primarily women's apparel that catered to major retailers as well as boutiques and local vendors all across the United States.

The initial product line started with ladies garments such as dresses, skirts, blouses, jump suits and skirt sets.

In 1984, it began importing crinkle ladies dresses from Greece and became one of the first companies to successfully launch the product in the US, allowing the company to establish a reputation that gave it access to mainstream department and chain stores in the US.

In 1987, Verinder joined Jeetish.

Soon after, the company opened a showroom in the main garment district in New York and grew to become a multimillion-dollar company.

It has become a diversified business with interests in apparel, commodities, real estate, and imports and exports.

Bindra has been married for the past seventy years to Mrs. Kuljit Kaur, a very religious and pious lady.

They have seven children, seventeen grandchildren, and ten great-grandchildren.

The children are very well educated and professionally qualified in their respective fields.

Bindra is heavily involved in many charitable and humanitarian causes.

His efforts have been acknowledged by the Interfaith Nutrition Network, which honored him with the “Humanitarian of the Year” award.

He was the first Indian American recipient of the prize.

He has also been honored by President Bill Clinton for his work.

Bindra was awarded with the “Lifetime Achievement” award for his service to the community by the World Punjabi Organization during its International Convention in New York.

He was honored by the Nargis Dutt Memorial Foundation, a nonprofit organization devoted to the support of medical facilities in India.

He is also the founder-trustee of the Sikh Forum of New York, senior vice president of the Hemkunt Foundation, and Patron of the Sikh Art and Film Foundation.

In 1999, Bindra was honored as Humanitarian of the Year by the Interfaith Nutrition Network.

In 2000, he was honored with the “Punjab-Ratan” award by then-First Lady Hillary Rodham-Clinton.

In 2006, Bindra was awarded with the “Lifetime Achievement” award for his service to the community by the World Punjabi Organization during its International Convention in New York.

Bindra was born to a Gur Sikh family in Kallar, a small village in Punjab.