Indian American cardiologist Dr. Harvinder Sahota has donated more than a million dollars of his own money to the University of California at Irvine in honor of his mother.
The physician recently donated $1.5 million to the Southern California university to create a chair within the school that will now teach Sikh studies as a regular course. The department will be named after Sahota’s mother, Bibi Dhan Kaur Sahota.
“My mother taught me as a child never to degrade anyone and respect everyone,” Sahota told India-West. “I still abide by the lessons she taught me as a child. I wanted to honor my mother for the woman she was and the man she helped me turn out to be.”
U.C. Irvine and Sahota signed the agreement on the chair Aug. 12. Sahota will serve on the advisory board for the department, which will cover Sikh studies from 1469 to 2015, and beyond.
A search for the professor of the department – a tenured professor – will commence in late August. Sahota said the university will have the final decision on selection of the professor, as well as the course studies. Classes in the department are anticipated to begin in September 2016.
“I think she would be very happy,” Sahota said of how his mother would feel about the honor.
The department will include graduate and undergraduate courses in Sikhism, and students will visit Sikh temples as part of the study program. At some stage, there will be collaboration with Guru Nanak Dev University in Amritsar, Punjab, with student and teacher exchanges and visits as part of the collaboration.
The tenured professor of Sikhism will do the research, publish books and scholarly articles related to Sikhism, as well as organize student interest and take them to places of historical significance.
Online courses in Sikh studies will be developed in the future, Sahota said.
When he was an infant living in Punjab, Sahota suffered from double pneumonia. It was miraculous that he was able to recover, but the Indian American said it was prayer.
“My mother didn’t do anything except sit with me while I was sick,” Sahota told India-West. “She prayed and prayed. And, at one point, I stopped breathing, and everyone said I was dead. A doctor came to our home, and I began to breathe. I was alive after all.”
“My mother’s prayers were answered,” he added.
Sahota was only one week old at the time. His father went into the neighborhood and announced for everyone to hear that he vowed to make his son a doctor so he can help others.
Sahota learned of this and acted on it.
“I dedicated my life to becoming a doctor and wanted to help people,” he said.
A graduate of Patiala Medical College in Punjab, Sahota is the creator of the perfusion angioplasty balloon. The balloon was invented in the mid-1980s and has been used throughout the world. Sahota introduced the procedure in India, Mexico, Ukraine and in Moscow, Russia.
After receiving his medical degree, Sahota spent seven years in London practicing medicine from 1966 to 1973. He then went to Rochester, N.Y., for the next several years before doing a one-year stint in Regina, Canada. Following his time in Canada, Sahota made his last move to the Los Angeles area in 1977 and has been there ever since.
Sahota is affiliated with four universities in Southern California: Claremont Lincoln University, Claremont School of Theology, Loyola Marymount University and U.C. Irvine.
Sahota, along with Harry Sidhu, Orange County Water District director and former Anaheim mayor pro tem, also helped lead the creation of a similar department at Claremont Lincoln University in early 2013, the Center of Sikh Studies (I-W, Feb. 17, 2013; http://bit.ly/1WpRxDn).
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