OBITUARY: Subhash Josh MBE

He was recognised as a leader of the Asian community in Glasgow and represented their interests in a wide range of organisations. In his own profession of accountancy he was an acknowledged success and had been a partner in the Scottish practice of PKF – formerly Pannel Kerr Foster – since 1988.

Professional success was matched by a desire to serve and Joshi estimated that he devoted a third of his time to voluntary work. His view was that ”if you make money from the community you have a duty to put something back in”. Earlier this year he had confided to colleagues that he might have to scale down his commitments in the interests of his own health and the need to spend more time with his family. Sadly, he never got the opportunity to implement that plan.

One of the bodies in which he took a leadership role, as chairman, was Positive Action in Housing, which campaigns for racial equality for the ethnic minority and refugee communities in Scotland. He was credited with saving that body from extinction when it faced severe financial difficulties.

Robina Qureshi, Director of Positive Action in Housing, said: ”If ever we had the need to meet ministers, the media, or politicians, he always made time to be there. When this organisation was facing its critics, and had a bleak financial year, Subhash, with his strength of leadership, charisma, and sheer love, imbued us all with a sense of direction and pulling together. He never wavered from his mission to see this organisation financially viable with an autonomous voice. That remains his legacy to us.”

Joshi was also founder and director of the Ethnic Minority Enterprise Centre, a director of the Glasgow Education Business Partnership, of the Ethnic Business Forum, and of Stow College in Glasgow. When he took over as president of Glasgow Chamber of Commerce in 1999 he vowed to look after small businesses of every creed and culture. He expressed the hope that Asians would see him as a role model who could open doors for them. His own success had not blinded him to the problems of racism in Scotland. It was an issue he sought to bring out into the open so that it could be tackled frankly by society in general.

As a member of the New Deal task force strategic planning group he was concerned to create sustainable job opportunities for young people.

He also saw Christianity as a way forward for society. He was born a Hindu, from a Brahmin background, but in 1968 he became a Christian despite initial opposition from his own family and community. His wife was born a Muslim but like him became a Baptist. Latterly he was president of the Edinburgh and Lothian Baptist Association, treasurer of that association’s housing society and nursing home, and also an official of the Christian charity Asian Concern, whose aim is to preach the Christian gospel to the Asian communities. His commitment to the Christian faith did not prevent him from looking after the audits of the Sikh and Hindu temples in both Glasgow and Edinburgh.

In an interview last year Joshi said that after his conversion to Christianity he became a different, better person. ”Now I live happily day to day,” he said. ”I always sleep soundly and I’m not in the least afraid of death.

”I have houses in Glasgow and Edinburgh because I have so many commitments in both cities. I work seven days a week from early morning to late in the evening, but I don’t want to be a millionaire.”

One of his ambitions, he said, was to take his three sons to India to show them their heritage. His father moved to Kenya from Gujarat, north-west of Bombay, in 1920 and Joshi came from Kenya to Britain to study accountancy in 1974. When Gujarat suffered extensive earthquake damage Joshi joined with Govan MP Mohammad Sarwar to raise money for survivors.

Joshi is survived by his wife Shamim and three sons.

Subhash Joshi, accountant and community activist;

born June 30, 1953, Kenya, died May 8, 2001