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Are the British
still deceiving the Sikhs?
Jagdeesh Singh
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The Sikh Community Action Network writes
to the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, urging him for a
more sincere and positive interaction as the Sikh citizens
continue to face an unaccommodating stand to many of their civil
and political rights.
While the letter talks about the current issues faced by the
Sikhs and makes reference to the Sikh country with which the
British had formal relations, it does not go beyond this. It is
more about the present state of affairs of the Sikhs in Britain,
the discrimination they face and the problems they have and what
they expect from the British government.
The role of the British rulers to annex the Sikh Commonwealth
and keep the child-king Duleep Singh in exile is a political sin
the British will have to regret some day. Though overtaken by
events, United Nations should take up the case of the Sikh
Nation versus the British government, with India as an
implicated party to undo the wrong done to the Sikh nation in
the nineteenth century.
World Sikh Nation presents extracts from the letter as it marks
an attempt to focus on Anglo-Sikh relations. |
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 On
25th April 1809,
the Treaty of Amritsar was signed between the Governments of Panjaab
(Sarkar-e-Khaalsa) and
Britain (through the British East India Company). This letter seeks
to highlight that 200 year relationship, and urge the British
Government to give due consideration to the Sikh population which
forms an integral part of British society and give positive
consideration to supporting and resourcing British-Sikh relations.
British-Sikh relations formally began with the above-mentioned
Treaty of ‘friendship and cooperation’ between the Panjaabi-Sikh
nation and the British Government. As you know, the British
Government had formed a substantial empire in
South Asia at that time. The country of Panjaab remaining still an
independent state, until its conquest and annexation into
British India
in 1849
following the two Anglo-Sikh wars 1845-1849. Two hundreds years on,
we have a 700,000 Sikh population residing in
Britain, spread across England, Scotland and parts of Wales. Much
has happened in the intervening two hundred years!
British-Sikh history is a rich and illustrious story of friendship,
conflict, wars, camaraderie, sacrifice, struggle, disaffection,
colonialism, racial discrimination, migration, social interaction
and more. It is an ongoing history, which continues to grow with new
events, new twists and turns, new aspirations and new opportunities.
Overall, there is a proud and positive connection between the
Panjaabi-Sikh, Scottish, English and Welsh peoples.
 Sikhs
have positively supported the social fabric of British society, and
appreciated its friendly, engaging and inclusive nature. Sikhs
recognise the needs and aspirations of fellow communities.
They value and support the central place of Welsh, Scottish and
English national life in Britain, and the role of Christian values
across those. We appreciate and positively commend the support we
have received from fellow citizens from these core native
communities. That is a relationship we wish to continue and
strengthen.
Sikhs have given a major and sustained contribution to British Life.
Even before their arrival as permanent residents (most substantially
in the late 1960s), hundreds of thousands of Panjaabi-Sikh soldiers
had served in the British armed forces. Like, the Gurkhas, they
defended British territories and the British mainland during the two
world wars and across the globe throughout 1850 to 1945.
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They value and support the central place of Welsh, Scottish
and English national life in
Britain, and the role of Christian values across those. We
appreciate and positively commend the support we have received
from fellow citizens from these core native communities. That is
a relationship we wish to continue and strengthen. |
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As
aforementioned, a total of 83,000 Sikhs were killed in those
military actions. Three hundred thousand Sikh soldiers from Panjaab
fought in the Second World War, representing a critical force in the
defense of mainland
Britain and allied fronts against imminent Nazi invasion. Over the
150 years of active military service to
Britain,
between 1850 to 1945, Sikhs have won more than 14 Victoria Crosses.
The Sikhs represented a vital defence to
Britain,
its freedom, its territories and its way of life. As one of many
British army officers of the time, Colonel Landen Sarasfield in
Betrayal of the Sikhs, 1946, on page 19, states:
"Wherever in the East, and very often in the West, a British soldier
has been in action, there also were to be found his Sikh comrades,
ever loyal, ever courageous and ever ready to give their life's
blood in the Common Cause. From those days in 1857 when nearly all
India rose against us and massacred as many Europeans as were
defenceless, the Sikhs have always been on our side. Whether at
Dheli or on the plains of Flanders, in Salonika or in the Islands of
the Pacific, they have covered themselves with immortality in our
service."
 British
Sikh migrants have proven to be hard-working, committed residents of
Britain. They have setup families, purchased homes, given birth to
future generations of Sikhs in whom they have instilled the age old
Panjaabi-Sikh values of self-initiative, self-reliance and
self-responsibility. The Sikhs are a get-up- and- go community.
Sikhs have seen their role in Britain, not as exclusive, but as part
of a greater, diverse, inclusive British life. They see the same
positive values they believe in and have practised in Britain, in
fellow communities like the Italians, Greek, Gujeraati, Polish,
Scottish, English and Welsh.
Sikhs continue to emerge as an enterprising, aspirational and
self-sufficient community. They are amongst the highest home owning
sections of the UK population. They have a high academic
performance. They have a close-knit, stable family structure. They
are socially interactive community, engaging positively with
English, Scottish and Welsh neighbours as well as other migrant
communities. They have earned a reputation as positively
endeavouring and self-reliant citizens of this country, with minimum
demand for state support. They have followed the laws of the UK, and
grown positively with the diverse communities that this country is
home too. Sikhs have retained their own language, history, culture
and religion, establishing 350 Gurdwaras across the UK, in the last
50 years. They are a visible community, with their turbans and
beards.
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No government recognition or support has been afforded to the
Sikh community, following the widespread attacks on its members
following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. No acknowledgement has
been made by the government of the intense difficulties
experienced by Sikhs in term of physical attacks, verbal racism
and international travel complications.
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They have positively respected and continue to recognise the
importance of English, Scottish and Welsh heritage, culture and
aspirations. They recognise the importance of Christianity as a
mainstream faith and belief system to many Britons and British life.
Sikhs positively believe in the robust and sustained democratic
values of Britain. These have enabled social diversity, human
rights, protection of cultural and religious freedoms to flourish
and contribute to a more informed and aware society. Sikhs have
demonstrably supported the democratic, diversity and pluralist
features of British society.
By
and large, the Sikhs have appreciated the protections and safeguards
that Britain has provided against intolerance, discrimination and
racism; notwithstanding the fact that Sikhs, as a distinct
community, have been victims of ongoing social ignorance, white
supremist hate, Muslim ‘jihaadism’ and ‘kaffirism’, and, general,
institutional racism in public institutions.
The Sikh population has been a positive contributing element to the
resources and income of British society and the British state. It
has not been a negative weight on Britain, in terms of crime, state
welfare benefits, health problems, alcohol and drugs, terrorist
violence and social decay and depression. It has shown a get- up-
and-go approach to life. The Sikh population has a very high
educational attainment. Very high home-ownership. Very high
employment. A near zero prison population. These are borne out of
the spiritual ethics, historical experiences and social nurturing of
the Sikh community from Panjaab. To the Sikhs, life is about
responsibility, caring and sharing, social activism, spiritual
awareness and ‘Sarbat da Bhala’.
Sikh migrants and their subsequent generations have brought these
positive driving values to life in
Britain.
These
upward looking and endeavouring qualities have endeared
the Sikhs have across the world in Canada, USA, Germany, Singapore,
Kenya, Australia and New Zealand – where they have been a positive
social and economic force. Sikh lifestyle and values have brought
strength and development to British life; in contrast with
populations characterised by crime, alcohol bingeing, social decay,
drugs, state benefit dependency, violence and terrorism.
Against this background, the Sikh community is profoundly pained at
the indifference and discrimination displayed by the current British
government towards the Sikhs’ place in British life.
No
government recognition or support has been afforded to the Sikh
community, following the widespread attacks on its members following
the 9/11 terrorist attacks. No acknowledgement has been made by the
government of the intense difficulties experienced by Sikhs in term
of physical attacks, verbal racism and international travel
complications.
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Sikhs and many of these fellow communities feel deeply
alienated and dejected by the British government singular focus
on attending to these one-sided ‘needs’. |
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Your government has continued to refuse to implement Sikh ethnic
recognition, inspite of full-fledged legal endorsement of the same
by the House of Lords in 1983 (Mandla v Dowell Lee). It has
continued to cruelly and overtly discriminate against Sikh ethnic
recognition in public administration. You have rejected public calls
for the establishment of a Sikh regiment in the British Army.
Notably, never has the British Government considered it appropriate
and beneficial to remark at the qualities of these various
communities which provide strength, stability and enhancement to
British life. Instead, it has sought to overtly and
disproportionately appease the potent violence and threats emanating
from certain belligerent ‘home-grown’ and global Muslim voices.
It
has overridden the rest of
Britain’s communities, and sought to satisfy the self-declared
leading voices within this one section of the population. Following
the sequence of ‘home-grown’ violent attacks and accompanying
international terrorism, and widespread sympathy across Muslim rank
and file for these disaffected and defiant voices advocating violent
action against the British government, your government response has
been one of frenzied panic. Your single biggest priority has become
the addressing the emboldened and organised Muslim threat to
Britain’s domestic security, using a reactive and knee-jerk strategy
of appeasement.
By
your singular prioritisation of one trouble-ridden section of the
population, you have broken the very essence of ‘community
cohesion’. No meaningful effort has been made to celebrate, engage
and empower
Britain’s
collection of communities. No effort has been made to celebrate and
endorse core values and commitments that make British society a
functioning, socially cohesive and responsible place to be in.
You have sought to appease the widespread sense of grievance present
within the British Muslim community, which harbours bitter
resentment and disaffection towards British foreign policy and
domestic issues. You have sought to prioritize not the actual
grievances but instead combat ‘violent extremism’. Special sharia
law procedures, special government driven Muslim consultations,
setting up of government sponsored Muslim advisory groups such as
the ‘Young Muslim Advisory Group’ and ‘National Muslim Womens
Advisory Group’ (with special access to Government Ministers), a
multi-million Muslim Youth Engagement Fund and a dedicated £80
million fund for the Muslim sector. These represent unprecedented
concessions and measures.
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The
rest of the population remains ignored, excluded and forgotten.
Your government has decidedly rejected the call by Prince
Charles for a Sikh regiment, on the spurious grounds that it
would constitute ‘religious’ discrimination. Yet, you have
publicly endorsed the establishment of a National Association of
Muslim Police, with statements in its support.
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The rest of the population remains ignored, excluded and forgotten.
Your government has decidedly rejected the call by Prince Charles
for a Sikh regiment, on the spurious grounds that it would
constitute ‘religious’ discrimination. Yet, you have publicly
endorsed the establishment of a National Association of Muslim
Police, with statements in its support.
Your government has organised and funded special meetings and
consultations with the Muslim population, yet a current a government
‘consultation’ on the subject of the ‘kirpan’ remains muddled,
unclear and left to resourcing by Sikh groups themselves. You have
instructed the Equalities and Human Rights Commission to undertake a
‘Muslim Women Power List 100’ comprising a profiling of 100
‘successful’ Muslim females and a detailed survey of Muslim females.
No equivalent initiative has been undertaken for the females of
other communities.
There is neither recognition nor positive word from the government
about the sustained input being provided by many hard-working,
economically stable, educationally progressing, self-improving,
self-sustaining communities in Britain. These communities are
essential to life in Britain. Without them, the British economy,
public services, the British social atmosphere and democracy would
crumble away. Yet, these communities are entirely taken for granted
by the British government. The British government is not prepared to
engage with them, discuss their concerns and aspirations, much less
form policies and actions which include and reflect them.
No
effort has been made to profile and promote the strong values of
citizenship which have been practised across the English, Jewish,
Gujeraati, Sikh-Panjaabi, Scottish, Welsh, Hindu, Italian, Greek and
Polish communities. Nor have the slump, depressing, decadent values
of crime, joblessness, state demands and dependency, drugs,
violence, celebrity culture, alcohol consumption, social
commotion, imprisonment and ghettoisation evident in sections of the
British population (e.g. white working class council house estates,
Caribbean
youth and Pakistani-Muslim populations) been positively discouraged
and rejected.
 The
British Government has let society drift by its inaction and
negligence. Its policies of appeasement, muddle and reaction, have
caused a growing divide between those who believe in a social
responsible and socially robust society based on caring, sharing,
contribution, initiative and hard-work; and, those who are content
to live a life of social hate, sectarianism, inaction, state
hand-outs, laziness and violence. Sikhs like the other communities
mentioned, have had enough of this social chaos. We do not want to
be part of it!
Communities which have played a committed role in British life abhor
the fact that your government is responding to the violence and loud
threats emanating from this one section of the population. Instead
of fighting ‘terrorism’, you are effectively succumbing to it, by
the knee-jerk concessions and active appeasement.
The Government’s sectarian approach has been widely noted across
Britain society. It is the topic of widespread conversation. It is
alienating, discriminatory and polarising. Society is intelligent
enough to distinguish between true meaningful community cohesion,
and disguised gimmicks and rhetoric.
The government’s decision to dedicate £80 million to the Muslim
sector, (which benefits, in effect, select voices in the Muslim
population as against the mainstream grassroots Muslims), in a
desperate and panicked attempt to combat the ‘extreme voices’ in the
Muslim population; is riven with controversy and mis-thinking.
The Government continues to fund and sponsor ‘Muslim’ initiatives,
with no equivalent funding for other communities. For example, the
Government has funded the Quilliam Foundation with an unprecedented
sum of £1 million pounds. Hazel Blears, the British Minister for
Communities and Local Government, has met with and publicly support
Muslim groups, dialogues and help create the Young Muslim Advisory
Group and National Muslim Womens Advisory Group as a special voice
with Government. These Groups have been launched officially from 10
Downing Street, with much media fanfare, with your personal
involvement and Hazel Blears.
On
no occasion, has either of you felt it necessary to communicate with
the Sikh community or meet with its active members. In a recent
response to a parliamentary question raised by Rob Marris MP (Chair,
Sikh Parliamentary Group) about Sikh concerns, Hazel Blears visibly
avoids using the word ‘Sikh’ in her responses. Instead, she uses the
word ‘Muslim’ twice! No mention is made of any other community! This
epitomises the Government’s blinkered and sectarian approach.
Your narrow, expedient policies, are alienating, dysfunctional and
discriminatory to the vast majority of the British population. They
serve only to encourage and appease negative forces of sectarian
religious and racial supremism – both within the Islamic population
and the British National Party. As a Government you are ignoring the
core communities of Britain, their culture, their heritage, and
their aspirations. Your policies on ‘community cohesion’ are hollow
and lifeless. They are entirely reactive and transitory, and wholly
lacking in actual cohesive thinking.
The government has no declared vision. Responsible and inclusive
social citizenship, on which the Sikhs and other communities have
shown a committed and sustained role, is not on the government
agenda.
Sikhs as citizens of
Britain are committed to working with the nations of England,
Scotland and Wales. We want to be positive friends, neighbours,
participants and active contributors to British life. We wish to
share our passion and belief in a caring and sharing way of life. We
share the qualities of endeavour, social responsibility, action and
justice with those fellow peoples of Britain. We humbly and
respectfully urge your government, on behalf of many unheard Sikh
voices, to take this opportunity to reflect on the above points.
The author may be contacted at animalspirt2002@yahoo.co.uk
13
May 2009
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