The 2020 ref­er­en­dum de­bate is far from over and we are seized with a 2021 chal­lenge. It’s good that Sikhs are de­bat­ing the cru­cial Sikh eth­nic­ity is­sue. It as an evolve­ment of Sikh po­lit­i­cal think­ing, but there has to be no room for name-call­ing and so­cial me­dia abuse. This has wider ram­i­fi­ca­tions yet has not yet touched the British Sikh masses. WSN opens the de­bate on its plat­form with this note of Lord Singh of Wim­ble­don, Sar­dar In­dar­jit Singh, CBE, D Lit., DL

I have been in the thick of the eth­nic­ity de­bate since long and I strongly op­pose the new tick box of Sikh eth­nic­ity be­ing dis­cussed by the Of­fice of Na­tional Sta­tis­tics of the British gov­ern­ment for the 2021 Cen­sus.

What is eth­nic­ity?

An eth­nic group re­lates to peo­ple em­a­nat­ing from a par­tic­u­lar part of the world who have com­mon phys­i­cal and cul­tural char­ac­ter­is­tics. It be­came im­por­tant to Sikhs in the early 80s of the last cen­tury be­cause a School Head de­lib­er­ately dis­crim­i­nated against a Sikh school­boy in re­fus­ing to al­low him to wear a tur­ban at school. The Head was legally en­ti­tled to do this be­cause the 1976 Race Re­la­tions Act, while giv­ing pro­tec­tion against dis­crim­i­na­tion on grounds of na­tion­al­ity or eth­nic ori­gin, gave no pro­tec­tion against re­li­gious dis­crim­i­na­tion.

At a meet­ing held in my house with rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the then Com­mis­sion for Racial Equal­ity (CRE) and their so­lic­i­tors Bind­mans, I sug­gested that we should try claim­ing pro­tec­tion un­der eth­nic­ity, as at that time, most Sikhs in the UK were born in In­dia, spoke Pun­jabi as their first lan­guage and had other dis­tinc­tive ways of life, in­clud­ing re­li­gion. Our case even­tu­ally went to the House of Lords (Mandla ver­sus Lee), giv­ing Sikhs pro­tec­tion against re­li­gious dis­crim­i­na­tion un­der the 1976 Race Re­la­tions Act on the grounds of com­mon eth­nic­ity char­ac­ter­is­tics.

“Com­mon sense re­minds us that we must com­pare like with like. A group which is both an eth­nic group and re­li­gion must be mon­i­tored against oth­ers who are also both eth­nic groups and re­li­gions. Such a cat­e­gory does not ex­ist”

With most Sikhs in the UK now born in this coun­try and speak­ing Eng­lish as their first lan­guage, some of the ar­gu­ments used in 1983, no longer ap­ply. Nor are they rel­e­vant as the Equal­i­ties Act 2010, gives pro­tec­tion against dis­crim­i­na­tion to all re­li­gions and be­liefs [the 1976 Act giv­ing Sikhs lim­ited pro­tec­tion un­der eth­nic­ity, has been re­pealed].

Stretch­ing the eth­nic­ity ar­gu­ment for ma­te­r­ial gain

Some Sikhs for two dif­fer­ent rea­sons want to call them­selves both a re­li­gion and an eth­nic group, de­spite Sikh teach­ings to the con­trary. The first rea­son is a some­what naïve be­lief that the dis­tinc­tion might help Sikhs claim a sep­a­rate iden­tity and pos­si­ble state­hood in In­dia. The sec­ond is, that be­ing in both cat­e­gories will as­sist in get­ting ad­di­tional UK state fund­ing over and above that given to other re­li­gions.

Leav­ing aside the moral­ity of such an ar­gu­ment, com­mon sense re­minds us that we must com­pare like with like. A group which is both an eth­nic group and re­li­gion must be mon­i­tored against oth­ers who are also both eth­nic groups and re­li­gions. Such a cat­e­gory does not ex­ist. Equally it would be ab­surd to try to mon­i­tor state pro­vi­sion for Sikhs as an eth­nic cat­e­gory, with the ex­ist­ing eth­nic cat­e­gory In­dian, when the cat­e­gory In­dian, also con­tains Sikhs.

The ar­gu­ment is also to­tally against Sikh teach­ings in which the Gu­rus con­demned man-made di­vi­sions of our one hu­man fam­ily. To sug­gest a hy­brid ‘(Pun­jabi) eth­nic Sikh’ cat­e­gory in the cen­sus, in or­der to chase pos­si­ble ma­te­r­ial gain de­nied to other faiths, is also to­tally con­trary to the egal­i­tar­ian thrust of a re­li­gion open to any­one, any­where in the world. It also de­fies com­mon sense to sug­gest that those who em­brace Sikhism and call them­selves Sikhs in dif­fer­ent parts of the world all have the same eth­nic­ity.   

Meet­ing le­git­i­mate Sikh con­cerns over cur­rent ONS eth­nic cat­e­gories

One of the main ben­e­fits of eth­nic mon­i­tor­ing is the fact that peo­ple from dif­fer­ent parts of the world have dis­cernible dif­fer­ences in propen­sity and re­sis­tance to cer­tain ail­ments aris­ing from ge­netic fac­tors re­lated to hered­ity, diet, cli­mate and cul­ture.

In­dia is a vast sub­con­ti­nent with many dif­fer­ent eth­nic­i­ties. Pak­istani and Bangladeshi are al­ready recog­nised as sep­a­rate eth­nic­i­ties. Record­ing Pun­jabi in the cen­sus as a sep­a­rate eth­nic­ity (the state be­ing a sim­i­lar size to Pak­istan) has many at­trac­tions. For ex­am­ple, it will help mon­i­tor and pro­vide ser­vices for a higher than av­er­age Pun­jabi propen­sity to kid­ney and liver dis­ease, and di­a­betes.

Im­por­tantly, it will also ob­vi­ate the need to tick In­dian un­der eth­nic­ity. Many Sikhs are re­luc­tant to record their eth­nic­ity as In­dian as mem­o­ries of the In­dian Gov­ern­ment per­pe­trated eth­nic cleans­ing of against Sikhs in 1984 are still fresh in many Sikh minds.

It would be more ac­cu­rate, sen­si­ble and ac­cept­able to re­quest ONS for a Pun­jabi eth­nic cat­e­gory as an op­tion in the cen­sus, rather than try­ing to re-de­fine a re­li­gion open to any­one, any­where in the world as a con­tentious hy­brid of re­li­gion and eth­nic­ity.

Sup­posed sup­port by MPs and the APPG for British Sikhs

Speak­ing to a num­ber of MPs, in­clud­ing some of those who have given sup­port to the Sikh eth­nic tick box, con­firms that few have any un­der­stand­ing of Sikh teach­ings against ar­ti­fi­cial and di­vi­sive group­ings of our one hu­man race; nor were they clear of the sup­posed ben­e­fits of de­scrib­ing Sikhs as an eth­nic group. Those who signed did so be­cause they were told that this is what their Sikh con­stituents wanted.

Sup­posed sup­port in the Sikh Com­mu­nity

Gur­d­waras are gen­er­ally un­aware of the pros and cons of eth­nic mon­i­tor­ing. Some, that have voiced sup­port for a Sikh eth­nic tick box, say they did so be­cause they are stri­dently op­posed to the al­ter­na­tive of de­scrib­ing them­selves as ‘In­di­an’, be­cause of still lin­ger­ing anger over the state-spon­sored geno­cide against Sikhs in 1984. Many oth­ers are of the view that call­ing our­selves an eth­nic group as op­posed to In­dian is a step to­wards cre­at­ing a dis­tinct ‘quam’ (na­tional) iden­tity and the cre­ation of a sep­a­rate Sikh State in In­dia.

“The only real way to as­sess whether Sikhs in the UK are pre­pared to over­ride es­sen­tial Sikh teach­ings for un­quan­tifi­able ma­te­r­ial gain is by open pub­lic de­bate.”

While the emo­tive ap­peal is very real, it has noth­ing to do with the 2021 cen­sus. It also ig­nores ba­sic Sikh teach­ings on the ab­sur­dity of cre­at­ing ar­ti­fi­cial di­vi­sions in our one hu­man fam­ily – par­tic­u­larly in the pur­suit of sup­posed ma­te­r­ial gain. It should also be re­mem­bered that some of the or­gan­i­sa­tions lob­by­ing for sup­port for a Sikh eth­nic tick box, like the Sikh Fed­er­a­tion UK, and the Sikh Net­work, etc, are all run by the same small group of peo­ple, who also have a dom­i­nant voice in the Sikh Coun­cil.

Re­al­ity of sup­port in the Sikh com­mu­nity

The over­whelm­ing at­ti­tude of most Gur­d­waras to a Sikh eth­nic tick box in the cen­sus is a lack of un­der­stand­ing and rel­e­vance. If told that that a Sikh eth­nic tick box will ben­e­fit the ‘quam’ (Sikh na­tion), they will prob­a­bly quickly sign sup­port and get back, to what they re­gard as, the more im­por­tant busi­ness of pro­vid­ing a ser­vice to their san­gat (con­gre­ga­tion). If how­ever, the real pros and cons are ex­plained and dis­cussed, in­ter­est is more sus­tained, and at­ti­tudes are of­ten quite dif­fer­ent.

At the sug­ges­tion of the Of­fice of Na­tional Sta­tis­tics of­fi­cers, a meet­ing was arranged in Guru Singh Sabha Gur­d­wara Houn­slow, with a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the ONS pre­sent. Pre­sen­ta­tions were made by the NSO and the Sikh Fed­er­a­tion UK and, af­ter dis­cus­sion for more than an hour; the pro­posal for a Sikh eth­nic tick box in the next cen­sus was to­tally re­jected by mem­bers of the Gur­d­wara Com­mit­tee.

The Sikh eth­nic tick box pro­posal has also been to­tally re­jected in other Gur­d­waras, where both the pros and cons have been ex­plained and dis­cussed by Com­mit­tee mem­bers, most re­cently at the Gur­d­wara in Ed­in­burgh.

The way out

The only real way to as­sess whether Sikhs in the UK are pre­pared to over­ride es­sen­tial Sikh teach­ings for un­quan­tifi­able ma­te­r­ial gain is by open pub­lic de­bate mon­i­tored, and per­haps presided over, by the ONS –the gov­ern­men­tal Of­fice of Na­tional Sta­tis­tics. Un­for­tu­nately, this re­peated sug­ges­tion by the NSO –the Net­work of Sikh Or­gan­i­sa­tions has been met with per­sonal abuse from the Sikh Fed­er­a­tion UK in its dif­fer­ent guises.

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My re­peated re­quest to be al­lowed to ad­dress the All Party Par­lia­men­tary Group –the APPG for British Sikhs (from which I and other Sikhs in Par­lia­ment have been ex­cluded), has also been con­sis­tently ig­nored, as has my re­quest for open de­bate on any Lon­don Sikh TV Chan­nel.  

My hope is that we show that we are ma­ture enough to dis­cuss such is­sues ra­tio­nally and re­spect­fully, al­ways bear­ing Sikh teach­ings in mind.