UK of­fi­cial com­mem­o­ra­tions are a cruel dis­crim­i­na­tion and sham, the Sikh ac­claim cos­metic, too lit­tle too late. When the new Smeth­wick memo­r­ial was van­dalised, British Sikhs felt fed up, emo­tion­ally tor­tured and bruised, adding to the con­tin­u­ous ex­clu­sion from British mil­i­tary WWI story – 100 years on!  UK Sikh ac­tivist and grand­son of one the Pan­jaabi-Sikh sol­diers of WWI, pre­sents a re­flec­tive com­men­tary on the years of prej­u­dice gone by.

We are ‘for­eign­ers’. Whilst we like to think our role and sac­ri­fices are just as im­por­tant as the white British sol­diers, the same feel­ing and per­cep­tion has not reg­is­tered across main­stream British me­dia, so­ci­ety and the British gov­ern­ment. 100 years have gone by. To­ken and cos­metic ges­tures and speeches from the likes of British Prime Min­is­ter Theresa May do not change that cruel im­bal­ance, dis­crim­i­na­tion and the too lit­tle-too late ap­proach to Sikh recog­ni­tion.

When the newly set-up memo­r­ial struc­ture at Smeth­wick was par­tially van­dalised, I re­called that this is noth­ing new. It had hap­pened in Coven­try too, nearly 10 years ago. I could al­most sense it com­ing. 

Have a glance at the im­ages in the UK Times Mag­a­zine, 10 No­vem­ber 2018.  Where are the black and brown sol­diers? The main­stream BBC re­port­ing of these 100 year com­mem­o­ra­tion, was very much white British and white Eu­ro­pean cen­tric. The BBC, as the UK’s na­tional me­dia body, only did sep­a­rate smaller pieces out­side of its main­stream ma­te­r­ial, to give some kind of mea­gre ac­knowl­edg­ment to the non-white con­tri­bu­tion. The At­lantic photo gallery does not con­tain a sin­gle im­age of a tur­baned Sikh sol­dier. 

All of this en­dur­ing ex­clu­sion, is so, so painful to us cur­rent day Pan­jaabi-Sikhs to wit­ness; let alone to the souls of our fallen and scarred fore­fa­thers who were in the front­line. The bla­tant dis­crim­i­na­tion and mar­gin­al­i­sa­tion, is a colos­sal act of racism from the high­est lev­els of the UK gov­ern­ment down and sim­i­larly across the en­tire Eu­ro­pean and west­ern white me­dia and po­lit­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture. Whilst much progress has been made and still needs to be made; racial dis­crim­i­na­tion, ex­clu­sion and os­traci­sa­tion en­dures in the west, as it does in most parts of the world. And, this is one pow­er­ful ex­am­ple of it.

“More sol­diers from the con­ti­nents of In­dia, Ara­bia and Africa com­bined, fought and died for the British-Eu­ro­pean war al­liance in both world wars, than im­me­di­ate sol­diers from these ally home ter­ri­to­ries.”

100 years on, the vis­i­bly ex­clu­sivist white-cen­tred way the whole com­mem­o­ra­tive para­pher­na­lia was done -in im­ages, in pub­lic events and cer­e­monies, in speeches, by the me­dia, by heads of state, etc; we were not in­cluded and made to feel part of it. 

The set­ting up memo­r­ial stat­ues such as the one in Smeth­wick, Birm­ing­ham, or oth­ers be­fore that in Coven­try or Gravesend: are sim­ply no qual­i­ta­tive sub­sti­tutes for be­ing in­cluded in the very cen­tre and core of the UK-wide and in­ter­na­tional com­mem­o­ra­tive process. The tur­ban, the beard, the brown face, the black face, of the count­less Sikh, Gurkha, Pathaan, Ben­gali, African, Mus­lim, Arab, South In­dian sol­dier: should have been shown and vis­i­ble and pos­i­tively em­braced by the likes of Theresa May, Don­ald Trump, Macron and more. It sim­ply was not!

The whole re­mem­brance thing is an an­nual white, west­ern sham! A shame­less sham! Why is it that, we have to go and re­mind these peo­ple and their of­fi­cial­dom and me­dia sources about our sac­ri­fice for them, like slaves beg­ging to his over­lord for some mea­gre recog­ni­tion! What a cruel sham!!

“Is­n’t it an irony that the French gov­ern­ment showed no re­gard for the con­tri­bu­tion of the Sikh sol­diers when it banned the wear­ing of the tur­ban by Sikh stu­dents in pub­lic schools?”

It is very no­table, that of all the cur­rent three memo­ri­als ded­i­cated to the Sikh sol­dier in the UK (Birm­ing­ham, Coven­try and Gravesend); that they have all been funded en­tirely by Sikh com­mu­nity funds. No fund­ing from the UK cen­tral or lo­cal gov­ern­ment. That be­ing so, de­spite our colos­sal, dis­pro­por­tion­ate sac­ri­fice for Britain’s good and, ad­di­tion­ally, de­spite the fact that the Pan­jaabi-Sikh com­mu­nity is amongst the high­est pay­ing pub­lic tax­a­tion sec­tions of the UK pop­u­la­tion and, equally, amongst the least bur­den­some on UK pub­lic re­sources. Even the forth­com­ing cen­tral Lon­don Sikh memo­r­ial, is be­ing paid by di­rect Sikh fund­ing!

The im­me­di­ate hate­ful van­dal­ism that be­set the re­cent open­ing of the Smeth­wick Sikh Sol­dier statue, is highly re­veal­ing and thought-pro­vok­ing! De­spite there be­ing 100 years of mul­ti­ple in­for­ma­tion and doc­u­ment­ing of our mam­moth role in these British-Eu­ro­pean global wars, this cru­cial in­for­ma­tion has not been pro­jected into the UK main­stream by nei­ther the UK gov­ern­ment nor the UK me­dia. The in­for­ma­tion is abun­dantly avail­able – books, pho­tos, per­sonal sto­ries, sta­tis­tics; but ig­nored and ne­glected. 

We fought and died, in WWI and other global con­flicts, which were en­tirely not of our mak­ing and of zero ben­e­fit to our peo­ple. Yet this is what we get back in re­turn. We the ‘rag-heads’, ‘tur­bana­tors’ and ‘bin ladens’ (terms of abuse com­monly used in the UK, over time to­wards us vis­i­ble tur­ban-bearded Sikh males) re­main the fringe and ob­scure part of the British-Eu­ro­pean world war story.

More sol­diers from the con­ti­nents of In­dia, Ara­bia and Africa com­bined, fought and died for the British-Eu­ro­pean war al­liance in both world wars, than im­me­di­ate sol­diers from these ally home ter­ri­to­ries. Sadly and painfully, we re­main but a speck in the whole of­fi­cial story, im­agery, rhetoric and para­pher­na­lia pre­sented by the British and Eu­ro­pean es­tab­lish­ment (politi­cians, me­dia, re­mem­brance events, etc).

How many tur­bans and beards did we see in the big heads of state gath­er­ing in Paris in­ter­na­tional com­mem­o­ra­tion con­fer­ence on 11 No­vem­ber 2018, with their self-con­grat­u­la­tory tone, im­ages and rhetoric. None! For we are demon­stra­bly ex­cluded and not part of their of­fi­cial story.  In­deed, af­ter the end of WWI, within 6-months, the British Em­pire which needed us so much in 1914-18, turned its own ma­chine guns on us in the gory Jal­lian­wala Bagh Am­rit­sar Mas­sacre, 13 April 1919.

In 1946, Colonel Landed Saras­field lamented and ar­gued in ag­o­nis­ing terms about the ‘Be­trayal of the Sikhs’ in the grotesque and un­de­mo­c­ra­tic British-In­dia colo­nial ‘Trans­fer of Pow­er’ of 1947. In a di­rect call to the British gov­ern­ment, he protested about the im­pend­ing po­lit­i­cal and eco­nomic obliv­ion of the Sikhs in the po­lit­i­cal and ter­ri­to­r­ial carve up of the In­dian colony and con­struc­tion out of it, of two hege­monic states of In­dia and Pak­istan.

 Also Read: Smeth­wick Sikh Sol­dier Statue cel­e­brates for­got­ten li­ons of World Wars

Pan­jaab over­rid­den and cut up into two pieces, once again. 10 mil­lion of its peo­ple dis­placed, and 2 mil­lion slaugh­tered in weeks. In the per­sonal words of Alan Camp­bell-John­son, the per­sonal sec­re­tary of Lord Mount­bat­ten who presided over and de­cided on this mega-mess, “The Sikhs were sac­ri­ficed on the al­tars of Mus­lim am­bi­tion and Hindu op­por­tunism.” (Mis­sion with Mount­bat­ten, Alan Camp­bell-John­son, Lon­don). We were used and aban­doned, as ever.

“If there be a Third World War, we would not be fight­ing and dy­ing for the British es­tab­lish­ment. No! No! N0! ”

Since 1947, the British and Eu­ro­pean gov­ern­ments have com­bined to aid and abet our op­pres­sion and per­se­cu­tion in the mon­strous In­dian state.   To­day we con­tinue to clam­our for some de­gree of recog­ni­tion and in­clu­sion from the British-Eu­ro­pean es­tab­lish­ment. We have ev­i­dently and demon­stra­bly  been left on the side lines, with no dig­nity or re­gard. Hate crime on Sikhs is not recog­nised by the British gov­ern­ment. Sikhs are ex­cluded as an ‘eth­nic cat­e­go­ry’ from both the UK wide cen­sus and UK gov­ern­ment and pub­lic sec­tor pop­u­la­tion sta­tis­tics mon­i­tor­ing, de­spite com­pellingly prov­ing them­selves to the “more than just a re­li­gion” in the UK Supreme court case of Mandla v Dow­ell Lee, 1983 – over thirty years ear­lier.

In France, where the Sikhs fought in gru­elling con­di­tions and gave tens of thou­sands of lives, we to­day have a mod­ern day apartheid be­ing ap­plied by the French state, which legally for­bids Sikhs with tur­bans and beards hav­ing dri­ving li­censes, work­ing in schools as teach­ers, hav­ing any of­fi­cial ID doc­u­ments, hold­ing any pub­lic sec­tor em­ploy­ment, etc. Even Sikh chil­dren are barred from at­tend­ing state sec­tor schools and col­leges due to their vis­i­ble Sikh ap­pear­ance. This hor­ri­fy­ing com­pre­hen­sive dis­crim­i­na­tion is open and of­fi­cially en­dorsed by the French state! As one of the hun­dreds of the French Sikh vic­tims has said: “I can­not get my­self treated,” he said. “I can­not get X-rays, I can­not get my blood test done, I can­not get ad­mit­ted to hos­pi­tal.”

All this is pow­er­ful ev­i­dence of the ma­jor dis­re­gard for Sikhs, across Eu­ro­pean gov­ern­ments, de­spite their life-chang­ing sac­ri­fices for these states and their peo­ples. Of­fi­cial Eu­ro­pean lead­ers talk about the fun­da­men­tal free­doms, hu­man rights and dig­nity won through these sac­ri­fices, but fail to ap­ply this to the Sikhs!

Sikhs are not men­tioned in the UK main­stream me­dia, ex­cept when sen­sa­tion­al­is­ing a Sikh-re­lated scan­dal or call­ing Sikhs ‘ter­ror­ists’. No UK me­dia or gov­ern­ment take up of the worlds most grue­some mod­ern geno­cides – 1984. There is open UK gov­ern­ment re­jec­tion of the set­ting up of a Sikh reg­i­ment in the mod­ern British Army, as was com­mon and favoured in WWI and WWII.

Is­n’t it an irony that the French gov­ern­ment showed no re­gard for the con­tri­bu­tion of the Sikh sol­diers when it banned the wear­ing of the tur­ban by Sikh stu­dents in pub­lic schools? They may be wor­ried by mem­o­ries of the Cru­sades but they could have taken so­lace from the brav­ery of the Sikh sol­diers and now it was their turn to show re­spect and recog­ni­tion. Yet, they con­ve­niently failed to do so.

Our cup is full. Per­haps, if there will be a World War III, the same pow­ers will need us as can­non fod­der, once again, to fight their cruel and crass wars. Then, surely we will be a lot more as­tute and free to de­cide yes or no! I will cer­tainly fol­low the route of my grand­fa­ther -Maghar Singh, who along with his col­leagues in the Sikh brigade of the Cen­tral In­dia Horse reg­i­ment (Meerut can­ton­ment), mu­tinied in Bom­bay  in 1940 in re­ac­tion to or­ders to board ships to Eu­ro­pean bat­tle­fields for WWII.

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The British gov­ern­ment through­out, from 1845 to 1947 and from 1984 to now, have al­ways acted in a hos­tile way to the Pan­jaabi na­tion. If there be a Third World War, we would not be fight­ing and dy­ing for the British es­tab­lish­ment. No! No! N0!