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United Nations NGO ‘UNITED SIKHS’ leads a world-wide lobbying effort and legal battle to win the rights of French Sikhs
Washington D.C., Wednesday 30 January, 2008: The Sikh turban controversy in French schools fanned by the ‘double-talking’ French government’s racist/colonial arrogance, by an uncaring Indian government led by a timid, weak-kneed, ‘turbaned’ Prime minister and a vigorous lobbying effort by the United Sikhs (an organization with a world-wide network, registered with the United Nations as an NGO) has not ended in a Sikh victory so far. But, the positive note is, that the turban issue has united the 26 million strong Sikh nation as one (3 million in the diaspora and 23 million captive in India) which unity and outrage has in turn triggered an awakening among the Sikh youth, in India and abroad, about the importance of the turban, bequeathed to Sikhs by the Sikh Gurus centuries ago.
Incidentally, the 2004 French ban on Sikh turbans does not stop at French schools alone. The French government has also not been issuing passports, driving licenses and residency cards to Sikhs who refuse to remove their turbans for ID photos. The same French government continues, correctly it may be added, to allow French Roman Catholic nuns to wear their habits (head covering) in photographs when they apply for passports, driving licenses and residency cards or when they teach children in schools. A typical French dichotomy, perhaps?
Even the Chandigarh-based Tribune newspaper (which is infiltrated by anti-Sikh Hindutva elements who are chary of publishing anything positive about Sikhs) has allowed the publication of a tribute, by Sarbjit Dhaliwal, to the Sikh ‘Chardhi Kasla’ spirit in a January 25, 2008, Chandigarh-datelined report headlined (http://www.tribuneindia.com/2008/20080125/main6.htm), ‘France stokes a turban revolution.’ The Sarbjit Dhaliwal report reveals that, “the turban controversy in France has virtually triggered a wave of awakening about its importance in this (Punjab) part of the country. Schools are being set up to train Sikh youths in turban tying. Competitions are being held by various Sikh organizations to honor the youths who have perfected the art of tying turban. After 1990 Sikh youths, in big numbers, had started becoming clean-shaven and these were mainly from colleges and universities. But, now, it appears, the turban is staging a comeback in a big way in this region.” Sarbjit Dhaliwal, quoting a social scientist in the above Tribune report, says that, “Whenever any minority community faces adverse situation with regard to its identity, it obviously reacts strongly. Apart from resorting to agitations and other modes of protest, it uses its folklore to inspire its constituents to defend the identity.”
The unfair, arrogant, medieval and racist ban on Sikh turbans in French schools, and the United Sikhs world-wide lobbying effort against it, seems to have made a distinguished Sikh commentator, retired Major General Himmat Singh Gill, ( http://www.tribuneindia.com/2008/20080126/mailbag.htm ) to join the fray. Gill, in a letter to the editor of Tribune, published on 26 January, 2008, headlined, ‘Leaving the Sikhs out in the cold,’ has lamented that, “all that the SGPC chief, Avtar Singh Makkar, has got out of Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon is a bland statement that the Ministry of External Affairs would take up this matter with the visitor. Thereafter, we find our SGPC elders happily returning to Amritsar having achieved little, but smartly claiming for public consumption that they are doing their level best on the issue.” Himmat Singh Gill’s letter in the Tribune goes on to question, ‘whether India’s Sikh Prime minister understands the emotive issues involved in the turban matter,’ and, “why was this simmering issue not sorted out with the French before we had extended an invitation to President Nicholas Sarkozy to visit us? If a minority community like the Sikhs is aggrieved over the turban issue, I see no reason why the Indian government had to invite Mr Sarkozy over for a full-scale official visit. The Sikh diaspora has been left to fight out their battles on their own in the courts and the Sikh political and religious hierarchy has once again left the Sikhs out in the cold, mindful only of their own interests of keeping secure their offices and electoral vote banks..” Well said Sirdar Himmat Singh Gill!
To-date the Indian government has not answered retired General Himmat Singh Gill’s question as to why the simmering turban issue was not sorted out with the French, who are eagerly looking forward to the lucarative sale of arms and nuclear power plants to India, before a prestigious invitation for a Republic Day state visit to India was extended to President Nicholas Sarkozy. The Indian government has not answered Gill’s question but, this column will. Our inside sources in Delhi report that according to Indian air force scuttlebutt millions of dollars have been distributed by the crafty French, in ‘under-the-table’ kick backs to influential Indian commission agents, for the over two billion (billion with a B) dollar contract, picked up by President Nicholas Sarkozy, during his recent visit, for France’s Dassault company to upgrade 51 Mirage-2000 fighter jets that the Indian air force had bought in 1985.
Despite the above scuttlebutt about kick backs the determined United Sikhs, (according to their press release dated 25 January, 2008, headlined, “Sikhs Seek Assurance from Indian PM that he would Raise Turban Issue with French President. Sikhs Will Persist to Keep The French Turban Ban Issue Alive until it is Resolved,”) have continued with their lobbying efforts by maintaining and broadcasting the view that, ‘the continuing state-sponsored French ban on the Sikh Turban in schools as a gross violation of the fundamental rights of the Sikhs and a grave transgression of human rights. The French State’s ban of the Sikh Turban constitutes a violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Protocol Rights (ICCPR) of the United Nations and the European Convention on Human Rights, which France has ratified. The United Sikhs Chandigarh-based director, (probably unaware of the millions of dollars distributed ‘under-the-table Franco-Indian cash diplomacy’, mentioned in the above paragraph, or perhaps ignoring it) told a press conference in Delhi recently that they have urged, “Dr Manmohan Singh to use all diplomatic and economic channels to ensure that Sikhs receive a just reward for the sacrifice thousands of turban-wearing Sikhs made when they fought for the French people and their liberation in World War I and II. It will be a travesty to forget the sacrifices made by 80,000 Turbaned Sikh soldiers for France in the two World Wars.” Turban wearing Dr. Manmohan Singh, as is his wont on matters Sikh, has kept a low profile – to his eternal shame - on the turban issue during French President Sarkozy’s two days state visit to India.
Other Sikh leaders like Sirdar Simranjit Singh Mann, to their credit, have continued their protests and agitation, against the unjust ruling of the French government on the turban issue. A few days ago Mann, even traveled hundreds of miles from the Sikh Homeland of Indian occupied Punjab, along with a ‘jatha’ all the way to the Gwalior air force base, the central India venue of an Indo-French air force exercise to submit a representation, through the base commander, addressed to the Indian Prime minister Dr. Manmohan Singh. Mann was hoping that the weak-kneed ‘Sikh’ Prime minister in Delhi would be shamed into forcefully taking up the turban issue with the visiting French President who would have been informed about the intensity of Sikh rage by the French air force officers, currently in Gwalior, who witnessed it. Alas, Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh was not moved. He did not do anything when he could have. The French president has come and gone! Readers are urged to read the Khalistan calling dated 26 May, 2004, with a self-explanatory headline which reads, “What did an ordinary Sikh gain from the appointment of a ‘poster-boy’ Sikh, Dr. Manmohan Singh, as Prime minister of India?” ( http://www.khalistan-affairs.org/home/khalistancalling/2004/may26.aspx ) Some Sikhs thought the column was unkind. Events have proved the column right!
The Sikh community, all over the world including India, have not backed down and have held protest rallies, candle-light vigils, meetings to protest the racist action of the French government about turbans and show their anger. Luckily the UNITED SIKHS, (an international advocacy organization founded in New York in 1999, and now affiliated to the United Nations as an international non-profit NGO that protects civil and human rights of minorities) is in the forefront of a legal campaign on behalf of French Sikhs, ever since France passed a law in 2004 banning the wearing of a turban in schools and on identification documents. They are doing a fantastic job in challenging the French law that bans the Turban in French schools which reads as follows:- “Art. L. 141-5-1. – In primary schools, schools and high schools, the wearing of a sign or dress by which the students reveal ostentatiously a religious affiliation, is forbidden.”
As a result of the law passed by France banning the Turban in French schools in 2004, a Sikh Student is not allowed to wear a turban to school in France. Six French Sikh children have been expelled from schools. As a consequence of the law, French Sikhs have also not been able to renew their driving license, passport or refugee card because they refuse to remove their turban for their ID photographs. UNITED SIKHS, has filed cases in French courts on behalf of the expelled French Sikh students and those who have not been allowed to wear a turban for their ID documents photographs. UNITED SIKHS has correctly argued in all courts that the Sikh Turban poses no identification risk as a Sikh is recognizable only because of his Turban and not without it. Further, the Turban does not interfere with identification in today’s age of biometric photos, as evidenced by the fact that French immigration does not prohibit a Sikh national from any other country who wears a turban on his passport photo. The law banning religious signs in schools was passed to promote secularity. However, Sikhs are non-proselytistic; wearing the turban is an expression of a Sikh’s identity and in no way threatens the secular space in French society. UNITED SIKHS attorneys, (like Mejindarpal Kaur, the UNITED SIKHS director who is leading the legal challenge to the French ban on the Sikh Turban) have argued in the French courts that Frances’ ban is in violation of its treaty obligations under article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights and article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), on the right to manifest one’s religion.
More power to UNITED SIKHS which is in the process of filing cases against France in the United Nations Human Rights Committee and the European Court of Human Rights. Bravo! UNITED SIKHS make every Sikh proud.
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