Mistaken as supporters of slain Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin laden in the foreign lands because of their headgear, the Sikhs are all set to generate awareness about the turbans in foreign shores.
All set to open the chapter of awareness in the foreign lands, the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) has taken the responsibility to sensitize the people by setting up a Sikh Mission in California. The SGPC — known as Sikh’s mini parliament — would also prepare a “multilingual” literature with the help of scholars and experts highlighting Sikh identity, teachings, among other things, to be distributed in the European countries.
This is not all, the SGPC has also decided to send 450 sacred scriptures of Sri Guru Granth Sahib, Sikhs holy book, to Italy. The move is being seen as the SGPC’s efforts towards redressing the problems faced by Sikhs while visiting abroad, especially at the airports — becoming the victim of mistaken identity and security barriers.
Only recently, the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC) president and the head of SAD’s Delhi unit Manjit Singh GK was asked to remove his turban during frisking at an international airport in Rome (Italy). As he refused to abide by their instructions, he was allowed to go ahead only after the protocol officer from India’s High Commission arranged their departure without removing turbans for security check a day after.
Not long ago, many Sikhs, including the ace golfer Jeev Milkha Singh’s coach, were forced to remove turbans at the airports. The issue of challenges faced by the Sikh community, particularly the challenges to the Sikh turban — the identity of the Sikhs — has come to light now and then.
“This is our identity and an integral part of the Sikhism. There is intense need to generate the exact knowledge and the real perspective on the turban’s spiritual importance. There is dire need to put the turban, and other religious symbols including kirpan, in a clear light so that people respect our religious symbols,” the SGPC official told The Pioneer.
Things took ugly shape for the Sikhs as immediate aftermath of 9/11 attacks on the US. It was the time when the Sikhs came under attack with the people associating turban with terrorism, leading to the widespread discrimination against Sikhs. Only a latest survey by the Sikh American legal Defence and Education Fund (SAlDEF) and Stanford University revealed that 49 per cent of Americans believed that Sikhism is a sect of Islam.
“We have worked out various plans to create awareness about our religious symbols, our identity, in various countries, and also in India. We have to tell the world that Sikhism is different than Islam, and we have nothing to do with Osama,” he added,
To start with, the SGPC has already started the process of establishing the Sikh Mission in California. “A piece of land, measuring about 13 acres, is already available there which was donated to the SGPC for this purpose. The mission would mainly focus on propagating Sikh ethos and gurus teachings through Sikh literature,” said the SGPC official.
For the purpose, the SGPC would also take the help of the experts and research scholars. “Specially designed and scripted literature will be prepared in different languages which would be distributed in various countries. To start with, we would disseminate the literature in the entire Europe spelling out in detail the Sikh identity which would eventually help in checking hate crimes against the community,” added the SGPC official.
Besides, the SGPC is also planning to educate the NRIs’ children regarding Sikh tradition and culture, along with the Punjabi language. As of late, the Punjab Vidhan Sabha has also passed a resolution criticising the move by the authorities of Quebec province of Canada to ban religious symbols in workplaces and urged the Centre to take up the matter with Canada.