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Sikhs Experiencing Institutional Racism in Britain: Sikh Federation UK

October 18, 2017 | By Sikh Siyasat Bureau

London: Labour MP for Birmingham Edgbaston Preet Kaur Gill here on Tuesday and Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for UK Sikhs challenged Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary at the Home Affairs Select Committee. She questioned Amber Rudd about as to why Sikhs were excluded Hate Crime Action Plan.

The response from Amber Rudd was totally inadequate as she clearly was unaware of how and why Sikhs were excluded from the Hate Crime Action Plan.

“Preet has exposed there is clear ‘institutional racism’ by government departments when it comes to Sikhs that are both a religion and ethnic group.  It is unacceptable both the Hate Crime Action Plan that focused on religions and the Race Disparity Audit that concentrated on ethnic groups have failed to comment on Sikhs as though we do not exist,” reads the statement of Bhai Amrik Singh of the Sikh Federation (UK).

When Theresa May became Prime Minister, Amber Rudd Home Secretary and Sajid Javid the Secretary of State at the Department for Communities and Local Government the Sikh Federation (UK) wrote to all three about hate crime directed towards the visible Sikh community.

For Sikhs this was not a new phenomenon following the Brexit vote, but something that raised its ugly head in United Kingdom and on international level more than 16 years ago following 9/11, but has not been properly acknowledged by successive British governments.

The Sikh groups  therefore were dismayed when the Hate Crime Action Plan was issued several weeks later in July 2016 that appeared to have been written as though the estimated 750,000 British Sikh community did not exist.

We wrote to Amber Rudd and Sajid Javid who jointly issued the Hate Crime Action Plan about Sikhs being ignored and results emerging from the UK Sikh Survey on the scale of hate crime directed towards Sikhs.

When the representatives from Sikh Network and Sikh Federation (UK) met Home Office and DCLG officials at the Sikh roundtable meeting at DCLG on 12 September 2016 chaired by Lord Bourne they were embarrassingly unable to confirm which if any Sikh organisations had been consulted as they had falsely claimed in July 2016.

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Related Topics: Preet Kaur Gill, Sikh Diaspora, Sikh Federation UK, Sikh News UK, Sikhs in United Kingdom, United Kingdom

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