For a long time, a group of Sikh organisations and some Gurdwaras have been asking to add a separate ethnic tick-box for Sikhs in the census 2021.
ARGUMENT IN FAVOUR OF THE ETHNIC TICK BOX FOR SIKHS
Labour MP Preet Kaur Gill from Birmingham Edgbaston and Chair of the all-party group for British Sikhs has been very vocal about her support to the cause and told India Today TV that, “Sikhs are invisible to the UK policymakers. The issue of an ethnic tick box for Sikhs is not a matter of religion or theology but that of how the UK delivers its public service.”
Government departments use ‘census ethnicity question for monitoring and allocating resources’.
Needs of the Sikhs in the UK are different, MP Preet Kaur Gill insists, and the lack of a separate ethnic tick box for them results in “majority of schools, hospitals, local authorities and other public bodies ignoring Sikhs when considering jobs and service provisions”.
She also points out the fact that 83,362 Sikhs rejected the “existing ethnic group categories and ticked ‘other’ and wrote Sikh…if Sikhs want to identify themselves as Sikhs then they have a right to do so.”
ARGUMENT DIS-APPROVING AN ETHNIC TICK-BOX FOR SIKHS
Lord Indrajit Singh of Wimbledon has been opposing the move on the basis that it goes ‘against the very foundations of the Sikh religion’. He is of the opinion that “Sikhism is a religion that recognises the equality of all people and does not look favourably on people trying to be exclusive groupsthe difficulty is that there is a lot of ignorance about religion and particularly the Sikh religion.”
Lord Indrajit says the support for the cause is being garnered within the corridors of Westminster on the ground that this is “what Sikhs want”.
Disagreeing with this premises, he said, “The Sikh Federation has a loud voice. They are misrepresenting the Sikh community.”
CLEAR CONSENSUS OVER THE CAUSE MISSING
India Today TV spoke to two Gurdwaras who are supposed to be Sikh Federation supporters. Of them, one denied giving permission for their name to be added to the list of Gurdwaras, supporting the cause of ethnic tick-box but refused to claim this openly for the fear of backlash.
The second Gurdwara, however, clarified Sikh Federation was not dictating terms but instead, carrying out the wishes of the Gurdwara.
They do not identify themselves as Indians or believe in the Indian state but refused to put in on the record for India Today TV.
Lord Ranger, who is also the chairman of British Sikh Association and a Sikh himself, opposed the move for a separate ethnic tick-box.
In an interview to India Today TV, he called the separate tick-box a “mischief-making activity” and said, “these are a fringe minority group who do not represent the vast number of Sikhs who want to follow the philosophy or ideology of Sikh gurus, who believed in the oneness of the human race. We are Indians first then became Sikhs, by changing our religion one cannot change our DNA.”
Of the estimated 325 Gurudwaras in the UK, it is claimed about 150 are supporting the call for a ‘separate ethnic tick-box for Sikhs’.
BRIEF BACKGROUND
Office for National Statistics, an executive body reporting directly to the UK Parliament, after carrying out a survey did not include separate ethnic tick box under the ethnicity section as they concluded that, “the addition of a “Sikh” tick-box, and consequent conflict between choosing either Sikh or Indian as a response option, was confusing and burdensome to participants. Both Sikh and Indian heritage were important aspects of their identity and being placed in a position where they had to choose between the two was difficult. Consequently, some respondents were ticking both the “Indian” and “Sikh” tick-boxes, which may lead to lower quality data being outputted due to automated processing counting one response only.”
Therefore, in the draft census order of 2021, based on the findings of ONS, the religion section includes ‘Sikh’ as an option while in the ethnicity option, Sikh is written in the ‘other’ tick-box.
ONS writes explaining the option, “Flexible data outputs which will allow analysis of those who define their religious affiliation as Sikh (through the religion response option) and those who define their ethnic group as Sikh through the use of the “search-as-you-type” capability on the online ethnic group question.”
The Sikh Federation UK opposed it.
In 2019, they brought judicial review proceedings against the cabinet office on the basis that it would be unlawful to lay before Parliament a census order based on the proposals set out by the National Statistics office.
On December 12, 2019, Justice Lang ruled that the claim was “premature” because the draft census order had not yet been presented to the Houses of Parliament. Justice Lang further ruled, “The matter can then be debated by Parliament on the merits if it considers it appropriate to do so.”
Now that the order has been laid in front of both houses of Parliament and the privy council has passed it, the Sikh Federation is going ahead with their resolve to challenge it.
Dabinderjit Singh, the principal advisor of Sikh Federation, told India Today TV that, “The battle now moves to the high court almost one year after we commenced legal proceedings.”
BASIS OF THE CASE
The call for a separate ethnic tick-box for the Sikhs for the 2021 census in the UK is based on the 1983 House of Lords decision in the Mandla V Dowell-Lee case where a Sikh boy was not allowed in Park Grove School’s, Birmingham by its headmaster because his father refused to take the dastar from the boy or cut his hair.
Under the Race Relations Act, 1976, Lord Fraser said, “The Sikhs are a ‘racial group’ defined by reference to ethnic origins for the purpose of the 1976 Act”.
Referring to the case Jagbir Jhutti-Johal, Senior Lecturer at University of Birmingham, in her paper, states, “This is no longer relevant today because the 1976 Race Relations Act has been replaced by the Equality Act 2010.”
Equality Act came into force in the UK from October 1, 2010, and ‘brings together over 116 separate pieces of legislation into one single act’.
Jhutti-Johal also said in her paper, “In terms of inadequate resource allocation of Sikhs, to date, no data has been presented in the public domain to substantiate this claim with reference to healthcare and educational funding. Data on religion is routinely collected by healthcare providers and educational establishments and this may be a better source of information than census data when making resource allocation decisions to particular groups.”
Is ethnic tick-box for Sikhs a ploy to further the cause of Khalistan?
This is one question that has been asked many times by those opposing the move alleging that the main idea behind it is to further the cause of Khalistan and keep tensions brimming.
Responding to the question, Dabinderjit Singh said, “This is an issue about the UK-wide census, equal opportunities and the fair provision of public services to the Sikh minority. As Sikhs have been legally recognised as an ethnic group since the Mandla v Dowell-Lee case (1983), we are simply asking UK law to be respected with regards to the UK-wide census. The only way this could be seen as a Khalistan issue is if we were demanding a “Khalistan” tick-box, but that would be under the nationality question.”
AT PRESENT
As of now in census 2021, people can still choose to write Sikh when they mark “other” in the ethnic category while under the category of religion, there is a separate tick-box for “Sikh”.
