British Sikh Community

John McDonnell Excerpts

Wednesday 13th March 2013 Westminster Hall

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

A lot of people want to speak so I will try to be as brief as possible. We are here to celebrate the role of the Sikh community and the contribution that they have made to our community and society. It is also time to give a few thanks as well. We held a conference in 1997, where we brought the Sikh community, the Punjabi community, together to set the agenda for sub-groups of Parliament and the issues that they wanted us to address. I want to run through a few of those and say thanks to a few people.

First, the whole concept of Sikhism is based not only on community, but on family. One issue that we addressed was the inability of families to be united, purely because the visa system was not working properly. I want to thank those Members of Parliament and others—and the Sikh community overall—who campaigned for the opening of the visa office in Jalandhar and the work that was done to free that up. However, the issues on visas remain. We still have constituents coming to us who have not been treated fairly or properly, and who have then been exploited by agents as well.

[Caroline Nokes]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way so early in his comments. Does he agree that there is not simply a problem with visas? A number of Sikh members of our communities have lived in the UK for many years, but due to the refusal of the Indian high commission to issue passports, they are effectively stranded in the UK and unable to visit their families in India.

[John McDonnell]

The hon. Lady is absolutely spot on, and that is one of the issues that we need to work together on. I know that members of the all-party group are working on that now. I have to say that the new Government regulations with regard to students do not help, in terms of maintaining that flow and connection with the Punjab itself and the Punjabi community overall.

The second issue, briefly, is education. I am not a supporter of religious schools; I believe that people should be educated together, but I understand that while we have religious schools, no group should be discriminated against. That is why I supported the establishment of Guru Nanak school, the first Sikh school in my constituency. The resources that have gone into it from successive Governments and from the community overall have made it, frankly, the best school in the country. The educational results are phenomenally good. In addition, the whole ethos of the school, thanks to the head teacher, Rajinder Sandhu, is that everybody is welcomed into the school. In fact, when my son did not attend, I got a bit of stick, and he did not attend because, if he had, I would have been accused of preferential treatment for trying to get my son into such a school. The school says, “We open our doors to everyone, not just Sikhs”, but in addition, “We send our students out into the wider community and we invite other schools to work with us.” It has secured a partnership right across the community, and I want to commend the school, the head teacher and others, for their hard work.

On behalf of the House, I also send our condolences to the family of Poonam Bhattal. Some Members will know that the young girl lost her life on a school trip to Switzerland. Her funeral was last week, and her death has devastated the school and the wider community. I hope that we find the truth of what happened to her. I know the school cared for her very deeply and that the family has suffered badly. I would like to send our condolences to them.

The third issue is culture. The point that came up was that we need to maintain the Sikh culture and the Punjabi language. How should we do that? One of the ideas was to use modern media, and radio in particular. One of the first community radio stations to be given a licence was Desi radio in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma). It has been a tremendous success, as a result of the community coming together and, to be frank, because of some heroes and heroines. Ajit Khera, who has been the chair of Desi radio all the way through, has demonstrated how a community can be welded together and how radio can be used, particularly with regard to the promotion of language and culture.

A number of historical projects have been launched by the UK Punjab Heritage Association. Many hon. Members will have visited the exhibition that it held at the School of Oriental and African Studies and elsewhere with regard to the Golden Temple—the Darbar Sahib. I thought that what that did was to introduce the concept of the Khalsa Panth, the Sikh culture and its history and achievements to a much wider circle of people than just the Sikh community here. I am very pleased that last week the heritage lottery fund announced that it is now funding the same group to do a longer project. Hundreds of thousands of pounds are being invested. The project involves working with schools and is entitled “Empire, Faith and War: The Sikhs and World War One”.

I sometimes get anxious about the militaristic impression of the Sikhs. The Sikhs themselves became warriors at one point, yes. Why? Not because they were imperialists or invaders, but because they wanted to protect the Khalsa; they wanted to protect their own community. They transferred that commitment on, into their commitment to serving Britain as well, and that was done in partnership; it never involved acceptance of subjugation. Again, I congratulate the association on the work that it has done.

One of the fundamental issues that has been raised time and time again with us is human rights, and we cannot avoid the issue. We had discussion after discussion about what happened in the atrocities in the 1980s and the injustices that took place, many of which have never been addressed. I do not believe that any discussion on the Sikh community should not involve discussion of the need that there still is to bring to book the people who committed those atrocities during that period, because we have never found the ultimate truth and many of them have never been brought to justice.

In addition, there have been injustices here. We have mentioned the wearing of the kirpan and other religious duties. Injustices still go on. We still get individual constituents who have been turned away at the London Eye, from concerts at Wembley and so on. Madame Tussauds was another example. We tried to ensure that at least some standard guidelines were issued, and to a certain extent, when it comes to public service, we have achieved that. The problem occurs when the individual private contractors are not taking note and not reflecting the culture of diversity in our society. More work needs to be done on that. I echo the point that has been raised. I know that the all-party group recently sent a delegation to Europe. We need to ensure that we are educating our European partners well on how to address that issue.

We had a debate in the House of Commons Chamber a couple of weeks ago with regard to the death penalty. I was impressed by the unanimity across the Chamber. We were saying to the Government of India, as a friend, respecting their sovereignty and independence as a separate democratic nation, that we urge them to abolish the death penalty. We cannot be in a situation in which Balwant Singh Rajoana and Professor Bhullar are still on death row after all these years and at any time could be executed. I repeat to the Indian Government: please lift that threat. I have a final plea with regard to Professor Bhullar in particular. My hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) and I are meeting his family tomorrow. He is very ill at the moment. I would welcome the Indian Government allowing independent medical support to go in to assess his condition and provide him with additional attention to ensure that his medical needs are properly addressed.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) on bringing this debate to the House today and I concur with what he said. We are celebrating the achievements of the Sikh community and thanking all those who have worked with us to address the issues and the agenda that they have set with us. There is also a new agenda for the coming period. A new generation are coming up, with new ideas and new initiatives that we need to ensure we can support. I am pleased that the all-party group for the Sikh community is in place. I am pleased with the work that has been done in the past by the all-party group for the Punjabi community. I pledge my support for that continuing work, as I am sure other hon. Members will do in this debate.

[Albert Owen (in the Chair)]

Before I call Paul Uppal, I just say to hon. Members that a number have indicated that they want to speak. If each Member takes five minutes, we will get everyone in. I call Paul Uppal.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Williamson]

I concur with my hon. Friend. I was present for part of that debate. Regrettably, I had a commitment at the beginning and at the end of it, so I was not able to contribute, but none the less, I, too, was struck by the unity of purpose.

[John McDonnell]

It was a sin of omission by me, but that unity was brought about by the mobilisation of the community by the Kesri Lehar campaign. We should pay tribute to all those involved. More than 100,000 petitioners brought that campaign to the House.

[Chris Williamson]

I concur with my hon. Friend on that point. I received a proportion of that petition at the gurdwara in Derby a couple of weeks ago.

There is not time to touch on everybody’s contribution today, but all have been first class. I will, if I may, focus on just one or two. Let me start with the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Paul Uppal) who talked about Sikhism’s core values. It is important to stress those values and I thank him for outlining them. I wanted to touch on them myself. It is worth reiterating the fact that within Sikhism, there is a recognition of the equality of women and of all people and a commitment to hard work, to sharing with others and to standing up for people and protecting them.

That notion of sharing is something from which I have benefited on many occasions when I have been privileged to visit the local gurdwaras in Derby. As one of the three vegans in the House of Commons, it is nice to go to an event where all of the food on offer is vegetarian, so it is always a wonderful experience.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) talked about the death penalty that still pertains in India. He mentioned the cases of a couple of individuals and pointed out that we will be meeting the family of Professor Bhullar, who is languishing on death row, to discuss his case.