British Sikh Community

Pat McFadden Excerpts

Wednesday 13th March 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to take part in the debate under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. I have not brought my sgian dubh, but I will make a few points in the debate.

According to the recent census, the city I represent, Wolverhampton, has 22,000 Sikhs—the second biggest concentration of those who are of the Sikh faith in the country. Most of the Sikh community in Wolverhampton have their family roots around the city of Jalandhar in Punjab, which I have had the honour of visiting. I also had the honour of visiting the Golden Temple some years ago—a truly humbling and profound experience that I will never forget.

The story of Sikhism in Wolverhampton begins in earnest with the generation who came in the 1950s and ’60s to work in places such as Bilston steel and other heavy engineering works. The national story of course goes back much further that that, as we have heard, with brave Sikh service in two world wars. For those early immigrants in Wolverhampton, life was not easy. They were often packed into crowded living conditions, separated from family and friends and doing heavy physical work. They sometimes met with friendship and good experiences, but they also sometimes met with discrimination, perhaps even hostility and certainly a lack of understanding. That has changed a lot over time, and the community today is a very successful and established part of city life.

There are many gurdwaras in my constituency and throughout the city. The annual Vaisakhi celebration is a major part of its cultural life. Thousands of people take part in the nagar kirtan—the parade—which goes through the streets of my constituency, in a very well organised and joyful celebration of the Sikh faith. Our city will probably be for ever associated with Enoch Powell, but the story of the community and our history since he spoke shows that he was wrong: the Sikh community in Wolverhampton is a success and Wolverhampton’s multi-faith, multi-religious community is a success.

We have proved that such successes can be achieved, provided there is commitment all round, and a great many people can take credit for that success. Walking down Dudley road in my constituency, I can see its physical evidence. I can walk past sari shops and Bollywood films for hire. I can eat the finest Punjabi food. I can walk into the new Lakshmi restaurant—a great investment by Major Singh. We can see the impact of the community on the cultural and economic life of the city of Wolverhampton.

[Paul Uppal]

I cannot resist: it says something about the common sense of the people of Wolverhampton that in 1950 they returned Enoch Powell to the House with a majority of 691, but they returned somebody of Sikh descent in 2010 for exactly the same constituency with a majority of 691. Rest assured, I will not make a speech about race relations in 18 years.

[Mr McFadden]

I wonder what the majority will be at the next election. The voters will decide.

The community is a success in Wolverhampton and around the country, but we should not pretend that there are no issues in the community or challenges for it. Public health issues, which are not confined to the Sikh community, certainly affect it. People are sometimes reluctant to face up to hidden illnesses, including mental illness. There is always the challenge of freedom and greater independence for our younger generation, who ask for more choice and more decision-making power than perhaps their parents and grandparents enjoyed.

We have heard about searches of turbans—the dastar—at airports, about which a great many Members on both sides of the House campaigned, as did Sikh organisations. I acknowledge the good efforts of the Department for Transport in working with the European Union and other Governments to reach a successful conclusion. The result is that the European Commission now says that swab and wand technology used in UK airports can be used throughout the Community. I am a strong believer in good, tough, strong security at our airports. My Sikh constituents agree that it is essential, but if we can achieve it in a way that respects people’s faith, so much the better, particularly because freedom of movement is a founding principle of the EU. The UK Government’s engagement with the issue has produced a far better result than we saw on bank bonuses and other issues. If there is a lesson in that, it is that positive engagement with the EU, rather that withdrawal or turning up so late that we cannot influence the debate, produces results.

The community is a success in the UK, but it sometimes has a strange relationship with India. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) said, that in large part stems from the events of 1984, when many Sikhs lost their lives. The pain of that experience and the lasting sense of injustice among the Sikh community are very real. There is a lasting desire for greater transparency and honesty in the story of what happened.

If the community’s relationship with India is strained, its relationship with the UK has been a good one. That is a tribute to the Sikh community and its efforts. It is also a tribute to cities such as Wolverhampton and to our country that a community such as the Sikhs and many others over the years can come to the UK, make a new life, put down roots and be part of the country’s success. My own parents came from Donegal in the Republic of Ireland in the 1950s, and the huge Irish community in Scotland has also been successful. It is a tribute to the UK that we have been open to that over the years.

Far too often today, the debate about immigration is couched in terms of limits, dangers and negative stories about what people can bring to our shores. If we take a wider lesson from today’s debate, it should be that what a community such as the Sikhs, who are fantastic, enterprising and educationally aspirational, with values of faith, family and community, has brought to the UK shows that immigration can be a positive part of our national story, and I hope it is in the future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Fabian Hamilton (Leeds North East) (Lab)]

I start by saying—I am not going to speak in Punjabi—sat sri akal to hon. Members present and everyone watching at home and in the Public Gallery.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) on securing this debate. He did so after we circulated an e-mail to many members of the all-party group, asking them to apply for such a debate because we felt that one was timely. By the attendance here, I think we were absolutely right.

My involvement with the Sikh community in the United Kingdom started in 1988, when I was elected chair of the race equality committee of Leeds city council. Almost immediately following that—one year into my tenure as a Leeds councillor, which I held for 10 years—I was approached by a leading member of the Leeds Sikh community, Mr Thandi, who was a market trader and a great exponent of the virtues of the Sikh faith. He wanted to educate me about what Sikhism meant for him, his community, the city of Leeds and the whole of Great Britain. That he did, and he did it well. He became a close friend and was a member of the Labour party. In 1992, he kindly agreed, with his wife, to be included in my election manifesto for that year. Sadly, I did not win, but to my even greater sadness, he died just two days before the general election.

My memory of Mr Thandi has carried me through all my work on Leeds city council and as Member of Parliament since. I do not represent such a huge Sikh community as hon. Members from Wolverhampton, Birmingham or even London do, but I still have three gurdwaras in my constituency, which are well attended. One of them is in a new building—it was built in 1997, so I suppose it is not so new now—and I was privileged not only to dig the first sod of earth for that temple on Chapeltown road, but to be present at its opening as the newly elected Member of Parliament.

Over the years, I have got to know many members of the Leeds Sikh community, including Dr and Mrs Kalsi. Dr Kalsi has written a very good book about Sikhism and what it means, which I commend to anyone who wants to know more about the faith, although, with a Member such as the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Paul Uppal) among us, perhaps we do not need to read it. My friend Prem Singh Duggal was president of the Chapeltown road gurdwara and helped me to understand so much about the Sikh faith, and one of the immediate past presidents, Mr Inderjit Singh Gill, always invites me to the Sikh sports events that regularly take place in the city.

I have attended the Vaisakhi celebrations in what is now called Millennium square in the centre of Leeds. It was not always called that—it was just the square outside Leeds civic hall.

[Mr McFadden]

We are pressed for time, but I want to remind my hon. Friend and the House that I will be happy again to host the House of Commons Vaisakhi celebrations on 22 April, to which all right hon. and hon. Members are most cordially invited.

[Fabian Hamilton]

I thank my dear right hon. Friend for that intervention. He has organised that event for the second or third year running, and I thank him for taking on that work and making sure that Vaisakhi is celebrated in the House for everyone involved. It is always a joyous and colourful occasion to celebrate not only the contribution of the Sikh community in the city of Leeds and in Great Britain, but to celebrate the start of spring, although it usually rains actually. Extraordinary colour and life is brought to the centre of the city of Leeds and throughout so many of our towns and cities in the United Kingdom to celebrate that festival, and there is always wonderful food as well. One thing that has always impressed me is the equality between men and women, who celebrate together, not separated. They joyously celebrate humanity, as well as their own faith and belief.

Since 1997, I have tried to bring together the Sikh community in Leeds and the Jewish community that I represent. There are probably about equal numbers of them now, as the Jewish community has declined somewhat and the Sikh community has grown. As hon. Members have said, the values of those communities are very similar. When I walked into the newly built Jewish community centre—the Marjorie and Arnold Ziff centre —on Stonegate road in north Leeds with members of the Sikh community to discuss how we might set up a Sikh elderly housing association and a welfare board, just as the Jewish community had done so many decades earlier, there was a great deal of celebration, with elderly Jewish people embracing many of our Sikh friends who had come along to discuss that with them.