King Charles and faith communities

By Dabinderjit Singh | Britain | Letter |

King Charles appreciates the government must radically improve its engagement with faith communities. 

Following the death of Queen Elizabeth II and 10 days of mourning it should have allowed everyone, especially UK politicians and those in government, time to reflect on the continued importance of faith in Britain. A different approach to faith communities was widely expected from the new monarch. 

We did not have long to wait as King Charles signalled during the period of mourning and before the funeral of his mother that he would be championing diversity and will have closer links with different faiths and communities, despite his constitutional role with respect to the Church of England.

Recently discussing the new monarch’s approach to different faiths, I reminded those listening to a popular religious flagship programme on BBC Radio 4, that successive governments have been neglecting proper engagement with faith communities. The government machinery is not fit for purpose and operates a discriminatory approach to minority faiths, especially those who do not have the backing of one or more foreign governments.

Parts of government, including those who advise the Royal Household are deliberately lazy and fixated on the concept of a single faith leader as it makes their job easier. Whilst this may work for some faiths a hierarchical approach is an alien concept to the Sikh faith that prides itself on equality.  The only ask is Sikh representation on religious matters must be by suitably qualified Amritdhari (fully practising) Sikhs.  

All Sikh men and women can freely choose to become Amritdhari and most of those born in Britain in the last 40-50 years who have made this choice will be proud of their visible identity. Some who may try and blend in and hide or compromise aspects of their religious identity or give an Anglicised and warped view of Sikhi (the Sikh way of life) should not be those who government choose to select to represent Sikhs.  

There are thousands of British born Amritdhari Sikhs proud of their religious identity who are suitably skilled and competent to play a much better representation role at civic events like Commonwealth Day and Remembrance Day or at weddings and funerals of members of the Royal family. It is remarkable they have for decades been totally denied this role by the establishment who have continued to invite the same individual.

It is inevitable there will sooner or later have to be change, but it would be better if government with a new monarch took a fresh look at its approach of engaging with the Sikh community.  This must start with a better understanding of how different faith communities, like Sikhs operate and only engage on faith matters with Amritdhari Sikh representatives and ideally those born, went to school, worked and lived their entire lives in the UK as they will be better able to relate to the full range of challenges faced than those living in their ivory towers.

To improve Sikh community engagement, government and officials have at times experimented with moving away from single community leaders by setting up roundtables with representatives from leading Sikh organisations to discuss matters impacting on the Sikh community.  However, to water down the significance of Sikh representation and to make their lives easier officials have gone out of their way to unilaterally invite those choosing not to practise their Sikh faith, Sikh academics working closely with government and Sikh civil servants who are conflicted.       

After a two-year experiment with a Sikh Roundtable government decided to refresh the membership and ask for applications as Sikh representatives connected with the grassroots of the community were organised, co-ordinated and prepared to challenge.  Unacceptably, four years later despite the excuse of the pandemic the government are still to make appointments or officially convene a Sikh Roundtable with representatives from leading Sikh organisations.  

Meanwhile, government and officials have tried with their unofficial boycott of Sikh representatives to become largely oblivious to numerous issues of concern to the Sikh community like bullying in schools, increased anti-Sikh hate crimes, discrimination against the Sikh identity, the farmers protest that received worldwide attention and the torture and arbitrary detention of Jagtar Singh Johal in an Indian jail to name a few.  Ministers and civil servants are not ignorant of these sorts of concerns as the Sikh community knows how to lobby and has been raising similar concerns over many years. 

In a related matter three years ago in October 2019 the Government announced that Colin Bloom had been appointed as the Faith Engagement Adviser to the Communities Secretary and he would be leading a review into how the Government should best engage with faith groups in England.

A year later, in October 2020 Colin Bloom launched a Call for Evidence, posing a series of questions about the Government’s engagement with faith groups that closed on the 11 December 2020.  In response to a Parliamentary Question by a Conservative MP the Minister responsible confirmed in February 2021 that the review was ongoing, but it would be published in summer 2021. 

More than a year later the review still remains unpublished. Officials have blamed the pandemic and a constant change of Ministers for the delay in both reconvening a Sikh roundtable and publishing the results of the review, let alone acting on the recommendations of the review.

During the pandemic government engagement with the Sikh community reached an all-time low when a faith leaders task force looking specifically at places of worship was appointed in May 2020.  The person appointed by government representing Sikhs as a faith leader, alongside the likes of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Chief Rabbi was a non-practising Sikh who has never been involved in the running and management of Gurdwaras.  

This was deemed by the Sikh community as a deliberate move by government to select an individual without the required religious competence, relevant experience and knowledge of running Gurdwaras to represent Sikhs on the taskforce.  Government tried to use the individual to impose a totally inappropriate church type model of prayer and service on Gurdwaras during the pandemic.  Within a week there was a massive outcry by those running Gurdwaras, Sikh organisations and on media that the person was forced to resign from the taskforce and was never replaced.

There is a new Prime Minister with a new Cabinet who are facing many massive economic and political challenges.  However, this is one area where the government does not want to repeat mistakes and is in a position to acknowledge the direction given by the new monarch and indicate they want a better understanding of faith communities and make a stepped change in its approach.

Dabinderjit Singh is the principal adviser to the Sikh Federation (UK) and recently took early retirement as a Director at the National Audit Office

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