Description:In both the workplace and the school, the denial of the right of Sikh men and boys to wear one of the fundamental symbols of their faith and identity caused Sikhs and anti-racist activists alike to campaign and to force a significant change in the law. The Indian Workers Association and the Birmingham-based Sikh Welfare Mission were heavily involved in campaigning for the acceptance of the turban in social institutions on both a local and national level.
There were numerous cases of discrimination against Sikhs wearing the turban that spanned many years. In 1962 Birmingham Transport Committee ruled that Sikhs were not permitted to work as conductors on Corporation buses wearing turbans (Your Business, November 1962 p1), and twenty years later a schoolboy was refused a place at a private school in Edgbaston due to his turban. The latter case brought thousands onto the streets of London in a demonstration organised by the Indian Workers Association on 10th October 1982 (MS 2141/A/5/3/6.) A flyer for the march in the IWA archive, entitled 'The Case of the Sikh Turban: Racialism in the Judiciary,' called upon all people, "irrespective of creed, race or religion" to join the march to oppose the Court of Appeal's dismissal of the schoolboy's racial discrimination claim and to seek an amendment of the Race Relations Act through collective action. In 1983 the case went to the House of Lords where, in addition to success for Gurminder Singh Mandla, it was ruled that Sikhs constituted an 'ethnic group' and were entitled to protection under the Race Relations Act 1976.
The newspaper cutting shown here, taken from the IWA archive, shows Daya Singh Nibber who became the first turbaned railway guard in Birmingham in 1969.
Author: Sarah Dar