France turban issue

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Turban issue: SGPC chief decries govt’s lack of support

Protest against French Ban

Tribune News Service

Begowal (Kapurthala), June 1, 2005

Unhappy over the lack of government support to the turban issue in France, the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) has initiated direct liaison with the French government in this regard.

Bibi Jagir Kaur, president of the SGPC, said that she met Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, recently in this regard but was not satisfied with the steps being taken by the Central Government to safeguard interests of Sikhs and their school-going children in France.

The SGPC, she said, therefore decided to have communication with the French government. “We have sent them CDs based on the importance of turban in Sikhism. We have also started a dialogue with them by sending e-mails in this regard. We have received confirmation of receipt of CDs and e-mails from the French government. We have also given them applications for permitting me and a few other members to visit France to present our views more clearly,” said Bibi Jagir Kaur who was at her Begowal dera for the inauguration of a three-day mela here today.

The SGPC chief said that since there had been some problem in communication due to the use of French language in government offices there, the committee was now seeking the help of Dr Roma Singh, working with the Guru Gobind Singh Study Circle based at Ludhiana, who is a Ph D in French. While Dr Roma Singh is at present putting up at Canada. The Bibi said that he was now being called back as she wanted to take up the issue at the earliest.

Bibi Jagir Kaur said that even though some members of the executive committee were to visit France on April 24, it could not be possible. “The members were to accompany some French Sikhs but at that time we were not sure of getting in touch with top French authorities. No specific appointment had been fixed and no agenda of the meeting could be sent to the government there prior to the visit which was therefore cancelled,” she said.

Bibi said that the issue had been hanging fire for the past few months as she was busy with Muktsar mela. “Later there were other issues hotting up such as the release of movie ‘Jo Bole So Nihal’ and that pertaining to forming of a separate Sikh body for Haryana,” she said.

She said that the SGPC had raised six objections to the film including changing of its title since it was not a religious movie, an error in the ‘jaikara’ as “jo” was not a part of it, raising of the ‘jaikara’ when the protagonist seems drunk, extra-marital affair of an “Amritdhari” character and deletion of a scene in which an “Amritdhari” mother checks five “kakars” of his “Amritdhari” son forcing him to remove his trouser.