Seeking the Sikhs
Felicity Heywood meets the man whose mission is to make sure that Britain's Sikhs are part of the UK's cultural and historical map
The first Sikh settler in Britain was no ordinary man. The Maharajah Duleep Singh was the last ruler of the independent Sikh kingdom of India. Having taken possession of the kingdom in the 1849, the British brought Duleep Singh to Britain five years later, where Queen Victoria showered him with affection and where he lived as an English country gentleman and converted to Christianity.
This seeming life of Riley is a reason why the last maharajah has been vilified by modern Sikhs who believed their former ruler sold out. In 1992, the Maharajah Duleep Singh Centenary Trust was set up to put the record straight.
Its director, Harbinder Singh says what many people didn't know was before the maharajah died in Britain, he was fighting to get back to India and also re-embraced Sikhism.
It's a story that for Harbinder Singh became the catalyst for the Anglo Sikh Heritage Trail, a educational and information website and partnerships with museum and heritage sites with collections and architecture bearing a Sikh cultural link.
Now in its third year, this month sees the relaunch of the website and a series of events across the country for Anglo Sikh Heritage Week (15-23 September). Through Singh's research, he realised there was a lot more to discover about the relationship between Sikh culture and Britain.
Singh explains: 'The Sikhs are almost unique that from the very first encounter between the Sikhs and the British and up to this day, the fate of the Sikhs in a political sense has been influenced by Britain.'
He points to the seizing of the Koh-i-Noor diamond to put into the crown jewels and struggles around not being defined in India as a separate linguistic group as examples stemming from the decision by the British government 'to seize our kingdom'. And he says, 'Nobody has put that whole jigsaw together'.
Singh, a management consultant in Walsall, has always had a passion for Sikh heritage. 'We were always conscious that there was something about our association with Britain that was never explained. Duleep Singh gave us that opportunity to put it into context.'
Harbinder Singh arrived in England from India at the age of four and his father took up work in a West Midlands factory. He says that he was the first turban-wearing Sikh in a Walsall school: 'We were an anathema.'
After studying public administration at Birmingham, he entered local government, but found that he excelled far too soon for someone of his background.
'I went too far too soon. By the age of 25 my only next step up was going to be senior officer. It was unheard of anyone who wasn't white and 50 being senior officer.' So he cut his losses and entered the private sector as a lobbyist working for organisations such as the RSPCA on the hunting bill.
Harbinder Singh greets me at the converted town house that is now the Anglo Sikh Heritage Trail offices in Victoria Mews, Walsall, with a firm handshake. With clear passion he tells me that it got to the stage where answers were needed.
'There are questions that we cannot put off any longer. There are questions about the whereabouts of objects that came here after annexation. There are questions about what is put on display and what isn't. There are issues around classifications.' Those answers are inside the UK's museums and heritage sites.
He says the Duleep Singh research resulted in the first-ever audit of what Sikh objects there are in the UK. 'We were finding so much that it became clear that we needed another vehicle to propagate that and move wider than Duleep Singh.'
Singh gives huge credit to the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), in their 1999 exhibition The Art of the Sikh Kingdoms, for putting Sikh heritage on the UK map. The Maharajah Duleep Singh Centenary Trust were invited to collaborate with the V&A on the exhibition that Singh describes as a 'bold' move for the national museum.
It was this work with the V&A, says Singh, which gave the trust the confidence to set up the trail. 'When we first got HLF funding it was to set the trail up and we thought it would manage itself. But we soon found that we were just scratching the surface.'
He likens the process to 'a detective story - we are finding clues all the time'. The trust receives constant calls from the Sikh community asking for advice and help in identifying an object or photograph or asking where their relatives might have lived or which regiment they served in during the two world wars.
Vitally there are museums and stately homes that are calling to see if they can be part of the trail. 'That to us is a great endorsement of what we want to do.'
The trust has so far made links with museums up and down the country, including the Ancient House Museum in Thetford, the Imperial War Museum, the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford and the Wallace Collection. The objects include arms and armour, portraits, textiles, architecture, medals and coins.
'If you want to crack the sector, the Royal Collection is the jewel in the crown,' says Singh. And the trust has recently talked with the Royal Collection and is in conversation with Historic Royal Palaces.
And he later adds that considering that one of the diamonds in the crown jewels belongs to the Sikhs, visitors to the Tower of London should get special viewing access. At first I think it a joke, but perhaps not.
The trust was launched in 2004 and is now entering its second phase with a new Heritage Lottery Fund grant of £660,000 to continue researching the stories behind the artefacts and documents in the UK. Singh intends to use volunteers from the Sikh community to help in this.
The British Museum has been one of the first to accept a volunteer to access the collections. A researcher has been cataloguing early Sikh coins from the museum's collection and the museum has offered training, workspace and mentoring in turn. The same process will take place at the National Army Museum.
The proactive attitude of the trust could be a model for groups aiming to uncover their own cultural links with the UK. But he refers to museums as 'cultural juggernauts' that are hard to penetrate. Singh hasn't sat back and waited while museums get their house in order - he has courted the museums - and sent his own people in to get the job done.
The door-knocking has been persistent. Singh now has an entourage of three paid staff members who can assist him in this. At one time the trust was criticised for employing non-Sikhs, but Singh is adamant that he wants the best people for the job. At present the cream are young Asians who share Singh's passion.
Back in the 1990s during the V&A's consultation with the Sikh community for its Art of the Sikh Kingdoms exhibition, Singh says there was a contingent annoyed that the focus went beyond religion. But Singh is resolute that Sikhism is a heritage and a culture, not only a faith.
I ask Singh about the obstacles he has faced from the museum community. He starts by saying he prefers to talk about 'challenges', most of which are surmountable. The major one he points to is familiar to minority groups.
There is a dependency on finding a member of staff interested enough in the project or the culture to give it the green light. When that staff member leaves the organisation (as did Deborah Swallow at the V&A), it is a case of 'having to reopen the door'. Singh argues: 'The voluntary efforts we have put in have earned us the right to be heard.'
Singh does recognise that though the responsibility of telling the story must come from the community, he says that it is only recently that it has been in a position to do so. 'None of the migrant communities at that time [1960s] were confident or assertive enough to tell their story.'
And he continues: 'What inspired us was the realisation many years later that all of the original hurdles were because we had failed to explain why we are here and what brought us to this country.'
And Singh is clear: 'We are not looking at this from a negative view, we are not here to rewrite history, or to get apologies or for retribution - but we are here to explain.' He adds that the trust is not in favour of repatriation of objects per se because, he says, it will deprive Sikhs in Britain.
But his criticisms of the sector and the wider UK cultural arena is an oft-heard one: 'Diversity and social cohesion, these words are so inappropriately used because they are seen in a current politically correct sense. If you look at them in a historical context of cause and relationship they become more meaningful.'
Singh says some organisations have done 'great things' but for others, cultural diversity is about the 'tick-box agenda' that means they are less likely to be adventurous and bold. 'This is not about ratios. It's a story so fascinating that it needs to be told to everybody.'
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This seeming life of Riley is a reason why the last maharajah has been vilified by modern Sikhs who believed their former ruler sold out. In 1992, the Maharajah Duleep Singh Centenary Trust was set up to put the record straight.
Its director, Harbinder Singh says what many people didn't know was before the maharajah died in Britain, he was fighting to get back to India and also re-embraced Sikhism.
It's a story that for Harbinder Singh became the catalyst for the Anglo Sikh Heritage Trail, a educational and information website and partnerships with museum and heritage sites with collections and architecture bearing a Sikh cultural link.
Now in its third year, this month sees the relaunch of the website and a series of events across the country for Anglo Sikh Heritage Week (15-23 September). Through Singh's research, he realised there was a lot more to discover about the relationship between Sikh culture and Britain.
Singh explains: 'The Sikhs are almost unique that from the very first encounter between the Sikhs and the British and up to this day, the fate of the Sikhs in a political sense has been influenced by Britain.'
He points to the seizing of the Koh-i-Noor diamond to put into the crown jewels and struggles around not being defined in India as a separate linguistic group as examples stemming from the decision by the British government 'to seize our kingdom'. And he says, 'Nobody has put that whole jigsaw together'.
Singh, a management consultant in Walsall, has always had a passion for Sikh heritage. 'We were always conscious that there was something about our association with Britain that was never explained. Duleep Singh gave us that opportunity to put it into context.'
Harbinder Singh arrived in England from India at the age of four and his father took up work in a West Midlands factory. He says that he was the first turban-wearing Sikh in a Walsall school: 'We were an anathema.'
After studying public administration at Birmingham, he entered local government, but found that he excelled far too soon for someone of his background.
'I went too far too soon. By the age of 25 my only next step up was going to be senior officer. It was unheard of anyone who wasn't white and 50 being senior officer.' So he cut his losses and entered the private sector as a lobbyist working for organisations such as the RSPCA on the hunting bill.
Harbinder Singh greets me at the converted town house that is now the Anglo Sikh Heritage Trail offices in Victoria Mews, Walsall, with a firm handshake. With clear passion he tells me that it got to the stage where answers were needed.
'There are questions that we cannot put off any longer. There are questions about the whereabouts of objects that came here after annexation. There are questions about what is put on display and what isn't. There are issues around classifications.' Those answers are inside the UK's museums and heritage sites.
He says the Duleep Singh research resulted in the first-ever audit of what Sikh objects there are in the UK. 'We were finding so much that it became clear that we needed another vehicle to propagate that and move wider than Duleep Singh.'
Singh gives huge credit to the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), in their 1999 exhibition The Art of the Sikh Kingdoms, for putting Sikh heritage on the UK map. The Maharajah Duleep Singh Centenary Trust were invited to collaborate with the V&A on the exhibition that Singh describes as a 'bold' move for the national museum.
It was this work with the V&A, says Singh, which gave the trust the confidence to set up the trail. 'When we first got HLF funding it was to set the trail up and we thought it would manage itself. But we soon found that we were just scratching the surface.'
He likens the process to 'a detective story - we are finding clues all the time'. The trust receives constant calls from the Sikh community asking for advice and help in identifying an object or photograph or asking where their relatives might have lived or which regiment they served in during the two world wars.
Vitally there are museums and stately homes that are calling to see if they can be part of the trail. 'That to us is a great endorsement of what we want to do.'
The trust has so far made links with museums up and down the country, including the Ancient House Museum in Thetford, the Imperial War Museum, the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford and the Wallace Collection. The objects include arms and armour, portraits, textiles, architecture, medals and coins.
'If you want to crack the sector, the Royal Collection is the jewel in the crown,' says Singh. And the trust has recently talked with the Royal Collection and is in conversation with Historic Royal Palaces.
And he later adds that considering that one of the diamonds in the crown jewels belongs to the Sikhs, visitors to the Tower of London should get special viewing access. At first I think it a joke, but perhaps not.
The trust was launched in 2004 and is now entering its second phase with a new Heritage Lottery Fund grant of £660,000 to continue researching the stories behind the artefacts and documents in the UK. Singh intends to use volunteers from the Sikh community to help in this.
The British Museum has been one of the first to accept a volunteer to access the collections. A researcher has been cataloguing early Sikh coins from the museum's collection and the museum has offered training, workspace and mentoring in turn. The same process will take place at the National Army Museum.
The proactive attitude of the trust could be a model for groups aiming to uncover their own cultural links with the UK. But he refers to museums as 'cultural juggernauts' that are hard to penetrate. Singh hasn't sat back and waited while museums get their house in order - he has courted the museums - and sent his own people in to get the job done.
The door-knocking has been persistent. Singh now has an entourage of three paid staff members who can assist him in this. At one time the trust was criticised for employing non-Sikhs, but Singh is adamant that he wants the best people for the job. At present the cream are young Asians who share Singh's passion.
Back in the 1990s during the V&A's consultation with the Sikh community for its Art of the Sikh Kingdoms exhibition, Singh says there was a contingent annoyed that the focus went beyond religion. But Singh is resolute that Sikhism is a heritage and a culture, not only a faith.
I ask Singh about the obstacles he has faced from the museum community. He starts by saying he prefers to talk about 'challenges', most of which are surmountable. The major one he points to is familiar to minority groups.
There is a dependency on finding a member of staff interested enough in the project or the culture to give it the green light. When that staff member leaves the organisation (as did Deborah Swallow at the V&A), it is a case of 'having to reopen the door'. Singh argues: 'The voluntary efforts we have put in have earned us the right to be heard.'
Singh does recognise that though the responsibility of telling the story must come from the community, he says that it is only recently that it has been in a position to do so. 'None of the migrant communities at that time [1960s] were confident or assertive enough to tell their story.'
And he continues: 'What inspired us was the realisation many years later that all of the original hurdles were because we had failed to explain why we are here and what brought us to this country.'
And Singh is clear: 'We are not looking at this from a negative view, we are not here to rewrite history, or to get apologies or for retribution - but we are here to explain.' He adds that the trust is not in favour of repatriation of objects per se because, he says, it will deprive Sikhs in Britain.
But his criticisms of the sector and the wider UK cultural arena is an oft-heard one: 'Diversity and social cohesion, these words are so inappropriately used because they are seen in a current politically correct sense. If you look at them in a historical context of cause and relationship they become more meaningful.'
Singh says some organisations have done 'great things' but for others, cultural diversity is about the 'tick-box agenda' that means they are less likely to be adventurous and bold. 'This is not about ratios. It's a story so fascinating that it needs to be told to everybody.'
www.asht.info