Model migrants?: Sikh activism and race relations organisations in Britain

Race relations organisations in Britain hailed Sikhs as models of peaceful integration during volatile political debates about the immigration of Commonwealth peoples during the 1960s and early 1970s. But Sikh campaigns to protect the sanctity of turban-wearing challenged this symbiotic relationship. This article explores how motorcycle helmet laws provoked a campaign to protect the Sikh turban and allowed diasporic Sikhs to articulate their concerns about British integration and race relations expertise during the mid-1970s. Sikh campaigners linked restrictions on turban-wearing to concerns about race relations legislation, equal employment policy, and their rights as British residents. In assessing the fluctuating relationship between Sikh activists and race relations authorities, it reveals the fractures in pluralist integrationist ideologies that continued to prioritise British cultural authority. The evidence here also demonstrates that this moment provided British Sikh communities with an unprecedented opportunity for national solidarity and diasporic community-building.     

Negotiating race and religion in the West Midlands: narratives of inclusion and exclusion during the 1967–69 Wolverhampton bus workers’ turban dispute

This article considers the 1967–1969 Wolverhampton Transport turban dispute in the context of increased anxiety over immigration to the area and Wolverhampton South West MP Enoch Powell’s April 1968 ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech. We trace the narratives of the dispute through letters to the Editor in local newspaper The Express & Star, and argue that the letters column was a site of community construction for writers and readers, which elevated the issue from a trivial industrial dispute to a symbol around which the deep anxieties of race and nation coalesced.     

Black or White: The Turbanization of Shi‘i Islam

The Turban has been worn by Muslims since the early period of Islamic history. This paper examines the significance of the turban in Twelver Shi‘ism. It argues that the turban and its color have been used to enhance the social and religious status of the descendants (sayyids) of the Prophet Muhammad. The paper also discusses the importance attached to the method of tying the turban and demonstrates how social pressure forced scholars to abandon a practice established by the Prophet and Imams. It will also argue that the method of trying the turban was used as an ideological tool among Shi‘i scholars.