LONDON: The Glasgow gurdwara has strongly criticised British Sikh activists for preventing the Indian high commissioner to the UK, Vikram Doraiswami, from entering the place of worship last Friday.
Doraiswami was due to attend a function at the Gurdwara Guru Granth Sahib Sikh Sabha Glasgow on Friday. Long tables had been laid with white tablecloths for him and the consul-general of India in Edinburgh, Bijay Selvaraj, to enjoy langar in a visit facilitated by Conservative Sikh member of Scottish Parliament, Pam Gosal. However, when the high commissioner’s car arrived, three radical Sikh activists barged up and tried to open the door. One of them shouted: “You are the ambassador, right? Yeah, I think it is best if you go.”
In a statement, the Glasgow gurdwara said Doraiswami had been on a “personal visit” and that the gurdwara “strongly condemns such disorderly behaviour to disrupt the peaceful proceedings of a Sikh place of worship”. The statement added that after the departure of the dignitaries, “these unruly individuals continued to disturb the gurdwara congregation”. Police Scotland was then called.
Shadow foreign secretary David Lammy and former home secretary Priti Patel have also slammed the incident as “unacceptable”.
Meanwhile, the Sikh Federation UK and National Sikh Youth Federation (NSYF) have since posted a collective statement from “UK Sikh panthic organisations” on X which defends the disruption, claiming a “ban” on Indian officials visiting gurdwaras in an official capacity has been in place since Operation Bluestar in 1984.
The group said this was the "minimum obligation to show support for the sacrifices of the martyrs of the Khalistan struggle” and claimed the gurdwara knew the visit would spark a backlash.
They said the “visit” was an "insult" given “the recent revelations” alleging Indian government’s involvement in the assassination of Khalistani extremist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada. Attacking the Glasgow gurdwara management, the statement said: "If there are Sikhs who want to put their own interests ahead of the Sikh struggle and desire visas, they should go to the Indian Embassy (sic) and not turn the gurdwara into a satellite of the Indian consulate.”
In 2018, the then Indian deputy high commissioner Charanjeet Singh was turned away by NSYF activists at the Central Gurdwara, London and NSYF activists also gatecrashed an event Rahul Gandhi was holding and had to be escorted out by police.