By: JurmoloyaRava
THE last two censuses in 2001 and 2011 included a tick box for Sikhs under the optional faith section of the questionnaire, but had no similar option under the mandatory ethnicity section. As a result, although some data on Sikhs was captured, it was not fully reflective of the community at large and did not examine some of the intricacies of the lives of British Sikhs in a way that would be useful to stakeholders, such as those concerning the Sikh identity, discrimination and hate crime.
Attempts have been made by Sikh organisations over the years to provide this much-needed snapshot of British Sikh life, but the success of these have been limited by lack of participation and bias due to the reliance on self-selection online. The lack of a large, broad and diverse set of data has not been possible, which has an impact on public policy.
Sikh organisations feel strongly that, in addition to inadequate monitoring of community numbers, allocation of resources by public bodies is not being undertaken to deal with issues specifically affecting Sikhs. This includes increased incidents of hate crime, bullying at school (because of children wearing turbans) and higher than average prevalence of certain ailments (such as diabetes and heart disease).
The Office of National Statistics (ONS) gave guidance in 2003 and 2011 to public bodies – including education and health services, local authorities and police – to only use ethnic group categories in the census for monitoring purposes. Hence, the community’s focus on getting a Sikh ethnic category.
There are more than 400,000 Sikhs in the UK (although estimates vary from 400,000 to 600,000, depending on publication), but the best way to track this is with the inclusion of a separate box in the census. This is among the primary aims of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for British Sikhs, an interparty group of MPs.
On September 12, the APPG met senior representatives of the ONS to discuss the great demand for the inclusion of Sikh as an option in the next census. A letter was handed to the UK National Statistician and head of the ONS signed by 114 MPs – a number that could easily have been increased substantially, but was limited by the meeting taking place on that day. Efforts to coordinate the response of MPs from across the political spectrum were led by the only other Sikh MP, Preet Kaur Gill, who fully supports this objective.
There is a clear demand for a Sikh ethnic tick box from the Sikh community: a staggering 83,362 in the 2011 census used the write in option to state their ethnicity as Sikh, almost an eightfold increase on the previous census in 2001 and many times higher than other groups using the write in option. The demand also comes from beyond the Sikh community. A consultation amongst stakeholders in the education, health, local government and business sectors found support and not one objection.
MPs pointed out that in the last census, more than 6,000 wrote in “Sikh” in response to the ethnic question, without indicating they were Sikh in response to the optional religious question. This suggested tens of thousands of Sikhs would not have answered the religious question, but must have selected another ethnic group in the absence of a Sikh ethnic tick box. Such inconsistencies actually devalue the statistics being collected.
The APPG now wants to see the ONS recommend to parliament in the census white paper next year that a Sikh ethnic tick box is part of the next census, to reflect that Sikhs are a legally recognised ethnic group (Mandla vs Dowell Lee, 1983) protected from discrimination under UK law.
The ONS confirmed that the only additional ethnic tick box under consideration was for Sikhs. Members of parliament highlighted that the last census introduced two new ethnic group categories, both of which represent communities with significantly lower numbers in the UK than Sikhs.
The need and the demand for this change are both clear. I believe it is high time that people define themselves as they wish.
[TheChamp-Sharing]
