Down Memory Lane (ਅਭੁੱਲ ਯਾਦਾਂ 1) SIKH Identity Does Not Change Nationalities Do I Do Not Represent India But United Kingdom!

Over the years, I have been asked by colleagues to write about memorable experiences of wider communit educational interest from my life in the UK since August 1960. A period of 66 year living and working in a challenging race relations environment. I propose to do that from time to time in-between more urgent current News and Views topics. One such memory goes back many years and it brought home to me the fact that I was no longer Indian but a Sikh British.

The background is from September 1985 to February 1988, I was transferred to a project in Europe to represent the International Trade Policy Division of the then Department of Trade and Industry at the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) at Geneva. The assignment was to negotiate, through the European Commission at Brussels, the conversion of the UK Tariff to the world-wide Harmonised Classification System.

That was the first part of the eighth multilateral World Trade Round also called the Uruguay Round (1986 to 1994). It was the largest and most comprehensive trade agreement in history and ultimately led to the creation of the World Trade Organization on 1 January 1995. My own assignment was completed in February 1988. Later, there was a second posting to an European project, The multinational Transonic Wind Tunnel at Cologne on Germany from September 1991 - to June 1996, the year of my retirement from UK Civil Service.

On my first day at the GATT conference centre towards end 1985, I presented my departmental credentials at the reception. The introductory letter was hardly looked at by the receptionist. He smiled and greeted me in strong European accent as Halo Mister Seengh accent and waved towards a uniformed usher to guide me to my place in the spacious conference hall. Admittedly, it was a safer world in 1985 but, as a full identity Sikh, I was a bit surprised at the laxity about the security check.

After all, Sikhs were continually in the news after 1984 invasion of Darbar Sahib by the Indian Army. Massacre of Sikhs in Delhi and other parts of India had followed the assassination of Mrs Indira Gandhi. There was Sikh armed reaction in Panjab and suppression by the State. There was even alleged State terrorism through extra-judicial killings now verified by Satluj film release. Sikh reaction was global. In short, expected a closer check regarding identity and country of representation at a global form like GATT.

The usher invited me to follow him by saying, This way Meester Seengh! I followed him to a position on one side of the great hall which was filling up with country delegates. He pointed me to a position which was clearly marked INDIA! In confusion I told him that I was not representing India but the United Kingdom. Apparently, the receptionist and the usher had mistaken me for a turban wearing Sikh who looked like me but represented India. After that clarification, I was guided to the other side of the hall to the European Commission area and to the United Kingdom position.

That memory stayed with me because it was that day I realised that I was no longer Sikh Indian but a Sikh British. That every diaspora Sikh shares only the SIKH part of their identity. That realisation is important

Gurmukh Singh OBE

E-mail: sewauk2005@yahoo.co.uk

https://www.sikhiwiki.org/index.php/Gurmukh_Singh_OBE