Sikhs in Britain accuse BBC of racism

A race row has erupted at BBC’s flagship Asian station, which has been accused of being insensitive towards Sikhs and encouraging a Muslim presenter to mock Sikhism.

“We should not be paying a license fee for promoting the ignorance-based ramblings of those bent on self-promotion who sneer at Asian religion and culture,” said Hardeep
Singh, a spokesman of the Sikh Media Monitoring Group, which accused BBC’s Asian Network of being insensitive towards listeners from the minority community.

The Sikh Group has written to the BBC asking for a full transcript of Adil Ray’s show, which was removed from their website after threats from angry Sikh listeners who accused the popular Muslim presenter of denigrating the “kirpan” dagger — an important religious symbol that Sikhs are expected to wear at all times.

Members of the Sikh community complained that Ray, in the show broadcasted by the Birmingham-based network on Thursday on August 6, had been disparaging about whether Sikhs really needed to carry kirpans. The complaint was based on Ray’s discussion of the cancellation of a Punjabi music concert in Canada where police had banned Sikhs who refused to remove their “kirpan”.

BBC’s Asian Network had courted controversy last year when the Lord Ahmed of the Labour Party had accused the network of being biased against Muslims. The network, which was set up eight years ago, has denied the accusations or any suggestion that Ray meant to mock Sikhism.