Complaint to Radio 4 – Sunday programme with Edward Stourton
The Sunday programme on Radio 4 with Edward Stourton on 12th January 2025 refers to the Hindu Council UK and the Sikh Association UK objecting to the ‘misleading’ word ‘Asian’. In terms of accuracy, for the record, there is no Sikh Association UK that we are aware of, the presenter is likely referring to us – the Network of Sikh Organisations (NSO) who have worked with the Hindu community since 2012, in raising objection to the word ‘Asian’, and our director had a letter in the Times last week which can be read here:
Nazir Afzal responds to the question of Hindu and Sikh objections to ‘Asian’ with the following:
‘I’ve got no problem with what you call it, but I think the Hindu community and the Sikh community (those leaders) need to have a look at themselves as well. Just two years ago Sikh Women’s Aid which is the main body run by women to protect women who are suffering abuse within the Sikh community published their report on abuse within the Sikh community and could you believe it was really really bad; so bad actually that they didn’t want to put their name to it, they reached out to me and said Nazir would you do the foreword for our report, I said why are you asking a Muslim man or British Muslim man to do the report, they said firstly, if we put our names to it they are going to come for us, and secondly we couldn’t find a Sikh man that would put his name to it. As I said, it takes different forms in different communities, but I think British Pakistani men were more engaged in other communities, but in other parts of the country you’ll find a different picture.’[i]
To be clear Sikh Women’s Aid (SWA) focuses on violence against women and girls which is related to domestic, spiritual and sexual violence within the Sikh community. This is different to the subject of the debate which was group-based child sexual exploitation (or ‘grooming gangs’) like in Telford, Rotherham and Rochdale (to name a few), and which has been perpetrated by majority Pakistani Muslim men and the victims have been primarily white working-class girls.
Indeed, domestic violence (and abuse within faith settings) affects all communities, so Mr Afzal presumably believes the Muslim and Christian communities should also get their house in order on this issue too? Moreover, some domestic abuse from within the Muslim community may well be justified with the interpretation of foundational Islamic texts,[ii] cited by some Imams. The presenter failed to challenge Mr Afzal, firstly in making the distinction between the different issues being discussed, which we believe were deliberately conflated. Second, the presenter should have also been informed of the fact that both Hindu and Sikh communities have also fallen victim of ‘grooming gangs’ too and targeted by men from within the Pakistani Muslim community. The BBC have made a documentary on the issue of British Sikh girls being targeted.[iii] The kidnap, forced conversion, and forced marriage of girls from Christian, Hindu and Sikh communities in Pakistan is well documented.
Indeed, Mr Afzal did write a foreword (there were several) for SWA’s 2021 report From Her, Kings are Born – Impact and prevalence of domestic and sexual violence in the Sikh/Panjabi Community – authored by Sahdaish Pal and Sukhvinder Kaur. However, it is simply not true the authors did not want to put their name to the report, they did. Second, when Mr Afzal says that no Sikh man would put their name to the same report – again this is simply not true – there were three.[iv] Gurdwara Aid’s Mandip Singh and the late Gurdeep Singh gave a joint foreword, and The National Sikh Police Association’s president – Harvinder Singh Rai wrote one for the report too. So, this needs to be corrected and put on record too. We understand Mr Afzal has not attended any SWA conferences but posted a post on X (formerly known as Twitter) at the time of the 2021 report.[v]
We deserve a right of reply and the opportunity to set the record straight on air ourselves, based on the various inaccuracies, deflection and false information conveyed to the listeners of your flagship programme.
Network of Sikh Organisations
[i] https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0026tz6
[ii] https://quran.com/en/an-nisa/34
[iii] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23921570
[iv] https://www.sikhwomensaid.org.uk/files/Sikh_Womens_Aid_From_Her_Kings_Are_Born.pdf
[v] https://x.com/nazirafzal/status/1462088824763387914
