Washington, DC: Labour party Members of Parliament—including a key aide of the minister leading the country’s negotiations with India on a Free Trade Agreement (FTA)—participated in a Gurpurab gathering hosted by a pro-Sikh separatist group Tuesday, photographs released by the organisers revealed on their X page (withheld in India).
The function came just a day after the UK’s Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, met with External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar in Rome.
The Gurpurab celebration was held at the Houses of Parliament in London by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for British Sikhs. The All-Party Parliamentary Group’s secretariat is housed in the Sikh Federation, a pro-Sikh separatist political party that emerged from the terrorism-linked International Sikh Youth Federation.
“Leaders from the UK keep telling us they share India’s concerns on Khalistan violence,” a senior Ministry of External Affairs official told ThePrint, “but here you have its MPs sharing a platform with individuals who publicly espouse secessionism.”
“Extremists are being given unprecedented access to Parliament and to lobby MPs,” a UK civil servant familiar with the FTA negotiations said. “This is a setback for the Labour Government’s priorities and sends the wrong signals to important international partners.”
The most prominent figure at the Gurpurab meeting was Preet Kaur Gill, the MP for Edgbaston in Birmingham and Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to Jonathan Reynolds, the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, who is negotiating the FTA. Chosen from among back-bench MPs, a PPS functions as an unpaid assistant to a minister, acting as their eyes and ears in the House of Commons.
In 2020, Gill had backed what she described as the right of ‘self determination’ for Sikhs in India. Later, she accused the Government of India of threatening British Sikhs. Gill has also campaigned for the release of alleged terrorist Jagtar Singh Johal, a UK national controversially held in prison since 2017, for his alleged role in the murders of Brigadier Jagdish Gagneja, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leader Ravinder Gosain and Pastor Sultan Masih.
A senior UK civil servant told ThePrint, Gill had asked the party to chair the British Sikh APPG, but was denied permission by Labour party whips. It is now chaired by Jas Athwal, who placed the Sikh Federation (UK) as the APPG’s secretariat.
The Gurpurab meeting was instead chaired by the Labour MP for Ilford South, Jas Athwal. Earlier this year, an investigation by the BBC had accused Athwal of renting out unsafe properties to tenants. Keir Starmer, the UK Prime Minister, had responded to the allegations by saying, “It doesn’t matter whether it’s a Labour MP or anybody else, it’s unacceptable.” He declined, however, to act against Athwal, saying, “He’s taking action to put it right.”
Earlier, Athwal had won the support of the Sikh Federation, which campaigned for him to be selected as Labour’s candidate ahead of the 2024 General Elections.
Harpreet Uppal, the Labour MP for Huddersfield, was also present at the Gurpurab meeting. In 2019, Uppal had been caught up in a diplomatic row involving the deportation from India of Debbie Abrahams, the MP for Oldham East and Saddleworth and leader of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Kashmir. Even though Uppal was not denied entry to India, she chose to return with Abrahams, for whom she worked as an aide.
The Gurpurab meeting also involved Labour councillor Parbinder Kaur, who has repeatedly shared social media material describing Sikh separatist terrorists engaged in assassinations and bombings as “martyrs”. Labour Party had announced earlier this year that it was investigating her position, but no action has been taken.
Gill and Parbinder Kaur are reported to be regular visitors to the Guru Nanak Gurdwara in Smethwick, which includes a gallery displaying portraits of several terrorists including Avtar Singh, Balbir Singh Khaira, and Sukhdev Singh Babbar.
Large numbers of politicians and dignitaries, including police officers, have visited the Gurudwara despite its explicit endorsement of violence: The portrait of Brahma here, for example, shows him cradling a Kalashnikov assault rifle.
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A new generation of UK-born Sikh politicians
The politicians involved in the Gurupurab event are largely part of a successful new generation of UK-born Sikh politicians who have been closely involved with diasporic pro-Sikh separatist causes. The group’s influence has been evident in the Labour Party, with now-Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner appearing to commit earlier this year to an inquiry into the role the UK played in the 1984 operation against terrorists who had occupied the Golden Temple. An earlier investigation in 2014 concluded the UK had only a marginal role in advising India on the operation.
In 2020, now-Prime Minister Starmer was photographed with the Sikh Manifesto during a visit to the Smethwick Gurudwara. The manifesto, among other things, calls for the right of self-determination for Sikhs in India and a United Nations-led investigation into the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom.
Khalistan extremists have also won the support of some elements in the Conservative Party. The Conservative MP Joy Morrissey, who represents Beaconsfield, is a Vice-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for British Sikhs.
The Sikh Federation has long been associated with fundamentalist efforts to police the community in the UK, not just intimidating anti-separatist Sikhs but also enforcing religious orthodoxy. It allegedly organised a mob attack on the wedding of a Sikh woman with a white man at a Gurdwara in London. The Sikh Federation has also sought for UK Sikhs to be categorised as a distinct ethnicity in the census.
Faced with social isolation and racism in the UK, scholar Jasjit Singh said that some young Sikhs were drawn to fundamentalist groups which claimed to “defending the Sikh community against the real or perceived threats of the Indian state, Muslim conversion and grooming gangs, secular modernity, those Sikhs (particularly women) marrying out of the faith, incidents of Beadbi (blasphemy) and those promoting a diverse view of the Sikh community.”
This is an updated version of the report.