harjapbhangal

wow...seems i'm not doing that bad with my long earlobes and ugly shakkal after all...always nice to know...

I think we've got to the root of the problem which is we need a proper selection process for granthis and gianis. However the committees themselves are to blame for this situation. First of all visas for gianis are obtained by Gurdwaras showing to the embassy that they will pay a giani at least minimum wage and accomodation and free food (which is supposed to be free for everybody). When gianis get here they are actually not paid what is stated on their sponsorship. A top giani is only paid around £80 per week and on that is supposed to feed his wife and children back home. He has to act as a virtual security guard for the Gurdwara and eats his food from the langar. Hardly any Gurdwara pays a Giani minimum wage (against the Uk law) nor do they provide gianis with wage slips & P60's. Gianis PAYE is not paid nor is their National Insurance Contributions. How on earth is anybody expected to work in those conditions?...would any of us work at a place where we were not paid minimum wage, or given a wage slip or a P60?....They are made to work under the laalach of the fact that after 5 years they will get indefinite leave to remain in the UK and that after that they can call over their wives and families. The worst scenario is when a giani has tolerated this for 2 years and the committee changes and then tells the giani thanks but we dont need you anymore. What is that poor giani expected to do? he has literally been abused by his employers for 2 years and now told he wont even be getting to see his 5 years out. The other issue here is the blatent use of the Gurdwara in order to facilitate illegal immigrants into the UK. There is no doubt that Gurdwaras have been used to bring ilegal immigrants into the Uk under the guise of granthis and jathas. To deny this would be naive. What usually happens is if there is 3 in a jatha one will return to India and 2 stay behind having paid up to £10,000 to get here in the first place. The amount of people i have seen ilegal in the UK who piad committees to bring them into the UK as granthis runs into hundreds. Still that is no excuse for anybody to molest a child...

Dear Sangat, Over the past years with my dealing with Illegal Immigrants (or faujis as they are referred to by our own community) i have noticed that despite their failings there are several instances of where they are treated unfairly by Gurdwara Committees. One such unfair treatment is the right to become a member of a Gurdwara. Now i refer to SGSS Southall in particular where when it comes to election time we are all encouraged to become members and make a vote. My points for dscussion are as folllows: 1) Currently our illegal Immigrant Sikh Brothers and sisters are not allowed to make a gurdwara vote or become a member if they don't have indefinite leave to remain in the UK or a British or European passport. I would only assume that the only criteria needed to become a member was that you should be a Sikh and live in the Southall area. These include amritdhari Sikhs (men and women) who do seva regularly at the Gurdwara. 2) When i questioned the committee on this i was told it is because faujis allegedley do "hera-pheri" in the voting process and sell their votes I suggested that this maybe because the pakkay bande encouraged them to do it and it was in fact the committee members themselves who try to buy votes. Slience followed. 3) I am told to make a gurdwara vote you need to have a "pakki mohar". I would suggest that if you are born in a sikh household then what bigger "pakki mohar" can there be than that? 4) what role does a passport play in Sikhi? 5) Are these illegal immigrants not son and daughters of Sikhs? if not where are they to go if they are not even allowed to become members of the gurdwara? 6) In punjab migrant workers who we refer to as "bhaiyas" have a givernment vote. yes they can vote in Government elections. Why are we treating our own sikh brothers and sister worse than "bhaiyas" in punjab. 7) if an illegal immigrant offered to donate £10,000 to the gurdwara would it be refused on the grounds that he does not have a pakki mohar? 8) Why are illegals allowed to do seva (in most instances more than the paid sevadar) yet not allowed to make a gurdwara vote or become a member. 9) the illegal immigrants are criminals of the Uk government. They are not enemies of our faith or religion. 10) A lot of committee members were once asylum seekers themselves and had gurdwara votes whilst having no immigration status so why the double standards? I am not an advocate of illegal immigration. If anything i discourage it. but however i do feel a "dhakka" is being done in this regard against the illegals. Every sikh has the right to be treated on the same level as another in the presence of the Guru yet here there is clearly injustice being done. Thanks you WJKK WJKF

You can speak to a person called Gursevak at Sikh TV...Their details are on their website...

Unfortunately i see this all of the time in my job. It's becoming more and more common. In my opinion you should move on otherwise you'll end up depressed. If you marry her everytime you have a row or fight this will come back and bug you. The fact is if you didn't lie to them then you can't expect to accept lies from them. She only told the truth after you caught her out. It's a sorry situation but at the end of the day you deserve to get what you want. There could be lots of stuff that she perhaps has not revealed to you. If she gets into the UK you'll have problems sending her back. You will also have to wait for a year before you can start a divorce and if she goes into hiding then you'll have trouble getting divorced as you wont be able to locate her. There are plenty of marriages with indian girls that do work out and you shouldn't be put off from marrying in india. Just perhaps not maybe to this girl.

Don't really agree with West London Singh and his comments that Gianis have got it good. You can't compare people in dubai with people in the UK. If you want to make a salary comparison then you should make that of a Giani in the UK (£80) and an illegal person from India in the UK. An illegal person in the UK works 6-7 days per week earning around £40 per day minimum. So they make around £240 per week. A lot of these Giani's would have been better off if they came on the boat or trucks. Giani's get exploited because the committees say we are giving them free accomodation and food (which isn't strictly true as food is free for anybody and the accomodation is equally as beneficial to the committees as the Giani's act as night watchmen). I am sure a Giani in Dubai doesn't get to send home as much as a worker in Dubai. The Gianis haven't got it good, the committees have. They spend £100,000 on legal battles and lawyers fees on cases against each other yet can only pay their Giani's £80??...Also Giani's dont actually save £80. That is their total wage per week. And they are not even allowed to have any public benefits. They can't sign on or have any public funds. they can't go to complain anywhere because the Committees will kick them out and cancel their visas. There are many Gianis in the UK who came over as Gianis but are now living illegally. In fact they say they are happier now as they earn more and can at least feed their families.

Yes Pyara you are 100% right it is the same person....the random singh on eastenders who everybody is proud of is the same one who was pilfering money from the Guru Ghar....

WJKK WJKF, Last year one of my viewers of the TV programme sent me this photo of a notice that was on the noticeboard at Seven Kings Gurdwara. After i did a few enquiries news emerged of a fraud that had been committed by a committee member and that had been discovered and exposed by the incoming committee. It emerged that there was some hera pheri in the donation receipts and that the amounts donated by the Sangat did not tally with the amounts on the counterfoils. I set this as a topic to be discussed on one of my shows however low and behold on the same day around lunchtime i received a call from the Pardhaan of the Gurdwara. At first his tone was "you want to make yourself popular by highlighting this". i reminded him that i was already well known for many years. He then tried the tact of "you will only make our religion weaker if you expose this on TV". i was quite stunned by the fact that exposing crime is seen to be weaking the religion as opposed to actually committing the crime. Anyhow after much thought i decided not to talk about it on TV as it would bring negative publicity to the religion. However what i am interested is in is the following: 1). What has the follow up to this been? I have heard that a "behind closed doors" apology has been made by the culprit but not in front of the Sangat. 2) Secondly i have been informed that the culprit has been asked to repay the amount he stole in interest free instalments. 3) Why has no police report been made in this case. It is a clear case of theft from a charity or an employer. If a thief comes to our house and tries to steal our TV we are on the phone to the police like a shot. This person was allowed to steal from the Sangat for a consistent period of time. Upon discovery no police report was made. Instead this person was told you can pay it back in instalments interest free. 4). This person has not been banned from the Gurdwara. Why not? 5). Last year he was seen serving langar at the Seven Kings Nagar Kirtan. 6). There are rumours that he is a small part in a larger series of frauds. this is not confirmed but has been given as an explanation for perhaps an attempted cover up. 7). Why has this not been covered by any media or any websites? (my apologies if it has). 8). Has anybody living in Seven Kings got any update on this?

WJKK WJKF, I have dealings with Giani's and Granthi's on a daily basis due to their visa problems and have made the following observations and just want to know everybody's views on the subject: 1). I have never seen a single Giani or Granthi till date who has been issued with a single wage slip. Forget a P60....not even one wage slip...i have dealt with over 300 applications. Gurdwaras dont even pay their National Insurance contributions for their own employee. These are not just the small Gurdwara's but even the big ones. 2). The majority of them are brought over from India on visas the conditions of which state they will abide by National Minumum wage, however upon getting here the Giani's NI is not paid by the employer and no wage slip or P60 is issued to a Giani. 3). The common practice is to say that the Gurdwara provides free food and accomodation to the Giani as part of his salary package. From my knowledge langar is free to everybody (unless Giani's get special dishes which i doubt). As for accomodation the Gurdwara also benefits as it gets a full time employee guarding the premises. 4). From my personal experience many Giani's dont even get paid more than £80 per week (i have seen some on £40 per week). Out of this the Giani is expected to maintain himself and his wife and children back home. Try feeding a family of 4 on £80 per week. 5). Many people complain that Giani's who come from India work elsewhere and do other jobs. I would suggest the reason for this is the low wages given to them. If they got minimum wage they would not need to work elsewhere. 6). Unfortunately i have also seen many cases of where these Giani's have actually been charged in India by some committee members in order to get a visa. I was once sat in the British High Commission in New Delhi and personally saw 4 Jatha sitting there waiting to apply. After they all got refused they came to me for advice and it turned out none of them were Ragi's at all. In fact they had agreed to pay the Pardhaan of a Gurdwara 8 lakh rupees for each visa (roughly £10,000). One of the applicants bechara had been told for the last year to grow a beard and "learn some path" by the Pardhaan. I have a witness to this event as seated next to me was the owner of a famous UK based punjabi radio station. Even he was shocked. My points are 2 fold: Firstly we complain about the quality of Giani's and Granthi's however nobody has ever exposed the situation or fought for the rights of them (i recently did a show on Sukh Sagar Radio about this and exposed a few home truths). How are we expected to get top quality employees in any field if we are unwilling to pay them the appropriate salaries (forget expected salaries they dont even get minumum wage). What actually is happening is akin to bonded labour where a Giani is promised to be made permanent in the UK in return for ignoring his basic employee rights. Secondly we complain about many things however how come nobody complains about the immigration fraud openly carried out by the Gurdwara committees over the years? Where has all of this money charged from potential Giani's to come to the UK gone? In order to sponsor a Giani letterheads of Gurdwaras have been openly misused. The Same letterheads contain quotes from the Gurbani on them. The Gurdwara has become a source of earning money from potential immigrants. If anybody was expected to survive in the UK on £60 a week and bring up a family and work full time then surely any person would look for alternative employment. However the Giani's cant even do that because they are tied down to their Gurdwara for up to 5 years. Please note i am not saying that all Gurdwaras engage in these practices but the majority of the ones i have seen have done in the past and these include some big Gurdwara's. I may be worng in my points however i only comment on my own experiences and dealings with Giani's and Gurdwaras. I would love to hear what Gurdwara committees actually have to say on this issue.

Yes the Sikh TV team seem to be a good set of lads and seem to have a fresh youth orientated outlook. So really looking forward to it actually.

WJKK WJKF I would just like to add that the Giani at Grays Gurdwara, Giani Rashpal Singh ji, is a fantastic person. I do not believe he would have had meat or sharaab served on the wedding of his children. I have known him since i was a child and have a huge amount of respect for him as do the youth in the Grays area. Anything said against him should be backed up with evidence otherwise it's pure slander and libel. Fight the fight on the issues and please refrain from defaming innocent people who have spent their whole lives devoted to Sikhism such as Giani Rashpal Singh Ji otherwise back it up with proof. Thanks

WJKK WJKF I had the opportunity to actually visit Grays gurdwara yesterday for the occasion of an Akhand Path and actually spoke to members of the committee as to what actually happened. I think it is important that before anybody comments on the issue that all parties involved are spoken to. Also i would like to add that the following comments are observations of the local sangat (those for and against the party hall) and of the committee members. I asked them about the history of the Gurdwara to which everybody agreed that it was made around 1975ish and a lot of the funds donated to raise it were given on the condition that a hall was made there as at that time in Grays there was no hall for parties in the vicinity. Grays gurdwara covers the regions of Grays, Rainham, Purfleet, Dagenham, Romford, Hornchurch, Upminster, Aveley and other small villages in the region. The next Gurdwara in the region is at Barking or Dartford. Anyhow the hall was used in the years goneby for parties mainly for the girls' weddings in the region. In recent years the Grays people have began to use Civic Town Hall (Blackshots Lane) for their wedding parties. It is true that meat and alcohol have been served on the premises. I have been to many weddings and parties there where this has been done. In the past there used to be a double door that led from the toilets behind the langar hall into the party hall. And i believe this has been the key issue. That in the past the hall was seen to be a part of the Gurdwara. However when i inspected the hall yesterday it is very apparent that the hall is closed off from the Gurdwara. The whole back wall where the double doors used to be is a solid brick wall. In the hall there is a fire exit which leads out into a narrow alley which adjoins a working club. The main entrance of the hall is facing towards the Morrisons car park. I asked the committee and the sangat (no preference just random members) about the recent events and they had the following observations to make.....please remember these are not my personal views but of the local people that were expressed to me in about an hour's conversation with them yesterday. 1. The Sangat members were divided on the issue of the hall. The main consensus was that the decision should be made by the Sangat exclusively. They also felt that perhaps the hall should have a different name and should be registered as a Punjabi Community Centre rather than under the Gurdwara Sahib itself. 2. The Sangat also expressed the fact that they had paid £600,000 to refurbish and rebuild the hall and that at that time this issue was not brought up. Had it been they might have decided to use that money elsewhere. 3. The Sangat were also on the main opposed to outside interference on the issue (including mine) even though i was brought up and bred in the area for over 30 years of my life. They felt outside elements were there to stir up trouble. 4. I asked about the attack on the Singhs and the Sangat who were present confirmed that nobody was attacked but what did happen was that one woman did grab the wrist of a Singh. The reason the women claimed for this was that they claim the Singhs were making videos on their phones which included women and girls and that this was upsetting the women in the Sangat. They also claim no permission for this filming was obtained. The Sangat intervened and there was no bloodshed. The Grays Gurdwara has CCTV and the whole thing is filmed on CCTV the tapes of which they asked me to view (i couldn't due to lack of time). I asked them if they were willing to make these tapes available and they said they would. 5. The Sangat for some reason also seemed upset that the Singhs in question wore jeans ( i dont know how this is relevant but it was a comment thrown about). 6. The senior member of the Gurdwara Mr Keval Singh i believe said he was more than happy to talk to anybody on the issue if they contacted him. 7. It was also confirmed that in the meeting the Singhs were not agressive and sat there with shanti however it is also confirmed that unauthroised filming was going on which may have agitated things. I dont know to what extent this is true. 8. It was also pointed out that in the last 2 Days Grays Gurdwara has received anonymous threats to burn the hall down and other threats from people who were using witheld numbers. The main issue here seems to be that the Sangat actually want the hall despite the majority of the committee not wanting it. There is a direct conflict between the committee and the Sangat. The Sangat of Grays voted on the issue and the committee i assume has to abide by it. There was also a suggestion that 4 committe members family members influenced the vote but i was also informed by the 8 committee members that their families were also present and one would have to assume that 8 families number more than 4. The issue once again here is the Sangat. I spoke to members of the committee and the sangat and they all confirmed that meat and alcohol had never entered the diwan or the langar hall areas. The Gurdwara is next to a club where alcohol and cigarette are used sometimes right outside the entrance of the Gurdwara however this seems to be a location problem. I did make the following suggestions: That the hall should not be registered in the gurdwara name. It should have a separate trust and name and definately should not be called "Grays Gurdwara Hall". It should be totally separate in terms of access points to the Gurdwara. I did also ask the people there that if closing the hall was an option to which the general response was "yes pay us back our £600,000 and we will actually sell it you or any organisation" so the offer is there if anybody wishes to avail it. I hope some of these comments have been able to shed some light on the issue. I am impartial in this matter and take no sides. All i have written here is what i observed and was told by Sangat and committee members in my 2 hours visit to Grays Gurdwara yesterday. I do not vouch for the truth of what i have been told however can vouch for what i have seen there. I would suggest that anybody who has any issues should go to the Gurdwara and speak to the committee members and more importantly the Sangat in order to get an idea first hand of what has happened or what has been happening. Also i would like to make clear that i do not have extensive or vast knowledge of Sikhism nor do i claim to do so. I use this site in order to learn about my religion and find it very helpful in terms of knowledge and of learning as to how people think. WJKK WJKF

This has been going on for ages there...i used to live in Rainham, essex for years and have been to loads of parties and weddings at grays gurdwara.....it's true that there is a hall on the premises in which meat and alcohol is allowed....it is downstairs towards the back of the building however in the olden days when people were getting their daughters married off and halls in that area were available of affordable it was an option....i dont know whether parties are still held there or not but the last one i went to there a few years ago definately had meat and sharaab there....i suppose the best thing to do is to let the local sangat decide...

Also there is a youth group that meets in the evenings at the Ramgarhia Hall on southall broadway....you should contact somebody called Sukh Singh Dhillon on facebook...he's a really good lad....was telling me a fewq weeks ago about some martial arts classes they are starting soon...

I've just logged onto my account on here to see that a fake account under the name of H Bhangal is operating. this doesn't surprise me as i have recently criticised the owners of the Sikh Channel on air. This is my real account. i am registered under harjapbhangal. It just goes to show how low people can go to try to make somebody out to be somebody they are not. I am no enemy of our religion. Indeed if anything i try to expose it's weaknesses and get the youth involved into our religion. I have recently featured the likes of Sukh Dhillon from SWAT on my TV programme and Tony Bains from Leicester. We also filmed Southall Nagar Kirtan in Southall yesterday and are filming Slough Nagar Kirtan on this Sunday. I have personally (from my own pocket - not channel funded or public funded) given awards to Sikhs that have never been recognised before, the likes of Ajit Singh Multashi, Ustaad Kulvinder Singh from Shin Kin, the Scottish Sikhs who raised over £70,000 for charity by running marathons, Hardip Kaur Sidhi who raised over £200,000 for charity by rowing the Atlantic. I am first and foremost an immigration lawyer. The only reason i talk on issues relating to our Community (not only our religion) is because i see injustice done and see that it is ignored. This friday i openly talked about how illegal immigrants are not allowed to become members of certain gurdwaras or even get married there. They are being used as political pawns. I beleive i have some people who i expose as enemies. I would request the administrator of this site to delete the fake account of H Bhangal. This is my only account. It is directly linked to my personal email. I only have one email address. the administrator will find that the H Bhangal account is not linked to my address. In fact this has become a good topic for next show on Monday. Hates amongst Sikhs and attempts to character assassinate on websites. And also the daleri of some people who have to create fake profiles. WJKK WJKF Panth ki jeet and above all Sachaayi ki jeet. Reminds me of something a person once quoted to me: Farida teri Chopri Gal katayan ke paas, (somebody asks baba farid your house is next to a butchers) He replies "karan ge so bharan ge, tu kyon paye udhaas (those who do will pay for it, why are you upset?)

check this out......http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/in-practice/sdt-decisions/davinder-singh-bal