DailyMail

Regardless, Wales, Scotland, NI are negligible compared to Birmingham. Every town/city is apart from London. 

The Sikh population is approximately 420,000 in the UK (2011 Census). Of those, approximately 120,000 live in London. 

I'm surprised that Birmingham has only 32,000. This will be greater than Leeds and Manchester, which have far fewer Sikhs than Birmingham. It makes you wonder, where are all the other 270,000 Sikhs then? There cant be more Sikhs in Wolverhampton, Gravesend and Leicester (50k each) than in Birmingham? 

32,000 is nothing. I don't think there are only 32,000 Sikhs in Birmingham, that can't be right. No way.

There are only 32,000 Sikhs in Birmingham?

West London Singh is going LA South Central..! 

4 hours ago, Premi5 said:

How does Sikhi in Malwa currently compare with in Doaba and Majha? 

Sikhi in Doaba is weaker than in the other two regions, so I am told.

What a pointless thread. Utter nonsense.

Daily Mail...where are you when I need you mate

Lol

2 hours ago, InderjitS said:

Going there tomorrow hopefully will report back, if the pedestrian access is not closed the car one from that side will be.

It's been closed to traffic for over a decade at least. But I thought it was always open to the public.

12 hours ago, Guest Jagsaw_Singh said:

What happened to the Hibernia Rd Gurdwara was nothing short of a bloodless coup. Slowly, over time, the rich business class families from Delhi started to dominate the committee and the result is that it is now the most Indian government friendly major Gurdwara in the UK.

Overtly, yes it may be Indian govt friendly. But I'd rather it was that way round. There are other gurdwarae, including Southall and elsewhere, that project a panthic or Sikh nationalistic agenda but are in bed with the Indian govt behind the scenes. At least I know where I stand with Hibernia Rd.

6 hours ago, Guest Jagsaw_Singh said:

With Southall gurdwara shifting it's major centre to Park Avenue (Nama Southall) , Hounslow residents losing that cultural, historical  and geographical affinity and proximity that they had with Prana Southall (Havelock Rd).

Yes, it was always specified whether it was prana southall or not. In our house it still is, occasionally. Prana Southall of course, has changed. The predominant community is Somalian of Afghan and the vibe isn't there. Who remembers Virdee brothers?! I still remember my dad buying all of our Punjabi books from there and I'd buy the odd bhangra cassette! 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the access from Hibernia Road still in use? There are 2 gates. And yes, it'll always be known as Hibernia Rd Gurdwara!

Slowly but surely, Hibernia Rd developed from a hut to a very well run, well-oiled Gurdwara. Of course, it has it's short-comings as do other Gurdwarae.

I think a lot of sangat kept away from Havelock Rd from the late 80's-most of the 90's due to the sheer violence, and with two Gurdwarae in Hounslow, us guys didn't feel left out anyway. 

21 hours ago, Guest Jagsaw_Singh said:

They didn't need a gurdwara there anyway as it's a gurdwara right opposite a gurdwara which in turn is 30 seconds walk from an even bigger gurdwara.

True, it wasn't required. But remember, the Gurdwara that is opposite it actually came about much later. The other, "even bigger" Gurdwara that is 30 seconds away has been there for much longer of course.

Clifton Road Gurdwara! 

I don't go there myself to be honest. Funny enough, we've never been invited to a function there either. I'm not sure how frequented it is. We stick to the Hounslow Gurdwara(s), closer to where we are.

Yes, it was called dharamsala, a word that has gone out of fashion in the post-Singh Sabha era that we find ourselves in. Incidentally, the first British gurdwara was initially called 'Maharaja Bhupinder Singh Dharamsala' (in light of his donation) in Putney, 1911, before moving to Shepherds Bush.

I knew the the IWA had a hand in some gurdwarae but I wasn't aware how profound an impact that they had in the early days. 

Wow. Early Punjabi immigrants certainly drank a lot more than today's generation. In those days, given the racism suffered elsewhere, wrongly, Gurdwara's became a social meeting point as well as a place of worship. Thankfully, behaviour have changed but that's because people drink elsewhere, not because they don't drink at all.

As a kid I still remember the elderly Singh's sitting on the benches next to the King St Mandir, (just outside Havelock Gurdwara) openly drinking in broad daylight. I guess it was the overspill from drinking in the gurdwara?

BhForce,

The Guru's don't want us to revert to the 16th century, with no cars and no technologies. But everything is within moderation. Excessive sleeping, excessive eating - all wrong. Both documented within gurbani. But the Guru's didn't advocate for us to stay awake and starve - get it? 

This therefore begs the question, why the monster cars?

BhForce,

The interesting point to note is that for decades, Sikhs complained that Bollywood mocks Sikhs as dumb, stupid, etc. Now that Panjabi films have taken off somewhat, many scripts show jatts mocking khatris using derogatory remarks. 

No one complains, of course. 

It was Simranjit Singh Mann's Nana ji (Akal Takht Jathedar Arur Singh Naushera) that gave O'Dwyer a siropa.