London [UK]: The author of a United Kingdom government-commissioned review of official engagement with people of different faith has reiterated that the British government needs to put in greater effort in dealing with extremist fringe elements.
Colin Bloom, an independent faith engagement advisor to the UK Government who authored the report commissioned in 2019 pointed out that a “tiny aggressive minority” was not representative of the “majority of British Sikhs”.
The UK author’s remarks came after Indian High Commissioner to the UK Vikram Doraiswami was prevented from entering the gurdwara in Glasgow, Scotland.
Bloom took to his social media app X to post, “So that we are clear. The #Sikh Gurdwara committee in a Glasgow Gurdwara put on a community reception to host the Indian High Commissioner @VDoraiswami. A group of out of town Pro Khalistan activists turn up and physically intimidate the local Sikh committee, and try and attack the @HCI_London.”
“High Commissioner in his car, and they film themselves doing it and put it out on their social media accounts. My report “The Bloom Review” highlighted the vast majority of British Sikhs are amazing people, but this tiny and aggressive minority are not representative of them. The UK Government need to do more to deal with these extremist fringe elements,” he wrote.
India has raised the issue with the United Kingdom foreign office and the police, according to government sources.
“Doraiswami was on Friday stopped by a few radicals from entering a gurdwara in Glasgow. The Indian High Commissioner decided to leave instead of getting into an argument,” the sources said.
According to a purported video posted on the Instagram channel of ‘Sikh Youth UK’, a man reportedly a pro-Khalistani activist was seen blocking Doraiswami from entering the Glasgow gurdwara on Albert Drive.
Earlier in April, Colin Bloom said that the problem that a very small group of people are using aggressive tactics to try and encourage Sikhs in the United Kingdom on their pro-Khalistan agenda needs to be addressed while noting that the UK government should crack down on the extremist fringe elements.
In a previous interview with media, Bloom said that there are more people in the UK who “have faith than not”, which is why the idea that faith is dying out and that people are less interested in religion or spiritual things is a myth.
He said the situation in Britain is very different from what was about 50 years ago. The review into faith engagement found the government needs to recognise faith groups as a force for good.
“The problem with this is that there is the overwhelming majority of them, of the nicest kindest and most decent people in the UK. And, a tiny minority amongst them are very aggressive, very loud and not representative of the majority British-Sikh community,” he said.
The latest incident comes amid a diplomatic row between India and Canada over the killing of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar this June outside a gurdwara in Surrey, British Columbia.
