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NEWS March 6, 2003 Amritsar -- On February 16th two more Sikh women, Tersem Kaur from the UK and Harjit Kaur from Canada, also had a degrading experience of being forcefully refused participation in the sukhasan procession ceremony at Darbar Sahib. This time, two women sevadars, dressed in white salwar-kameez (Punjabi dress) and black dupatte (scarf), forcefully pushed the Sikh women visitors out of the queue awaiting the palki procession. The women were unaware of the February 13, 2002, incident when two UK based Sikh women, Manjinderpal Kaur and Lakhbir Kaur, were similarly forcefully prevented from participating by male sevadaars in the sukhasan procession seva. Tersem Kaur said that, "When we moved into the queue of the male Sangat awaiting the Palki Sahib procession, the male sevadaars insisted that we could not stay in the queue. The male sevadaars then beckoned two women sevadaars to enter the queue to deal with us." "The women sevadaars then pushed us out of the queue when we persisted," she added. "We were unaware of the public interest that had been generated by an incident three days earlier and so we pulled out of the queue." "We only learnt about the earlier incident when we read the newspapers the next day." Tersem Kaur said. The two women mentioned their experience to their relatives in Delhi who put them in touch with Manjinderpal Kaur of the UK who was involved in the earlier incident. Commenting on this latter incident, Manjinderpal Kaur said, "It appears that the SGPC has decided to pitch Sikh women sevadaars against sikh women.” "There is no need to push Sikh women out of the queue of the sukhasan procession ceremony or any seva for that matter," she added. "Until the issue is resolved, civil means of persuasion should be used to deal with the unsuspecting sangat who are unaware of this discrimination." News courtesy VoicesForFreedom.org |