Lottery Fund recognises Gravesham Sikhs’ contribution

A 50 year history of Sikh immigrants’ contribution to life in the Gravesham area of Kent is to be described in an exhibition funded by a £36,900 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

The Fund’s regional head Stuart McLeod says it will fill a gap in the social history of a community that has settled and made a contribution for half a century.

Gravesham Historical Society and Kent County Library Service will gather information to find out what it was like to be an incomer in the 1960s.

The migrants’ working lives, cultural and sporting interests and places of worship will be shown in the exhibition, plus memories of their earlier lives in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Organisers the North West Kent Racial Equality Council will create a book and website as well as staging the exhibition.

The equality council’s assistant director Gurvinda Singh says it will tell an important story – especially of the migrants’ early struggles in the UK, where craftsmen and farmers from the subcontinent arrived in search of a wage that could support their families back home.

The emergence of the Sikh community is now proudly symbolised in Gravesend by the £12.5 million temple, the Sri Guru Nanak Darbar Gurdwara, one of the largest outside India, which opened for worship lin Clarence Place last July after seven years work.

It can house 1,200 worshippers, from the UK’s second biggest settlement of Sikhs.

The gurdwara website give an idea of how the community grew.

It states: “Prior to 1955 weekly congregations were held at the house of Charan Singh (site now occupied by a shopping centre), after this time the size of the congregations grew to the extent that a house was purchased for worshipping in Edwin Street.

“The building that is now the Sri Guru Nanak Darbar Gurdwara was purchased in 1968 and immediately became the focal point of the Sikh community. The building has over the years had extensive building work done to it (all financed from donations) and now there is no mistaking it for anything other than a gurdwara.

“Not only has the gurdwara been the focal point of spiritual activities, it has also been heavily involved in sporting activities. There has been a Guru Nanak FC (football club) team and Kabbadi team for over two decades, during which time both have won many trophies and participated in hundreds of events.

“As well as the main gurdwara, the committee has now purchased (99 year lease) another site not too far from the main building. This new site now not only has a gurdwara it also boasts a fully equiped gymnasium together with playing field and car park. To illustrate the amount of influence the community now has, the local council has named the road this new site is situated on Khalsa Avenue. In additional, in 1997 Gravesend had Kent’s first Sikh mayor.”

More information about the exhibition from the Kent News website on http://www.kentnews.co.uk <http://www.kentnews.co.uk/>