Sikhs of France and the United Kingdom: A Powerful Diaspora and the Quest for Recognition

The book provides a historical analysis of how India and the Sikh community have been situated within the international relations policies of the UK and France. It focuses on the turban campaigns, legal challenges, and lived experiences of Sikhs in both nations, offering new insights into diaspora identity, state policy, and integration.

The book features first-hand interviews, case studies, and legal documentation, as well as historical newspaper archives that illuminate the Sikhs’ struggle for recognition. Readers will gain a deeper understanding of the differing legal and cultural landscapes that shape the lives of Sikhs in the UK--where exemptions have enabled them to freely express their religion--and France, where strict secularism curtails, or banishes it. These contrasts reveal how national set-ups exercise control over and impact identity, cohesion, and civil rights, equipping readers with nuanced knowledge of migration, religious freedom, and international law.

A comparative study of the Sikh diaspora, the book will be essential reading for scholars and students of Sikh studies, British and French history, law, sociology, international relations, and migration or diaspora studies. It will also appeal to policy makers and activists interested in multiculturalism and human rights.

Andrew Milne is Senior Lecturer at the University of Bordeaux-Montaigne, France. He worked for nearly thirty years at Sciences Po Toulouse, and he completed a two-year post-doctoral research project on the migration of English-speakers to the city of Pau, in the Southwest of France, using oral history methodology at the University of Pau and the Pays de l’Adour. He successfully completed his Ph.D. in 2021 at the University of Toulouse II-Jean Jaurès, with the Doctoral School of Arts, Literature, Languages, Philosophy, and Communication. His research was supervised by the Contemporary British Studies Professor Vincent Latour, and his doctoral thesis was entitled ＂Exploring Aspects on both Sides of the Channel: A Comparative Case Study of the Sikhs in the United Kingdom and France＂. He has written and edited a number of books related to the question of national identity, as well as on British and Commonwealth histories. His main research interests are related to immigration, in particular of the Sikh diaspora to both France and the United Kingdom, collective memory, nationalisms, and national identities. He is a member of the CLIMAS [Cultures and Literatures of the English-Speaking World] research centre at the University of Bordeaux-Montaigne. He also belongs to the CRECIB, the Centre for Research in British Civilisation, and the SAES, the Society of Anglicists of Higher Education.