Sedgley Street Gurdwara Mis-Management

Currently the Sikh Forum Wolverhampton are looking into issues of alleged corruption ( abuses of processes ), bullying ( of members of the congregation ), criminal damage to Gurdwara property and discrimination against the elderly and disabled. Whereby concerned members of the local congregation have come together wanting to do seva ( selfless service of the local community ) but have been disgusted and appalled by the behaviour and attitude of some of the main members of the GNSG management committee after having dealings with them.

After approaching the management committee initially with one issue, it soon became apparent to our members that there is a deeply ingrained culture of bigotry, ignorance and short sightedness amongst some of the members of management committee. These certain members have a tendency to bully and intimidate other members into submission or silence if they express any views other than the ones these few members approve of.

So it was decided amongst our membership that the Sikh Forum should take up any matters regarding the congregation and Gurdwara Sahib that were not being addressed by the management committee in a correct or satisfactory manner, as a collective on behalf of the individual congregation members.

The issues causing dis-congruity at the Gurdwara Sahib are as follows:- 

The above letters highlighting all of these issues have been sent to and received by the management committee and all of the letters of concern have been read out in their meetings so none of the members present in those meetings can ever deny, not knowing about any of these issues thus have no legitimate reason for not responding to any of the letters.

In our letters there were several allegations made against certain members of the management committee, which have never been denied or commented on by the management committee. Since the committee have been given more than ample time to reply to these allegations we will consider their silence as an admission of guilt and that this proves that these members are totally impotent and unsuitable for the posts they have been entrusted with.

What is extremely concerning is the fact that the management committee are unable to give any responses to the many letters of concern from the congregation they are supposed to be serving, but certain members are hell bent on strong arming through a multi-million pound building project for which they have proven and admitted in an open general meeting that they are totally inept of running. Yet they still have the shameless audacity to sideline the Sangat (congregation) Elected Building Committee, who were created to run and manage the building project over its full term, due to their professional experience and skills as agreed and passed by the whole congregation. But certain members of the management committee thought it wiser to gamble the project on a lottery process as the building committee had voted against the company of their choice due to providing an incomplete tender.

But why should that stop the project being given to this company as logic and reason go out of the window when these large sums of money are involved, they may as well write the company a blank cheque as he has never committed in writing to any prices.

We call upon the congregation to read this site carefully and objectively as we have not created this site or the Sikh Forum on a whim to get at anybody personally or for any other ulterior motives. We have come to this impasse after all other courses of action and attempts at civilised discourse have failed and we have documented for your ease the whole process that we have gone through to try and engage with the management committee but have been insulted, abused and intimidated by certain members of this committee. 

So not wanting to lower our selves to a level of in-civility, intimidation or violence as being provoked by certain members of the management committee or their associates, we will continue to be peacefully vocal and expose any illegal and concerning actions and bring them to the congregations, relevant authorities and wider communities attention.

Sangat Demands Open General Body Meeting 

As previously mentioned we have already sent many letters asking for answers regarding the issues above, but to no avail. Mr Balbir Singh (President) has point blank stated that he would not answer any letters when he has been asked by members of the sangat.

Having exhausted all avenues of conciliatory diplomacy as per the Gurdwara Sahibs Constitution there is nothing left but to call upon the Trustees to request an open General Body Meeting where matter can be discussed openly in front of the whole sangat.

There have been a great many attempts by various individuals, some from within the management committee and some from outside of the management committee to approach individual members of the Sangat as well as Sikh Forum members to try and bury the matter. At times these requests have been beseeching and at other times intimidatory but have all primarily been for us to withdraw our letters or for our members to withdraw their support.

There have even been lies spread about certain members of the Sikh Forum who have been members of management committees in the past, spread across social media to distract from the issues highlighted by the Sikh Forum. This anonymous letter has neither been signed nor dated or any source given for the allegations given. It is interesting that certain strongly opinionated individuals have responded very loudly towards an unsubstantiated piece of propaganda which has been openly refuted by the very people that have been mentioned in it. They have made unsubstantiated allegations against respected members of the community.

Yet those very same people are conveniently silent in regards to the substantiated issues highlighted by the Sikh Forum. They have decided to comment on why the forum uses a 'Hindu' symbol as it's logo, commenting on the private political affiliations of individual members, as well as starting a smear campaign against a particular politician who has written a letter in support of the Forums work in regards to the raising the issue of Disability Discrimination.

It is a worry that these people choose not to comment on the fact that none of the committee have had any sort of Criminal checks done, as it is suspected that there are people with criminal records in the management committee, and potentially have access to vulnerable adults and children. Especially with recent high profile cases of people in positions of power and trust with access to children, abusing that power, why would anybody be opposed to having these checks done or not demand for them to be done? Could it be because they have something to hide?

If their argument is that the Gurdwara constitution does not make criminal background checks mandatory, or that previous committees have never had them done so they shouldn't have to have them done either, then the sangat would argue that these are not good enough reasons.

The constitution states that all members should be upstanding members of the community and of good character.So even though the constitution predates criminal checks, we feel that there is enough flexibility to make common sense decisions like doing DBS checks for the safety of all the sangat. Also, while mistakes may have been made by previous management committees, this does not mean they should be allowed to re-occur.The Gurdwara Sahib needs forward progressive thinking people in charge as opposed to uneducated bigoted self serving people that cannot even give simple replies to letters from the congregation that they are meant to be serving, as highlighted in the Gurdwara constitution.

This is just one example of the many incompetencies of this committee. So for these reasons we have felt it necessary to write to the board of trustees to call upon the committee to call an open general body meeting. Our letter to the trustees and their reply can be found from the following links.

NOTE: Please note that when you click on the 'Letters from Trustees' Link below there are in fact TWO letters, one to the Sikh Forum and the letter they sent to the management committee. So once you have opened the link please scroll down to read the second letter.

News Coverage of Discrimination Case