FoleshillAndHillfieldsCommunities > SikhCommunity

Our local Sikh community

A personal story

I have no idea about the exact number of Sikhs who live in Coventry but I do know that there is a large Sikh community scattered all over the city. When my family and I emigrated to Coventry from Kenya in the sixties most of the Sikh families were clustered around Foleshill and Hillfields area, affordable places for the first time settlers like my parent with six children. My father, carpenter by trade, came to Coventry first in 1958 saved his hard earned money, purchased a property in Hillfields and then gradually imported the rest of the family to join him. By the year 1962, the whole of my family lived in a four bedroom house, which was always cold, damp and kept warm by an open coal fire. We survived at 38 Wellington Street, for 7 years or so, before it had to be demolished. Now all I hold are the memories of our first ever beautiful family home in this country.

Four decades on, Hillfields certainly had a face lift and most of the Sikh families I once knew in my teenage years have moved on, I can only assume to better places? However I feel there is still a very strong presence of Sikh community in Foleshill and Hillfieds. This could largely be due to work but I feel that the half a dozen of Gurudwaras in the areas does draw the community back to its roots, throughout the year. When we first came to Coventry, there was not any place of worship for the Sikh community. I do remember my mother and her friends use to meet up at each other’s home to carry out their weekly religious rituals. The first ever Gurudwara built in Coventry was on Foleshill Road with a great deal of support from the female Sikh community led by my mother and her friends.

Brief History of the Sikh Religion

The word SIKH simply means SEEKER AFTER THE TRUTH and the main pillars of the Sikh way of life are:

• Meditation on the one Absolute Truth （naam japna）
• Earning livelihood through honest work (kirat karni) and
• Sharing one’s earnings with the needy (wand shakna)

The purpose of Sikhs’ life is to serve the Lord’s creation with love (sewa) in order to achieve salvation.

The Sikh religion came into existence in the 15th century when Guru Nanak, brought up in a Hindu family, introduced revolutionary new ideology for the ordinary Hindu and Muslim population of India. Underneath his simple revolutionary teachings was to build harmony between the Hindus and Muslims and one way of doing just that, Guru Nanak traveled around the country preaching his ideology with his two best friends, one a Hindu and the other one a Muslim. As a child, Guru Nanak stood out as having divine intellect and I do well remember his stories preached to me during my childhood which have been the foundation of my upbringing and my saviour when ever I needed guidance in my life. After, the first Guru followed, nine more, making the total of ten Gurus in succession preaching what Guru Nanak started off.

The tenth Guru, Gobind Singh, introduced the Sikh identity as we know it today. He introduced the keeping of five articles of faith, which are known as the 5 Ks’-

• KESH (unshaven hair for men and women)
• KANGHA (wooden comb to keep hair tidy）
• KIRPAN （Sikh sword）
• KASHEHRA (Sikh shorts), and finally
• KARA (steel bangle).

Guru Gobind Singh also introduced the middle names SINGH (meaning lion) for the male Sikhs and KAUR (meaning Princess) for the Sikh women.

There are about 25 million Sikhs world wide and wherever they are based, they take with them their religion. However, the state of Punjab, which is now divided between India and Pakistan, is their homeland. In the town of Armritsar stands the Golden Temple which is the Sikhs’ holy place, visited by millions as a place of pilgrimage.

The Golden Temple at Amritsar. Click the photo for a larger version

For more about Sikhs and Sikhism, see:

• http://www.sikhs.org/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikh
• http://allaboutsikhs.com/home.php

Coventry's Sikh community: Some general information

The following information, again, is more of a personal account of the Sikh community within Hillfields and Foleshill – just to sort of get something down - DavinderRichards

There doesn’t appear to me to be that many Sikhs within Hillfields, (if there are, they’re hiding from me!!). Foleshill is slightly more populated, with the Sikh population seemingly making up a significant fraction of the community. The presence of Sikhs in Foleshill is especially felt through the position of the Gurdwaras; the main ones being dotted around Foleshill(GNP and Ram Ghuriya for example). The positioning of these Gurwdaras makes Foleshill an important area of Coventry for many Sikhs, and also gives us “central area”, in which many significant ‘sikh community’ events take place.

Many Gurdhwaras, in an effort to preserve the ‘Sikh’ identity among British Sikhs hold:

• Punjabi classes
• Ghatka classes (the martial art of the Sikhs – sword fighting)
• Lessons in classical Indian instruments, and learning how to play Sikh prayers on instruments such as the Harmonium and Tabla.

These classes are aimed at children and adults alike, and bring the community together.