NEW DELHI, September 05, 2004
The Indian Express
Even as National Security Advisor J.N. Dixit said he
got a positive response from his French counterpart
on the contentious issue of the Sikh children being prohibited from
wearing turbans in public schools in France, officials in the National
Minority Commission informed that the ban has already come into effect
from September 1.
It was Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who said during
his visit to Amritsar that he had rushed Dixit to Paris and that he
expected the issue to be resolved soon. Dixit
told The Indian Express that along with other issues, he had taken up
the subject of the ban on children wearing turbans in school with Maurice
Gourdault-Montagne, the diplomatic advisor to President Jacques Chirac.
I found him (the diplomatic advisor) to be very responsible
during the discussions. He said he had taken note of the Indian request
and that they would be responsive to the sensitivities of the Sikhs,
Dixit recalled. He said that the Prime Minister had asked him to raise
the issue of the ban in France during his August 21-25 visit after a
delegation of NRI Sikhs had met Manmohan Singh and asked for his urgent
intervention.
Despite such assurances from Singh and now from Dixit,
Chairman of the National Minorities Commission Tarlochan Singh said
they had no word of a turnaround from the French Government. Sikhs
all over the world have been agitating over the issue and I have received
information from Sikhs in Paris that the ban has been imposed from September
1. We are now trying to verify whether Sikh children have been attending
school or not, he said.
Ever since the French Government introduced the legislation
in February banning children from wearing obvious religious
symbols to school, Sikhs all over the world have been agitating
over the ban. The decision of the Prime Minister to rush Dixit as his
special emissary to Paris to find an answer to the tangle was seen as
a last-ditch effort of the Indian Government.
Dixit, of course, clarified that the issue was only
one of the subjects he raised with Maurice Gourdault-Montagne. He said
cooperation with France on defence, space and nuclear engineering were
also taken up by him during the meeting.