Dastar

A Sikh turban cannot be removed on request. It covers the uncut hair that is itself an article of faith, it is tied fresh each day rather than put on, and treating it as headgear that comes off for a helmet, a hat, a uniform cap or a security check misunderstands what it is.

The result is that Sikhs in the diaspora have spent seventy years securing accommodations one at a time, in separate campaigns, in separate countries, under separate laws.

• Public transport, United Kingdom. The Wolverhampton bus dispute of the 1960s, over a transport department refusing to employ a turbaned Sikh conductor, ran for years and was resolved in 1969 after sustained campaigning.
• Motorcycle helmets, United Kingdom. The Motor-Cycle Crash Helmets (Religious Exemption) Act 1976 exempted turbaned Sikhs from the helmet requirement.
• Construction helmets, United Kingdom. A partial exemption from 1989 was widened by the Deregulation Act 2015 to cover nearly all workplaces.
• Schools, United Kingdom. In Mandla v Dowell Lee, decided by the House of Lords in 1983, a school's refusal to admit a boy in a turban was held unlawful. The decision turned on whether Sikhs are an ethnic group under the Race Relations Act 1976, and the Lords held they are, which means turban cases in Britain are racial discrimination cases, a route not available in most jurisdictions.
• Policing, Canada. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police permitted the turban with uniform in 1990. The decision was politically bitter, produced petitions and merchandise opposing it, and was upheld against legal challenge.
• Military, United States. Accommodation came through individual litigation and administrative exception before becoming general Army policy in 2017, and questions remain in the Marine Corps.

Two things follow from this list. The first is that none of these rights arrived as a principle; every one was fought for separately, and a win in one country establishes nothing in the next. The second is that the fights were about visibility. A turban is unmissable, which is why it triggered rules written for hats and also why Sikhs have been the most frequently misidentified victims of anti-Muslim violence since 2001, a burden they carry for wearing something that is not Muslim, and which their organisations have spent two decades explaining to people who should not have needed telling.

The dastar exists because of kesh, uncut hair, which is the first of the five articles of faith of the Khalsa. The hair is not to be cut, so it must be kept, and the turban keeps it. A second of the five, the kanga, a small wooden comb, is worn in the hair under the turban, so two of the five Ks are involved in the same act of dressing.

It is tied fresh each day from a length of cloth, commonly five to seven metres, and that daily tying is part of why it is not treated as a hat. A hat is put on; a dastar is made. It is not removed on entering a building or in the presence of authority, and requests to remove it are experienced as requests to be uncovered rather than as matters of etiquette.

Styles carry information. The rounded dumalla is worn in several forms, and the Nihang order wears a large one, sometimes with a chakram, a steel quoit, and other insignia set into it. The pointed Delhi or Nok style is common among Punjabi Sikhs. The Patiala shahi is broad and layered. The keski, a smaller under turban, is worn on its own by many Amritdhari women and by children, and by men under a larger turban.

Colour is largely personal, though certain associations exist: deep blue and saffron with the Khalsa and with Nihang tradition, white with older men and with mourning in some families.

Sikh women may wear a dastar and a significant number do, particularly among the initiated, while others cover with a chunni. The choice is treated within the tradition as open, and the reasoning offered on each side is about equality of obligation rather than about custom.