Wolverhampton Sikhs win the right to wear the turban on the buses

Who: Tarsem Singh Sandhu, a Sikh bus driver, and Sohan Singh Jolly, president of the Shiromani Akali Dal UK, against the Transport Committee of Wolverhampton Corporation. The Transport and General Workers' Union, the Indian Workers' Association and Sikh temples took part at different stages, and the Department of Employment and Productivity intervened at the end.

What: In 1967 Sandhu came back to the Wolverhampton bus depot after a break of about three weeks wearing a turban and beard. His supervisor said this broke the dress code, and he was sent home without pay. The Global Nonviolent Action Database dates this to June 1967 and South Asian Britain to July. The committee employed 823 drivers, 411 of them Indian, according to the BBC, so the rule touched many men.

Sandhu first asked C. S. Panchhi, a Birmingham Sikh leader, for help, but the committee refused Panchhi a meeting. The Transport and General Workers' Union passed a motion backing Sikh dress, the database says, yet the committee kept the ban, arguing that exempting Sikhs would be unequal treatment. South Asian Britain says unions and community groups turned Sandhu down, so he went to Jolly and the Akali Dal UK.

About 4,000 people marched in silence through Wolverhampton in March 1968, according to the database. South Asian Britain records a march of about 6,000 Sikhs from across Britain, and says Jathedar Santokh Singh organised a march of about 50,000 to the British High Commission in Delhi. Enoch Powell made his “Rivers of Blood” speech on 20 April 1968, which South Asian Britain says strengthened support for the committee. A. K. S. Aujila of the Supreme Council of the Sikhs opposed Jolly's campaign.

Jolly said he would set himself on fire on the Sikh new year: 13 April 1969 in the database, 30 April in South Asian Britain. Fourteen other Sikhs pledged to follow him. On 8 April 1969 an Under-Secretary of the Department of Employment and Productivity visited the committee to warn of the consequences of a suicide. After a two-hour meeting on 9 April (10 April in South Asian Britain) the eight-member committee agreed to a regulation permitting turbans and beards. Its chairman said the original rule had been “reasonable” and that the committee had been pressured.

Where: Wolverhampton, England, with a solidarity march in Delhi.

Why it mattered: Fifty years later the BBC recalled that Sikhs working on Wolverhampton's buses had won the right to wear the turban at work after a long dispute. The database counts the campaign a success after about two years. The campaign combined marches, a union motion, a government department stepping in and a threat of self-immolation, and the committee said it had been pressured into the change.