Tarsem Singh Sandhu

Tarsem Singh Sandhu is the Sikh bus driver whose dispute with the Wolverhampton Transport Committee began the campaign that won Sikhs the right to wear turbans on the town's buses. South Asian Britain says he had been hired as a driver after his uncles pressed him to cut his hair. BBC News, in a 2019 report republished by Asia Samachar, says he started work for the committee at 23, when it employed 823 drivers, 411 of them Indian, and that his refusal to remove his turban or shave his beard set off a row that spread internationally.

The suspension: The Global Nonviolent Action Database says that in June 1967 he returned from a three-week break wearing a turban and a new beard, that his supervisor judged this a breach of the dress code, and that he was sent home without pay. South Asian Britain, which says he came back from an illness, dates his suspension to July 1967. The database says C. S. Panchhi, a Birmingham Sikh leader, took up his case. South Asian Britain says trade unions and Sikh community groups rejected his request for support, so he turned to Sohan Singh Jolly and the Akali Dal, and together they organised a march in Wolverhampton. After about two years of marches, a union motion and a threat of self-immolation by Jolly, the committee agreed in April 1969 to allow turbans and beards.

Looking back in 2019, BBC News reports, he said that someone has to take a stand when something is wrong and put it right, and that he was proud he had done so. He recalled that when he first wore his turban at work colleagues mocked him, and that he could not see anyone in Wolverhampton at that time wearing one.

Key moments

• June or July 1967: sent home for wearing a turban and beard.
• March 1968: a silent march of about 4,000 through Wolverhampton (the database).
• April 1969: the Transport Committee agrees to allow turbans and beards.

Known for: Being the driver whose stand started the Wolverhampton turban campaign. BBC News recalled in 2019 that Wolverhampton's Sikh bus workers won the right to wear the turban at work.