In mid-May 2023 an independent review titled ‘Does Government “do God?”’ was published and launched in the British Parliament and attended by MPs and faith leaders from across the UK. Originally commissioned by Boris Johnson in 2019, the review was carried out by a team of civil servants led by Colin Bloom, the Government’s Independent Faith Engagement Advisor. In the words of its lead author, Colin Bloom:
The report has taken three years to publish. It is approximately 60,000 words in length, with an additional 30,000 words that ended up on the cutting room floor. With over 21,000 responses from one of the largest public calls for evidence government has had, 1 million pieces of data and thousands of other interactions, it has been a reasonably thorough review.
Was the Bloom Review worth waiting for, and will its recommendations ever be put into practice or have any discernible impact on the current state of affairs regarding faith communities in the UK? These are questions that will be discussed by scholars and practitioners in greater detail in a forthcoming issue of Sikh Formations. For the time being, however, it is worth registering why this report is of relevance to the Sikh community in Britain and possibly to other Sikh communities around the world. The main reason is that while the Bloom review managed to say something about the prominent religious communities in the UK, it spent almost twelve pages discussing Sikhism and the UK Sikh community. The disproportionate space given to discussing the Sikh community was not lost on certain sectors of the international news media. For example, a report by The Milli Chronicle, which focuses primarily on Middle Eastern and African affairs, carried the following title: ‘Britain should crackdown on extremist Khalistani elements: UK Faith Advisor Bloom’. Likewise, Indian news organizations such as India Today, also focused their reporting of the Bloom review almost exclusively on the Sikhs. The report by Geeta Mohan in India Today carried the title: ‘Sikhs being let down by small, extreme minority: UK Faith advisor Colin Bloom’. Another Indian paper Samachar focused its discussion on the Pakistan connections of Sikh extremists in the UK, something that was also highlighted in the Bloom review.
Why the Bloom review matters to Sikhs is that it dents long standing efforts in the diaspora to project the Sikh community and Sikhism in a positive light after the events of the late 1980’s when Sikhs were involved in a transnational militant insurgency in Punjab. The review came out barely a few weeks after major unrest in Punjab which we commented on in the previous Editorial. In a forthcoming issue, Sikh Formations will field a series of considered responses to the Bloom Review by scholars, community representatives and activists.