A Critical Review of Colin Bloom's ‘Does Government “Do God?”’

ABSTRACT

Earlier this year, the British Parliament launched an independent review that was headed by Colin Bloom, titled ‘Does Government “do God?,”’ This review was meant to assess the government's engagement with various faith-based communities. Instead, it turned out to be a rather lazy attempt by the author to classify non-Christian minority communities along his makeshift spectrum of values. This article will revisit Bloom's recommendations and highlight the very dangerous ways in which he endorses state surveillance and violence on communities that deliberately protest government ideals of ‘God’ and ‘godliness’ while upholding western liberal democratic values of ‘free speech and religion’.

KEYWORDS:

• Secularism
• ontotheology
• religious minorities
• Sikhism
• Khalistani

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Some of the criticism of the report was voiced in personal blogs, Sikh websites and media outlets condemning the heavy handed approach towards Sikhs supporting the Khalistan movement. Some of the criticism appeared on websites such as Baaz that are based in Canada, Sikh Press Association that is run by a UK Sikh charity, and Sikh Siyasat News that is based in India. See links to the articles below: Sikh Press Association (2023), Sikh Siyasat Bureau (2023) and Singh (2023).

2 Mandla v Dowell Lee [1983] 2 AC 548, the House of Lords in the UK ruled that Sikhs are allowed to wear turbans on the basis of their ethnicity and not their religion.