According to the Independent “ After a long legal battle over the wearing of his turban, Ravinder Singh Oberoi is finally fulling his dream of helping to police our streets. As a final flourish, Ravinder Singh Oberoi adjusts the badge on his official issue navy turban before presenting himself to the commanding sergeant, Billy Quinlan, at Pearse Street Garda Station. After the official ‘parading’, setting out the plan for the evening, Ireland’s first Sikh member of the garda reserve unit joins his fellow members as they head out on the beat in Dublin city centre. After this point, anything could happen. Called out to assist in the arrest of a man for public order offences on the quays later in the night, he is unfazed when the man turns to him, and spotting his turban, roundly abuses him, asking: “What the f**k is happening to this country?” Sergeant Billy Quinlan parades Garda Reserve Ravinder Singh Oberoi in Pearse Street Garda Station before going on the beat in Dublin. “Good things are happening in this country,” replies a garda firmly as he leads the man away. “I wouldn’t be worried about it but that’s the first time that’s ever happened to me,” says Oberoi afterwards, shaking his head. “Normally I’ve had guys we are arresting say: ‘Fair play to you, bud’ when they see me.” On his rounds, he is besieged by people asking him to stand for a selfie. He is more than happy to oblige, knowing that he will not be a novelty for ever — nor does he plan to be. Earlier that evening in the Sikh Gurdwara temple in Ballsbridge, he is pleased to be told that a poster he designed is up on the noticeboard, urging other Sikhs to join the garda reserve. “There will be others like me,” he says with confidence. “Volunteerism is something that Sikhs are known for all over the world.” Not that it has been an easy road. In his attempt to join the reserve, the 49-year-old father of two was forced to take on the authorities in a legal battle that spanned a decade. When he signed up to become a reserve in the autumn of 2006, the path had not yet been smoothed out regarding the uniform requirements. The traditional garda cap was still compulsory, meaning no turban. But Oberoi had been assured that it was only a matter of time before turbans would be allowed and, having lived in the UK, he was aware that similar changes had been made there in the 1970s. Three months into his training in Templemore, he was summoned to the Garda Headquarters in the Phoenix Park and informed that, unfortunately, it had been decided he would not be allowed to wear a turban as part of the uniform. The rules would not be changing. “I was shocked and, yes, I was offended,” he says, adding that as an important part of his religion, his turban was not something he could ever contemplate giving up. He met a succession of justice ministers, from Brian Lenihan to Frances Fitzgerald. “They’re all reasonable and they all made promises but nothing happened,” he says. He ended up taking his case to the Equality Authority. It ruled that An Garda Síochána was not guilty of employee discrimination since members of the Garda Reserve were legally classed as volunteers rather than employees, a ruling that was upheld in 2013 by the High Court. When Oberoi sought a Supreme Court appeal, he was told that the Equality Authority did not have the budget for a further challenge. He had all but given up when Garda Commissioner Drew Harris swept aside all obstacles in April 2019, following an internal report that warned the ban could result in legal challenges. The decision also aimed to increase the recruitment of ethnic minorities. Figures from the Garda Representative Association show that just 0.4pc of gardaí, or one in 240, come from an ethnic minority, compared with 6pc in the UK. Oberoi was back training in Templemore, even advising the gardaí on how to acquire turbans in the official garda navy colour, how the badge should be worn and any other requirements that might be necessary in line with the Sikh religion. His only regret is that his father, who died of Covid in India last year, did not live to see him in uniform. He was 82 and had worked in the petroleum industry until the previous year. Growing up in the industrial city of Ahmedabad in the Indian state of Gujarat, Oberoi had dreamed as a small boy of becoming a police officer or of joining the Indian army. He ended up working in IT, moving first to the UK before coming to Ireland for work in 1997. Being young, he did not think about the fact that he was moving to a country with a much smaller Sikh community than Britain. But he found Ireland “strange, positively,” he says. “Strange and weird in the sense that it was very similar to where I had come from [in India]. There is a very family-oriented environment here,” he says. “In the UK they are a bit more fragmented, I think. No one wants to talk to you outside work and your personal life and your work life are very separate. So you don’t make friends in work there. Here, you get to know people — you go for nights out and you go to family functions together with people.” In Ireland, he met Dilmeen Kaur, the woman he would marry, and they now live in Lucan with their two young boys. Dilmeen is involved in her own volunteer work as one of the organisers of the Irish branch of the EcoSikh environmental initiative, which aims to plant one million trees across the planet. In this country, this will involve the planning of a micro-forest of more 1,000 trees in Limerick at the national school in Templeglantine, which is the original cornerstone of Ireland’s links with Sikhism, going back almost 200 years. Though not widely known, this parish in west Limerick was the homeplace of the world-renowned Sikh scholar Michael (Max) Arthur McAuliffe, born in 1838, who converted from Catholicism while in the Indian civil service. His translation of the Guru Granth Sahib, or Sikh holy scriptures, remains in continuous use. When completed, the Guru Nanak Sacred Forest will cover about 250 square metres, with more than 1,150 trees of 11 different Irish native species. The planting of the Limerick forest was postponed due to bad weather and now they are planning for March 12. Oberoi will be among the volunteers in planting the trees. He became an official member of the Garda Reserve in January 2021 and has had many conversations with gardaí, who spoke gratefully of the veggie feasts dispatched by Sikh volunteers to frontline workers at the height of the pandemic. On a Friday night before going on the beat, he is among a small group of the faithful community who have gathered at the Sikh Gurdwara temple in Ballsbridge for evening prayers. The smell of incense hangs in the air and an atmosphere of deep peace descends as an elder volunteer swishes the chaur, made of yak hair, as a sign of respect and dedication, over the canopy that contains the Guru Granth Sahib Ji. A sign pinned at the back of the hall reads: “Keep calm and say Waheguru” which translates as: ‘God is wonderful.’ A procession of song, tambourine and drumbeat ends the prayers — and then a woman doles out portions of karah prashad — a traditional sweetmeat, warm and light as a feather, made of sugar, flour, butter and the mysterious spiritual component of prayer, the woman says. And after a yet larger meal of lentils, rice and chapatis prepared by volunteers in the temple’s kitchen, Oberoi prepares to leave for another busy evening in his busy life that he wouldn’t have any other way.
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