A turban’s sanctity

Canada’s Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development faced what many other Sikhs have over the years — the highhandedness of an agent of the U.S. Transportation and Security Administration (TSA). Navdeep Bains was asked to remove his turban. This despite the revision of the screening process in 2007 that allows people who travel with headwear, such as turbans, to keep it on while going through airport security. The minister has only recently made public an incident that took place last year to generate wider awareness of the issue.

Bains says that he does not normally tell people about his position that entitles him to diplomatic status. He believes that such a search would be an intrusion into his private life. This feeling would find resonance with everyone who wears a turban, which is not just headgear, but an integral part of a Sikh’s attire. As such, any requirement of removing it is unacceptable. Security considerations are there and must be kept in mind, but they should always be tempered with sensitivity towards travellers. The minister has rightly taken exception to the fact that only his diplomatic passport resolved the matter. “That should not be the case,” he asserts. Indian Sikh diplomats too have suffered. In 2010, it was the Indian Permanent Representative to United Nations, Hardeep Puri. A sari too can trigger an aggressive response, as happened with Meera Shankar, Indian Ambassador to the US, who was infamously patted down in Houston the same year.

TSA agents’ aggressive behaviour hits headlines all too often. Naturally, this only represents a tip of the iceberg since rarely are incidents of intrusive searches reported. Most passengers take the indignity as an unpleasantness they have to endure. This should not be. It must be noted that an overwhelming majority of incidents of agents asking travellers to remove their turban are reported from the US. Surely the TSA can learn from the rest of the world, which shows much more nuanced understanding of the sanctity of the turban in particular and of international travellers’ sensitivities in general.