Simratpal Singh, an exemplary soldier, subjected to “extraordinary, targeted, repetitive testing. A federal lawsuit was filed against the United States Department of Defense on behalf of Captain Simratpal Singh, a decorated Sikh American soldier who was ordered to submit to non-standard testing because of his religious beliefs.

Sikh officer, demands that the U.S. military accommodate his Sikh turban, unshorn hair and unshorn beard and abandon its unfair and discriminatory testing. Once the testing is enjoined, Captain Singh seeks a further ruling directing the Army to make his religious accommodation permanent. Only three Sikh Americans have been granted the opportunity to serve full time without removing their unshorn hair and turban since the restrictive ban was implemented in 1981.

“I have so much pride in my Sikh identity and service to my nation,” said Captain Singh in December after receiving his temporary accommodation. “To feel spiritually whole, while continuing my military career, has always been the dream.”

Captain Singh was granted a temporary accommodation until March 31, 2016, to serve in the U.S. Army while maintaining his Sikh articles of faith. On February 26, 2016, Captain Singh was ordered to report on March 1 for additional testing that no other soldier in the U.S. Army has been subject to as a precondition for remaining in the Army, including other soldiers permitted to maintain beards for medical reasons and the previously-accommodated Sikh soldiers. Captain Singh is more than willing to undergo the same safety testing as any other soldier, but he objects to being treated differently on account of his faith.

Captain Simratpal Singh enrolled in West Point in 2006, but was then forced to choose between his religion and career. After failed attempts to obtain an accommodation, Captain Singh succumbed to the pressure of conformity and cut his hair and shaved his beard in an effort to fulfill his childhood dream of serving his country. He then went on to graduate from West Point with honors in 2010.

Nearly ten years later, after successfully completing the Army’s grueling Ranger School, earning a Bronze Star for clearing roads in Afghanistan of explosive devices, and receiving numerous other military accolades in various positions, Captain Singh’s one regret was compromising his religion in order to serve his country.

Captain Singh began maintaining his Sikh articles of faith and filed an accommodation request on October 21, 2015. On December 9, 2015, he was granted a temporary 30-day accommodation to serve while maintaining his Sikh articles of faith. This accommodation was extended until March 31, 2016.

“Captain Singh is being subject to discriminatory testing that isn’t required of any other soldiers, even those with medical or religious accommodations. The Army cannot delay in providing him his statutory and constitutionally mandated right to an accommodation to serve as an observant Sikh in the Army,” said the Sikh Coalition’s Legal Director, Harsimran Kaur. The Sikh Coalition represents Captain Singh along with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and the law firm of McDermott Will & Emery.

The Sikh Coalition also represents the three previously accommodated Sikh clients with the law firm of McDermott Will & Emery.

“Captain Singh is a decorated war hero. The Army should be trying to get more soldiers like him, not banning them from serving or punishing them for their beliefs,” said Eric Baxter, Senior Counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. “It’s time for the Pentagon to stop playing games and start doing the right thing – for Captain Singh, for Sikh Americans, and for all Americans.”

~Source- sikhcoalition.org

Niranjan Singh, a Christian narrates his experience of how his life changed when he learnt about Sikhi.

My first contact with Sikhi was in 2012. I was doing kundalini yoga as my wife’s cousin had told me she thought it might be good for my stress and me recovering from a smaller nervous breakdown due to long term problems at the job I had back then. It was rather good for me, I loved the meditation in group, I loved the relaxation and to learn to fix my thoughts on one word: “naam”.

The man who made up kundalini yoga, as it was invented in the United States and is not one of the ancient yoga forms, was called Harbhajan Singh, better known as Yogi Bhajan. I started to read about him. The books said that he was a Sikh. That all male Sikhs were named Singh and all female Sikhs were named Kaur. The Sikhi was a religion. Sure, I had read just a little bit about Sikhi before, not very much at all, but I got really curious now.

I have always believed in God. I was traditionally baptized into Christianity as an infant, surely with no say in it whatsoever, however coming from a family that is not very religious at all, I think I make the exception in all my family. When I was 14, I was confirmed but now I protested. I didn’t want to, it didn’t feel right. I did not believe in Christianity, I didn’t buy their concept of God as a distant force that you only have one shot at uniting with, going to heaven as they say. It sounded very illogical to me. Already then I had a strong sense that there was this one great force behind everything and in everything, and it felt so strange that this force would make an effort, create you, expect military obedience – and the renounce you completely and cast you into hell for eternity if you wouldn’t do what is expected of you.

I reacted. For several years, I did my best to imagine I was this hardcore atheist. I must say I was obnoxious to people of faith, especially Christians. I am very ashamed of that today and I hope they will forgive me. But all the time, I had this annoying (at least I thought so then) feeling that God just smiled at me and said to me “don’t worry, one day you will be back”. I couldn’t shake it, it just wasn’t possible.

Anyway, I studied on Sikhi. I instantly loved that Guru Nanak dev ji renounced the caste system and preached equality. It got to me how he worked to enlighten the poor people in the subcontinent telling them not to pay the pandits to make the sun come back during eclipses. I really liked how he travelled around to the most distant places, preaching that no one is a Hindu and no one is a Muslim and that there is only one.The smile I always had felt was suddenly feeling warmer and closer. I decided not to cut my beard anymore, still I kept on shaving my head for a few months more.

I tied a turban for the first time in 2013, just a little while after new years. I sat in front of Youtube with the thinnest bed sheet linnen I was able to find. There are not many Sikhs in my country, and certainly no Sikh shops, so I had no one to ask. Looking at those pics now, I almost laugh, but it felt so right! After that I didn’t cut my hair anymore. There is a sangat in Gothenburg though, Sri Guru Singh Sabha Gurdwara. The man who led the yoga classes took me there. I was dead nervous! My palms were sweating and my knees were shaking as we walked the stairs up to the diwan hall.

But when I knelt before Sri Guru Granth Sahib Maharaj and my forehead touched the floor, the feet of the Guru, the nervousness was gone completely! Just like that. Instead, I had this experience that somewhere deep inside me, a huge key was turned in a equally enormous lock, and there was this clicking sound that echoed in all off me. I had never sat meditating longer before than I did that day, listening to the words of Maharaj. Of course, I knew no punjabi whatsoever, but it didn’t seem to matter, He still spoke to me. The Singhs were poking me to have me go down to langar hall and get some chaa and I did, but soon returned upstairs. I did no more kundalini yoga after that. “The yogi is blind and can not see the way” says the Guru, and yoga has no benefits for a Sikh, at least no spiritual. What Yogis can tell us that the Guru can’t? I stuck with doing martial arts instead and still do.

A saint soldier can not be caught off guard doing sun salutation or kriyas.

I was a Sikh from that day on. Keshdhari for two years until Visakh of 2015 when I was blessed with amrit in Guru Nanak dev ji Gurdwara in Oslo, Norway. Now amritdhari, I would never trade this life as a Sikh for my old one. Sometimes people ask me if I don’t feel held back with a full beard and a turban, but no way I do. Thinking of it, if anything I felt held back before. Denying your true self is to hold yourself back, but that is no more. I live my life as a Swedish Sikh, and yes people stare me down wherever I go someplace I am not known. But didn´t our father Guru Gobind Singh say “My Sikhs will be known among millions”

~ Source: www.sikhtrend.com

Major Rattan is one of only four Sikhs who have received hard-won accommodations in the last decade to serve in the U.S. military full time with their turbans and beards.

Major Tejdeep Singh Rattan immigrated from India to New York as a teenager, and always wanted to serve in the military as a way to thank the United States for the opportunities it has given him. In March 2010, Major Rattan graduated from Officer Basic Training at Fort Sam Houston, making him the first Sikh soldier to do so in decades. After graduating, he completed his residency at Fort Bragg.

He began his service in 2010 as an Army dentist at Fort Drum, but was deployed to Afghanistan in March 2011 through October 2011, where he served in the southern part of the country, most notably at the Forward Operating Base. In recognition of Major Rattan’s superior service to the United States in Afghanistan, he was awarded the Army Commendation Medal and the NATO Medal.

Following his return from deployment in Afghanistan, Major Rattan was re-stationed at Fort Drum, NY, where he currently continues to serve as a general dentist at the Stone Dental Clinic.

Major Rattan’s meritorious service reinforces the fact that Sikhs can and do successfully serve with their articles of faith intact. His success adds weight to our campaign of ending religious discrimination by the U.S. military, which enforces a presumptive ban on observant Sikhs.

Source- SikhCoalition.org

Congratulations to Major Tejdeep Singh Rattan on his promotion from captain to major!