page_title: Sikhism in Greater Vancouver
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Sikhism in Greater Vancouver / History
caption_attribution_description: English: 1931: Sikhs standing in front of the Queensborough gurdwara in New Westminster, Canada.
context_page_description: Sikhism in Greater Vancouver, is one of the main religions across the region, especially among the Indo-Canadian population. The Sikh community in Vancouver is the oldest, largest and most influential across Canada, having began in the late 19th century. By 1995, Vancouver had one of the two largest Sikh populations in the world that are not in India. In 2003, the Sikhs became the largest group in Greater Vancouver who did not practice Christianity.
  By 2011, there were 155,945 Sikhs in Greater Vancouver, representing 6.8% of the region's population. Hugh Johnston, the author of "The Development of the Punjabi Community in Vancouver since 1961," wrote that "Sikhs are exclusively Punjabi".
context_section_description: At the turn of the century the Mayor of Vancouver did not permit cremation, so when the first Sikh died in 1907 he could not be cremated in the Vancouver city limits. Christian missionaries did not permit him to be buried with whites. Even though the missionaries promoted burial, the Sikhs instead cremated the man in a distant wilderness. This prompted Sikhs to establish their own religious institutions.
  Beginning in the 1930s, within the Vancouver area, many clean-shaven or sahajdhari Sikhs began hanging up their hats and entering the gurdwaras with uncovered heads; this practice was like men removing hats before attending Christian churches. Turbanned or kesdhari Sikhs objected to this practice.
  Until the 1960s Sikh religious organizations were the primary political interest groups of the Indo-Canadian community in the Vancouver region. At that time there were three gurdwaras in Metro Vancouver: the two Khalsa Diwan Society (KDS) gurdwaras in Vancouver and New Westminster and the Akali Singh gurdwara in Vancouver. The political structure of the Sikh community began to shift in the early 1970s since newcomers to politics began vying for influence against established political leaders as immigration increased the size of the community. In 1981 there were 22,392 Sikhs in Vancouver, virtually all of them being ethnic Punjabi. That year, Dusenbery wrote that the maturation of Punjabi Sikhs who were children of immigrants, the increase in immigration, and the rise of gora (White) Sikh converts from Canada and the United States changed the character of the Vancouver Sikh community in the period 1971-1981. Several turbanned Sikhs began criticizing the practice of entering gurdwaras with uncovered heads in the 1970s.By 1977, Vancouver's Sikh community, along with that of the Greater Toronto Area, were one of the two largest Canadian Sikh communities.
  Organizations that favored the establishment of Khalistan began assuming control of Greater Vancouver gurdwaras after Operation Bluestar occurred in 1984. In 1988 Hugh Johnston wrote that in regards to the city's Punjabi community, "being Punjabi is coming to mean, exclusively, being Sikh", and that "it seems likely that Punjabi culture" in Vancouver would be exclusively "an aspect of Sikh identity" and exclude Hindus, who disagreed on the Khalistan issue.
  Around 1995 moderate Sikhs politically challenged more extremist Sikhs in gurdwaras in Vancouver and Surrey. A December 1996 attack on the Guru Nanak temple in Surrey led by extremists and a January 1997 fight occurred.
caption: Queensborough, New Westminster Sikh temple, 1931.
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