Should Sikh school pupils be allowed to carry ceremonial daggers?

A Sikh’s belief means that they have to have the Kirpan with them at all times. If it is not permitted in school, they cannot go to school. Creating a condition where it is impossible for a child to go to school is the same as violating their fundamental right to an education.

There should not be a situation in which you have to choose between the tenets of your faith and ultimately the foundations of your identity as a person or your right to education. You cannot compromise on your own identity – you can’t only half be you. Neither can you have only half a faith in your religion.

The last thing Britain needs is more religious and cultural tension. We already have conflict with ethnic minorities because of increasingly restrictive immigration laws, the rise of the BNP, generally poor conditions on the housing estates where refugees and asylum seekers with low incomes are forced to live, unjust wars in their homelands that we have been a party to etc. Now we are failing to even negotiate with children by stopping Muslims wearing hijabs, and now Sikhs wearing Kara bangles and Kirpans. No matter who is in the right, Britain will be destabilised and ultimately destroyed by the resulting conflicts unless we maintain order by calming everyone down.

From a security standpoint, nothing should be permitted in schools.

Shoes can be used to beat people, what with martial arts trends taught to children even human hands can be used as effective death machines. A sharpened poked into the jugular vein causes fatal injury.

When Britain banned guns, (kitchen)knife crime escalated, banning knives can mean the escalation of pencilcrime and so on; it`s not a cycle that can really be stopped. Take pencils away and there will be a significant rise in people injuring/killing each other with their bare hands(and they do).

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And the concerns are baseless since this particular kind of knife has not been used in any reported crime.

Canada ruled for this and maybe Britain should too.

We allow the hijab, burkhas, yamakas, turbans, rosaries, tajs, fezes, doppas, kufis, etc.
It is ridiculous that we would ban this when we allow every one else to have personal items to express their beliefs. How does this help the relationships between religions when every one else can have these items but we will deny the sikhs this. This says to the sikhs well they can express their beliefs, but you can not. Banning the kirpan will no doubt create bad feelings between sikhs and other religions.

What counts as a potential weapon? A disabled child’s crutches could be swiped off her/him and used to hit someone over the head with.No more sports(let`s not forget how lethal balls and bats can be).

Children can potentially attack each other with sharpened pencils and scissors and we can’t remove these from the classroom.

A Kirpan is not going to be used as a weapon and a Sikh child is neither going to willingly part with his Kirpan or attack someone with it.

It is no more a weapon than anything else in the classroom that isn’t meant to be a weapon but conceivably could be used as one.(while other things such as baseball bats/sharpened-pencils/guns/bombs/kitchen-knives have reportedly been used as weapons, Kirpans have not.)

It would be more useful to have responsible adults in a school who can control a class and protect vulnerable children. And adults to supervise these adults since attacks by and on teachers are fairly common.

The same could be said about many school rules. Why should a child follow school rules to the letter if he isn’t harming anyone, his grades are good and he can demonstrate that he understands and respects the school as an institution?

This is impossible when(as reflected in the no-argument of this case) the rituals of the school are not the same as the rituals of the Sikh religion.

The rituals of the school are not as old nor as sacred as that of the Sikh religion nor the constitution which puts religion before/above the rules of any particular school.

However, all of that is irrelevant since the/a school did not ban the traditional knife, a concerned parent filed a lawsuit.

Sum up: there is no ritual violation , only a concerned parent who is obviously not Sikh and prejudiced because of his/her own perception of how knives are being used in his/her religion/community/society.

There is no reported incidence of this type/kind of knife being used by students in a violent context in Britain or anywhere-else.

An order with strong foundations does not collapse if it takes damage. That schools are currently in a disorganised and unruly state should not be blamed upon Sikh children, it was a problem before they enrolled and is the fault of the management and the Government who do not make good enough educational policies or allow schools enough funding.