Vibrant, thriving and well integrated, the Sikh community presence provides a valuable contemporary reminder that Hong Kong – from its mid-1840s urban beginnings, through to its extraordinary late-20th century economic successes – was never simply a British-Chinese story.

Various long-domiciled “minority” communities – Parsees, Sephardic Jews, local Portuguese, Bohra Muslims, White Russians, Punjabi Muslims, Eurasians and others, as well as the Sikhs – also played key roles in that emergent Hong Kong success story.

Each made lasting contributions to Hong Kong society, which should not be diminished or disregarded by historically ignorant, deliberately simplistic, short-term political expedience.

Each Sikh in modern Hong Kong can trace an ancestral origin to the Punjab region of northern India.

Early outward migration was partially caused by the Punjab’s own agricultural richness; throughout the 19th century, as irrigation schemes expanded, populations steadily grew and overall living standards rose, only so much farmland remained available within individual families.

Inevitably, some young men sought steady employment and new lives elsewhere, either in India, or further afield in newly established settlements, such as Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai.

Army, police and other disciplined services careers were favoured options for men accustomed to independent, yeoman farmer lives.

These offered a dignified occupation, modest but adequate pay, acceptable living conditions during their years of service, and on retirement, a guaranteed government pension enabled permanent return to their long-remembered ancestral village, somewhere on the plains of the Punjab.

Many, however, never returned there to live, and instead settled in the places, such as Hong Kong, where their entire working lives had been spent.

From those beginnings, Sikhs were specially enlisted for police service in Hong Kong from the early 1840s onwards.

Invariably tall and strongly built, with full beards, Sikh policemen were immediately recognisable by their religiously mandated turban. Incorporated into Hong Kong Police uniform design, turbans continued to be worn until 1951, when uniforms were standardised across all serving ethnic groups.

By 1860, an estimated 1,500 Sikhs – serving policemen, and their wives, children and other family dependents – lived permanently in Hong Kong and direct recruitment from India continued until World War II.

Hong Kong’s police and prison services were combined operations from 1841 until 1853, when a separate prisons department, which nevertheless remained part of the Hong Kong Police Force until 1879, was established.

A completely separate Correctional Services Department came into existence only in 1920; from this time onwards, Sikh men were specifically recruited for either the Police or Correctional Services Department where – with some exceptions – they generally remained for their whole careers.

From 1869, the Police Training School English and Cantonese lessons were mandated for newly recruited Sikh arrivals. Readily embraced as Hong Kong’s real language, Cantonese fluency led to alternative employment opportunities for those who chose to remain in the territory after retirement.

A previous disciplined services career sometimes led to later private security work; pensioned retirement at 55 meant many men could undertake a less-strenuous second career as a guard or watchman.

Less remembered today, for several decades the British Army employed Sikhs to guard the garrison’s ammunition and explosives storage depot on Stonecutters Island.

Because they were prohibited from smoking because of religious teachings, there was no risk of sudden catastrophe caused by a carelessly discarded match or cigarette butt. Sikh men continued in this role until the depot closed in 1994, in advance of the 1997 handover to China.

While disciplined services backgrounds remain a major aspect of many family histories, other civilian Sikh migrants, who came to Hong Kong independently throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, gradually established themselves in various small businesses, such as restaurants and provisions shops.

Participation in a langar – as this communal meal offering is known – profoundly defines the Sikh community to outsiders who have experienced their generosity at first hand.

An abundance of food – simple, delicious and nutritious, all donated and prepared by community members – is given away freely, without distinction or discrimination, to anyone who wants some.

From remote Indian villages, to major cosmopolitan cities such as Hong Kong, the egalitarian goodwill that this communal meal represents – common to every gurdwara – is a defining feature of Sikh communities around the world.

Hong Kong has been greatly enriched over time, in numerous unexpected ways, by the Sikh community’s ongoing local presence.

Do pay a congratulatory visit to the Gurdwara, if you can; a warm welcome, and some absolutely delicious Punjabi food, awaits all who enter in a spirit of friendship and goodwill.