Turbans

A few years ago, it was hip for baby girls to wear turbans. It accentuated their chubby cheeks and their round faces. Luckily, baby fever is easily cured by the fact that these days I get tired just being out in the hot sun without barely moving and that I'm old enough to be a grandmother. 

Twenty years ago, the turban was also a hot topic, together with another head covering; the tudung, when four schoolgirls went to school in their tudung. It was then questioned why Sikhs are allowed to wear turbans when Muslim girls are not allowed to wear tudungs in schools.

The official reason given then, and now, is that the permission for Sikhs to wear turban is a colonial legacy from the British that the government continued not only in schools but also in uniformed vocations like the army and the police and allowance is also given for them not to wear helmets when riding motorcycles. 

If we look further into this practice, we find that the British Indian Army, allowed for local dress to distinguish their Indian recruits from the British. All their recruits- Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims- wore turbans to create a sense of equality. (https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/turbans-tales-history/) A picture of a regiment made up of Indian Muslims wearing turbans can be seen here. Thus the wearing of turbans under the British Raj was not confined to Sikhs.  While foreigners, the British were advanced in embracing local religious practice in their human resources even in the military then. 

Thus, 1. The British embraced not just 'turbans', but local dress across the three main religions in India- Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs. 2. The turban is not a religious symbol of only the Sikhs. 3. Following (1) and (2) the British colonial legacy embraces local religious and cultural dress of not just Sikhs, but also Muslims and Hindus. 

There should thus not be an issue with the tudung? After all, there is no one form of secularism and in the secular UK where the Sikh's wearing of turban is protected by law, "young Sikhs use them as a way to reflect their personality, as well as a symbol of their faith." 
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For futher reading: 

• Heathcote, T.A. "The Army of British India" Oxford Illustrated History of the British Army (Oxford University Press, 1994)
• Duckers, Peter. The British-Indian Army, 1860-1914 (Osprey Publishing, 2008)