a brother of a Sikh but not Sikh

i think the protests are quite normal. i think you have to see the wearing of the turban the same way in other religions you mostly have a distinctions between people how consider themself to be followers of a religion and people who are really practising the religion. also in christianity for example people are born into it, and mostly through an initial ritual they also become a member of it. but it is not the ritual that makes you really become a real practising christian.
now in sikhism the turban is quite essential to prove that you are a practising sikh because it is part of the five K's. therefor the protests because by not allowing to wear the turban in some way you deprive them of showing their community and also outsiders that they are practising sikhs. for that reason in UK for example sikhs are allowed to drive motorcycles w/o turban.

Hi Volga_Volga, currently my plane of existence is Newcastle, NSW, Australia and today I'm in the mood where I want the hell to get out of here, lol.

Indian "caste" systems are so complex. Each community has it's own rules and other communities don't even know about them unless told or they have studied it.

For example, my Hindi tutor (who is an Englishman and also is a lecturer in Buddhism and Indian studies) got very excited when I said one of my uncles (a Hindu) had married a Christian. He couldn't understand how this had happened. I explained that actually the bride was of the same caste but her grandfather had adopted Christianity but in his caste this doesn't make the person "outcaste", they retain their caste and community and can also go back to being Hindus. So she couldn't marry another Christian in the town as they were all from different castes. Her family wanted her to marry from her community.

but why her father, being a Christian, still felt obliged by the caste system rules? i think Christianity does not recognise (and may be even condemn) the caste system.

the cast system is so embedded in indians thinking that even among christions you can recognize the making of certain distinctions between each other. like this you have for example catholics, anglo indians, protestants, goa christians, etc... it is not that there are no mixed marriages but normally families always prefer to get their children married within "their" branch of christianity what sometimes makes it quite difficult to find a suitable boy or girl since the christian society already is a minority group.

The hair is kept long by Sikhs because (it's one reason) of the concept that God's creation of man/woman is perfect, and not something to be messed about with (such as cutting hair, etc).

If you are born in a Sikh family, you don't necessarily take amrit. Many do. I don't know how it breaks down in terms of people who are Sikh and in India, and people who are Sikh and elsewhere. What I have noticed is that people who convert to Sikhism do take amrit, so that they are "oficially converted." I have not taken amrit, and about 99% of the people I know and have met in my life, have not taken it, yet we all consider ourselves to be practicing Sikhs.

Just for the record: Sikhs aren't supposed to believe in castes. That's why they were all supposed to either have the last name of "singh" for men and "kaur" for women (so that you could not tell caste by the last name). Many Sikhs, however, do talk about all of that caste nonsense precisely because they can't separate out the religion from the larger Hindu based culture in which they are in.

Sorry I took so long to get back on your question, Volga_volga. The answer is that even non-Hindus in India have caste (a community with it's own rules about who marries whom within the community) including Sikhs, Muslims and Christians though it's not "publicized" as it were. And most Indians will not marry out of their community and marriage rules.

I saw an interesting William Dalrymple documentary where he was interviewing Arundhati Roy, the writer. She is from the 2000 year old Marthoma (St Thomas South Indian) community. They worship in a separate church to recent Dalit converts to Christianity. She was very frank about it, it's because the converts are from low caste and the Roy's community believe they are descended from Brahmin converts to Christianity. So a marriage between these two communities wouldn't be likely in India at the moment though both practise St Thomas Marthoma Christianity.

There are many sikhs in california/ canada/ brazil/argentina/ central america that are not indian sikhs. these are latino/ white caucasian CONVERTS to sikhism. many have brothers/sisters that are not sikh.