In a guest post, Professor Satvinder Juss of the Dickson Poon Law School at King’s College London looks at a recent Australian case on the right of observant Sikhs to carry a kirpan.

Western thinking about objects in the physical world is rooted in the concept of essences. Ironically, a Sikh kirpan, viewed from this perspective, deprives it of its essential attributes. A recent Australian decision in the case of Athwal v State of Queensland [2023] QCA 156 [1] highlights the problem. Although the decision is right, it is so for the wrong reasons. What is needed is a more open embrace of the anti-essentialism which characterises Eastern religious thought and which enables the use of religious symbols to be more easily accommodated in the public sphere.

1. The Concept of Essences

Western thinking about objects is rooted in a particular philosophical understanding about things in the physical world. Such thinking goes back to antiquity. It derives from Aristotle’s definition of things in terms of their ‘essences’.[2] Continue reading →