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Novellara

Emilia-Romagna, Italy

A small town in the Po valley with one of Italy's largest Sikh communities, many of them working the dairy farms that produce Parmigiano-Reggiano. Its gurdwara opened in 2000.

Italy holds one of the largest Sikh populations in Europe, and on every estimate the largest after Britain’s, but nobody has counted it. Italy publishes no census figure for Sikhs, so every number is an estimate, and the estimates run from about 100,000 to about 220,000.2,3,4 They differ because of where they come from. The research centre CESNUR puts the figure at about 100,000, and academic estimates from 2012 and 2013 sit near that low end, at about 84,000 to 115,000; the higher figures, 150,000 to 220,000, are press reports from 2017 to 2023, which often repeat one another, and some trace back to community event organisers.2,3,4

Most Sikhs in the Po valley work in agriculture, mostly with cattle, and the province of Reggio Emilia has the highest rate of Indian immigration in Italy.1 Parmigiano-Reggiano production needs cows milked twice a day, every day of the year. The BBC reported that in the 1980s many Italians were turning away from the work, and that the majority of the Sikh men who arrived then chose dairy farming; the job usually comes with a house next to the farm.1,6 Rossi concludes that Sikhs work in dairy for historical and economic reasons, not from any natural or ethnic vocation.1

Novellara, in the province of Reggio Emilia, holds one of the largest concentrations. Its gurdwara, built with the community’s own money and private donations, was inaugurated in 2000 by Romano Prodi, and stands in the town’s industrial estate among warehouses.1,6 A 2024 research note counts 58 of Europe’s 140 gurdwaras in Italy and says about 95 percent are in reused buildings.3

The claim sometimes made that Novellara’s was the first gurdwara in Europe is wrong: London’s Khalsa Jatha dates to 1908. The sources read for this entry do not establish that it was the first gurdwara in Italy, so this entry does not say so.1,3

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Sources

Numbers in the text link to the work the claim rests on. Naming a work is not the same as checking every sentence against it; how entries are checked.

  1. Emma Rossi. Sikh immigrants in Northern Italy. A case-study: Novellara (RE), Italy. Global Research Forum on Diaspora and Transnationalism (2018). an academic case study of this specific community
  2. Sikhism in Italy. Wikipedia. used only to list the press figures; the population figures here come from the sources above and below
  3. Silvia Omenetto. EU-funded research kicks off on Sikh temples, social inclusion and urban space. V-Theo project (2024). Project note, 1 October 2024: 'In Italy, approximately 100.000 Sikhs reside and work, according to CESNUR'; 58 of Europe's 140 gurdwaras are in Italy; about 95 percent are in reused buildings
  4. Barbara Bertolani. The Sikhs in Italy: a growing heterogeneous and plural presence. in Globalizing Belief, Localizing Gods, Brill (2013). p. 75 an academic estimate of at least 84,000, quoted second-hand; academic estimates of 2012 and 2013 run from about 84,000 to 115,000
  5. Sikh identity, England and Wales: Census 2021. Office for National Statistics. 524,140 Sikhs by the religion question, England and Wales
  6. The Sikhs who saved Parmesan. BBC News Magazine (2015).