A young Singh in the UK has been in the spotlight the last few days after his appearance on a dating television show called “Take Me Out.” I just heard about it a show on BBC Radio 1 hosted by Nihal, which you can listen to in its entirety here. Nihal speaks with Param, the dating show contestant, and takes comments from listeners, who discuss Param’s appearance on the show and more generally whether turban-wearing Sikh men are discriminated against when it comes to dating and marriage. As you’ll see in the clip below, as soon as Param comes out, 20 of the 30 women turn their lights off, indicating no interest in him. One woman who left her light on said she is interested in him because she could use Param’s turban to store her phone.
I recommend checking out Nihal’s discussion on the BBC especially starting at around 44:00 into the show if you don’t have time to listen to the whole thing. One caller named Jasminder asserts that when Param came down, it became more like a comedy show and less like a dating show given how the women and audience reacted. He continues that turban-wearing men often feel invisible to women, not literally, but “when it comes to actually going out with someone.”
Like American Turban, I am a massive fan of comic books, and particularly of the superhero narrative, so I was intrigued by the recent Op-ed piece by Vishavjit Singh of the SikhToons website, titled “Wham. Bang. Pow. It’s time for a superhero to fight hate crimes,” where he suggests the creation of minority superheroes, including a Sikh, to fight moral battles such as hate crimes.
I like the sentiment of Vishavjit Singh’s piece and I’ll address what it seems like he is suggesting at the end of this post. But first, my usual tangent. The issue as I see it is not that “minority” superheroes don’t exist. There are quite a lot of them, covering many ethnicities and religious backgrounds, even Satanism (Ghostrider, anyone?). Most of them are just not developed with as much awesomeness as their white male counterparts. Even the white female superheroes and supervillains are foils to their more powerful, funnier, and wittier male counterparts. Here’s a quick experiment to show you how quickly you run out of steam:
-Name five white, male superheroes.
-Name five white, female superheroes.
-Name five black, male superheroes.
-Name five black, female superheroes.
-Name just one Sikh male or female superhero.
I’m not even bringing sexual orientation, Hispanic superheroes, or the all encompassing “Asian” superheroes into this, and most people will struggle after the second one, and all but the die hard comic book fans who don’t rely on movie adaptations will reach #4. But to name even one Sikh character requires a certain commitment to the lore of comic books– some would call it a lack of a social life, although I would certainly not. I think people like this should be called what they are: extremely cool.
The burning question on everyone’s minds: Is JK Rowling an RSS agent? has finally been answered. Her latest novel, Casual Vacancy features a Sikh family, typical of RSS fiction, who are central to the plot of this novel, and are depicted as the source of morality in this otherwise very dark tale. To promote her anti-Sikh agenda, she integrates Sikh theology and history throughout the narrative, evoking figures like Bhai Kanhaia, Guru Nanak Dev Ji, and refuses to ingrejify or shorten any of the Sikh characters’ names. Sukhvinder does not become Sook; Jaswinder does not become Jazz. But before someone updates their FaceBook status to, JK Rowling is an RSS agent, a few minor details:
In case you don’t know what I’m on about, let me bring you up-to-date:
JK Rowling’s Casual Vacancy came out on Thursday and was initially being lauded by Indian and Sikh media outlets for having a Sikh family at the heart of the novel. But then speed-readers at the Akal Takht and the SGPC zipped through the 600 pager, and by Friday, the President of the SGPC, Avtar Singh Makkar had not only read it and been offended by exactly one line on page 120, but in the spirit of Sikhism, demanded that the one line he found offensive be removed and censored by India’s curiously named “Information and Broadcasting Ministry” run by Sonia Gandhi. Orwell anyone? This is the same censorship board that just banned distribution of Salman Rushdie’s film, Midnight’s Children, because it painted Indira Gandhi in a negative light and invoked India’s anti-defamation law when the Washington Post wrote an article calling Manmohan Singh hopelessly ineffectual. The World’s Largest Democracy is currently in the midst of trying to ban internet sites and FaceBook fan pages with blasphemous names like I hate Sonia Gandhi (I just liked all 8 fan pages, even the misspelled ones).
In case you have been in a cave with no wifi access for the past few days, here is what happened on Sunday: a “gunman” entered the Gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin and killed six sangat members, including the President of the Gurdwara who tried to tackle the “shooter” armed with just a butter knife (check out story in L.A. Times here). I won’t delve into details about what happened, or where vigils are taking place, but will touch upon a different aspect of the question of “what now?” There are some excellent articles and blog posts that address these issues, including Santbir Singh‘s aptly titled post, “Where Do We Go From Here?” and Sundari’s post on Information and Resources here on The Langar Hall.
I have been at Sidak 2012 since Saturday evening, and we all heard about what happened in Wisconsin towards the last few minutes of morning Divan. Our first Divan, so it hit especially hard. Like many of you, we have all been glued to Twitter, Facebook, and have been watching the almost non-stop coverage on news channels all over the world, from CNN to BBC where they are even pronouncing “Sikh” properly. I thought it was great when Obama came out with a statement and ordered the flags be flown at half staff until August 10th as a mark of respect. This has also been a topic that we’ve been discussing as a class with some very insightful ideas and ethical questions being brought up. What made the discussions at Sidak so interesting is the diversity being represented. Some are well versed in Gurbani, while others have limited understanding of it. There are Sikhs here from all over the U.K., North America, India, and some even trace their roots to Afghanistan and Africa. This has brought about some varied perspectives on everything from metal detectors and guns in the Gurdwara to the point of educating the larger “American” community about Sikhs as a method of deterring future hate crimes. Here is a snippet of two quotes from our discussion:
“Crazy people don’t come to interfaith events.”
“A metal detector wouldn’t have stopped this guy, who didn’t go through the farce of sneaking a gun into the Gurdwara. He would probably have just shot whoever was manning the metal detectors.”
“But, when you have a beard, a mustache, it’s like a mask. You can’t see the person’s face. It’s hidden.”
As disagreeable as the words sounded, my friend’s tone was very gentle and civil. It was almost as if he was asking me the question: why bother?
I was a nine-year-old Sikh boy with a little mustache fuzz and a patka (a Sikh boy’s headcovering), speaking with the clean-shaven teenaged Hindu boy next door whom I befriended on this extended trip to India. I would often play games with his younger brother, but with this older brother, our interaction usually took the form of conversations about our different cultures and religions.
His point about hair left me somewhat at a loss. I remember his facial expression after he made his statement – curiously waiting for a response that I would not have.
Later that evening, I presented this argument to my father. “He said people can’t see our true faces because of the hair on our face.”
My father didn’t take a second to respond. “This is my face”, he said very matter-of-factly, “this is how a man’s face naturally looks.”
The last few weeks, Sikhs around the world have been celebrating the anniversary of the birth of the Khalsa. I intended to do a Vaisakhi post earlier, but travels have kept me from sitting down and writing down some of my reflections until now. I have found myself in small and medium-sized towns throughout the midwestern and southern United States these last two weeks, feeling my outward identity as a Sikh projecting more conspicuously than ever.
NYC's Annual Sikh Day Parade
Consequently, I began thinking a lot about the significance of the Bana that Guru Gobind Singh gave us in 1699. What a fearless, defiant act of revolutionary love it was for Sikhs to wear their identity so visibly in a time when they faced such severe violent repression. A time when it was dangerous to be a Sikh, where being a Sikh meant you were an enemy of the empire, a threat, where there was a price on your head, a target on your back. Yet rather than blending into Indian society and building its movement for sovereignty and justice subversively, the Khalsa wore its identity loudly and proudly so everyone knew very clearly who a Sikh was.
I think about this today as more and more of cut our hair because we can’t take the torment of bullying in schools any more or trim our beards so we look more “professional” at our corporate jobs. Bana seems to have lost its appeal to many, for an ever-expanding list of reasons. Looking back at our history, it never has been easy. And perhaps that is part of the point. I wouldn’t wish the traumatic experience of racist harassment on anyone, but I know very well that I wouldn’t be the person I am today without all the struggles I have dealt with because of my Sikh identity.
About ten years ago, I was in Amritsar, Punjab, visiting family and had been invited round for dinner at a relative’s house – a member of the Punjab Police. He told me about a man he had to have a stern talking to earlier that week, but did not arrest because it was a “family matter.” The man, in his 30s, had broken into his uncle’s house to steal a cow tranquilizer. Everyone in the room, including myself, laughed at the absurdity of the crime. When he revealed that the man had injected the cow tranquilizer into his leg to get high, and that this was a “growing problem in Punjab” – his exact words in Punjabi – we were still half-heartedly laughing, but more out of a sense of uneasiness.
Ten years on, and this case is no longer an anomaly. Stories about Punjabis of all genders, classes, religions, and ages injecting themselves with things like horse respiratory medicine are not even remotely funny. Or uncommon. Virtually everybody in Punjab has a story about drug abuse. 75% of Punjab’s youth is addicted to drugs. 60% of ALL illegal drugs found in India are confiscated in Punjab. Drug abuse in Punjab is no laughing matter, but laughing about alcohol is apparently still okay because the problem in Punjab has nothing to do with alcohol. It’s all about the drugs. Many of this relative’s other stories were and still are more socially acceptable for us to laugh at because they involved drunk Punjabi men falling off tractors or scooters.
And there is no awkwardness at laughing at the following well-executed parody by Jus Reign of the “drunk uncle, who provides for great entertainment” and includes the drunk uncle dancing with a glass on his head, falling down, and generally behaving like an idiot. We don’t see the drunk uncle as having an actual problem. It’s just alcohol, after all, and not anything “serious.” (The section I am referring to starts at 2:41 and ends at 3:25.)
Jus Reign is one of my favorite comedians, not just because his humor is aimed at Punjabis (although that helps), but because he is genuinely funny and tackles issues in a way that doesn’t go for a quick laugh. He sometimes has a social point that he makes, but wraps it up in “comedy” like “WTF Punjabi Music Industry?” (listen at 1:42). The “drunk-unc” sketch is a well executed comedy sketch, but a drunk uncle is different than an alcoholic uncle, when it would hopefully not be funny. Jus Reign’s comedy comes from actual family members and his own observations of life, so, this next question is in earnest: how far off are we from a parody about the irresponsible, but lovable, heroin-addicted uncle?
Guest post by Naujawani Sardar
The title to this article might have conjured up images of a cowboy-style shoot ‘em up between turban-donning, mounted riders, and whilst I would welcome development of such an idea into a film, sadly that’s not what i’m writing about. I am Sikh, Punjabi and Western (English) and like every other person growing up in the West I am challenged by the cultures of all three identities. I am also in my early thirties – if I think i’m having a tough time coming to terms with these uniforms, I am only thankful I am not ten years younger in the modern World.
Growing up in the West can be mentally taxing for young Sikhs. Whether English, American, Canadian or European, there pervades a Western notion of lifestyle, opportunity and prosperity that occasionally challenges the practices most of us engage in as Sikhs, and certainly impinges on the way we are brought up in Punjabi households. There is a wide array of ways in which the cultures denoted to us by birth clash with one another, from career choices to personal relationships, hairstyles to language usage. How we deal with these culture clashes will differ from individual to individual and whilst the maxim that a Sikh is a Sikh irrespective of their nationality, there is a growing need to support young people and help them to deal with life in a way that reflects the road they wish to travel on.
Young people find support from varied sources including friends, family, schools and independent organisations. The latter is what I would like to focus on seeing as this is the least regulated group from that list and arguably can have the most influence. In this context, independent organisations are extra-curricular clubs, societies and charities; places that provide essential skills in team-working, discipline and communication through playing a sport, learning a language or providing a service. Whilst engaging in an activity, young people are at least purportedly provided with guidance on everyday life and this is clearly seen in the confines of the Sikh experience: gatka akhare, Punjabi language classes, Khalsa/Gurdwara football teams, Sikh activist groups, and even online communities such as The Langar Hall.
Guest post by Nirbhau Kaur
[Admin note: This post was penned by the author the morning after election results were made public in Punjab.]
Pain. Disgust. Hurt. Dread. Longing. Connect, then Disconnect.
For the first time I felt these feelings in relation to Punjab – a land where I was not born, a land where I was not raised, a land that I didn’t truly experience until my early 20′s. Nonetheless, it is my father’s land, my Nana Ji’s land, my ancestors’ land. It is my land.
Today, there were countless social media updates reminding me of the five years of horror that Punjab is about to experience. For a small group of people, today was victorious. For a state full of people, today was just another reminder of their dark future. As the Badal family begins another five years of power in Punjab, the socially aware predict increased farmer suicides, increased drug and alcohol addictions, increased poverty. And the most grave prediction of them all, an end to Punjab, Punjabi, and Punjabiat.
Today, we express our disgust with the Badals and our sorrow for the future of Punjab. Not just today, but whenever there is an event to remember or increase awareness of any tragic situation in Punjab, be it farmer suicides or the despair in which the families of the shaheeds are surviving, we, as diasporic Punjabis, express deep sympathy. We speak of a need for change, we inspire, and we become inspired, but only in the appropriate setting. Shortly afterward, most of us move onto focus on our lives here, outside of Punjab.
My Mamaji, a very well known Punjabi writer in India, has penned loads of best-selling novels, won numerous awards, and has some incredible stories about his experience of being in the Indian Army during the 1980s, but he has never once written about 1984. Nothing. Not even a short-story. He has written stories set during partition, about the Indo-Pak War, about religion, ethics, and many other controversial topics, but confessed that he just didn’t know where to start writing about 1984 because of the emotions it stirred up within him, and all the hidden layers. He claimed that as a fiction writer, it was too difficult to separate the reality enough to let his characters and the story breathe and grow.
As many of you know, I am very slowly working on a novel, which uses 1984 and 9/11 as backdrops and I find that the difficulty in writing about 1984 is that, even after more than twenty-five years, it is still a raw nerve that continues to elicit all sorts of emotions and unresolved issues. Many of my family members still shudder with the mere mention of anything relating to 1984. And although dissimilar in many regards, 9/11 does elicit similar emotions, particular with New Yorkers.
Some people who read my previous post, where I basically go into detail about how awful I thought the writing of Breakaway/Speedy Singhs was, made the assumption that I just don’t like that genre. Quite the contrary. I thoroughly enjoy the “feel good” genre, where everything turns out okie dokie in the end.
Whenever a movie involving brown folks comes out, I am always down to check it out, regardless of whether it’s Bollywood, Hollywood, Mollywood, or Lollywood. No, I didn’t just make the last two up (check out this guide to the woods) and am initially hopeful that it will be a good movie or at least get the ball rolling towards someone else making a good movie. Bollywood’s Rocket Singh, for example, was great; Singh is King, on the other hand, was horrible. Bend It Like Beckham was a very cliched concept, but I thought it was a relatively well written simple story with an amusing twist. Breakaway/Speedy Singhs, not quite so much.
So when I heard about the movie I am Singh, which details the lives of Sikhs after 9/11, I was beyond hopeful. Finally, a film that brings the story of Sikhs post 9/11 to the surface. Not quite. And aside from the overly melodramatic plot points and sermonizing speeches, I was still intrigued enough to go watch it. And then I saw one of the superhit songs, complete with topi and pagh switching, and the requisite sari scene on the pretty white girl love interest. Incidentally, I would like to meet a Punjabi munda from the pind who knows how to properly dress a tall white woman in something as complicated as a sari (starting at 0:36). Here it is for all of you to enjoy:
For the past few months, I have been inundated with information about the much-hyped Canadian-Bollywood venture, Speedy Singhs, also called Breakaway. As of September 3o, the film is available in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and India.
It’s interesting to note that, in the comments to another post on TLH titled “Stick Handling Singhs,” even those who thought the movie sounded corny (it is) would go watch it to “see what’s out there.” I have lost count how many conversations I have abruptly ended that began with, “Dude, have you heard about. . . ” or that mentioned the names of “Russell Peters,” “Rob Lowe,” “Camilla Belle,” or “Akshay Kumar.” The film has been endorsed by everyone from Ludacris to Jus Reign to the king of Punjabi slapstick, Ghuggi Sahib himself.
There are many sports movies that transcend the rules its genre are bound by to provide real insight into their characters, award-winning films like Any Given Sunday or The Fighter. And I can name plenty of Bollywood films that have impressed me over the years with the way they tackled real issues. Similarly, Speedy Singhs/Breakaway takes on heavy issues like school bullying, tradition, and religion, but the film suffers from an identity crisis. It’s a romantic-comedy. It’s a melodrama. It’s a Punjabi comedy skit. It’s action. It’s even Bollywood at times. There were a few funny lines and scenes in the film, but you can find them all in the trailer.
The actors and musicians involved with the project are quite impressive, but the writing just isn’t good enough to keep up with the shifting genres – it’s not worthy of this caliber of actors. Case in point: The not-so-subtle sexual jokes and one liners by Russell Peters are amusing for about five minutes, but they do get tiring when you realize there really is nothing more to his character than that. He might as well have played himself.
It’s like the producers went out of their way to create a project where the actors would be confined by the quality of writing. And while a film about team of underdog turbaned Sikh ice-hockey players who have to battle whitey is just destined to have an audience, the storyline is essentially unoriginal, the writing is mediocre (with occasional spurts of witty dialogue), and it is riddled with clichés throughout. Here are some examples:
Embracing my new role as a proud Chacha, I recently bought some Sikhi-related children’s books for my niece for her first birthday. I was especially excited about this new book and CD of Sikh nursery rhymes called Ik Chota Bacha. The book/CD is a great way to teach basic Sikh values to kids and help develop their Punjabi skills (all the nursery rhymes are in Punjabi) in a fun way. I played the CD for my niece on the daily when I was visiting for her birthday, and by the end of the week, the whole family was singing along to some of the catchy (and rather cheesy) tunes. (See a full review of the book here.)
My excitement about the release Ik Chota Bacha quickly became muddied with disappointment and frustration once I saw the book’s illustrations. Every single Sikh child and adult depicted in the book looks WHITE. I don’t just mean they’re all fair-skinned on the spectrum of brownness. I mean peachy, rosey-cheeked, white.
Guest blogged by Gurchit Singh. Gurchit is a 16-year-old aspiring activist (in his own words) who submitted this piece (his first) to The Langar Hall. Raksha Bandan was last Saturday, August 13th.
Oh the joys of Raksha Bandan! The air is filled with love, family members are conversing and munching on a plethora of 
sweets, hugs and kisses are being ecstatically extended to any and all family members the overemotional-mother can seem to get her loving arms around, and the overall mood in the home is one which many families can only dream of experiencing on a daily basis. Unfortunately, these loving moments only further promote a holiday which demotes women and opposes aspects of Sikhism itself.
While occupying myself with Facebook and sipping warm milk on the morning of Raksha Bandan, I was going through my daily routine of checking any notifications I may have received from the prior night. After reading many generic Raksha Bandan-related salutations, I finally came across one that actually defined what it was actually aimed at achieving: “Raksha Bandhan is a festival which celebrates the relationship between brothers and sisters. The ceremony involves the tying of a rakhi (sacred thread) by a sister on her brother’s wrist. This symbolizes the sister’s love and prayers for her brother’s well-being, and the brother’s lifelong vow to protect her.” While reading this definition, the two phrases that IMMEDIATELY jumped out at me were “sacred thread”, which conjured an instant connection to one of Guru Nanak Dev Ji’s earliest forms of rebellion against what he believed aimless and biased: the Janeu ( the full Sakhi can be referenced here), and “brother’s lifelong vow to protect her”, which called forth an image of a frail young woman constantly relying on her brother for protection from external occurrences.
Yes, we disagree. Yes, most of you even fight amongst yourselves. Our voices and opinions are as diverse as the people in our community. So be it. This is how we learn from one another.
Sometimes you challenge us (the bloggers). Most of the time you challenge each other (the commenters). Do I wish the level of discussion with each other could be raised? At times, yes. Do I appreciate that you take the time to engage? ABSOLUTELY! Why? Because you care enough about the community, about Gurbani, about our collective future to engage.
My childhood was full of insecurity and self-doubt, the result of years of harassment, taunts, and jokes about the ball/rag/tomato/towel/etc. on my head as a turban-wearing child. My insecurities, however, began to shift (or expand) as puberty hit. Let’s call it facial hair anxiety.
At first, having a moustache grow in at a young age wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. After all, I passed as much older than I was, which was nice for a scrawny brown kid like me.
But soon enough, the complex around my dhari (beard) settled in, and no amount of time with a thatha tied tightly 
around my head was ever enough to totally alleviate my beard insecurities.
Surrounded by peers for whom shaving was a rite of passage into manhood, it’s not surprising that I felt a little left out (though to be clear, the idea of a razor on my face never sounded so pleasant). Further, I was inundated with the voices of young women in my school casually referring to facial hair as gross or unattractive (with no intention to hurt my feelings I’m sure) and their preference for guys who were “clean-shaven.”
CLEAN-shaven. The implication being that facial hair is…dirty?
These are the messages we get from our peers and from the media every day. So naturally I assumed it was highly unlikely that any of my female classmates would ever be interested in dating someone like me. The combination of a dirty face plus a patka was enough to cause a whole lot of anxiety and insecurity for this angsty teenage Singh.
There have been a few posts on TLH (link) that talk about the merits of having children exposed to other languages, but none that discuss actual strategies. So, I thought I’d add my thoughts on the subject.
Over the past month or so, our 18-month-old daughter, Kavya, has started connecting words to concepts and it’s interesting to see what English and Punjabi words she’s picked up. Here are some of the things she’s picked up, along with translations:
Paa = Paani (water)
Baba= Banana
Baa = Baar (when she wants to go outside)
Ayyy= Ice
Tootoo= broken (used in conjunction with a look of feigned surprise right after she flings my mobile with all her might and its guts spill onto our hardwood floor).
Choos: Shoes
I would like to say that we are very organized and systematic about how we are teaching Kavya to integrate English with Punjabi and Hindi, but the truth is we are totally winging it.
Initially, we did attempt to use two strategies I read about in an East Coast magazine called “Little India.” Neither of them worked very well for us, but we did use a hybrid form of them. Here are the original strategies:
According to Urban Dictionary (is there another source?), “The single most manly, and great thing a man can do [is grow a beard]. To have a beard is to be a true man. If you have a beard, show it off proudly, and enjoy the satisfaction of the envy in the eyes of people around you who don’t have beards. If you don’t have a beard, grow one.”
Well, that’s that. What could be a better way to start the weekend than a montage of beautiful beards and the rhymes of Jose Gonzalez?
A friend of the The Langar Hall and a Sikholar in her own right has started a fascinating website, called “Sikhs Wearing Things.”
The purpose of the blog states:
sikhs wearing things around the world.
inspired by the “muslims wearing things” tumblr. this is dedicated to showing a multiplicity of sikh styles in order to repudiate the notion of a single sikh identity.
And is dedicated to her late father, a very stylish Sikh.
The goals of the site is largely in keeping with our own vision of The Langar Hall – where there is no single Sikh opinion and the Langar Hall on-line or in-life is the place where a diversity of views and ideas can be shared, debated, and considered.
Check out the site and maybe even send the blogger some of your own thoughts and pictures!
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past three days, you’ve all heard the news: Osama bin Laden was killed in a hail of gunfire, his body buried at sea in a well orchestrated CIA operation over the weekend. Moments after the news was official, it was a very bitter sweet moment when my wife and I saw people of all colors celebrating the death of Osama bin Laden in cities all over the United States. But none brought it home more than watching people rejoicing in his death at World Trade Center.
It brought back a lot of painful memories that didn’t just involve this one man. Aside from feelings of utter panic, helplessness, and a tremendous sense of loss for human life, brown folk, especially Sikhs, were suddenly viewed of as different. We weren’t included in the “us” and had become the “them” unless we could prove otherwise by elaborate displays of patriotism, which included waving the flag, belting out “U.S.A.” and in some cases, wearing a turban made out of the American flag.
It wasn’t a shock that the first hate crime victim after 9/11, Balbir Singh Sodhi, was a turbaned Sikh, but it was still a devastating blow. And just recently, Arizona Rep. John Kavanagh introduced a bill wanting to remove Sodhi from the state’s 9/11 memorial because he wasn’t a “9/11 victim.” Thankfully that bill was vetoed, but what I’m concerned with is that this bill was even introduced. And it was clearly attempting to remove the name of a man who didn’t look like “us.” Can we expect more instances where brown folk, Sikhs in particular, have to prove how American we are? Better stock up on those flags.
All over New York, police are strapped with guns to make us feel secure, and MTA police are armed with machine guns (not like the terrorists have bombs or anything). There are announcements telling people to “remain vigilant.” The same announcements after 9/11 that created the environment of mass xenophobia. A few days after 9/11, I remember reading about a Mexican farmworker in California being driven off the side of a road because the guys chasing him thought he was Middle Eastern.
Although very different in many regards, it reminds me of the Sikh reaction to Indira Gandhi’s death at the hands of her two Sikh bodyguards in retaliation for her hand in giving the order for Operation Blue Star. It was a psychological “win” for a short time.
In the 1990s (that seems so long ago!), I was a linguist and photographer for the U.S. Navy and the aircraft carrier I was on stopped for a few days in Romania. Me and a Nigerian friend decided to deboard our ship and go explore the town. Don’t worry, we didn’t get kidnapped and become reluctant protagonists in a horror film. I’m used to getting stares, especially in racially homogoneous countries in Asia and Europe, and don’t find it offensive. It’s simple curiousity that a “hello” and a smile usually breaks the ice and gets a conversation going.
Romania was a little different though. Instead of stares, people were gasping and running away when they saw us. Eventually we found some skateboarders willing to talk to us after we bought some overpriced Romanian candy from them (not recommended). It turns out, they were petrified of my Nigerian friend because their impression of what sort of person he must be was based on the only American television show they got. Yep. NYPD Blue where every black man was in a hostile altercation with a white policeman either for selling drugs, or raping and/or murdering someone. That is the power of the media. And I am a firm believer in having Sikhs play a much more significant and visible role in various facets of the media. Not just cameo appearances as the terrorist, the comic relief, or the overly pious Sikh hate crime victim with a thick Indian accent.
The Three Idiot Sardars
Some of our fellow Sikhs and Punjabis have helped create the image of the violent prone, idiot Sardar in Bollywood over the years. Every D lister like Gulshan Grover, Sunny Deol, and Johnny Lever used to play the role of the caricature Sardar. But that image drastically changed seemingly overnight also with the help of some of our fellow Sikhs and Punjabis when Rocket Singh starring Ranbir Kapoor came out in 2009 and instantly every A lister wanted to play a Sardar (Abhishek and Amitabh Bachchan; Saif Ali Khan). The portrayal isn’t perfect, but it is attempting to show Sikhs with more complexity than they’ve been doing in the past, and as more than just two bit characters, but as the lead. And this is all thanks to a higher quality in narrative, and in Sikhs loudly objecting to Sikh stereotypes in Bollywood films. Why can’t the same be done in Hollywood?
Whenever a tragic incident takes place that shakes the Sikh community, we have a tendency to start campaigns to combat ignorance, even wearing daft turbans made out of the American flag to show just how American we are, we attend interfaith dialogues and multicultural events, and we update our FaceBook status to show our indignation at the ignorance, which we assume is the root cause of these acts of bullying, violence, and general acts of hatred. People just don’t know who the Sikhs are is our rationale, and that by fixing this problem, we will find our solution.
