FlyRights App from the Sikh Coaltion (photo: fly-rights.org)
By now, you have likely heard of the smartphone app (available for iPhone and Android devices) released by the Sikh Coalition called FlyRights, which was released yesterday (April 30), and is free of cost. The news of this app’s release has spread virally among news outlets and has been applauded by other civil rights organizations and the general public.
FlyRights allows travelers (Sikh or otherwise) to now report complaints to the TSA and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) if they feel that they have been racially profiled by TSA agents.
Based on past experiences, it is an app I wish I had before, but I’m glad that it’s available now.
Credit: Karaminder Ghuman, Courtesy: The Sikh Coalition
The Sikh community is leading the way to strengthen law that will protect Sikhs and other religious minorities from job discrimination in the workplace. AB1964 – or the Workplace Religious Freedom Act (WRFA) – has been introduced by Assemblymember Mariko Yamada and is co-sponsored by The Sikh Coalition. Earlier this week, in a show of community leadership, the California Sikh sangat packed a hearing room in the California Assembly and testified in favor of AB1964. As a result, the bill passed through the Labor and Employment Committee and will be considered by the Judiciary Committee on Tuesday April 24th. The Sikh Coalition states that,
This is the first time in California’s history that the Workplace Religious Freedom Act has survived a committee vote, and this is a credit to the power of Sikhs to provide leadership on civil rights issues for all Americans. [link]
Why should Sikhs care about WRFA?
Sikhs suffer high levels of employment discrimination because of their Sikh identity. Many are told to shave their beards; others are told to remove their turbans; some are told that they can only work out of public view. If enacted, WRFA would make it harder in each of these cases for California employers to discriminate against Sikhs.
Guest blogged by Sharandeep Singh
Sidak, run by Sikh Research Institiute, is a diamond among jewels. It is one program, which after attending, completely changes your outlook on Sikhi, and life – I speak unequivocally when I say there is nothing else like it!
As a graduate of Sidak 2011, I want to share my experience to motivate and inspire whoever reads this to attend, so that you too can join the ranks of people who have enriched and developed their understanding of Sikh culture and history.
The annual retreat, based in Texas may seem daunting, particularly for me—it being my first trip to the US—I arrived with a feeling of trepidation, not fully aware what awaited me in the two weeks ahead. Suffice to say, I was not disappointed.
Following the success of the third Sikholars conference in February, the Jakara Movement is allying with the Canadian Sikh Coalition to bring the conference to British Columbia.
This unique forum brings together researchers, budding scholars, and community members in conversations about some of the most pressing issues. For this year’s inaugural conference, a theme has been selected: Theeja Ghallughara: On Justice, Memory, and Transmission. The conference will be held at Simon Frasier University from June 16-17, 2012. Please help circulate and encourage young scholars to send their abstracts before May 16, 2012 for consideration.
The scope of the conference is global; papers may concentrate on particular localities or regions, or they may present cross-regional comparisons and convergences. We encourage submissions from a broad range of disciplines, methodologies, and perspectives. All approaches will be considered – from medicine, to law, to history, sociology, media studies, etc. so long as they are related to the theme.
You can get more information about the conference at the Sikholars website.
News has started to trickle on this day that Bhai Balwant Singh Rajoana was initially scheduled to be hung. Due to the stay ordered by President Patil of India, there is an indefinite delay.
On Gurdaspur
News media are reporting the Punjab Police has suspended SSP (Senior Superintendent of Police) of Gurdaspur, Varinder Singh, for the shooting and has registered a case against the DSP (Deputy Superintendent of Police). This has only occurred due to the pressure of the sangat, especially that of Jaspal Singh’s family, who have refused to perform the cremation until the arrest of the Shiv Sainiks and police officials. According to some reports via Facebook (so read with caution) heads of the Sant Samaj coalition along with Jathedar Gurbachan Singh had started a dharna along with Jaspal Singh’s family calling for the police officers that ordered the firing to be punished. Badal was against this action by Gurbachan Singh, but Gurbachan Singh and heads of the Sant Samaj threatened to call for a bandh in Gurdaspur, if action was not taken. Badal then conceded to the request and brought about the orders against some police officers, though I have not heard anything about charges or FIRs against the Shiv Sainiks. If this is true, expect Prakash Badal to REIGN in his appointee – Gurbachan Singh – and for him to better play the role of a puppet. Gurbachan Singh knows who pulls his strings and this act of independence will be punished. Expect more pro-Badal quotes and a calling for an end to all events. We would do well to begin ignoring him.
Other news in Punjab
Members of the Sikh Channel were detained by Punjab Police for four hours. This is a serious blow against freedom of the press. While we are excited that they have been released, we hope that UK Sikhs put full pressure on the UK Foreign Office to reprimand the Indian Government on such matters. When UK journalists were captured in Iraq, Libya, and other war-zones, the Foreign Office helped put pressure for their release. We would expect them to lodge a complaint against Indian officials in this matter as well. If someone from the UK is drafting a letter and would like to share, please send us the link.
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.
In a previous post, I reflected on attending the Sikholars Sikh Graduate Student Conference at CSU East Bay in Hayward, California a few weeks ago. I commented on the first day’s presentations and panel discussions and now offer the same for the second day. As before, I will refer to Jodha’s post that provided a recap of the conference and also to the papers that were presented this year made available on the Sikholars website for a limited time.
Day 2 of the conference was very thought-provoking, and both reinforced and challenged some of my perspectives.
Over ten years after 9/11, the persistence of hate attacks targeting Sikhs in the US, whether in the form of bullying in 
schools, vandalism of gurdwaras, or even cold blooded murder, is a sobering reality for our community. Jodha and I have both discussed elsewhere that the root cause of much of the anti-Sikh violence we see in the United States is the overwhelming vilification of Muslims and Islam in our country, and in the world, today. Nevertheless, it is imperative that we have sound data about anti-Sikh attacks specifically so we fully understand the scope of the problem and thus can address it effectively.
It may surprise you that the US government does not in any way keep track of hate crimes targeting Sikhs. Even in the midst of the surge in attacks against Sikhs in the wake of 9/11/01, the FBI never kept track of anti-Sikh crimes. While some of us may not see the FBI as the most trustworthy of agencies to protect our communities and our civil rights given its history of spying and repression, it is nevertheless outrageous that there isn’t even a “Sikh” box to be checked when a hate crime has been reported. It says a lot about the continued marginalization and relative invisibility of our community in the United States.
(photo: Twitter user @ksalag)
I would like to follow up on Jodha’s recap of the third annual Sikholar’s conference that took place this past weekend at California State University, East Bay (in Hayward, California). I had attended the previous conferences in 2010 and 2011 and was happy to attend this year’s event. I’ve enjoyed all three of these meetings of the mind immensely, and I believe the 2012 iteration was a raising of the bar in the discourse it brought forth about our community and faith group.
What follows are some of my own reflections of the presentations and panels as a member of the audience.
This past weekend, CSU East Bay’s Ethnic Studies Department and Sikh Studies Chair along with the Jakara Movement held its third annual Sikholars Conference. Along with the 11 graduate students from all over North America, nearly 100 community members came together to share and engage in their research projects.
Opening on Saturday, Dr. Jaideep Singh welcomed the participants and discussed the burgeoning field of “Sikh Diasporic” studies that is finally beginning to bear fruit. The first panel showcased the projects of Bandana Kaur, a Yale graduate, on issues of ecofeminism, biodiversity, and social effects of the Green Revolution and Guneeta Kaur Bhalla on the challenges, development, and prospects of the 1947 Partition Archive. Both projects bring together social histories and the voices of non-elite subalterns to the fore.
The second panel, titled the “Identities of Law”, explored Sikh-Americans in a legal context. Jasmine Singh discussed the “racialization” of Sikhs in the United States, while Kiran Preet Dhillon reflected on the ways that Title VII, instead of promoting accommodation to religion in the workplace, have served to limit and demean. She called for a rigorous opening of the conversation with groups that fight for freedom from discrimination in the workplace, including SALDEF and the Sikh Coalition. The panel discussant was conference host, Dr. Jaideep Singh.
The last panel of the day involved explorations in musicology. Neelamjit Dhillon, a student at California Institute of the Arts, showcased his music talents and the convergence of technology and music, adding visual imagery to the auditory experience. Harpreet Neelam, from the University of Toronto, mesmorized the audience with her vocal talents and her explanations of the partaal through the shabad “Mohan Neend na Aavaey Haaveh.” View her amazing rendition (along with Neelamjit Singh on the thabla; pagh salute: RimmyKay) below and continue reading beneath the fold.
The first day concluded with a viewing of Harjant Gill (Sikholars, Class of 2010)’s documentary – “Roots of Love.”
Sikhs around the world will come together again to celebrate the Gurdgaddi of Guru Har Rai Ji again Sikh Vatavaran Diwas (environment day) for a second year in a row. On this day, Gurdwaras worldwide will focus kirtan and katha on the concept of kudrat, and participate in a number of hands on activities to protect our environment.
Ask your Gurdwara to participate by:
- Focusing kirtan and katha on nature
- Hosting the Khalsa School Lesson on the Environment, created by the Sikh Research Institute
- Participating in a cleanup, tree planting, or children’s activity
All resources will be available on the EcoSikh website. Participating Gurdwaras should register to keep a database on worldwide activities, and respond with a ‘Yes’ on the Facebook invitation.
The purpose of Sikh Vatavaran Diwas is to bring Khalsa Panth together on issues of the environment. With Punjab ranking twenty-seventh out of thirty states in the environmental performance index (EPI), the need for Sikhs to connect Gurbani to the issues around them is real. The contamination of soil, land and water from intensive agricultural production remain high on the list of Punjab’s ecological challenges, in addition to industrial pollution and solid waste, low forest cover, and air pollution from thermal plants.
Cover of "Guru Tegh Bahadur: The Ninth Guru of the Sikhs" (photo: sikhcomics.com)
Let me first take the opportunity to thank the bloggers of TLH for welcoming me to this blog. A few might recognize me from americanturban.com, and I’m excited about the opportunity to engage with the audience on this blog in discussing many of the issues we face as a community, and particularly in the United States.
Most of my early education in Sikh history came from comic books, namely those published by Amar Chitra Katha, based in India. My father purchased every title related to Sikhism that was released by this company — covering the stories of the Sikh Gurus to those of Sikh legends and heroes — and I loved reading and re-reading these comic books until I knew the stories by heart.
It was a great introduction to Sikhism that captured my imagination. As I got older, I moved on from these comics to literary works on Sikh history that filled my growing mind with more knowledge and detail.
I started reading those comic books almost 30 years ago (I’m astounded as I write that number), and I’ve recently come across a new effort to bring such Sikh stories to today’s young audiences.
Gyan Khand Media has recently begun producing a new set of Sikh-based comic books. While now based in India, author Daljeet Singh Sidhu saw the opportunity for such a comic book after living in the west:
When Daljeet Singh Sidhu wanted to introduce his three-year-old son to Sikh heroes and history, he was not at a loss of words. But what he did not have, was a story that his boy could see, feel and later read. That’s when it struck Sidhu; that Sikh history has many heroes, but no graphics. So after 12 years in the US, he packed his bags and moved back to India to chronicle Sikh history, its great gurus and warriors and present them in the comics format. That’s how www.sikhcomics.com, a Sikh comics project, was born.
Gyan Khand Media has currently published three titles covering the stories of Baba Deep Singh, Guru Tegh Bahadur, and the Battle of Saragarhi. Many more are planned, and I had the opportunity to download and read the first two titles using Amazon’s Kindle app on my mobile device.
Since the inception of Sikholars: Graduate Sikh Conference, we have featured it here on The Langar Hall. The past two years have been huge successes and the third year will prove no different. A terrific agenda of evidence and research-based topics, as well as current thinking and new ideas will be presented by graduate students and professionals in various fields to challenge you and get you thinking.
As always, this year, Sikholars will offer a balance of well-known experts along with new faces and a stronger international representation. Students and professionals will come together from all across the globe and have the opportunity to learn from each other, to interact and form personal and professional relationships and to focus on learning and spreading knowledge.
Everyone is invited to come to CSU East Bay on February 18th & 19th, 2012. For more information: www.sikholars.org
Below the fold, I’ll post the abstracts of this year’s presenters.
Here on TLH, we look forward to sharing stories about young Sikhs pursuing their passion.
YouTube, Lenovo, and Space Adventures are running a competition to find an amazing space experiment and 16-year-old Pranav Singh is one of the finalists! If he wins, his experiment will be carried out on the International Space Station and streamed live from space on YouTube.
You can view Pranav’s video below and learn about his experiment here. Don’t forget to VOTE! You can vote each day until January 24th. Pranav is a finalist and has a good chance to have his experiment picked! Remember, he is only 16-years old!
Gendercide is a well-known problem in India. The BBC and ABC 20/20 have highlighted this issue. The low sex-ratio in Punjab, India shows how the soil, which gave birth to Sikhi is not devoid of this problem. The land on which our Gurus proclaimed the equality of women when others considered her impure has now become the dumping ground for unwanted baby girls. Their pure bodies are thrown onto piles of garbage for dogs to nibble away. Dead fetuses are stuffed into water wells.
A seminal research study conducted by Monica Das Gupta on selective discrimination against female children in Punjab states that Punjabi Sikh women are highly educated and well-treated in Punjab compared to other states. The harsh reality is that a rise in “status” has not changed the value of women. Women can be loved and cared for, but still under valued. They can be highly educated and treated well, but families want one of these daughters not two. But two sons would be okay. The value of daughters and sons is displayed when couples develop family-building strategies. How many children to have? If we have one daughter or two, will we be content with another daughter? Should we have only one son? Studies show that common answers to these questions are strongly rooted in a distorted value system, which reinforces the secondary status of women and allows for structures to be created to perpetuate this inequity. Thus, value systems and structures produce a circular cycle of mutually reinforcing each other.
The Sikh Gurus gifted us a value system that does not permit this secondary status of women. However, many have chosen not to implement it in their lives. It has even seeped its way into how Sikhi is practiced. Women are not allowed to do all kinds of seva at the Harmandar Sahib and our granthis/ragis’ kathaa most often highlight how a Sikh woman went to the Guru to request only a son.
If Sikhi is a key element to any solution for gendercide within the Punjabi Sikh community, wouldn’t kathaa/sikhyaa in the Gurdwara be the most logical place to start? We do enter the house of our Guru to understand and reinforce our Sikh value system.
For many of us school is out and the holidays are upon us. Throughout the season, many Sikhs throughout the world engage in seva to support members of the community in which they live. We expect this year to be no different.
We hope that commenters will use this section to highlight events or drives that may be occurring in their local communities. Here is one such effort by the youth of the Fresno Jakara Movement group.
Part of something larger and hoping to set an example for other communities, the Sikh youth of Fresno are coming together to organize their annual Sikhi, Seva, Cinema event. More information can be found on their facebook page. They are hosting fundraisers for items that will be distributed to those that are currently houseless in the city. The event is completely youth driven and they are calling for other Sikhs to be generous with their time on December 17 or generous with their money to assist others. The national press has highlighted the preponderance of poor in rural central California. We hope other Sikhs become active in their communities, just as these youth are doing.
On December 2nd and 3rd, Sikh youth will have the opportunity to participate in a special workshop that will allow them to learn the power of expression and how it can be used to create change in their life and communities. Inquilab: Raising our Voices, organized by The Sikh Coalition and Slumgods, will bring together hip-hop artists, Mandeep Sethi and Selena Dhillon, to work with South Asian youth as a way of encouraging their engagement with expression. Through this participation, youth can learn how to effectively use art to inspire positive change within their own communities.
Following the workshop this weekend is Lahir – an event that aims to inspire, educate and awaken the community to rebuild the panth and encourage youth to become activists. The concert will provide a much-needed platform for powerful Sikh artists to express themselves through music, art, film, and poetry. Some more information from the organizers:
In past years, Lahir’s central theme focused on 1984 and Punjab. This year, Lahir 2011 will be “Bringing Sikhi Back”. Ten years post 9/11, it’s time to stand up as individuals and as a community to begin to shape the next ten years. Join us for an evening of spoken work, music, poetry and the arts to reflect and reenergize to ensure a future of chardi kala! This year, all proceeds will go to the Saanjh Sikh Youth Scholarship. We need strong voices in our community and we need diverse voices to help us educate others and ourselves about the historical, political, social, and economic issues that affect our community. Therefore, this event is not just for us, but for our future.
Inquilab will take place on December 2nd and 3rd 2011 at South Asian Youth Action Inc | 5405 Seabury St, Elmhurst, NY.
Lahir will take place on December 3rd 2011 at Rutgers University
We encourage you to learn more about these events, and if you are in the area – please attend and let us know how it goes!
This video from the popular South Indian television show Adhurs Ultimate Talent Show has gone viral in the last couple of days. In it, the so-called Warriors of Goja, a group of Sikh men “performing” with a giant Khanda as their backdrop and upbeat bhangra music as their soundtrack, win a cash prize of 300,000 rupees for their efforts.
There is much to say about this video, how it reflects upon our community, and how it fits nicely into the Indian media’s representation of Sikhs. Others have written about Sikhs and Bollywood, and I am not going to do a thorough analysis or history here. But what is painfully clear to me is that this “performance” of chest-beating (literally), hypermasculine Sardars acting like a bunch of baffoons as they pound themselves into bloodiness is simply a more blatant, egregious version of how Indian popular culture has represented Sikhs for as long as most of us can remember.
What does the viewer take away from this video? What does the average Indian (and non-Indian now that the video is going viral) learn about Sikhs as they see this group of men, proudly wearing their turbans and very deliberately representing their Sikh identity through their performance, smash each other with sledge hammers and run over each other with cars and motorcycles? Is this the kind of Sikh bravery and courage we want to show the world? Is this Guru Gobind Singh’s legacy? Or is this a bunch of clowns trying to make a quick buck and get their five minutes of fame by perpetuating stereotypes about Sikhs being violent and blood-thirsty on the one hand, and idiotic buffoons on the other.
Stereotypes sell, don’t they?
Seems to be a rather slow week for me and the fellow langa(w)riters. Maybe we’re at #occupywallstreet, or preparing for Fauja Singh’s appearance at SikhLens this weekend in Los Angeles, or who knows what else we’re doing. Still one thing we all made sure to do is vote for United Sikhs in the Chase Community Giving. As of my posting, they are currently #2. Can’t help but think that the competition has gotten considerably less over the last few years as the money has increased. Other Sikh orgs (read: ENSAAF), where you at!!
Regardless, vote NOW. You have to “like” Chase Community Giving. Many of you probably already have done it from the Jakara Movement’s win back in 2009. So now just go back and keep on voting. Let’s help push United Sikhs to the win. VOTE NOW! The competition ends on November 22, 2011. Let’s push United Sikhs to first place!
It’s that time of year again!
For those Southern California natives, you (hopefully) know it rolls around once every year. This year, SikhLens is proud to announce its annual Sikh Arts and Film Festival to be held November 18th – 20th, 2011 at the prestigious Dodge College of Film and Media Arts at Chapman University in Orange, California. As avid supporters of Sikh Arts, and creativity in general, I am hoping our readers would be especially interested in this event coming up in the next couple of weeks.
The Sikh Arts and Film Festival serves as a central venue for artists to showcase and share Sikh heritage and culturethrough the mediums of film, literature, art, music, social media and fashion. As an often-misidentified minority, this type of forum has proven to be essential for Sikhs to transcend cultural boundaries, generate awareness, and connect with the broader community.
For tickets, scheduling and more information, visit www.sikhlens.com.
