RisingShiningSuperpower
BANNED
- Joined
- Jun 12, 2014
- Messages
- 1,446
- Reaction score
- -6
- Country
- Location
Indian Sikhs Seek a Ban on Sikh Jokes - India Real Time - WSJ
Indian Sikhs Seek a Ban on Sikh Jokes
4:30 pm IST
Mar 1, 2016
Politics
The Indian Army’s Sikh regiment marches during the Army Day parade in New Delhi, Jan. 15, 2016. Sikhs are known for their bravery as part of the Indian armed forces.
Money Sharma/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
A movement to stop people making fun of Sikhs is gaining momentum in India.
India’s Supreme Court last month asked an organization representing followers of the religion, the Delhi Sikh Gurudwara Management Committee, to frame rules on how to implement a ban on jokes or negative remarks about Sikhs, if such a ban were announced.
The committee petitioned the court last year seeking a means of “curbing the menace of Sikh jokes” and other derogatory remarks about them and other social, religious and ethnic communities.
Advertisement
A five-member team of retired judges and others is working to come up with guidelines before the end of March, says Jaswinder Jolly, one of the petitioners.
Sikhs comprise around 2% of India’s population, but they are a prominent community known for being hard-working and entrepreneurial, and for their bravery as part of the Indian armed forces.
But they are also on the receiving end of a large number of jokes, which typically portray them as dim-witted.
Jokes around a fictitious Sikh pair named Santa Singh and Banta Singh, have flourished on the Internet and, in recent years, on messaging service WhatsApp.
Their origin is unclear but one long-running joke concerns how the two men try to outdo each other over the achievements of their respective parents.
One exchange goes like this:
Santa Singh: Have you heard of the Suez Canal? My father dug it.
Banta Singh: That’s nothing. Have you heard of the Dead Sea? My father killed it.
Mr. Jolly, an adviser to the Delhi Sikh Gurudwara Management Committee, says there are thousands of websites dedicated to jokes at the expense of Sikhs.
“They are making fun of us and making money,” through advertising said Mr. Jolly.
Indian law punishes any deliberate act or remark intended to insult someone’s religious beliefs, but Mr. Jolly says this doesn’t cover instances when remarks aren’t made directly to a person of the faith in question.
The committee’s petition was meant to support an earlier public interest litigation on similar lines filed by Delhi lawyer, Harvinder Chowdhury, says Mr. Jolly.
Creators of the jokes say that targeting a community isn’t right, but argue that Santa and Banta should be seen as characters and aren’t targeting Sikhs.
“They’re all Punjabi characters, they are not signifying any community,” says Jiwandeep Ghai, founder of the website santabanta.com, which features a section of jokes based around the pair, amongst Bollywood-related tidbits. The website isn’t mentioned in the litigation.
Mr. Ghai, who is a Sikh, says remarks where Sikhs came off badly made him feel bad when he was a child.
However, he doesn’t think a blanket ban on jokes at the expense of a particular community is a good idea because it could be seen as censorship.
“Isn’t laughter necessary for us?” he said.
For breaking news, features and analysis from India, follow WSJ India on Facebook.
Indian Sikhs Seek a Ban on Sikh Jokes
4:30 pm IST
Mar 1, 2016
Politics
The Indian Army’s Sikh regiment marches during the Army Day parade in New Delhi, Jan. 15, 2016. Sikhs are known for their bravery as part of the Indian armed forces.
Money Sharma/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
A movement to stop people making fun of Sikhs is gaining momentum in India.
India’s Supreme Court last month asked an organization representing followers of the religion, the Delhi Sikh Gurudwara Management Committee, to frame rules on how to implement a ban on jokes or negative remarks about Sikhs, if such a ban were announced.
The committee petitioned the court last year seeking a means of “curbing the menace of Sikh jokes” and other derogatory remarks about them and other social, religious and ethnic communities.
Advertisement
A five-member team of retired judges and others is working to come up with guidelines before the end of March, says Jaswinder Jolly, one of the petitioners.
Sikhs comprise around 2% of India’s population, but they are a prominent community known for being hard-working and entrepreneurial, and for their bravery as part of the Indian armed forces.
But they are also on the receiving end of a large number of jokes, which typically portray them as dim-witted.
Jokes around a fictitious Sikh pair named Santa Singh and Banta Singh, have flourished on the Internet and, in recent years, on messaging service WhatsApp.
Their origin is unclear but one long-running joke concerns how the two men try to outdo each other over the achievements of their respective parents.
One exchange goes like this:
Santa Singh: Have you heard of the Suez Canal? My father dug it.
Banta Singh: That’s nothing. Have you heard of the Dead Sea? My father killed it.
Mr. Jolly, an adviser to the Delhi Sikh Gurudwara Management Committee, says there are thousands of websites dedicated to jokes at the expense of Sikhs.
“They are making fun of us and making money,” through advertising said Mr. Jolly.
Indian law punishes any deliberate act or remark intended to insult someone’s religious beliefs, but Mr. Jolly says this doesn’t cover instances when remarks aren’t made directly to a person of the faith in question.
The committee’s petition was meant to support an earlier public interest litigation on similar lines filed by Delhi lawyer, Harvinder Chowdhury, says Mr. Jolly.
Creators of the jokes say that targeting a community isn’t right, but argue that Santa and Banta should be seen as characters and aren’t targeting Sikhs.
“They’re all Punjabi characters, they are not signifying any community,” says Jiwandeep Ghai, founder of the website santabanta.com, which features a section of jokes based around the pair, amongst Bollywood-related tidbits. The website isn’t mentioned in the litigation.
Mr. Ghai, who is a Sikh, says remarks where Sikhs came off badly made him feel bad when he was a child.
However, he doesn’t think a blanket ban on jokes at the expense of a particular community is a good idea because it could be seen as censorship.
“Isn’t laughter necessary for us?” he said.
For breaking news, features and analysis from India, follow WSJ India on Facebook.
