This week, Sikhs are celebrating Hola Mohalla, a three-day festival on the Sikh calendar that coincides with the Hindu celebration of Holi. Began in 1701 by the tenth Guru, Guru Gobind Singh, this celebration is an exhibition of the martial tradition in the Sikh faith. The main festival takes place at Anandpur Sahib in India.
Categories: Events, Picture of the Day, Sikhism • Tags: Anandpur Sahib, Guru Gobind Singh, Hola Mohalla, India
A new book by University of Chicago Law School professor Brian Leiter entitled Why Tolerate Religion? questions the practice of establishing religious liberty as a right: For example, he says a boy might be permitted to carry a dagger to school as part of his Sikh religion, but the same dagger would not be allowed if it were part of a family tradition. Without having read Brian Leiter’s book (see a review by Robert Merrihew Adams here), it would be unfair […]
Categories: Civil Rights, Literature • Tags: Brian Leiter, freedom of religion, Oklahoma University, Rajdeep Singh, Sikh Coalition, University of Chicago Law School
A short documentary by Colleen McKown provides a profile of Savraj Singh, who provides presentations around his community to increase awareness about Sikh Americans (via @sikhswim): Savraj Singh gives awareness presentations about Sikhism throughout New York and New Jersey to help combat the estimated 700 hate crimes that have been committed against Sikhs since 9/11. Because of their turbans and beards and because many Americans are unfamiliar with the faith, Sikhs are sometimes incorrectly associated with terrorism. You can view […]
Categories: Profiles, TV/Movies • Tags: Colleen McKown, New Jersey, New York, Savraj Singh
This week marks one year since the “I Pledge Orange” movement took hold of the minds and hearts of Sikhs around the world inspired by one Balwant Singh Rajoana, a man on India’s death row who was scheduled to be executed on March 31, 2012, in Punjab, India. Balwant Singh was charged for participating in the 1995 assassination of Punjab’s then-Chief Minister, the tyrannical Beant Singh. After the protests in Punjab and around the world, Balwant Singh’s execution was stayed. […]
Categories: 1984, TV/Movies • Tags: Balwant Singh Rajoana, Beant Singh, Harwinder Singh Mander, I Pledge Orange, India, Naujawani.com, Punjab, Who Killed Bobby Rai?
While the FBI reports hate crimes based on voluntary reporting by law enforcement agencies (a database which is rife with issues) around the country, the most recent study by the US Department of Justice based on the National Crime Victimization Survey (a survey of victims of crime) continues to shed more light about the nature of hate crimes in the United States. According to the new report issued by the Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, a quarter of a million […]
Categories: Hate Crimes, Politics, Reports/Studies • Tags: FBI, FBI Hate Crime Statistics, Federal Bureau of Investigation, hate crime, Hate Crime Statistics, National Crime Victimization Survey, United States Bureau of Justice Statistics
Referring to the people of South Asia, Salman Rushdie writes in his novel Midnight’s Children (which is among my favorite reads): “…no people whose word for “yesterday” is the same as their word for “tomorrow” can be said to have a firm grip on the time.” It is an interesting observation that the word kal in Punjabi or Hindi can refer to day prior or to the day after the present day. While Salman Rushdie might have been lamenting about […]
Categories: Reports/Studies • Tags: future-less language, Keith Chen, language, Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie, TED, TEDx
As mentioned last week, I will be participating in an event in Fremont, California, on April 6, called “Appear for the Disappeared“, a five-kilometer walk to raise funds for Ensaaf, a non-profit organization that is documenting and seeking justice for the thousands of victims of state-sponsored disappearances during the 1980s and 1990s in Punjab, India. During that time, innocent men and women — particularly Sikhs — were the victims of torture and extra-judicial killings in Punjab by state agencies and […]
Categories: 1984, Events • Tags: Appear for the Disappeared, California, Decade of Disappearances, Ensaaf, Fremont, Harjit Kaur
As stories have emerged this year about continued hate crimes against Sikhs in Port Orange, Florida, and Green Bay, Wisconsin, ironically, in the current state of the FBI Hate Crimes Statistics reporting, these crimes (in addition to the mass murder of six Sikhs in Oak Creek, Wisconsin last August) would not be explicitly identified as hate crimes targeting Sikhs, and may not even appear in the FBI’s Hate Crimes statistics at all. Similarly, this also is the case for attacks […]
Categories: Hate Crimes, Reports/Studies, Resources • Tags: FBI, FBI Hate Crime Statistics, Federal Bureau of Investigation, hate crimes, Sikh Coalition
As Sikhs around the world celebrate Sikh Environment Day, Bandana Kaur of EcoSikh discusses the spiritual connection linking the Sikh faith to the natural world: Throughout Guru Granth Sahib, birds and trees especially are used to describe the metaphoric relationship between a disciple and the Divine. Traditional birds like the peacock, flamingo, hawk, cuckoo, nightingale, crane, swan, owl, and the koyal, and trees like the banyan, pipal, and sandalwood of Punjab are used in the Gurus’ metaphors, along with many, many […]
Categories: Events, Sikhism • Tags: Bandana Kaur, EcoSikh, environment, environmentalism, Huffington Post
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