Mistaken Identity Attacks on Sikhs After 9/11
Institutional prejudice against Sikh identity and Qaomi existence.
Those killed in the terrorist attacks in the US on 9 September 2001 were remembered by the world. Quite rightly, most national TV time for at least two days was devoted to the horrifying scenes of the attacks when thousands of innocent people lost their lives. There was much discussion by senior politicians and commentators on both sides of the Atlantic.
However, to my knowledge, there was not even a passing mention of those who became victims of hate crimes and racism in the immediate aftermath and later. Four days after the terrorist attacks, Balbir Singh Sodhi was murdered at his Arizona gas station due to mistaken identity. A London paper showed a half-page image of a Sikh being arrested in the US as a suspected terrorist connected to the 9/11 attacks! It was quite shocking for UK Sikhs to see that image and especially that the paper failed to mention that the person in the image was a Sikh. No apology for that highly misleading front-page item which affected the Sikh community. Sikhs have been attacked and suffered verbal abuse in the US, UK and diaspora countries because there is real or feigned ignorance about Sikh identity even amongst government policy officials.
Institutional bias against British Sikhs continues from the earliest cases of the Sikh bus driver Tarsem Singh Sandhu and the underground train guard Amar Singh fighting for their rights to keep their proud Sikh identity, to the refusal by the government of statistical count and monitoring under the current system of Sikhs in Census 2021 and by thousands of bodies. On the other hand, those toeing the government line dictated by trade policy are readily heard much against overwhelming Sikh support for recognition as a distinct Sikh nation, which has been in existence for centuries well before India, Pakistan or Bangladesh were created.
Sikh organisations like the American Sikh Council and United Sikhs have made the points that hate acts committed by fellow Americans against other Americans continue to rise even today. Hate crimes statistics collected by the FBI show that crimes against the Sikhs have increased by 44.9% since 2019. The recorded figure is probably an undercount as many crimes are not reported. Acts of hate haunt many Sikh Americans and it affects their sense of identity, their safety, their ability to practise their religion, and their well-being.
There is a danger that, with the Taliban back in power in Afghanistan, hate crimes against the Sikhs can increase due to identity ignorance. Yet, so far, no apologies to the Sikhs for the racial slurs, bullying, discrimination, racial profiling and hate crimes.
At Wednesfield, Wolverhampton, a monument commemorating 21 Sikh soldiers who died during the greatest last stand in history, the battle of Saraghari, was unveiled on Sunday 12th September 2021. This is one example of the many Sikh sacrifices towards Anglo-Sikh relations flowing from Anglo-Sikh Treaties and the free world now forgotten by the UK establishment. Institutional bias against the Sikhs by successive government ministers, as advised by policy civil servants, continues.
The hope is that such challenges to Sikh qaumi existence from within and outside will unite the global Sikh nation guided by the sovereign Sikh Institution of Sri Akal Takht Sahib.
Gurmukh Singh