Jokes, comments, articles, clippings, cartoons projecting ‘Sikhs’ ‘Sardars’ as persons of low intellect naïve, inept, unintelligent and foolish is becoming more and more common and finding place on various media platforms. It’s a well intended conspiracy plotted by those whose level of insecurity may have grown due to the growth and success achieved by the enterprising Sikhs. It is strongly protested and condemned and a strict action is needed to curb such acts.

 Jokes on "Sardars" are made/cracked mostly by those who do not know Indian history (500 years old). Sikhs were popularly called Sardars (means Leader in English) because they volunteered as Leaders (during the difficult times of Mughal oppression) -- Leaders who first Lead themselves to be Universally "Empathetic" Human Beings & then Lead groups to defend against tyranny. The Two Sikh Gurus, four sons of Shri Guru Gobind Singh suffered tortures & sacrificed their lives to prevent Hindus from being forcibly converted by some tyrant rulers. Gurus saw it as the suppression of "freedom to practice one's own religion".

 The contribution and sacrifices made by Sikhs in the freedom struggle, during partition in 1947, during the wars fought by the nation in 1965 and 1971, making Punjab and several weed infested areas in India, the food basket and in being part of building modern India cannot be undermined.

A community which is only 2% of the countyr’s total population has given the Indian Army the maximum number of martyrs and soldiers. A state which has fed the entire nation for decades by yielding bumper harvests year after year. A religious minority which, unlike every other caste and faith has never demanded any kind of reservations and a group of people who are respected all over for their honesty, hard work and entrepreneurship, surely deserve better from their own countrymen. It’s not that they want us to change; they hardly have time for this. They are too busy shaping our economy and saving our frontiers. They are too happy breaking into a Bhangra whenever India wins in Hockey and Cricket. They are too busy celebrating LIFE to give a thought to what we think of them. That’s why they never initiated protests or cut off arms on the pretext of blasphemy. For all those Santa Banta joke lovers, try replacing the word Sardar with Bihari, Marathi or Pathan and get ready to be branded as communalists and regional bigots.

The real mindset behind circulation of Sikhs jokes even been described on Wiekipedia  “https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sardarji_joke” as “the ‘success-story’ of the Sikh-community as a whole has taken the form of a deep-rooted anxiety in the collective minds of the non-Sikh majorities especially the Hindus of India....Sikhs are a very prosperous and successful people ....this may have threatened the Hindu ego and created the anxiety which in turn seems to have taken the form of various stereotypes and the resultant joke cycle."[1] Soumen Sen states that these jokes perhaps reflect the anxiety of the non-Sikh Indian elite, who may have suffered from a sense of insecurity due to the growing competition from the enterprising Sikhs”.

Besides, texting offensive Santa-Banta jokes, Sardar  Jokes are violative of Section 295 (A) of the Indian Penal Code, Article 21 of the Constitution of India and the Information technology Act. If each community is allowed to ridicule the other, it shall threaten the secular fabric which our founding fathers of the constitution had very carefully built. Today every member of the Sikh community is hurt upon such jokes hurled at various websites. In the name of freedom of speech you cannot manufacture and label fun to a community. These jokes refer to religion and collection of people, it can be perceived to be racial.

As Human Beings with an innate gift of "Empathy", we must understand that when we make fun of any community/religion/sect/ideology/etc, the people whose sentiments are attached to that community/religion do feel hurt. Let us ask ourselves a simple question - can we be happy when jokes are cracked on things/people with whom "our" sentiments are attached (eg: our Parents, Gods, Gurus, Motherland, Freedom Fighters, etc)

Your lordships of the Hon’ble Supreme Court have a duty to protect and uphold the dignity of its citizens which we pray for a direction that the owners of these websites be directed to withdraw these jokes on Sardar, Santa Banta or any Sikh characters with immediate effect.