The distinctive Sikh appearance — which often includes brown skin, facial hair and turbans wrapped upon our heads — has made Sikhs regular targets of racist violence. Balbir Singh Sodhi, a turbaned Sikh immigrant from Punjab, India, was the first casualty of a hate crime after 9/11. His murderer, Frank Roque, on a shooting rampage that included attacks on an Afghan couple and a man of Lebanese descent, wrongly associated Sodhi’s Sikh identity with terrorism and
killed him at point-blank range outside Sodhi’s gas station in Mesa, Arizona, on Sept. 15.
We can point to various factors that contribute to such unnecessary tragedies: unchecked access to deadly firearms, xenophobic rhetoric that sanctions bigotry, a history and climate of racism that makes those who look different frighteningly vulnerable.
And while we may not know the Indianapolis killer’s motive, we do know the immense cost of our cultural ignorance. If nothing else, this tragedy might spur more people to learn about their Sikh neighbors.
The Sikh religion (Sikhi, in Punjabi) is one of the world’s youngest, originating about 500 years ago in the Punjab region of South Asia, which is currently split between Pakistan and northwest India.
The faith’s founder,
Guru Nanak, was born in 1469 and was disenchanted with the suffering, divisions and social inequities he saw around him. He sought to establish a new community with a new vision rooted in oneness, love and justice. He taught that all people are equal and interconnected, and that human beings have no legitimate basis for creating hierarchies or discriminating against one another. Rather, each of us is inherently divine and we ought to treat one another accordingly. To serve humanity is to serve God (
Vahiguru).
Guru Nanak put his vision into practice, establishing institutions that would live beyond him. For example, he started the tradition of
langar, a free communal meal open to all with only one condition — everyone must sit on the ground together as equals. This tradition
remains alive and well today.
Guru Nanak traveled around South and Central Asia spreading his message and building a following. These people referred to themselves as Sikhs, a term that derives from Sanskrit and means “students.” The mindset was that we are lifelong students, always seeking to learn and grow.
Guru Nanak’s community also grew, and before he died, he appointed a successor, Guru Angad. There were 10 total gurus (enlighteners) in the lineage of Guru Nanak, the last of whom, Guru Gobind Singh, passed away in 1708. From that time onwards, Sikh authority would rest in two entities — the
Guru Granth Sahib, scriptural canon that was compiled and primarily composed by the Sikh gurus themselves, and the Guru Khalsa Panth, the community of initiated Sikhs. To this day, Sikhs view these two entities as their eternal guru.
As part of their practice, Sikhs maintain long, uncut hair, which they often wrap in turbans on top of their heads. Many see their appearance as a public promise to live by their faith. Sikhs cherish their identities as gifts from their gurus and shared aspects that bind them to their co-religionists, present and past.
Sikhs continued to grow in numbers and
disperse around the world over the decades. After British colonizers
took control in Punjab in 1849, more and more Sikhs
moved to regions controlled by the British Empire, including the United Kingdom, Southeast Asia and East Africa.
The first Sikhs entered North America as laborers in the late 1800s — and they came face-to-face with American racism soon thereafter. In 1907, in Bellingham, Washington, angry mobs of White men rounded up Sikh and other South Asian workers, beat them and drove them out of town, an event known today as the
Bellingham race riots.Most of the early Sikhs in America arrived on its West Coast, and over the years, they have dispersed all across the country. There are now an estimated
500,000 Sikhs in the United States and about an equal number
in Canada. All of this together makes the Sikh community about one million strong in North America.
While the Sikh American community continues to face racism in the US, it has also demonstrated incredible fortitude and resilience. Many see us as victims, but Sikhs tend to see themselves as they always have. The Sikh community’s grief over the killings in Indianapolis will not change its own commitment to justice and spiritual progress.
