SGPC moves Supreme Court, laments corrosive impact of Sardar jokes on youth

NEW DELHI: The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee ( SGPC) on Thursday moved the Supreme Court, complaining about what it called the corrosive effects of Sardar jokes on the impressionable minds of the younger members of the community, and sought sensitisation programmes at the school level.

The SGPC manages Sikh shrines in Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh. Its petition was mentioned by lawyer Satinder Singh Gulati, who urged the court to ensure that the community’s grievances were addressed. Two other petitions filed earlier had also sought court intervention to crack down on websites which flourish on Santa Banta jokes targeting the community.

These jokes, the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee had claimed, created a situation in which Sikhs were feeling victimized.

A Supreme Court bench, comprising Chief Justice TS Thakur and Justice UU Lalit, asked the petitioners to come back with suggestions on how to sensitise people to the feelings of the community. Justice Thakur said the court had its limitations on how far it could intervene in these things, but agreed to examine certain practical suggestions.

“If the entire community is feeling like this, we have to examine the legal dimensions of how far we can go. But we could certainly consider practical suggestions,” he said. These could include directing the government to have sensitization schemes at the school level.

The SGPC said it had been receiving complaints about circulation of Sikh jokes on Internet websites from Sikhs and various Sikh organizations. The SGPC has in the past also filed complaints against such jokes, which are demeaning the Sikhs and portraying the Sikhs as funny and idiot characters, it said.

These include celluloid portrayals of such jokes about which complaints were made earlier to the censor board and the National Commission for Minorities, it said.

“If this circulation of Sardar jokes be allowed to continue, depicting Sikhs as naive, inept, etc., etc., then… it also leads to undermining the contributions made by Sikhs,” the petition said.

According to the SGPC, there are as many as 5,000 websites dedicated to Sardarji jokes.