Like the worst jokes, we’ve become too predictable as a country, filing up punch lines Yet, I giggled out few weeks back, when I read in a newspaper, A Sikh woman gave the plea on Supreme Court seeking ban on Sardar jokes online. My own reactions to Sardar jokes are cute chuckles sometimes. As a normal person, you either ignore them or laugh them off. A layman, I say “Same old thing, dude. Try something different”.
The petition filled in the Supreme Court then, made comedians, the vloggers and the bloggers started taking precaution involving in adding Santa- Banta jokes in their profession.
Santa –Banta have made way for Shugli- Jugli now. You got it right, Two Sikh Comedians who have been the stage under names of Santa- Banta for the past eighteen years have announced to drop their stage names and adapt new ones. They are from Jalander and viewers enjoy their sense of humor a lot.
I was 7-8 years old, when I guess Sardar jokes happened on books by famous comedian Jawant singh, Khugi and Jaspal bhatti on Doordarshan as “Flop- show”. What happens next is usually life altering? I am not speaking about the community fully.
I was surfing the net where I read whispers from elderly Sikhs, about how these jokes were a reaction to the success of the Sikh community: from winning wars under Maharaja Ranjit Singh to rubbing shoulders with the British elite, the erstwhile prosperity of Punjab, and post-partition, making key businesses in Delhi their own, giving their families fancy Lutyens’ addresses to flaunt.
Humor is often a reaction to someone succeeding, when that someone is not us. Most of us tell jokes on famous personalities and how their way of life would be.
It brings me to the most often recurring snide remark against Sikhs.
BARAH BAJ GAYE. A remark that intends to imply that Sardar go into a 'mad' mood at twelve o' clock.
The Wikipedia further read that, “During the 17th Century, when India was ruled by Mughals, people were humiliated and treated like animals. Mughal’s treated Hindu women as their own property and were forcing all Hindus to accept Islam and even used to slay people if they refused to admit. During that period, the Ninth Guru Sri Guru Teg Bhadarji who came forward, at the request of some Kashmir Pundits, to fight against all these cruel activities.Guruji told the Mughals emperor that if he could succeed in converting Guruji to Islam, all Hindus would accept the same but if he failed, he should stop all those activities. The Mughals emperor happily agreed to that, but even after lots of torture to Guruji and his fellow members, he failed to convert them to Islam. Guruji, along with his other four fellow members, was also tortured for the same and they sacrificed their lives in Chandni Chowk, New Delhi. Since the Mughals were unable to convert them to Islam, they were assassinated. Thus, Guruji sacrificed his life for protection of the Hindu religion.”
Can anybody lay his life down for the protection of some other religion? This is the reason he is still remembered as "Hind Ki Chaddar" . However, none of the people for whom he'd sacrificed his life came forward to lift his body, fearing that they would also be assassinated.
Seeing this incident the 10th Guruji, Sri Guru Gobind Singhji (Son of Guru Teg Bahadarji) made a resolution that he would make such a class of people who would not be able to hide themselves and would stand out even amongst a crowd of thousands, THE SIKH.
At the start Sikhs were very less in numbers even though they were fighting against the Mughals emperors. At that time, Nadir Shah raided Delhi in the year 1739 and looted Hindustan and was carrying lot of Hindustan treasures and nearly 2200 Hindu women along with him. The news spread like wildfire and was heard by Sardar Jassa Singh, who was the Commander of the Sikh army at that time. He decided to attack Nadir Shah's Khafila on the same midnight. He did so and rescued all the Hindu women and they were safely sent to their homes. It didn't happen only once but thereafter, whenever any Abdaalis or Iranis had looted Hindustan and were trying to carry out treasures and Hindu women along with them for selling them in Abdal markets, the Sikh army although quite few in numbers but brave-hearted, attacked them at midnight,12 o'clock and rescued the captured women.
After that time, when there occurred a similar incident, people started to contact the Sikh army for their help and the Sikhs used to attack the raiders at midnight, 12 o'clock. Their continued success became a legend, that at midnight nearly at 12 o'clock, it is very difficult to fight against Sikhs as the Sikhs are endowed with supernatural power to defend Religion, Nation and Humanity. Nobody can fight and win against them at midnight. That is the legend behind the story today. Over time, a few smart alecks corrupted this into the line that at 12 o'clock, the Sikhs go out of their senses.
With 'guerilla' tactics, they continued to attack the Muslim camps and liberated the Hindu women from the clutches. The usual time of such attacks was either at noon, or midnight. The attacks were so ferocious, that the Muslims began dreading the expected attacks of the Sikhs at 12 o' clock, midnight or noon.
I think any person who repeats this sentence against the Sikhs is making fun of the meekness of his own lineage.
It needs to be said again and again, that jokes are just that: JOKES. They might contain a grain of truth, but they aren’t the truth. There’s a reason our films call them ‘Comic relief’. Jokes get much funnier once you know that.
It’s hardly funny though, that this PIL catches headlines at a time when every minority feels the need to protect, and assert its religious identity. And when one of the happiest, most optimistic, hard-working communities starts taking offence at silly jokes, be worried India, be very worried.
Jalender based Gurpreet Singh and Prabhpreet Singh adapted the names of Santa banta respectively in 1997. And rose to fame with their stage shows on social issues: Their video production is especially famous with urban population. However a recent plea seeking a ban on Sardar jokes engaged on them to give up their famous names and choose new ones. They will now be known as Shugli-Jugli as the comic pair.
SO, they aren’t Hurt with this but they too believe that jokes on Sardar are intended more on ridiculing the community and showing it in bad light: it is no more about healthy humor. They felt people might be thinking of them when they read or see distasteful jokes on line.
Life must have healthy comedy. You should never make to fail people laugh and try never to show the community in bad light. Negative stereotyping of comedy is not good and you must refrain from doing it.
Kudos to brave Sikhs
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