Woven into Injustice I: Unraveling Sikh Solidarity with the Marginalized
The first in a three-part series on identity and the Sikh legacy of solidarity
Jungfateh Singh | @jungfatehsingh
Several months ago, I wrote about the urgent need for Sikhs to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people, currently engaged in a heroic liberation struggle while enduring a brutal genocide. As I drafted the piece, I realized that, to some extent, our community has largely moved away from the language of solidarity with other marginalized groups. I delved into Gurbani and Sikh itihaas to search for the words and precedents that should naturally guide us. The Palestinian struggle, from the Nakba in 1948 to the current moment, echoes glimpses of what Sikhs have witnessed and endured from British colonialism, Partition in 1947, and the third ghallughara. Solidarity with Palestinians is not a stance that requires justification; instead, these moments in history lift the veil to reveal a monstrous tapestry of oppression that must be torn down. Yet, instead of dismantling it, some Sikhs have actively woven themselves into it. This moment calls on us to reflect on how to rip ourselves free from this tapestry of conquest and subjugation.
9/11 and the New Western Subject
I was 19 years old when one of these profound moments of unveiling occurred: 9/11. At that time, my understanding of the world was still in its formative stages, and I found myself unable to fully grasp the gravity of what I was witnessing on television. Yet, as the dust began to settle, it became evident that the United States was poised to reconfigure the global order once again, this time through the all-encompassing framework of the War on Terror.
Despite my lack of insight into the intricacies of geopolitics, I could sense that this event would cast a long and indelible shadow, shaping the trajectory of history in ways that were as yet unfathomable. It would take many years of reflection and considerable thought to truly comprehend how deeply this moment would reverberate within our own community—how it would precipitate a profound recalibration of our Sikh ontological coordinates. This was not the first moment at which Sikhs began to stray from their path, but rather a critical juncture where Sikhs, particularly those enamoured by the West, found themselves compelled to reimagine their identities within the contours of this newly forged world order, gradually weaving themselves deeper into its complex and often contradictory tapestry.
The post-9/11 era would soon reveal its profound and far-reaching consequences for the Sikh community, particularly for those of us residing in the West. Merely days after the catastrophic events, Balbir Singh Sodhi, an American gas station owner, fell victim to the seething rage of a man who, consumed by hatred for Muslim Arabs, sought retribution. As he was arrested, the murderer brazenly proclaimed, "I am a patriot!" and "I stand for America all the way!"—words that echoed the rising tide of xenophobia gripping the nation, words uttered without a trace of remorse. This killing marked a pivotal moment for Sikhs in America, exposing the precariousness of our existence in a society quick to conflate appearance with identity.
In response, certain Sikh organizations, propelled by the weight of privilege, positionality, and a perceived social necessity, actively chose to reassert their Americanness. These organizations explicitly began to distance themselves from Muslims, embarking on extensive campaigns to “educate the public about the distinct identity of Sikhs”. In doing so, they sought to subordinate our unique way of being by weaving this newly forged Sikh “identity” into the reimagined American tapestry, carefully threading their narrative into a fabric that was being rapidly redrawn in the aftermath of 9/11. The events of 9/11 placed Sikhs at a pivotal crossroads, forcing a reckoning with identity and values in a world rapidly descending into chaos. What followed was the war in Iraq—a brutal conflict that wrought unimaginable devastation, leaving the nation in ruins and claiming the lives of millions of Iraqi men, women, and children. The sheer scale of this war’s brutality and wanton destruction, should have compelled us to pause, to reflect, and to pursue justice. It should have ignited outrage within our community, a fervent response to the horrors unfolding before our eyes.
It didn’t.
As the United States launched its War on Terror (and criminalized Sikh jujharoo jathebandiyan), these organizations initiated a decade of "raising awareness" campaigns, designed to mutilate Sikh being into an apolitical Sikh identity within the framework of Western liberalism—a framework that, despite its professed values of tolerance and inclusion, remains deeply entwined with the violent mechanisms of state power and white supremacy. As Rajbir Singh Judge and Jasdeep Singh Brar wrote in a groundbreaking article, cutting through the ontological violence of this moment, “...these organizations articulate a particular vision of Sikh politics that is sutured to an American identity…”
These Sikh organizations subsequently found themselves inexorably drawn into the apparatus of American imperialism, supplying their labor, bodies, and mutilated identity to its multifaceted machinery—at home and abroad. The Sikh Coalition, established as a volunteer entity in direct response to the surge of xenophobia, would eventually launch its "Equal Opportunity in the US Armed Forces Campaign," advocating for Sikhs to serve in the military while retaining their articles of faith. Likewise, the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF) initiated its Law Enforcement Initiative, resulting in the Washington Metropolitan Police Department—the seventh-largest in the country—becoming the first major police force in the United States to explicitly and voluntarily allow Sikhs to serve as full-time, uniformed officers while preserving their religious practices.
In this shifting landscape, the practice of Langar, once a powerful institution of Sikh resistance and egalitarianism, began to be repurposed. The tradition, rooted in revolutionary action in defiance of social inequities, was now wielded as a tool to placate the West’s escalating xenophobia and unquenchable thirst for vengeance. "Free Langar" events proliferated, depoliticizing the Sikh practice of communal meals under the banner of “Free Food” initiatives. This transformation extended beyond local acts of service; it became emblematic of the Western Sikh experience. Disaster relief efforts, stripped of any radical Sikh ethos/ethic, were elevated to a central role of Sikh existence in what was ultimately being used as a marketing tool.. In 2014, the tradition of Langar found itself reimagined in an unlikely venue: the White House. Gurchit Singh Chatha, a SikhLEAD intern, would comment, “The reason, also, that we’re holding this [langar] is not because there’s a misconception about Sikhism in the United States but because there’s a non-conception,” and further suggesting that “People just don’t know who we are. And so that’s a big issue that we’re trying to address.” While this moment carried a symbolic weight of representation, it also marked a shift in how Langar was being positioned in the Western context. Rather than challenging the prevailing social, political, and material conditions of the United States and organizing marginalized peoples in collective resistance, Langar was repurposed to address the issue of visibility, to fill the gap of a "non-conception" of Sikh identity.
These campaigns were not born out of malice; rather, they served a broader purpose, one that subtly reinforced an image of Sikhs as the caretakers of the world—dutifully cleaning up the wreckage left in the wake of Western imperialism and neoliberal policies. As these campaigns gained momentum and visibility, particularly through the pervasive reach of social media, our independent hondh-hasti—the very essence and existence of Sikh identity—began to devolve. A new vocabulary emerged, subtly reshaping an entire generation of Sikhs in the West, gradually steering them away from the robust traditions of resistance that once defined us, toward an identity more palatable to the demands of a post-9/11 world.
In the aftermath of 9/11 and the ensuing war in Iraq, the Sikh community in the West found itself at a critical juncture, navigating a redefined world order that morally demanded assimilation to an era defined by humanitarian imperialism or threatened violence and death either at the hands of racists or state power if you fell in the pale of terrorism. The initiatives undertaken to reshape Sikh identity within the contours of Western narratives were, in many ways, a response to the immediate pressures of the time—campaigns that, while not born of malice, sought to reinforce an image of Sikhs as the caretakers of a world ravaged by the very forces of imperialism and neoliberalism that had wreaked such havoc. These efforts, however, prompted a set of deeper questions I continue to explore: Is this the legacy our Gurus intended for us to carry forward? Or is there a richer, more profound tradition of resistance and transformation that we are being called back to?