The Supreme Court on Friday decided to hear a PIl seeking a complete ban on websites containing jokes like the ones on ‘Santa-Banta’ that show Sikh community in poor light.
The PIl filed by a lady advocate Harvinder Choudhary passionately argued that such jokes amounted to demeaning a community as Sardars were reduced to a butt of ridicule that showed them to be unintelligent and clumsy.
Faced with this unusual request, a bench of Justices TS Thakur and V Gopala Gowda wondered what possibly could be done as to their knowledge Sikh community has so far taken these jokes in a sporting spirit. “You want all jokes against Sikhs to be stopped. I guess even Sikhs may object to this petition…. Even they enjoy such jokes. Even Khushwant Singh has written books (jokes on Sardars) which is widely read,” it said.
But the PIl litigant shared personal experiences to show how demeaning it was to be a Sardar in the society. She said, “My children are made fun of and they do not want to adopt ‘Singh’ and ‘Kaur’ as surnames to avoid embarrassment. This is even generalised to the extent that if someone asks a clumsy question, he or she is asked, why are you behaving like a SardarIJ”
She sought time to file two volumes of documents to underline her point. The bench gave her a month’s time to prepare the documents and posted the matter for December.
The petition claimed that projecting Sikhs as “unintelligent, stupid, idiot, foolish, naive” amount to violation of fundamental right to life and to live with dignity guaranteed under the Constitution. It sought ban on all such websites projecting people of the community to be of low intellect when it has produced gems of people over the years.
The petitioner even gave the example of Biharis, about whom PM Narendra Modi recently commented that they were intelligent people. “It lifts you up when somebody speaks good about your community.” Justice Thakur quipped, “Don’t worry. When he (PM) goes to Punjab, he will say Sikhs are intelligent.”
