In a comic strip pub­lished on 2 July, lead­ing In­dian Eng­lish daily Hin­dus­tan Times shows the im­age of a Sikh army per­son light­ing a cig­a­rette in a clear at­tempt to den­i­grate the Sikh com­mu­nity.

48hours have passed but Hin­dus­tan Times has not seen the writ­ing on the wall. It has not with­drawn the highly den­i­grat­ing comic strip pub­lished in the 2 July Sun­day Delhi edi­tion of the Brunch mag­a­zine of the Hin­dus­tan Times. The strip is still view­able on the HT web­site. It is a clear-cut in­ten­tional ef­fort to tar­nish the Sikh im­age. A Sikh army man, with the sur­name Singh, called Ma­haraja Sikan­der Singh, with a Sikh tur­ban is shown smok­ing.

Hin­dus­tan Times, a lead­ing In­dian Eng­lish daily with mul­ti­ple edi­tions, in a comic strip has shown a Sikh mil­i­tary per­son­nel light a cig­a­rette. This is blas­phemy -a de­lib­er­ate, con­scious and se­ri­ous at­tempt to de­fame Sikhs in gen­eral and Sikhs serv­ing in the In­dian army in par­tic­u­lar. The whole world knows that smok­ing is a taboo for the Sikhs and one of the four Kurhaits -strictly pro­hib­ited things for all Sikhs.

Now, some­one will call it right to free­dom of ex­pres­sion, some­one else will call it a silly mis­chief, some­one may call it over­sight and some­one may call it po­etic li­cense or some­one else would call it a mis­take by the comic strip il­lus­tra­tor. No, no, no. This is all non­sense. This is a de­lib­er­ate de­sign. 

“Some­one will call it right to free­dom of ex­pres­sion, some­one else will call it mis­chief, some­one may call it over­sight and an­other per­son may call it po­etic li­cense or some­one else would call it a mis­take by the comic strip il­lus­tra­tor. No, no, no. This is all non­sense.”

No­tices have been sent by two lawyers Man­jit Singh Bu­talia and Jag­mo­han Singh to the Hin­dus­tan Times.  Jag­mo­han Singh has filed the no­tice on be­half of the Delhi Sikh Gur­d­wara Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee. Both lawyers have sent le­gal no­tice to the print­ers and pub­lish­ers of the news­pa­per.

In his note cir­cu­lated through so­cial me­dia, Man­jit Singh Bu­talia has said that he has briefed the DS­GMC and the Prime Min­is­ter of In­dia, Union Law Min­is­ter Rav­is­hankar Prasad and Jathedar Akal Takht Sahib through twit­ter and phone.

In the Comic strip the main char­ac­ter is shown to be a Sikh with beard and mous­taches and he is shown to be a Sikh Ma­haraja Sikan­dar Singh. In one of the sub­se­quent il­lus­tra­tions, the Sikh Ma­haraja Sikan­dar Singh is shown smok­ing a cig­a­rette.

Among other things, Man­jit Singh Bu­talia has said, “every­body knows that in Sikh Re­li­gion use of to­bacco is strictly pro­hib­ited just as in Is­lam the meat of pig is pro­hib­ited and in Hindu Re­li­gion meat of cow is pro­hib­ited.”

It fur­ther says that, “In or­der to dra­ma­tize your comic strip you have shown a Sikh smok­ing. You have done this so de­lib­er­ately for com­mer­cial gain to in­crease the read­er­ship of your news­pa­per and have hurt the feel­ings of Sikh Com­mu­nity. You have com­mit­ted jointly and sev­er­ally a re­li­gious sin which is un­par­don­able.”

“The World Sikh News takes a strong no­tice of this and ap­peals to the Sikh world in gen­eral, Sikhs in Delhi in par­tic­u­lar, where the crim­i­nal act has been done to wake up and catch the bull by its horns. It is test­ing times for the Hin­dus­tan Times, the gov­ern­ment of Delhi, the gov­ern­ment of In­dia and the Sikh com­mu­nity.”

Among other things, the vet­eran lawyer has ap­pealed to Sikhs to boy­cott Hin­dus­tan Times and to hold demon­stra­tions against the pa­per and to burn copies of the pa­per. The lawyer has sought an un­con­di­tional apol­ogy on the first page of the news­pa­per, fail­ing which he would file a crim­i­nal case.

In the com­plaint filed by the DS­GMC, the lawyer Jag­mo­han Singh has said that “the Supreme Court of In­dia has clar­i­fied that the right to free­dom of ex­pres­sion is not an ab­solute right but comes with the re­spon­si­bil­ity of not hurt­ing the re­li­gious sen­ti­ments of re­spon­si­ble cit­i­zens…. by hurt­ing Sikh sen­ti­ments they have com­mit­ted of­fi­cers un­der Sec­tion 153 A and 295.”

I won­der whether the news­pa­per is on its own or is it some se­cret cell of the BJP gov­ern­ment now want­ing to take on the Sikhs af­ter they are hound­ing the Mus­lims in the coun­try?  Nev­er­the­less, dan­ger­ous times ahead.

Speak­ing to the World Sikh News, Gur­deep Singh Kun­dan, the Sec­re­tary of the Global Sikh Coun­cil has strongly de­nounced the pub­li­ca­tion for tar­nish­ing the Sikh im­age and ques­tioned the sec­u­lar cre­den­tials of the coun­try un­der the pre­sent dis­pen­sa­tion of Naren­dra Modi. He de­manded that “if there is some sem­blance of sec­u­lar­ism and democ­racy left in the coun­try, the Prime Min­is­ter’s of­fice must ini­ti­ate pro­ceed­ings against the de­fault­ing news­pa­per. Noth­ing else will sat­isfy the Sikh peo­ple across the globe who are deeply per­turbed.”

The World Sikh News takes a strong no­tice of this and ap­peals to the Sikh world in gen­eral, Sikhs in Delhi in par­tic­u­lar, where the crim­i­nal act has been done to wake up and catch the bull by its horns. It is test­ing times for the Hin­dus­tan Times, the Press Coun­cil of In­dia, the gov­ern­ment of Delhi, the Na­tional Com­mis­sion for Mi­nori­ties, the gov­ern­ment of In­dia and the Sikh com­mu­nity.

Even if Hin­dus­tan Times apol­o­gises and with­draws the im­pugned comic strip, they should be made to pay such ex­em­plary dam­ages and the artist, printer and pub­lisher sent to prison so that no one even in their wildest lib­er­ties would dare to do such a thing. Oth­er­wise we will have an In­dian ver­sion of the French “Char­lie Hedbo” here in Delhi.