This is not a Bol­ly­wood story but his­tory in the mak­ing tells World Sikh News ed­i­tor Jag­mo­han Singh to Bol­ly­wood ac­tress Kangna Ra­naut in an Open Let­ter in re­sponse to her den­i­grat­ing tweet against oc­to­ge­nar­ian Sikh women par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Farm­ers ag­i­ta­tion on the Delhi bor­der.

DEAR KANGNA RA­NAUT GREET­INGS FROM PUN­JAB! The In­dian film in­dus­try has never been kind to Pun­jab or the peo­ple of Pun­jab de­spite the fact that it draws sub­stan­tial tal­ent from Pun­jab and ex­tols the pa­tri­o­tism of the peo­ple of Pun­jab for its com­mer­cial pur­poses. Bar­ring some rare ex­cep­tions, the In­dian film in­dus­try, its main­stream ac­tors have shown Pun­jabis in gen­eral and Sikhs in par­tic­u­lar as buf­foons and dumb-wit­ted.

Your sin­is­ter and de­mean­ing tweet about the oc­ta­ge­nar­ian women par­tic­i­pants in the on­go­ing farm­ers’ protest does not come as a com­plete sur­prise. How­ever, your tweet has reached the nadir of ha­tred against mi­nori­ties -first against the Mus­lims and now against the Sikhs.

It will do you a lot of good to know about the life, times and chal­lenges of the Sikh women who were and are en­gaged in prepar­ing and serv­ing food to the farmer pro­tes­tors at the var­i­ous en­try points of Delhi. One of the grand­moth­ers, when told about your tweet about them smil­ingly said, “She needs to come and spend a day with me at my farm (not farm­house) and see what I do and then am sure she would take back her words.” Such is the stuff the Sikh el­derly women are made of. In case you do not know, the grand­mother of the two sons of the Tenth Mas­ter Guru Gob­ind Singh chose death when dis­sent was not al­lowed by the then Mughal rulers.

These grand­moth­ers in Delhi have a legacy which they are fol­low­ing. Dis­sent and re­bel­lion flow through their veins. Through them, it flows through the veins of the next gen­er­a­tion. We can­not be cowed down by any gov­ern­men­tal au­thor­ity. They have the back­ing of Sikh his­tory, the spirit to send their men­folk -old and young in the face of strug­gle and bat­tle, to save the ho­n­our of the peo­ple. Death or fear of death has never held them back.

Do you re­alise that the grand­moth­ers at Sha­heen Bagh Mor­cha and at the Farm­ers Protest Mor­cha at Kundli have brought the Modi-Shah gov­ern­ment on its knees?

The con­sci­en­tious peo­ple of Pun­jab have led the all-In­dia farm­ers’ ag­i­ta­tion against the chal­lenge of the Naren­dra Modi gov­ern­ment and are de­ter­mined to take it to its log­i­cal con­clu­sion. You are ad­vised not to in­dulge in trou­bled wa­ters. This is not a Bol­ly­wood film story, no film shoot­ing is tak­ing place at the five bor­ders gherao­ing Delhi, but real-life his­tory in the mak­ing. Only the naive and the ut­terly bi­ased like you will choose to ig­nore or con­demn at this own peril.

Ju­rist Francesco Frank Caprio who serves as the chief mu­nic­i­pal judge in Prov­i­dence, Rhode Is­land, USA and whose ju­di­cial work tele­vised in the se­r­ial, “Caught in Prov­i­dence” is ex­tremely pop­u­lar on so­cial me­dia proudly says, “grand­moth­ers are the back­bone of fam­i­lies and so­ci­eties. They are un­sung he­roes of our lives, do­ing every­thing that their chil­dren and grand­chil­dren want.” Please watch this se­r­ial if you have not done so far.

Com­ing from a lady ac­tor like you, known to play off­beat roles, I ex­pected that you would ad­mire their grit, ad­mi­ra­tion and com­mit­ment in brav­ing the win­ter cold and work tire­lessly to pro­vide food to the thou­sands who are at the re­ceiv­ing end of the anti-farmer black laws re­cently en­acted by Naren­dra Modi gov­ern­ment. In your en­thu­si­asm to please Naren­dra Modi, who pre­vented the de­mo­li­tion of your house, you have gone over­board to please the In­dian Prime Min­is­ter and vi­ciously de­nounce the farm­ers’ protest.

Do you re­alise that the grand­moth­ers at Sha­heen Bagh Mor­cha and at the Farm­ers Protest Mor­cha at Kundli have brought the Modi-Shah gov­ern­ment on its knees?

Sikhs are a very emo­tional com­mu­nity and they love and re­spect their el­ders. Around the world, Sikhs are in tears watch­ing their men, women and chil­dren, young and old on the streets of Delhi.

Through your tweet, you have caused more dis­con­cert­ment and den­i­gra­tion. You have caused deep hurt to the Sikh psy­che. Sikhs have a long mem­ory and they do not for­get such as­saults and in­sults. The re­ac­tion to your tweet, as you may know by now has been strong and acer­bic. Yet, Sikhs can be for­giv­ing, so the least you can do is to pub­licly apol­o­gize to the en­tire Sikh com­mu­nity. The most you can do is to ask the com­mer­cial-minded, po­lit­i­cally sub­mis­sive and so­cially dumb Bol­ly­wood film in­dus­try to come out openly in favour of the farm­ers’ strug­gle for their le­git­i­mate rights.

I hope and pray that bet­ter sense will pre­vail. Will it?

Jag­mo­han Singh
Ed­i­tor, The World Sikh News