Sikhs have a proud her­itage in jour­nal­ism. The World Sikh News humbly in­her­its a slice of the same with a de­ter­mi­na­tion to take it to new heights. In its third ver­sion, WSN per­ceives events, philoso­phies and po­lit­ical de­vel­op­ments through the prism of the Sikh faith com­mu­nity so that the com­mu­nity is proud of the web­site and the web­site, in lieu, keeps the com­mu­ni­ty’s faith alive.

Wel­come to the fu­ture of Sikh jour­nal­ism -a plat­form where we pro­vide you with a Sikh per­spec­tive on World news and events, and a world-view on Sikh events and news – a pi­o­neer­ing pro­ject, one of its kind, set­ting new stan­dards of jour­nal­ism, un­prece­dented in the Sikh world.

The march of Sikh jour­nal­ism is unique. When the Sikh voice was si­lenced in the home­land, the ex­em­plary con­tri­bu­tion of founders of the World Sikh News es­tab­lished by the World Sikh Or­ga­ni­za­tion un­der the aegis of Gian Singh Sandhu and Gurinder Singh Gre­wal in 1984 is a con­tem­po­rary ex­am­ple of bold Sikh jour­nal­ism. The his­tor­i­cal con­tri­bu­tion of the scion of one of the gen­er­als in the army of Ma­haraja Ran­jit Singh – a phil­an­thropist Sar­dar Dyal Singh Ma­jithia who was the founder of The Tri­bune, first pub­lished in 1881, can­not be ig­nored. An­other in­stance of re­mark­able fore­sight is that of the Sar­dar Sun­der Singh Lyallpuri, who as the found­ing fa­ther of the Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal party, launched Hin­dus­tan Times in 1924, though it is an­other story that these two pa­pers no more cater to the “Sikh” view­point and hence can­not be called “Sikh” news­pa­pers any­more.

“Like the Chris­t­ian Sci­ence Mon­i­tor, though Sikh in name, we will em­brace hu­mankind, in­ter­na­tion­al­ism, free­dom of ex­pres­sion and jus­tice for all, ho­n­our­ing the words of the Ninth Mas­ter – Guru Tegh Ba­hadur, “fear none, frighten none.””

The unas­sail­able pres­ence of Daily Ajit founded by Sar­dar Sadhu Singh Ham­dard in 1941 and which con­tin­ues un­der the stew­ard­ship of Bar­jin­der Singh Ham­dard makes us proud of the bench­marks set by it. The Spokesman Weekly which was ini­tially pub­lished in Eng­lish by Sar­dar Hukum Singh and nur­tured by Ghan­isham Singh has been a bea­con of light to be fol­lowed in strength­en­ing Sikh voice in the world.

The dis­tinc­tion of The Sikh Re­view of Kolkata, un­der the lead­er­ship of Capt. Bhag Singh which was started in 1953, can be termed noth­ing but ex­tra­or­di­nary. I fondly re­call an evening spent with him decades ago when he ex­pressed how he wanted Sikh youth to take up Eng­lish jour­nal­ism se­ri­ously. Wher­ever he is, he must be happy to see the World Sikh News. The role played by Akali Pa­trika, which was edited by Rat­nesh Singh Sodhi for al­most five decades, in shap­ing Sikh re­li­gio-po­lit­i­cal opin­ion is ex­tra­or­di­nary. An­other jour­nal of con­se­quence was the Sant Sipahi of Mas­ter Tara Singh, whose role in in­flu­enc­ing the Sikh psy­che can­not be un­der­es­ti­mated.

“WSN in­vites you to be a whole­some part of this jour­ney -as read­ers, con­trib­u­tors, opin­ion-mak­ers, thinkers, the­o­rists, lead­ers, me­dia stal­warts, so­cial me­dia stars, ad­ver­tis­ers and donors. If you have an opin­ion to of­fer to the Sikh world, or a Sikh thought for the world, make the World Sikh News your medium. We will never let you down. We in­vite you to prove this quip wrong, “Sikhs do not have their own pow­er­ful me­dia.””

The dis­tinc­tion of The Sikh Re­view of Kolkata, un­der the lead­er­ship of Capt. Bhag Singh which was started in 1953, can be termed noth­ing but ex­tra­or­di­nary. I fondly re­call an evening spent with him decades ago when he ex­pressed how he wanted Sikh youth to take up Eng­lish jour­nal­ism se­ri­ously. Wher­ever he is, he must be happy to see the World Sikh News. The role played by Akali Pa­trika, which was edited by Rat­nesh Singh Sodhi for al­most five decades, in shap­ing Sikh re­li­gio-po­lit­i­cal opin­ion is ex­tra­or­di­nary. An­other jour­nal of con­se­quence was the Sant Sipahi of Mas­ter Tara Singh, whose role in in­flu­enc­ing the Sikh psy­che can­not be un­der­es­ti­mated.

I was pleas­antly sur­prised to see the head­ing “Sikh jour­nal­ism” while go­ing through Sikh En­cy­clo­pe­dia of Sar­dar Har­bans Singh of Pun­jabi Uni­ver­sity Pa­tiala. The com­pendium of­fers re­mark­able de­tails of the be­gin­ning of Sikh jour­nal­ism that had roots in Urdu and Pun­jabi and its his­tory goes way back to the nine­teenth cen­tury with the first jour­nal pro­duced in 1867 through pam­phlets, broad­sheets very of­ten hand-writ­ten and then du­pli­cated. Though printed in small num­bers, these jour­nals and news­pa­pers had a strong im­pact on the thought-processes of the then fledg­ling Sikh com­mu­nity, go­ing through yet an­other bout of tur­bu­lent times.

Of course, to­day we are also proud of the hun­dreds of jour­nals and web­sites in Pun­jabi and Eng­lish which reach out to the Sikh world far and wide in their own way. Many, even with rel­a­tively small cir­cu­la­tion num­bers, con­tinue to fear­lessly raise their voice for causes dear to them.

WSN in­vites you to be a whole­some part of this jour­ney -as read­ers, con­trib­u­tors, opin­ion-mak­ers, thinkers, the­o­rists, lead­ers, me­dia stal­warts, so­cial me­dia stars, ad­ver­tis­ers and donors. If you have an opin­ion to of­fer to the Sikh world, or a Sikh thought for the world, make the World Sikh News your medium. We will never let you down. We in­vite you to prove this quip wrong, “Sikhs do not have their own pow­er­ful me­dia.”

Like the Chris­t­ian Sci­ence Mon­i­tor, with Sikh in our name, we will em­brace hu­mankind, in­ter­na­tion­al­ism, free­dom of ex­pres­sion and jus­tice for all, ho­n­our­ing the words of the Ninth Mas­ter -Guru Tegh Ba­hadur, “fear none, frighten none.”

As we evolve, we lead the way the world un­der­stands Sikhs and Sikhism through new im­pact­ful “in­ter­ven­tion­ist jour­nal­ism.” WSN will con­tinue to beckon, “be­cause the truth needs to be told.”