In an Open Let­ter to Jas­jeet Singh -the pro­ducer of The Black Prince, WSN Ed­i­tor calls the film, “the Sikh movie of the cen­tury” and urges every Sikh on planet earth to be part of the en­thralling An­glo-Sikh ex­pe­ri­ence, the movie so bril­liantly pro­vides and touches your heart and soul. 

Dear Jas­jeet Singh Ji Wa­he­guru Ji Ka Khalsa Wa­he­guru Ji Ki Fateh! There could not have been a more be­fit­ting, apt and uni­ver­sal re­ply than pro­duc­ing The Black Prince to undo the decades of mis­in­for­ma­tion and dis­in­for­ma­tion about the Sikhs over the last cen­tury. The Black Prince is “the Sikh movie of the cen­tury”.

Af­ter the eclipse of the Sikh em­pire in 1849, af­ter nearly a cen­tury and a half, by pro­duc­ing this movie you have en­abled the whole Sikh com­mu­nity to re­trieve their ho­n­our and past.

Every time I see the trailer of The Black Prince I get goose­bumps all over my body as if I am also trav­el­ling in time with the char­ac­ters of the movie, es­pe­cially with Ma­haraja Duleep Singh. As Duleep Singh yearns for his king­dom, so do I; what was a lit­tle per­sonal to him, was our Sikh na­tional legacy and her­itage – a legacy built by the Sikhs in less than 550 years of their ex­is­tence on this planet.

“Every time I see the trailer of The Black Prince I get goose­bumps all over my body as if I am also trav­el­ling in time with the char­ac­ters of the movie, es­pe­cially with Ma­haraja Duleep Singh. As Duleep Singh yearns for his king­dom, so do I; what was a lit­tle per­sonal to him, was our Sikh na­tional legacy and her­itage – a legacy built by the Sikhs in less than 550 years of their ex­is­tence on this planet.”

I can al­ready en­vis­age that this Hol­ly­wood movie will do and undo many things. It will en­hance the pres­tige of the Sikhs as a peo­ple and undo the sick­en­ing im­agery of Sikhs in Bol­ly­wood. I clearly en­vi­sion that there will be no need for Sikh par­ents in home­land Pun­jab to tell their chil­dren about the who’s who of the Sikh na­tion and the role of the British. It will very easy for Sikh Di­as­pora par­ents to fa­mil­iarise their chil­dren with their legacy in the Eng­lish lan­guage by see­ing the movie and hold­ing sem­i­nars and dis­cus­sions re­gard­ing the movie.

In home­land Pun­jab, I would like you to gen­er­ate so much in­ter­est that the movie should give the Bol­ly­wood copy­cat Pun­jabi cin­ema a run for its money.

The mother of Ma­haraja Duleep Singh -Ma­ha­rani Jind Kaur char­ac­terised by lead ac­tor Sha­bana Azmi was sur­prised to know the true story of her char­ac­ter and that of the Sikh king­dom. Through her, the film world, the In­dian politi­cians, the civil lib­er­tar­i­ans, the doubt­ing In­dian me­dia will know that Sikhs are the third na­tion (the two be­ing the Hin­dus and the Mus­lims), who too had their own self-rule and but for the chi­canery and de­ceit of the British -who ruled the waves, but had to kid­nap a ten-year-old prince to an­nex the Sikh king­dom.

“ The Black Prince needs to en­ter the veins of the Sikhs.  It needs to en­ter every Sikh house­hold.  The first all-Sikh treat from Hol­ly­wood, the first full fea­ture Hol­ly­wood film on a Sikh theme, the first movie avail­able world­wide in Pun­jabi, Eng­lish and Hindi needs to be­come the first movie in a rev­o­lu­tion which will take the per­cep­tions of Sikhs to new heights.”

The Black Prince needs to en­ter the veins of the Sikhs.  It needs to en­ter every Sikh house­hold.  The first all-Sikh treat from Hol­ly­wood, the first full fea­ture Hol­ly­wood film on a Sikh theme, the first movie avail­able world­wide in Pun­jabi, Eng­lish and Hindi needs to be­come the first movie in a rev­o­lu­tion which will take the per­cep­tions of Sikhs to new heights.

I am cer­tain that Sikh po­lit­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Sikh na­tion­al­ists and Sikh his­to­ri­ans will not have to labour to tell diplo­mats and po­lit­i­cal lead­ers that those seek­ing a Sikh state in home­land Pun­jab are not think­ing of a theo­cratic state but a state based on the bril­liant sec­u­lar ideals and prac­tice of Ma­haraja Duleep Singh’s fa­ther -Ma­haraja Ran­jit Singh.

I am ec­sta­tic that Satin­der Singh Sar­taj, Sha­bana Azmi and the di­rec­tor Kavi Raaj have done so well that this maiden ven­ture has re­ceived ac­co­lades at seven film fes­ti­vals from Los An­ge­les to Toronto  and from Birm­ing­ham and Man­ches­ter.

I am dou­bly happy as you have been as­so­ci­ated with the World Sikh News too in the past. I wish, hope and pray that The Black Prince will take the essence of the Sikh ethos into peo­ple’s’ hearts. I am sure that this is the be­gin­ning of a new dawn for Sikh cin­ema.

For us at the World Sikh News, it is a mis­sion to take The Black Prince into homes of Sikhs and friends of Sikhs.

Yours truly
Jag­mo­han Singh
Ed­i­tor, The World Sikh News