The Old Lady of Bori­bun­der has had a go at the Sikhs again. It is sys­temic in their thoughts and works. It seems to be in­grained in their phi­los­o­phy to­wards Sikhs and Sikhism and is fre­quently re­flected in their ed­i­to­ri­als and opin­ion columns.  I have not yet for­got­ten the vi­tu­per­a­tive di­a­tribes of TOI ed­i­tor Gir­i­lal Jain in the eight­ies of the last cen­tury. Even then he had to face the ire of the Sikhs as he went ham­mer and tongs against the com­mu­nity. We, how­ever, do not re­call con­science-keeper com­mon-man car­toon­ist R. K. Lax­man of Times of In­dia, de­fam­ing the Sikhs. The pre­sent car­toon­ist Sandeep Ad­hwaryu of Times of In­dia has crossed the lim­its of jour­nal­ism to sup­port gov­ern­ment pro­pa­ganda. WSN op­poses this and in­vites read­ers to lodge their protest with the Times of In­dia.

THIS CAR­TOON IN THE TIMES OF IN­DIA 14 JAN­U­ARY 2022 edi­tion is deroga­tory, in­sults an en­tire com­mu­nity, is aimed at cre­at­ing a nar­ra­tive of Sikhs be­ing in league with Pak­istan, paints the com­mu­nity as sep­a­ratists, and even pro­jects the view that any as­pi­ra­tional idea of the com­mu­nity is con­ceived and nur­tured by Pak­istan.

The car­toon is part of the same pro­pa­ganda that tried to de­scribe the Kisan An­dolan ac­tivists as Khal­is­ta­nis and ques­tioned where the money and re­sources were com­ing from. It is beadbi of the en­tire quom of the Guru.

The Times of In­dia must im­me­di­ately with­draw the car­toon, re­move it from the web­site, of­fer a pub­lic apol­ogy and de­clare the steps it plans to take to fix ed­i­to­r­ial and man­age­r­ial re­spon­si­bil­ity for the crim­i­nal lapse in judg­ment, and what it plans to do to en­sure that per­sis­tent vi­o­la­tions of me­dia ethics, jour­nal­is­tic prac­tices and code, and com­mu­nity sen­si­tiv­i­ties do not hap­pen again.

The car­toon is part of the same pro­pa­ganda that tried to de­scribe the Kisan An­dolan ac­tivists as Khal­is­ta­nis and ques­tioned where the money and re­sources were com­ing from. It is beadbi -blas­phe­mous in­sult, of the en­tire quom of the Guru.

All Lib­eral, De­mo­c­ra­tic, Re­li­gious, Sec­u­lar, Hin­dus, Sikhs, Mus­lims, Athe­ists are an­gry with TOI.  Will some­one ini­ti­ate pro­ceed­ings against the car­toon­ist and the news­pa­per and stop the spread of the com­mu­nal virus, whose ori­gins are in In­dia and nowhere else.