The opinions we have in our minds are not always truly our own. Most of our thoughts, values, and beliefs are socially constructed from the outside world; and they are brought to us by riding the informative transportation vehicle called the mass media.
Newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and more recently the Internet, is all part of a communicative machine that makes up the mass media in the today. These various parts of the media machine show the general populace its reflections on society and they instill lasting images about our local and international surroundings. Now, whether these images are accurate, objective, or on the contrary completely biased, the effect is just as crucial to our perceptions of the rest of the world. So, what happens when a person or a group of people becomes a part of those images that are relayed between journalists and the inquiring population?
An example of this answer is found in the relationship between the media and the Sikhs. The Sikhs’ portrayal by the media not only produced ambiguous stereotypes, but in turn it also sparked an emerging movement from the Sikhs to challenge their social reputation and to build more unity among the followers of the religion by using the media themselves.
Similar to most Asian cultures, the Sikh religion and way of life was not widely known or understood by the Western regions of the world until some form of European intervention forces the Asian peoples to crack open their cultural door. Initially concentrated in the most northern part of India called Punjab, the Sikh people were not intensely investigated by Westerners until Britain annexed the area in 1849 (Fox 6). Slowly, as the manipulative interests of the British Empire grew, so did the exposure of the Sikhs.
Self-righteous proclamations of colonialism began to present themselves in British newspapers and journals; which as a result shows early on the British to Sikh relations from a paternalistic approach. Implications of taming, “savage, barbaric, and backward societies” can be traced back to the colonialism of the Sikhs.1 Unfortunately, these archaic conceptions still occasionally surface in the stereotypes produced by movies and newspapers today.
The Sikh stereotypes are however based on some historical context that is an overly generalized representation given to the identity of the entire group of people rather than the smaller portion involved. Words like, “ terrorism” and “assassination” are thrown to all Sikhs rather than connected to the ones accountable. The media has at times regarded the actions of a particular faction, like the Babbar Khalsa, and associated it with all other Sikh followers. The Babbar Khalsa is a Sikh extremist group that has participated in several infamous terrorist acts. Ever since their link to the 1985 bombing of an Air India passenger jet crashing off the coast of Ireland, Sikh terrorist connections has pervaded the subconscious of journalists and news anchors alike ( Bose 16).
Associations of Sikhs performing terrorist lunacy were given to the world; while subtly clouding our already misunderstood vision of the Sikhs. In 1995, the assassination of Punjabi’s chief prime minister, Beant Singh, was caused by an explosion in his car while he was present at the city of Chandigarh ( Bose 16). Due to the Babbar Khalsa’s reputation with explosives, links were immediately made from their group to the incident.
The United News of India was notified that the Babbar Khalsa was responsible and an investigation was diligently put forth. In this more recent case, these ‘quick to believe’ responses demonstrated not only the press’s bias, but also that of the federal government of India. Here is where the dangerous overlapping of distributed media issues can influence not only peoples’ attitudes but affect serious government related judgments and actions.
Several years ago, a fatal epidemic of Dengue fever spread over the capital of New Delhi.5 The newspapers and journals were quick to blame the Indian government for neglect of the public’s health, which may have led to the deadly epidemic. Shortly after the publishing of these news articles, a Delhi High Court judge combated the situation by asking the government to explain its actions of neglect.6 The court had taken action solely on the interpretations by the media; thereby tainting its objective role.7 This demonstrates the press’s power of influence. People’s rights are violated when the media presents a biased account and it interferes with governmental decisions for its country.
Historical Sikh events have suffered from not only biased media coverage, but selective coverage which projects a one sided perspective. The “media blackout” of Operation Blue Star, is a prime example of this type of media offense.8
Operation Blue Star (as it was called by the Indian government) was the government ordered storming of the Golden Temple at Amritsar. The Temple was serving as an armed encampment and refuge for Bhindranwale, the leader of a Sikh political faction (Wheelock 101). Using ground forces and tanks, the Indian government invaded the temple; killing dozens of Sikhs and destroying the sacred gurdwara with bullet holes and fire.9 Representing the holiest shrine and Temple in the Sikh religion, this event sits deep in the hearts and memories of Sikhs.
The day before the actual invasion, the government ordered all press out of state and restricted press coverage in Punjab (Wheelock 103). The press was allowed back a week later and then only on guided tours (Wheelock 103). The aftermath was later described by the press, as involving a small gang of criminals disliked by the majority of Sikhs and Indians.10 Making light of the militants depicted them as petty political agitators, rather than leaders of a movement for a greater Punjabi autonomy.
A discrepancy between the press release images and the actual severity of the violence used by the Indian government in the operation, created a layer of deceit when informing the public.11 This usage of selective information in the Indian media only contributed to the ambiguous image of the Sikhs to the misinformed world.
However, the storming of the Golden Temple was just a precursor to the carnage of the Sikh people about to come. The Delhi Genocide of 1984, marked another historical event drenched in Sikh blood and influencing social images portrayed by the media. As a result of Indira Ghandi’s assassination by her Sikh bodyguards, the Indian ethnic majority performed massive destruction and death towards the entire Sikh population.12
Five thousand Sikhs were murdered, twenty thousand Sikhs were injured, and fifty thousand families were uprooted from their homes.13 Thousands of copies of the Sikh holy scriptures were burnt and Sikh holy temples were destroyed. These deeds by other Indian citizens came out of deep rooted feelings of conflict towards the Sikh extremists and assassins; yet it struck out at all participants of the Sikh population.
During the mayhem, scenes of Sikh men drenched in kerosene and beaten with iron rods, were reported to the watching world with graphic television and radio images. The confused public was shocked at the savagery while not fully understanding the long historical and ethnic contexts of the occurences. Film footage was mostly focused on Indhira Ghandi’s assassins, [and people] chanting around her dead body, khoonka badla khoon, which means “seek blood for blood”.14 Truckloads of corpses were cremated and 5,000 Sikhs were killed in four days.15 Powerful visuals as these imprint long lasting effects on our minds; and further cloud the lens with which we see the people associated with those visuals in the future.
Sikh portrayal in the media now still contains traces of the violent past and blends itself in with current news about the Sikhs. Memories of violent historical events contribute to sensationalized issues about Sikh militancy and violence (Tator 1995).
The media easily evokes civil unrest, culture conflicts, violent confrontation, and destruction of property in its reports to society when alluding to the Sikhs (Tator 1995). Articles and new reports take one characteristic of the Sikh culture and display it in the context as if it pertained to all followers of the Sikh religion. Although not all Sikhs are militant, it is easier to overgeneralize them as a culture and neatly categorize the Sikhs in order to understand them better.
An attitude of this sort is widely held by most journalists and people who ignore the population as a compilation of individuals, but rather as a homogeneous crowd. A prime example of this attitude can be seen in a 1982 Wall Street Journal article discussing Punjabi protests against Indian central rule. The writer, June Kronholz notes:
The best judgment here is that emotional outbursts from the Sikhs can soon be contained by police, perhaps with the aid of curfews where needed. Otherwise, the disciplined Indian army can step in to quell the major disturbances.
This quote implies that the Sikhs are emotionally frustrated children who need disciplinary action by a paternal government figure. Through this thought process, a revitalization of prejudice occurs within the media and a more static stereotype becomes harder to change.
Exactly how does the media come about producing these subjective ideas about a particular culture as the Sikhs? As an available source of information to the inquiring public, the media is able to control what we are informed about and how we are wanted to see that information. Warped representations, omissions, and inacccurate data are utilized to paint the desired picture of the reported affair (Tator 1995).
In North America Sikhs are greatly underrepresented in the media as professionals, anchors, actors, and middle class families. Rarely is there any representation in the news of a Sikh lawyer or anchorwoman. The invisibility of Sikhs in the media, projects the idea that Sikhs are not a relevant part of the North American society (Tator 1995).
Yet, when the Sikhs are depicted in the media, they are portrayed in a stereotypical manner that is familiar to the viewers. Characters rarely stray from the expected roles and commonly held beliefs about the Sikh peoples. Sikh men are seen as unforgiving militants, while Sikh women are seen as meek and unwilling wives.16
A kinder, softer image of Sikhs are either ignored or rarely offered by the media. As recently as April 13, 1999, Pakistani authorities banned the international press from one of the holiest Sikh shrines where a massive spiritual pilgrimage was taking place.17 Thousands of foreign and local Sikh pilgrims were taking part in a celebrated religious festival at the shrine where it was believed that the Guru Nanak had left his handprint in a rock above a flowing spring.18 Coming from all parts of the world Sikhs come to the shrine to take holy baths in the pond behind the spring. Unfortunately, due to the India-Pakistan tension, all foreign press was banned from this peaceful site.19
An opportunity to offer the world a spiritual and serene picture of Sikhism was lost.
Despite the dominant media influence, Sikhs around the world have taken up the challenge to reconstruct their social image and spread knowledge of their religion to Sikhs and non-Sikhs alike. Ironically, one of their most potent tactics is by using the methods initially used against them. Sikhs are using radio, television, journals, the internet, and other sources of media to rebuild their image and strengthen the communication between each other.
