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A Student’s Cri de Coeur:
We Need A Safe Space,
On Campus …
And Nationally

ASHA KAUR SAWHNEY

 

 

 





Although Halloween is a time of celebration for many, each year October 31 and the early days of November bring painful memories for Sikhs worldwide.

Starting on October 31, 1984, several thousand innocent Sikhs were massacred for four days in a state-sponsored pogrom across India, including in its national capital of New Delhi.

My father was studying engineering in Delhi at the time, but luckily the Indian Institute of Technology kept him safe.

I could talk about the events of 1984 for days, but that is not the focus of what I want my peers at Northwestern to understand. Instead, I want my peers to understand the difficulty of being an underrepresented and voiceless minority on this campus.

Sikhism is the fifth largest religion in the world with about 30 million adherents, yet there is not a single class focused on our religion, history or philosophy here at Northwestern University (“NU”) where I study. It is unlikely for Sikhs to even be mentioned in South Asian history, despite being nation builders of India, and having disproportionately paid the highest price in the struggle for independence and the subsequent Partition of Punjab and the subcontinent, creating Pakistan and India -- one of the world’s largest forced relocations ever.

Likewise, there is no student group or religious staff for Sikh students to access, and it was only this year upon my request, that Sikhism was mentioned in the ‘Diversity and Inclusion Essential NU‘.

The frustrating truth is that every one of us seems to have accepted our predicament long ago. I saw confirmation of this when Sikh students slowly stood up in surprise at the ENU, after making themselves comfortable with the expectation that they would not be called to stand.

We have grown up with history textbooks that blatantly deny our religion, and attempt to wash us over with Hinduism, India’s majority religion which has little if any commonality with Sikhism, so why would college be any different?

Having no representation or resources on campus takes a physical toll on me as a Sikh-American  student, because there is no space for me to talk through the pain of experiencing Islamophobia.

Despite not being Muslim, Sikhs face Islamophobia at astonishing rates due to post-9/11 reactions to the turbans that many men and some women proudly wear.

The statistics are utterly depressing. According to the Sikh Coalition, 83 percent of Sikhs have been or are close to someone affected by a hate crime; around half of Sikh children face bullying based on their religion and nearly 1 in 10 Sikh adults in New York have been violently assaulted since 9/11.

To add to the wounds, in 2012, a white supremacist gunned down six people just over an hour away from Evanston at the Gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. When I go there to pray, I still imagine what the walls looked like when they were soaked with blood.

Here’s the thing -- I want to see change. I desperately do.

But I’m tired. I’m tired of never seeing my religion represented except when I ask for it to be. I’m tired of running through the bullet points of my religion, because it’s unfair to distill a beautiful faith based on revolutionary equality into digestible, “easy” facts.

I want to see a student group for us, but I know in my heart it would require hundreds of hours of my time to create, time that I don’t have.

Therefore, until I find these hundreds of hours, all I want is for students on this campus to take the initiative to educate themselves. Look up our faith, find out where the gurdwara nearest to your hometown is and lend a helping hand when you see either us or our Muslim brothers and sisters being treated like the enemy.

I haven’t provided bullet points on our beliefs here on purpose.

And to my fellow Sikhs, I hope you read this and know our identity, culture and pain deserve affirmation.

And if you’re looking to chat with someone who shares part of your story, please reach out.


The author is a Weinberg sophomore.


[Courtesy: The Daily Northwestern. Edited for sikhchic.com]
November 26, 2015
 

Conversation about this article

1: Ishvinder Kaur (London, United Kingdom), November 26, 2015, 7:40 AM.

Asha is proof that our Sikh youth have taken a firm grip of the baton and there's no stopping them. I know in my heart of hearts that they'll make this world a better place. All power to you, Asha!

2: RP Singh (Delhi, India), November 26, 2015, 7:41 AM.

I understand Asha Kaur's frustrations, especially about the under-representation of Sikh Studies in universities. But is it the responsibility of a university to create a students' association? Should a university have a policy to have a certain number of Sikh students so that there are enough to have a student group? Creating a Sikh Students' group hardly takes hundreds of hours. Fill out a few forms. Talk to an advisor. Get your group registered. Reserve a room. Have a weekly paatth/kirtan/discussion circle. If that's too much work, just meet in a park or cafe and make Northwestern Sikhs a reality! Good luck!

3: Arjan Singh (USA), November 27, 2015, 2:06 PM.

Asha: your frustration is justified. But do remember that the statistics have always been against the Sikh community, since the 1400's. If we ever went by statistics we would have been obliterated from the face of this earth. We persevered against every tyrant, each atrocity, every insult and act of spite with humility and steadfastness of our character. The Sikhs have stood their ground without resorting to violence -- except in self-defence. I have personally suffered Islamophobia on more than one occasion, and I do not even tie a turban. This is why very reluctantly I specify that I am neither a Muslim nor Hindu even though I have friends from all communities. Ironically, we Sikhs have to suffer the burden of association even though the violence is not being committed by us. But if someone told you that being a Sikh was an easy walk of life, they are probably lying or do not know the real world. You don’t have to look far; just look at Prof Mohanbir Singh Sawhney at The Kellogg School of Management in Evanston, Illinois -- right where you are now -- and you will find hope, strength and inspiration in that one person alone. Reminds me of an inspirational Bob Seger song: “Against the wind. We were runnin’ against the wind …” There are too many roads for the Sikh community to take, and we will always be runnin’ against the wind. And always meeting the challenge. It makes us better, stronger. I never ever lost hope, never will.

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We Need A Safe Space,
On Campus …
And Nationally"









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