Sikh

Why Sikhs are worried about the Indianapolis mass shooting

Last week, the New York Times mapped the location and number of casualties of mass shootings that have occurred on US soil in 2021. It’s a ‘partial’ list, but remarkable, nevertheless. March alone saw the senseless killing of ten people in Colorado, four in California, eight in Atlanta, four in Indianapolis and another four in Maryland. More remarkably still, the shootings occurred unabated throughout the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown. Last Thursday saw yet more mindless carnage in America, with the third mass shooting in Indianapolis this year. A FedEx facility was targeted, and half the victims were local Sikhs (there is a 10,000 strong community across Indiana). Whilst the authorities continue to

Laurence Fox’s ‘clumsy’ criticism of 1917 is good for British Sikhs

A while ago, Laurence Fox referred to “the oddness in the casting” of a Sikh soldier in film 1917 – a daft thing to say given how many Sikhs did fight in that conflict. He said the inclusion of a Sikh soldier (played by Nabhaan Rizwan) in a scene alongside a British regiment was ‘incongruous’ with the rest of the film. The backlash came not just from the army of ‘woke’ enemies he has collected following his Question Time appearance but also from my fellow Sikhs, some of whom reactively published some Punjabi words I dare not repeat. Fox has since apologised to ‘fellow humans who are #Sikhs’. But on