Long Hair, Deep Faith and Bigotry

[Akaali]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/11/nyregion...0fc803d7534031d

Sikhs in their turbans, playing basketball in Lodi.

By JOHN HOLL

Published: April 11, 2004

THIS story started, ostensibly, in early March, when the police here were called in to investigate what appeared to be a racially motivated attack. Two Sikh teenagers had been robbed, then set upon; their turbans had been torn from their heads, and the long hair that their religion commands them to cherish had been cut off.

News of the attack quickly spread through the stunned Sikh community - some 30,000 in New Jersey - which had routinely reported harassment since the Sept. 11 attacks. Lodi authorities began searching for suspects. Bergen County officials and local community leaders held public meetings to denounce the crimes and plead for peace.

Then the story took a surprising turn. Investigators began finding inconsistencies in the boys' accounts. On repeated questioning, said the Lodi police chief, Vincent J. Caruso, they confessed: There had been no attack - at least, nothing physical. The two, feeling trapped by a religious heritage that made them daily targets of taunting, had shed their turbans and cut their three-foot-long coils of hair themselves. Then they had blamed anonymous attackers.

Despite their lies, fellow Sikhs and other experts say, the boys' story generally held a kernel of truth: Because they wore turbans, t

hey were usually assumed to be Muslims - perhaps in some way linked to the Taliban, or even Al Qaeda - even though Sikhism is in no way connected with Islam. The two had by the time of this incident endured years of taunting.

The older teenager, Simrandeep Singh, 18, said in an emotional telephone interview earlier this week that he was overwhelmed - too shaken to speak of the incident. Despite the urgings of his temple leaders to speak, so Americans could learn about the peaceful ways of Sikhs, he said he simply could not.

"I have spoken about it," he said. "I just don't feel like saying anything more. I am sorry."

The younger boy, a 17-year-old whose name has not been released, did not return several messages seeking comment.

But Gagandeep Singh Sardar, a fellow Sikh who is a criminal justice student at Rutgers, said he could imagine what the boys had been going through.

For Mr. Sardar, now 22, the taunting and harassment began in middle school, where he was the only Sikh student. As he continued through high school, he said in a recent interview, he learned as best he could to shrug off the verbal assaults.

The World Trade Center attacks, inevitably, upset his delicate balance; from that point on, he said, he felt the full heat of bigotry. One day soon after the attacks, as he walked from his dorm room to the cafeteria on Kean University's campus, he heard someone shout from an open window.

"Hey, Osama bin Laden!" he recalled the voice screaming, "go back to your own country!" It was, he said, a taste of what the new world would be like.

"In the days before Sept. 11 it was common to be harassed," Mr. Sardar said. "Post Sept. 11, the slurs took on a more hateful tone." Following a strict religious code as a teenager is hard enough, he added. "But things become compounded when people verbally harassed you because they think you are a terrorist."

In high school, Mr. Sardar said, he always felt the pressure to fit in. "I wanted to b

e more accepted in the community and with my non-Sikh friends," he said. "I had Sikh friends who did rebel, who did try to fit in. It got easier in college, where individuality is more accepted. But high school is completely different."

Sikhism, a monotheistic religion, is about 500 years old; with 25 million believers, it is the fifth-largest faith in the world, said Yadvinder Singh, an elder at Sri Guru Singh Sabha Temple in Glen Rock, which the boys attend. The faith started in Punjab, an area that now straddles the India-Pakistan border, and it preaches a message of equality, social justice and devotion to God.

"Often," said Mr. Singh, "the same people who call Sikhs awful things wind up apologizing after they learn more about us. We are not terrorists, we are peaceful, we are our own people, and want to teach that."

(Mr. Singh's name means "lion"; most Sikh men use it as a middle or last name. Sikh women use "Kaur," which means princess or lioness.)

[Jash]

Waheguroo Jee Ka Khalsa!

Waheguroo Jee Kee Fateh!!

That article is really an eye opener abt watz going on around the world...

itz so sad to be called a muslim when u're not...

even where i am..i'm wearing a scarf...n ppl think i'm a muslim..sum even said christian!! lolzzzz..dunno how they guessed!..n when i said that i'm a sikh...they'll go like "huh??"...with the blur face...they dunno anything abt sikhi or sikhs over here..... :umm:

we really need to educate the society abt our religion n beliefs so that ppl will not go against them...therez sooooo much of things i've gone through here with ppl of other race that i'm sure most of u alll have gone through also..n i'm sure u know wat i mean....we really need to do something abt this b4 matters get worse...

my 2 cents...

bhul chuk maaf karni ji...

Waheguroo Jee Ka Khalsa!

Waheguroo Jee Kee Fateh!!

[Guest SikhForLife]

nice article.. i know those people..

and i know why he cut his hair.. and it wasnt exactly "social prejudice" .. i shouldnt tell u real reason as it is quite disgusting and shameful..

in Lodi there are so many sikhs, everyone knows about them and who they are... its a real diverse place

[Khalsa4ever]

vwihgurU jI kw Kwlsw!

vwihgurU jI kI &iqh!!

yeah, its pretty sad... but I guess at least they know that you are of some religion (like that helps).

vwihgurU jI kw Kwlsw!

vwihgurU jI kI &iqh!!

[Guest SikhForLife]

CONTINUED FROM ABOVE

somehow u forgot to copy paste entire article!

One of the most forceful ways for Sikh youths to rebel is to cut off their hair, called "Kes," which is believed to be a gift from God and is to be kept in its natural state. It was a combination of rebellion and peer pressure, Yadvinder Singh and others said, that led the two boys to cut their hair. And it was fear that caused them to lie about it.

They first told the authorities they had been assaulted and robbed of $40 by a group of men while they waited at a bus stop. They said they then followed the men into a nearby park, where a shoving match ensued. During the altercation, one of the assailants, who had a pair of scissors, pulled off the teenagers' turbans and cut their hair.

Once the boys were separated and questioned, however, details in their accounts stopped matching, said Chief Caruso. Simrandeep eventually admitted to the police that he and his friend had simply wanted to be more stylish and in sync with their non-Sikh friends at school.

Despite the gravity of the attempt at deception, the chief said, the youths have learned their lesson and will not be charged.

"They are taking more heat and pressure from their family and religious leaders about what they had done," Chief Caruso said. "They did not knock off a deli, or beat someone up, they simply told a story that was not true and caused some panic. They have been very apologetic to the town."

In fact, in an important way, their act provided a "wake-up call," the chief added, saying such attacks "can an

d will happen anywhere and we want to be prepared."

To that end, he says, he has formed a "human relations committee" made up of religious leaders and local officials, who will meet once a month to discuss conditions in Lodi, a diverse community of 28,000 residents, and to ensure preparedness in the event of an actual hate crime.

As for Yadvinder Singh, the Glen Rock temple elder, he did not condemn the boys outright, but expressed frustration and disappointment, saying that during their deception, "we were nervous, we thought it was a real attack and there were no suspects in custody."

"We were ready to post a reward to get these criminals off the streets," he continued, saying of the boys, "They did a terrible thing and were and continue to be under a lot of stress, and we are going to help them though it and all learn to live with their decisions."

In Mr. Singh's view, the episode could have been prevented if the boys' families had anticipated the peer pressure they would face in the United States and had given them a more comprehensive religious education.

"We must teach the young to respect themselves and to understand the religion," he stressed, adding that children at his temple were being taught to confront people who use bigoted terms - if the situation is not overtly threatening - and try explaining something of the difference between Sikhism and Islam. As an aid in such situations, Mr. Singh said, most Sikhs hand out explanatory cards provided by the temple.

He also said Simrandeep had apologized to the congregation and would perform community service to the temple as punishment.

All Mr. Singh's remarks hinted at the rigorous demands of being a Sikh - as the stern fervor of Simrandeep's friend Mandeep Singh, a Lodi High School junior, hinted at his own strong indoctrination.

"I was really angry when they did that," Mandeep said, adding that his friends had never spoken about the pressures they were feeling, and that he simply

could not understand their actions. "It has never crossed my mind, cutting hair, and it won't ever. I love my religion; it is my identity."

Mandeep, who said that both boys now felt very guilty, added that Simrandeep "did not know what he was doing when he cut his hair."

"Everyone goes through peer pressure," Mandeep said, "but the true test is how you deal with it. Simrandeep did not deal with it well at the time, but said he will grow his hair back and make amends for his deeds."

The practice of bowing to pressure - both peer and political - is as old as America itself. "We've seen since the days of Ellis Island that people who come into this country routinely give up their language, their names, some beliefs, just to be here in America," said Dr. Katrina Bledsoe, a community culture professor of psychology at the College of New Jersey in Ewing. "If people live here, then they have some sort of pride, and kids especially want to fit in if they are seen as different. That aspect of life never changes."

But for an intensely devotional group like the Sikhs, said Gurinder Singh Mann, a professor of Sikh and Punjab studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara, assimilation can be even more wrenching.

"It's very difficult for young Sikhs to grow up in the North American culture; it is very tempting," said Professor Mann, who has written extensively about the daily challenges confronted by Sikhs.

He described most youths as weighed down by twin pressures - wielded, on the one hand, by parents and religious leaders who want them to adhere to faith and its symbols, on the other by the seductive secular culture that they find at school.

To help ease things, Mr. Mann said, "the thing to focus on and discuss in public is the importance of what the symbols stand for."

Which is why, every Sunday for two hours, Yadvinder Singh and other elders meet with their congregation's youth, to discuss culture, history, language and the faith it

self. The classes are nominally voluntary, but Mr. Singh said about 120 children, ages 6 to 18, attended every week.

All Sikhs can be identified by the external uniform they wear, he added; it serves as a reminder of their constant commitment. That uniform has five required components - articles of faith - the first being the hair, in its turban, which is believed to keep the faithful closer to God. There is also the steel bracelet, worn as a sign of servitude, and soldier's shorts, worn for modesty and self-restraint. A comb is carried at all times, as a sign of cleanliness and as a spiritual reminder to shed impure thoughts. Finally, all baptized Sikhs carry a kind of sword called a Kirpan, which can range in length from several inches to three feet. It has the symbolic value that the cross has for Christians, Mr. Singh said, and is carried not as a weapon but as a reminder of courage, determination and an obligation to help the weak.

The turban is what singles Sikhs out. And the young are not the only ones it causes problems for.

Last month, for example, Harbhajan Singh, secretary general of the Glen Rock temple, was vacationing in the Bahamas with his wife. As they walked along the beach in the late afternoon, Mr. Singh said in an interview, a man began shouting slurs at him.

"It happens everywhere," he said. "The perception needs to be changed."

The Sikh Coalition, based in Hoboken, was created after 9/11 to do just that, said Amardeep Singh, its legal director. He sees New Jersey as more enlightened about Sikhs than most of the country, because of a better-trained legal system and more tolerant and better-educated people. In fact, he pointed out, the state is one of the most diverse in the country and a haven to many Sikhs.

But problems obviously remain. In a forum on the coalition's Web site inviting readers to submit reports of bias, more than 300 have been logged since Sept. 11, 35 of them in New Jersey.

"What's disturbing is that there hasn

't been enough education for non-Sikhs,'' Amardeep Singh said. "Everyone knows that using the 'N' word when speaking about African-Americans is not acceptable at all, and there are terms used to describe Jewish people that are also inappropriate," he said. "But in this country, New Jersey or wherever, people don't see a problem with calling a Sikh - or anyone perceived to be Muslim or Arab - a terrorist or bin Laden.

"That needs to be changed."

Representing the coalition, Mr. Singh routinely speaks at schools and police stations to educate people on Sikhism.

"It is a challenge to have people understand Sikhism," he said, "but we are working hard and will spread the message." People convicted of hate crimes against Sikhs are often ordered to give lectures to groups as part of a community service sentence, he said.

When asked about the Lodi teenagers, he said hair-cutting was not uncommon among young Sikhs newly arrived in America. Some, he added, do it to improve their chances of finding a job.

He says he takes the more relaxed view that as long as a person's intentions are true and he or she decides to "stay on the path" - generally following the Sikh code of conduct - then he or she is still a true Sikh.

"However," he concluded, "blaming the choice to cut one's hair on a hate crime - a lie - is just nuts."