A Window To Perceptive Journalism

Launching F-16s and
Cutting Off A Sikh's Hair

S P Singh

Tormentors cut off the hair of a Sikh boy in Jaipur after he resisted attempts by the hoodlums to tease girls of his school, the incident sending shock waves throughout the Sikh community. In Netherlands, authorities sent up nothing less than F-16s to escort a plane down to safety after the pilot and passengers noticed suspicious dress, language and behaviour of some Muslims on board hailing from Mumbai. But what's common to the two incidents? 

Religious intolerance and racial profiling. One could follow the other. Either could lead to the other, and both have often gone hand in hand in the history of the mankind. 

Suspicious dress? They were wearing salwar-kameez, like millions of Muslims do. Suspicious language? Oh, we didn't know that's the new way of describing Urdu. Suspicious behaviour? They were exchanging mobile phones! For God’s sake, I’m never going to lend my cell again. 

There are two fronts on which the fight against terrorism can be fought. On the ground, against the ones who are tormenting innocent citizens and threatening their way of life, and in the minds of those who may be weaned away because someone thinks there is no need to win back the mindspace. Ruthless power on the ground, and abysmal understanding about how to win minds. Those fighting against terror with your tax money are pushing new recruits into enemy ranks. Suicide bombers aren’t coming from Afghan caves, just make sure you aren’t forcing any in the London suburbs to become one. 

Osama Bin Laden may have a camera and a video-recorder, but how are the tapes going to any TV channel he fancies? On flying carpets? Amazon doesn’t deliver in Afghan caves. The fighters against terror can’t find the culprits simply because it doesn’t know what they look like. 

But they are trying. Trying hard. Too hard. And once they reach a reasonably clear sketch, they quickly tell the world. What were the air marshals on board that flight doing? They were matching the faces with the sketches. What exactly do the profilers of terrorists think? That they watch Fox News and then dress up in order to fit the stereotype? 

Some hoodlums beating up a boy is simple street problem. Cutting off his hair shows a deep-rooted hatred, a reaction towards a minority, an attack defined in the idiom of religious intolerance. 

Even with its tall claims of a 5,000-year-old civilisation, across vast swathes of India, human rights and religious harmony trip frequently. And often the respect for an individual's rights in the United States and the might of the law deployed in the protection of an individual's or a community's faith in western democracies was quoted in the sub-continent as an example to shame anyone falling short of the ideal. American democratic values have often held a light and helped the societal forces in the subcontinent wage a war against intolerance and human rights violation. 

People must not be afraid of borrowing a phone, lest an F-16 goes up. 

At a juncture in history when the United States wants the world to stand as one in the fight against terror, it will help if the West sends signals that it knows that terrorists do not look like a brown skinned man with a beard who may be texting a message home. It will help if the warriors in fight against terror do not launch F-16s into the sky merely because some people speak in Urdu on a flight. That will help us in saving someone from a forced haircut in Jaipur or Jamshedpur. India is a great country, and so is the United States. It hurts when someone scoffs at protests by the Sikhs by saying, “It also happens in the United States.” We would much rather like to say, “We've got to learn. Look at the United States!” Do not do racial profiling. It helps others in fighting religious intolerance. 

August 28, 2006

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