Sikh joke

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A Sikh joke ( English Sardar (ji) joke , from ' Sardar ', a colloquial honoring title for male Sikhs) is a joke about members of the religious community of the Sikhs in India . Although considered politically incorrect , these jokes enjoy considerable circulation and popularity.

background

Sikhs in a procession on the occasion of a Sikh holiday

The Sikhs form a comparatively small religious minority with a share of around 1.7% in relation to the entire Indian population. Originally, Sikhism was limited to the Punjab only. Little by little, Sikhs have also settled in other parts of India. The vast majority still live in the northern Indian state of Punjab , where the Sikhs make up the majority of the population. Religiously religious or traditional male Sikhs can be recognized by their external appearance. Their religion commands them to wear a turban at all times and to let their hair and beard grow unshaved.

The Sikh Empire was conquered by the British East India Company in several wars in the first half of the 19th century . During this period, the Sikhs built a reputation for being tough, brave, and stubborn soldiers. Despite their small proportion of the population, they made up a disproportionately large proportion of the military in British India (18% in 1894, even 30% in 1914). Sikhs still make up around 10-15% of the personnel in the Indian armed forces and 20% of the officer corps. The state of Punjab is also one of the most economically developed states in India.

Regardless of this martial tradition and the apparent success, Sikhs have become the target of jokes like no other religious community ( Christians , Buddhists, Muslims etc.) in India. There are a large number of Sikh jokes that are passed on in various forms: in narrative form, as anecdotes, in the form of proverbs, language jokes, words or simple gestures. In these jokes, Sikhs are usually caricatured in an unfavorable way as simple-minded turban wearers, who often appear brash, but shine through ignorance and do not leave out any faux pas. The question of how such jokes were created and spread in Indian society is discussed speculatively in the specialist literature. The question touches on the more general question of how ethnic jokes are made in the first place. One possible explanation in the case of the Sikh jokes was, for example, that the Hindu majority wanted to cover up unconscious fears of the apparently more successful Sikh community.

Many Sikhs take the jokes that are circulating about their community with serenity and sometimes self-irony. Others feel hit by it. In 2015, Delhi-based Sikh lawyer Harvinder Chowdhury filed a lawsuit with the Indian Supreme Court that Sikh jokes should be banned on the Internet in the future. The complaint was based on the argument that these jokes were an attack on the dignity of a religious community. There were more than 5000 websites on which Sikhs were portrayed as "unintelligent, stupid, idiotic, foolishly naive, incompetent, barely able to speak English and as symbols of stupidity and simplicity". The lawsuit found some support from Sikh organizations. Others spoke out against it. This is a misunderstanding and Sikh jokes are mostly harmless in character. Basically, it also expresses a hidden sympathy and respect for the small but prominent minority. On February 7, 2017, the Supreme Court dismissed the lawsuit. Courts cannot set moral guidelines and it is not up to the courts to tell citizens how to behave.
The writer Khushwant Singh published a series of Khushwant Singh's Joke Books , in which he had collected jokes from all possible Indian areas, preferably also about religions. The nastiest jokes and cartoons about Sikhs are from Khushwant Singh himself. Instead of being upset about the disregard for the small Sikh minority, he reacted with (self-) irony .

Examples

The following jokes are in English because they contain puns that are difficult to translate. The fictional characters Santa and Banta Singh (after a former Sikh comedian couple) are often used in the jokes .

1st bank:

The Bank sends Santa a mail saying: your payments are outstanding.
Santa: thanks for the compliment!

(a non-translatable play on words based on the fact that the English outstanding can mean both "outstanding" and "extraordinary":

The bank sends Santa a message: your payments are pending.
Santa: thanks for the compliment!)


2. An interview with Sardar:

Interviewer: What is your birth date?
Sardar: 13th October
Interviewer: Which year?
Sardar:? Every year!

(An interview with Sardar:

Interviewer: What is your date of birth?
Sardar: October 13th
Interviewer: What year?
Sardar:? Each year!)


3. Medicine:

Why did Sardar cut the sides of the capsule before taking it?
Guess what ...
To avoid side effects!

(a non-translatable play on words based on the fact that the English side effects literally means "side effects":

Why did Sardar sever the sides of the capsule before taking it?
Guess why ...
To avoid side effects!)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Navdeep S. Mandair: Colonial Formations of Sikhism . In: Pashaura Singh, Louis E. Fenech (Eds.): The Oxford Handbook of Sikh Studies . 2014, ISBN 0-19-969930-5 , pp. 71-72 (English).
  2. ^ Ayan Ghosh: The shadow of the 'Martial Race' theory in the Indian Army - Does it still exist? The Morning Media Project, May 20, 2012, accessed April 14, 2017 .
  3. ↑ Volker Pabst: A judicial ban on joking and a lot of self-irony. Neue Zürcher Zeitung, January 18, 2017, accessed on April 13, 2017 .
  4. ↑ Sardar jokes (Sardar = Sikhs - similar to East Frisian jokes). (No longer available online.) Indienaktuell.de, formerly in the original ; accessed on April 13, 2017 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.habenaktuell.de  
  5. ↑ Ban on jokes about the Sikh religious community? Badische Zeitung, April 7, 2016, accessed on April 13, 2017 .
  6. ↑ Jawaharlal Jandoo: Folk Narrative and Ethnic Identity: The 'Sardarji' Joke Cycle . In: Lutz Röhrich, Sabine Wienker-Piepho (ed.): Storytelling in Contemporary Societies (= Barbara Frank-Job, Thomas Haye [ed.]: ScriptOralia . Volume 22 ). Gunter Narr Verlag , Tübingen 1990, ISBN 3-8233-4475-7 , p. 160-161 (English).
  7. ↑ Those ABSURD jokes. The Hindu, July 5, 2004, accessed April 14, 2017 .
  8. ↑ Utkarsh Anand: SC to examine if Sardar jokes should be banned online. The Indian Express, December 25, 2015, accessed April 12, 2017 .
  9. ↑ Soutik Biswas: Should making fun of Sikhs be banned? BBC News, November 3, 2015, accessed April 14, 2017 .
  10. ↑ SC hears plea on Sardarji jokes, says courts can't lay down moral guidelines. firstpost.com, February 7, 2017, accessed April 12, 2017 .
  11. ↑ Khushwant Singh's Joke Book 5. Delhi / Mumbai / Hyderabad 1999/2005. Page 27
  12. ↑ Why Original Santa Banta Want Sikh Jokes Banned. NDTV, July 13, 2016, accessed on March 14, 2017 .