SIKHTOONS: CONVEYING POWERFUL MESSAGES ABOUT SIKH EXPERIENCES

BY INDIRA PRAHST - Instructor of Race and Ethnic Relations, Department of Sociology, Langara College, Vancouver

Vishavjit Singh - Sikhtoons: Cartoonist from New York

"I really liked the cartoon display and would not have learned what I had about Sikhs and 1984 if it was not displayed through cartoons in this way.”

That was the reactions of some Sikh youth after taking in the Sikhtoons exhibition by cartoonist Vishavjit Singh from New York last week at Gurdwara Sahib Baba Banda Singh Bahadur in Abbotsford.

Indeed, cartoon art is a creative way to disseminate knowledge and to express feelings that may not be captured through words. This was the case for Vishavjit, creator of Sikhtoons and a software engineer by profession, who told me that he was able to find an outlet for the collage of feelings of anger, pain and nostalgia he felt through cartooning, adding: “This allows me also to analyze aspects of 1984 and to continue to educate myself.”Vishavjit Singh: Sihktoons on display, see more at www.sikhtoons.com

It is important to point out that cartooning for Vishavjit is not only on a cerebral level, but on a personal one as well. He pointed out: “1984 is personal because I lived through it.” One has to imagine what it would have been like as a 12-year-old in Delhi witnessing what had occurred during the 1984 Sikh massacre, a narrative he recounted at the 1984 Sikh Genocide seminar and exhibition organized by World Sikh Organization.

He recounted: “I was at school on October 31 – it was a Sikh school and I was listening to a cricket match on the radio when there was a sudden announcement that [then-prime minister of India] Indira Gandhi had been assassinated.Viewing: Vishavjit Singh's work Sikhtoons

“The next morning, policemen were pointing their guns at someone. I felt safe thinking they (the police) were there to protect us. Then I heard footsteps and when I looked out the window, I saw about a hundred men carrying metal rods and guess who was guiding them? Police officers! The same police who we know today were involved.”
When I asked Vishavjit what resonated with him most about 1984, he replied: “No punishment and how the Indian [state] apparatus was put into place to make sure that everybody gets away with it and in creating a narrative that there is a low level of criminals who did this.”

THESE historical and human rights themes were prevalent in the cartoon exhibition which Vishavjit also illuminated when he went through the exhibition with me explaining the significance of the cartoons. He informed me that he does editorial cartooning on a weekly basis and spends a lot of time searching for Sikh news on the Internet, incorporating social, economic and political issues into his work. He also tries to bring out one commemorative cartoon of 1984 every year.

Vishavjit Singh: Cartoonist from New YorkThis year’s cartoon resembled a film script. He said: “It has a title … it is a sort of a synopsis of the media where I have taken the slogan of India being identified as “Incredible India.” I used it a lot in my cartoons, so I used it here.” Vishavjit explained it was a way to question how India is being portrayed as “shinning” India.

The first commemorative cartoon Vishavjit did is titled “The killing fields,” which received a lot of attention at the exhibition, especially by the youth because of the chronological visual depiction of what happened in Delhi in 1984 for three days. “The assassination of Indira Gandhi, the large mobs forming, the kerosene, the iron rods with fire on them, men getting burned alive, women getting raped, gurdwaras getting destroyed and the number of Sikhs killed. I wanted to give a synopsis of what had happened in a visual way,” said Vishavjit.

One of the most challenging issues for Vishavjit was his commemorative cartoon in 2004 for the 20th anniversary of 1984 because there were minimal changes with few people getting convicted. “I really had to think about that and so I did a cartoon on characters in history. The beauty of cartoons is that you are able to bring characters from the past alive again and from any place to make a point about justice,” said Vishavjit.

VISHAVJIT’S cartooning, however, is not limited to characters in India; he has also done cartooning on political figures in Canada and the U.S. involving Sikhs. In fact, inspiration for cartooning came from observations in the U.S. after 9/11. “I saw works of editorial cartoonists who were trying to portray and analyze the hate crime with Sikhs and others who were perceived to be the enemy and so that was my inspiration to get started with cartooning,” he noted.
This topic is one that many Sikhs in Canada and in the U.S. can relate to, especially the way they are portrayed and misperceived by others. In fact, just a few weeks ago one of my students from the Caribbean approached me after class with a news clipping he cut out from the ‘24 Hours’ newspaper. It was Linda Cullen’s humour column titled: “What’s the deal with air security?” She wrote about how in the mid-80s on a packed 737 flight to Disneyland she was seated next to “this little old Indian man in traditional garb” and added “if you climbed up a mountain searching for the wise guru that tells you the meaning of life, he looked like a guy you’d find at the top.”

She wrote about how she was about to yell for the stewardess to arrest him because of what appeared to her to be a suspicious object. She wrote: “I thought it looked more like one of those Acme bombs that Wylie Coyote tried to blow the Roadrunner up with all the time. The only thing that was missing was the long fuse sticking out of the zipper. I was about to yell for the stewardess to arrest him, when he told me he was in a band…..and pulled out his instrument.”

My student told me he was both “disgusted” and “offended” by this. While the article is meant to be humorous, it also perpetuates the image and associates Sikhs with bombs and terrorism. The issue at stake here is the cumulative image pieced together in people’s mind about Sikhs in general, and in robbing them of their individual identity. For these reasons and more, it is paramount to find creative ways to deconstruct and critique such portrayals of Sikhs including political and historical events, which is exactly what Vishavjit aspires to do through his cartoons. This proved to be effective, especially in reaching out to the younger generation through his display and in educating them, which was echoed by one of the event organizers, Gurdit Singh, a member of World Sikh Organization.

IN addition to the exhibition there were three presentations on human rights issues where Vishavjit also spoke about the impact of 9/11 on Sikhs and Muslims in the U.S., alluding to the misperceptions and ended with: “In the U.S., most Americans will think I am Muslim because of this turban that I am wearing.”

Palbinder Kaur Shergill, lawyer, mediator and a human rights activist, said: “If we do not raise our voices for those people that we see as being the victims of injustice, then how can we expect anyone to raise their voice for us?”

“What I find most interesting is that we become so ready to forget our past, we are so eager to put it behind us, as if it does not matter and yet it is the past that ground us.”

I presented on human rights issues in the context of symbolic violence, state language and the significance of torture and the Indian state apparatus in nation building.

In closing, part of knowledge translation of historical and contemporary issues affecting Sikhs and other minority groups is proving effective through cartoons. In the Sikhtoon exhibition commemorating 1984, I noted a deep exploration of social, political and historical engagement, and the meaning of Vishavjit’s work evoked questions of “conscience” and “accountability” for me.