The Supreme Court has expressed reservations about passing orders barring “Sardarji” jokes, saying it couldn’t possibly lay moral guidelines for people, nor could it envisage how any such ban would work. There is probably no one, Sikhs included, who hasn’t shared a “Sardarji” joke, even though these unfairly depict a section of the people as dumb — as the key targets of such jokes could be anybody from any community. World over, humour targets people over nationality, ethnicity or even religion. It’s hard to imagine anyone not laughing over a Santa-Banta joke or an Irish joke. As long as such humour doesn’t turn into ethnic hatred, people can enjoy the joke, though Sikhs have a point about this affecting boys who shed their identity by going for a haircut.
The court admonished the petitioners, saying they were doing a disservice to the image of Sikhs by trying to ban jokes. To be fair, they only pursued a legal path than take out their angst against people behind these jokes. It has unfortunately become a trend in this country to take offence on every little issue, but as long as people are civil about their objections, there will only be a healthy debate rather than a fracas. But as we saw in the assault on filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali, shooting a fictional film on Padmavathi, people tend to take matters into their hands. This is where the State must step in to ensure such “Indian offendedness” doesn’t get out of hand.
