INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – Ajeet Singh had to prepare for a return to work in a FedEx warehouse in Indianapolis on Tuesday for the first time since a former employee shot eight people, including four members of Indianapolis’s tight-knit Sikh community.
“I was afraid to go back,” said Singh. ‘I don’t know why this still happened. Was it random, or was it because of who I am? ”
While the motive for last week’s calamity is still being explored, leaders and members of the Sikh community say they feel a collective trauma and believe that more should be done to combat the bigotry, bias and violence that they have for decades. in the country. In the midst of intense pain, they can turn their grief into gun reform demands and tougher hate crime statutes, calling on outsiders to educate themselves about their Sikh neighbors.
“Time and again we are disproportionately confronted with pointless and often highly targeted attacks,” said Satjeet Kaur, executive director of the Sikh Coalition, a New York-based group that has urged investigators to investigate bias as a possible motive in the shootings.
“The impact on the community is traumatic,” she continued, “not only in particular the families affected by the senseless violence, but also in the community in general because it is community trauma.”
In the days following the shootings, the coalition facilitated an appeal with federal officials in which Sikh leaders in Indiana called for the appointment of a Sikh American liaison to the White House Office of Public Engagement, among other things.
Sikhism, a monotheistic belief founded more than 500 years ago in the Indian region of Punjab, is the fifth largest religion in the world with about 25 million followers, including about 500,000 in the United States.
Kaur said that as a relatively young faith with a low population in the Western world, Sikhism is generally not taught in schools to the same degree as other world religions or integrated into policy making, resulting in misunderstandings and ignorance. Anti-Sikh discrimination can manifest itself in everything from schoolyard bullying to verbal assaults to shocking acts of violence.
Last year, a man was charged with persecuting the Sikh owner of a liquor store in a Denver suburb after allegedly telling him and his wife to “go back to your country,” was charged with a hate crime and 16 other cases including attempted murder.
The latest murders have brought back painful memories for Rana Singh Sodhi, an Indian immigrant living in Arizona. He preached love and tolerance for nearly two decades after his brother was shot dead four days after 9/11 by a man who mistook him for a Muslim because of his turban. Balbir Singh Sodhi was the first of dozens of Sikhs to be the target of hate crimes in the aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks.
“It’s very painful,” said Rana Singh Sodhi. “I hope that one day … people will love and enjoy life and work and live together in this beautiful country.”
There are between 8,000 and 10,000 Sikh Americans in Indiana, where they began to settle over 50 years ago and opened their first house of worship known as a gurdwara in 1999.
Most of the FedEx warehouse employees are community members. Gurinder Singh Khalsa of the Indiana-based Sikh Political Action Committee said many Sikhs live on the west and south sides of Indianapolis, making the facility’s airport location a convenient place to work.
On Monday, its committee said it had set up a working group to seek answers about the shooting and encourage government officials to take action. A major goal, Khalsa said, is to make people who return to work feel safe.
That would be a relief for people like Gaganpal Singh Dhaliwal, who said two of his aunts had just arrived for their shift at the warehouse on Thursday night, when the shooting began. His mother also works there. They all survived, but he mourns colleagues and friends.
Dhaliwal expressed hope that the tragedy will inspire others to better understand religion and cultural practices: “To all my fellow Americans, be they Republicans, Democrats, Muslims, Jewish, non-religious people, everyone: google today the word ‘sikh’. … spend five minutes of your time being aware of other people around you who may not look like you. ”
He’s already beginning to see some signs of awareness, most notably in the flags fluttering on half-staff outside homes and businesses in Indianapolis and an “outpouring” of support to fundraisers for the families of victims. He urged more people to build bridges to his community.
“If you see a person like me with a (turban) on their head, on your street, in your grocery store, at work, go and talk to him,” Dhaliwal said. “Tell them you know who Sikhs are, or give them a hug and say, ‘Hey, you’re welcome in the US’ Right now we are a community that needs a lot of support, and to know we have a place in this place called America. “
The murders have reverberated nationwide. Pardeep Singh Kaleka, executive director of the Interfaith Conference of Greater Milwaukee and the son of one of seven fatalities in a 2012 mass shooting at a gurdwara in the suburb of Oak Creek, Wisconsin, said there are concerns about an escalating threat from violence.
Small communities traumatized by violence wonder, “Was I the target of my race?” Kaleka said. Was I the target of my ethnicity, my religion? Was I the target of something beyond my control? ”
And in California, Tejpaul Singh Bainiwal, a Stockton Gurdwara Sahib member and student of early Sikh American history, said he struggles with a range of emotions, including “anger, pain, hopelessness, and the sense of out of touch.” Frustratingly, he said, much of the public attention was focused on the shooter’s mental state rather than the community he so deeply injured.
“I’m tired of the same old story,” said Bainiwal, who was born and raised in the US but has been told he “needs to belong”.
In Indianapolis, the Sikh community focuses on helping bereaved families, who hope to obtain about two dozen expedited visas so family members can travel abroad for funeral rites that take place in the next two weeks. The procedure begins with cremation and is followed by up to 20 days of reading the 1,400-page Guru Granth Sahib writings, Dhaliwal said.
Earlier last week, Sukhpreet Rai’s home was buzzing with cheerful chatter and kitchen activity amid the celebrations of Vaisakhi, a major Sikh holiday festival and an upcoming family birthday. Now it has become quiet in mourning for two of her relatives, Jasvinder Kaur and Amarjit Sekhon.
“We were going to have a birthday and be together as a family,” Rai said. “We’re together and we’ve got each other, but it’s for something else – it’s for a funeral.”
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Associated Press writers Anita Snow and Gary Fields contributed to this report.
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The Associated Press coverage of religion is supported by the Lilly Endowment through The Conversation US. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
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Casey Smith is a corps member of the Associated Press / Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a national nonprofit service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on hidden issues.