INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – Ajeet Singh had to steel himself for his return to work at a FedEx warehouse in Indianapolis on Tuesday for the first time since a former employee shot dead eight people, including four members of Indianapolis’ close-knit Sikh community.
“I was scared to go back,” Singh said. “I do not know why it still happened. Was it random, or was it because of who I am? ”
While the motive for last week’s rampage is still being investigated, leaders and members of the Sikh community say they are experiencing a collective trauma and believe that more needs to be done to address the discord, prejudice and violence they have been experiencing for decades. country suffered, to combat. Amid intense pain, they are channeling their grief into demands for arms reform and stricter hate crime legislation, and are asking outsiders to educate themselves about their Sikh neighbors.
“We are constantly disproportionately faced with senseless and often very targeted attacks,” said Satjeet Kaur, executive director of the Sikh Coalition, a group in New York that urged investigators to investigate prejudice as a possible motive in the shooting, said.
‘The impact on the community is traumatic,’ she continued, ‘not only the families facing the senseless violence, but also in the wider community because it is community trauma.
In the days since the shooting, the coalition has facilitated a call with federal officials in which Sikh leaders in Indiana called for the appointment of a Sikh-American liaison in the White House’s public engagement office, among others.
Sikhism is a monotheistic religion founded over 500 years ago in the Punjab region of India, and is the world’s fifth largest religion with approximately 25 million followers, including 500,000 in the United States.
Kaur said that Sikhism, as a relatively young faith with a low population in the Western world, is usually not taught in schools to the same extent as other world religions, or that it is integrated into policy-making, resulting in misunderstanding and ignorance. . Anti-Sikh discrimination can manifest in everything from school bullying to verbal attacks to shocking acts of violence.
Last year, a man accused of assaulting the Sikh owner of a liquor store in the suburbs of Denver allegedly told him and his wife ‘to return to your country’, charged with ‘ a hate crime and 16 other charges, including attempted murder.
The latest killings have evoked painful memories for Rana Singh Sodhi, an Indian immigrant living in Arizona. He spent nearly two decades preaching love and tolerance after his brother was shot dead four days after 9/11 by a man who deceived him as a Muslim because of his turban. Balbir Singh Sodhi was the first of a number of Sikhs to be targeted for hate crimes in the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks.
“It’s very painful,” said Rana Singh Sodhi. “I hope one day … people will love each other and enjoy life and work together and live together in this beautiful country.”
There are between 8,000 and 10,000 Sikh Americans in Indiana, where they began settling more than 50 years ago and opened their first house of worship, known as a gurdwara, in 1999.
Most employees in the FedEx warehouse are members of the community. Gurinder Singh Khalsa of the Sikh Political Action Committee in Indiana said that many Sikhs live on the west and south sides of Indianapolis, making the location at the airport a convenient place to work.
On Monday, his committee said it had set up a task force to seek answers about the shooting and pressure government officials to take action. According to Khalsa, an important goal is to help people returning to work feel safe.
That would be a relief for people like Gaganpal Singh Dhaliwal, who said two of his aunts had just turned up for their shift at the warehouse on Thursday night when the shooting started. His mother also works there. They all survived, but he mourns colleagues and friends.
Dhaliwal expressed the hope that the tragedy would inspire others to better understand religion and cultural practices: “To all my fellow Americans, whether Republicans, Democrats, Muslims, Jews, non-religious people, all: Google the word today.” Sikh ‘. … Spend five minutes of your time being aware of another people around you who may not look like you. ‘
He has already begun to see some signs of heightened awareness, especially in the flags flying half-staff outside homes and businesses across Indianapolis and an “outpouring” of fundraising support for victims’ families. He encouraged more people to build bridges to his community.
“If you see someone like me wearing a (turban) on their head, in your street, in your grocery store, at your workplace, then go talk to them,” Dhaliwal said. “Tell them you know who the Sikhs are, or give them a hug and say, ‘Hey, you’re welcome in the US.’ We are currently a community that needs a lot of support, and to know that we have a place in this place called America. ”
The killings reverberated nationwide. Pardeep Singh Kaleka, executive director of the Interfaith Conference of Greater Milwaukee and the son of one of the seven fatal victims of a mass shooting in 2012 on a gurdwara in the suburb of Oak Creek, Wisconsin, said there were concerns about an increasing threat of violence.
Small communities traumatized by violence make them wonder, “Am I targeted for my race?” Kaleka said. ‘Am I being targeted for my ethnicity, for my religion? Am I targeting something I can not control? ”
And in California, Tejpaul Singh Bainiwal, a Stockton Gurdwara Sahib member and student of early Sikh American history, said he struggled with a variety of emotions, including anger, hurt, hopelessness and a sense of not belonging. ‘ Frustrating, he said, is that much of the public focus was on the shooter’s mental state rather than on the community he so deeply wounded.
“I’m tired of the same old narrative,” Bainiwal said. He was born and bred in the US, but was told to ‘fit in’.
In Indianapolis, the Sikh community is focusing on helping the bereaved, hoping to obtain about two-dozen quick visas so family members can travel overseas for funeral rites that will take place in the next two weeks. The proceedings will begin with cremation and will be followed by up to 20 days of reading the 1,400-page Guru Granth Sahib scripture, Dhaliwal said.
Earlier last week, the house of Sukhpreet Rai was teeming with happy chats and kitchen activities amid celebrations of Vaisakhi, a big Sikh holiday festival and an upcoming family birthday. Now it has fallen silent about two of her family members, Jasvinder Kaur and Amarjit Sekhon.
“We were supposed to have birthdays and be together as a family,” Rai said. “We’re together and we have each other, but it’s for something else – it’s for a funeral.”
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Associated Press authors Anita Snow and Gary Fields contributed to this report.
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Associated Press religious coverage receives support from 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 for the Associated Press / Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a non-profit national service program that puts journalists in local newsrooms to cover hidden issues.