Harvinder Kaur Chowdhury wants Sardar jokes banned

Last week, the Supreme Court agreed to take up a rather unusual petition - one that seeks a ban on the 5,000-odd websites that carry "Sardar jokes". The petitioner, Harvinder Kaur Chowdhury, argued that through such jokes, websites portray Sikhs as "unintelligent", "foolish" and "naïve", making them an easy target for ridicule and racial abuse.

The petition elicited grins in the courtroom as well, but Chowdhury stood her ground and said she too had been a target of ridicule and abuse because of such jokes. She wants such websites to be prosecuted under laws that carry a prison term of six months to five years.

The demand has triggered a passionate debate, with several public figures, among them Sikhs, calling it frivolous. The Sikh community is known to relish such jokes and takes them in good humour, many have argued. Others, like the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee, have termed it a legitimate demand. Chowdhury, 54, says some of these organisations have even dispatched teams to convince the powers that be about the ban.

But what triggered this demand, which many of Chowdhury's lawyer colleagues have also described as extreme? Some clues to the answer can be found in Chowdhury's small corner office on the third floor of the building that houses the Supreme Court lawyers' chambers. On one wall is a picture of Durga mounted on a tiger. On another are pictures of her with former president APJ Abdul Kalam and former prime minister IK Gujral. In those pictures, she looks young and cheerful and wears her hair in a blunt cut with blonde streaks in it - hardly someone who would be intolerant of a bit of harmless humour.

She has been in court this morning, but when she finally walks into her chamber, the contrast is striking - it's like the person in the picture and the one in flesh are two different people. She now has her hair pulled back into a small bun; her face looks drawn and her frame thin - even weak. The greeting that follows also comes as a surprise. She gives a hug and says, "We are bound by our gender; that makes us sisters."

And then, without a preamble, she starts telling the story of her life. Born into a Sikh family (her father is a lawyer), she got married 26 years ago to a journalist, B M Srivastav, a Hindu, with whom she was fighting for the rights of slum-dwellers. (Some say Srivastav was a lawyer who also wrote for newspapers). Five years after their marriage, her husband died of a heart attack. "I was alone with two little children and expecting the third one," she says. "The hard times began."

But, she says, she'd always been a fighter. "I would attend court with infant daughter with me. People would say, 'Sardarni hai, that's why she's doing something so irrational'." She repeated this after the birth of her second child, a son, taking the baby to court or to Tihar Jail, "and encountered the same reaction," she says.

As she speaks, a sheet of paper placed an edition of Durga Gas Basu's Shorter Constitution of India flutters, as though to draw attention to itself. The points on it read: Sikh history; contribution of Sikh religion and Sikh community; significance of 12 O' clock.

Being a young widow, she says she was viewed as an easy target by men, including some colleagues and friends. She says the aggression with which she would ward off their advances had many branding her an "irrational Sardarni". Jokes targeting the community would then enrage her further.

"I was suffering because I was a woman, had no husband and was in the negative profession of litigation. And all these factors multiplied because I was also a Sikh, whose reactions invited mockery and ridicule." She now addresses most of the men, including her clerical staff, as "brother".

So, is this a gender fight or a fight for the community? She says she can't say; "the two are interwoven". "If words like 'chinki' can be banned and 'bhaiyya' for Biharis is considered offensive, then why not Sardar jokes?" she asks. "They too hurt a community's feelings."

In a democracy, she says she should be able to practise her religion the way she wants to - despite being part of a particular profession. To prove her point, she went to court this morning with her head covered, inviting curious gazes. "This is odd," a lawyer told her. On January 4, when the court will examine her petition, she intends to argue the matter wearing a turban. "Let's see how funny they find it," she says.