Shocking Rise in Anti-Sikh Hate Exposed in FBI Report

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On December 12, the FBI published its report on hate crimes for 2021, which showed a significant increase of anti-Sikh hate crimes from the previous year. The report listed 214 incidents compared to 89 in 2020, a 140% increase.

Numbering around half a million, Sikhs make up just 0.1% of the US population. Most live in big coastal cities in states like New York and California. Sikhs in smaller communities are often misidentified, such as Arizona gas station owner and father of three Balbir Singh Sodhi, who was killed by a man seeking revenge four days after the 9/11 attacks. “I am a patriot,” said his killer when arrested. According to the Sikh Coalition, in the month following 9/11, over 300 cases of violence and discrimination happened to Sikhs throughout the country.

Besides religious and racial profiling, Sikhs report workplace discrimination, primarily due to their religiously mandated beards and turbans, which get associated with terrorism. Sikhs also say their children are bullied, such as 16-year-old Jaskirat Singh, who had his turban set on fire by a classmate in a New Jersey high school.

Sikhs also report that they are subjected to secondary screenings by airport security every time they need to travel. This profiling was so pervasive that the Sikh Coalition created an app called FlyRights in 2012 that would lodge an official complaint to the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) in real time.

One of the worst anti-Sikh attacks happened In August 2012, when a Wisconsin gurdwara (temple) was attacked. Seven people were killed, and four others were wounded. It took pressure from the Sikh community to have anti-Sikh as a category in the FBI’s annual report. Before 2015, hate crimes against Sikhs were lumped into a general “other” category within religious bias.

More recently, a liquor store owner in Colorado, Lakhwant Singh, was assaulted and told to “go back to his country” by a man who also damaged products within the store while shouting profanity. Mr, Singh followed the man outside to take a photo of his license plate in order to file a report. The attacker hit Mr. Singh with his car, breaking his pelvis, among other injuries. The attacker told the police that he targeted Singh because he “thought he was an Arab.”

This year’s report is the first generated solely through the FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). Law enforcement authorities have been transitioning to use the system since 2016. Not all agencies are on board yet, including the New York and Los Angeles police departments, the largest and third largest police departments in the country, respectively. In fact, nearly 7,000 out of the country’s more than 18,000 departments did not submit any data on hate crimes.

This gap in data suggests that the number of anti-Sikh hate crimes is under-reported. The only religious group to have more incidents than Sikhs is the Jewish community.

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