For the first time we are seeing Sikh hair being cut on the theatrical big screen.

It is being promoted as an “artsy” film and is currently being aired on college campuses and PBS stations around the country, and it is utterly devastating to the Sikh psyche.

The film is called “Turbans,” by Erika Surat Anderson. The horrifying part of the film is the long ending in which the Sikh father takes his two sons into a barn, sits them down, slowly unwraps their turbans, slowly takes down their hair, and has another “Sikh” cut their hair with a pair of scissors. The hair is shown falling to the ground over and over again. The scene is very long and drawn-out, vivid in the entire act. The film ends with the two boys in school, looking “assimilated” into the Western culture and the narrator justifying the act by saying “We are in America now.”

“Turbans” is being billed as a “historical” account of a Sikh family’s struggle with racism in the early 1900s. The audience is made to believe that it is a documentary, but it is actually a full-scale drama. Sikh students and families who view this film are completely surprised and caught off-guard by the ending, leaving parents unprepared and in a predicament with their children.

One would like to think that the film is an innocent portrayal of this family’s struggle, but pay attention, it is actually trying to justify cutting hair. What is the purpose of this film? Beats me. We all understand the difficulties and hardships faced by Sikh immigrants then and now, and that some did cut their hair. But this film seem to be made for the sole purpose of showing Sikhs cutting their hair. It just maligns Sikhi.

What’s worse is that some of our young Sikh leaders are appearing at the screenings to explain away how Sikhs are discriminated against. In Washington, “Turbans” was screened at a local university, along side another film called “Raising Our Voices” which is about hate crimes against South Asian Americans (Sikhs). The message one might walk away with from this event is: Sikhs are faced with prejudices arising from their appearance, so cutting their hair is a solution. Why are our young Sikh leaders associating themselves with this film? Why aren’t our young Sikh leaders protesting this disgraceful film?

This film needs to be stopped.