When this humour arises out of social or cultural anxiety, it involves imposing implications of inferiority or comicality on the ethnicity of the people concerned. Sigmund Freud elaborated this further when he said that by making someone ‘small, inferior, despicable or comic, we achieve in a roundabout way the enjoyment of overcoming him which is important because someone else bears witness to it through laughter’. This includes experiencing importance by comparing oneself with the weak points of others. Hobbes, in the 17th century, said that laughter directed at someone is a validation of the self, which by implication involves denigrating the other. Anxiety over difference leads to ‘othering’, which at some level is assuring oneself of one’s own superior stance. The pervasiveness and persistence of these images despite their growing incongruity to the average Sikh require an analysis of the impetus behind them. Over time, these have evolved into stereotypes, which have infiltrated personal interactions, media representations and the social psyche. Irrespective of his difference, he is perpetually at risk of being held ransom to the value iterations surrounding these images. These images form a lens through which a pre-determined version of him is made available for social consumption.
The Sikh has long been constructed in stock images placing him in a strange position, where he constantly needs to reiterate other aspects of himself.
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