BULLYING: The Tragic Story Of A Sikh Boy

[Admin]

BULLYING: The Tragic Story Of A Sikh Boy

http://www.sikhhelpline.com/bullying-the-tragic-story-of-a-sikh-boy/

BULLYING

Monday: my money was taken.
Tuesday: names called.
Wednesday: my uniform torn.
Thursday: my body pouring with blood.
Friday: it’s ended.
Saturday: freedom.

This is the final diary pages of a true life story of a young boy.


One in ten students said that they had suffered severe bullying which included physical violence. Most of them felt they cannot share their problems and the consistent bullying they faced drove them to depression and misery. Vijay Singh was a bright 13-year-old boy from Manchester.

This child was tormented; his life made a misery and it drove him to taking his life. The reason why this happened was because of intolerance, racism and bullying. Vijay Singh attended predominantly a white school. Most children did not have an understanding of why Vijay Singh wore a turban. Racist boys at school would beat up young Vijay Singh, when going to school, in school and going home. He was half their size, but size did not matter. They would knock his turban off and punch his eyes, so what if he cried they thought.

Vijay Singh good grades made these unintelligent racist children, jealous. They would taunt him, and call him names. ****! Turban-head! Wrap head ! His lunch would be stolen. The boys would swing their fist in his nose. Bleeding ****! Bloody ****! , they would say. Not knowing the pain they caused when his nose went crunch . Blood pouring down young Vijay Singh shirt.

They grabbed his arms, and would push him into to the wall. They would hit him, Punch! Crunch! and he would fall to the ground. They didn’t care how he felt or why he had a turban on his head. Kick! Spit! they would watch him crawling, crying for help. The bullies would walk away leaving young Vijay Singh crying out for help.

The School lessons would begin. For most children lessons were normal, a laugh a giggle as well doing work. However for Vijay Singh this was like a prison cell at the school from hell. He would sit in the class with his blood stained clothes.

Tears would roll down his eyes, and he had a sour broken nose. However the bullies didn’t stop their taunting. They could not feel the pain or see why he should not deserve it. He was brown, he wore a turban, and wasn’t normal. He wasn’t normal.

What is normal? Is everyone single person the same? Someone is clever, someone is good with their hands, someone is fat, or slim and someone is tall or small. We are not all normal. Our abnormality makes us individual, and it represents our background, identity and what we stand are.

No teacher saw this bullying happening.
No teacher saw the signs of bullying.
No teacher said to this kid, don’t worry,
No one said, you are a Sikh, and you are brave and strong……..
No one knew young Vijay Singh plans, of what he had been thinking and going over his mind almost certainly.

He opens the door, slams it shut. Runs up the stairs, for freedom calls
He escapes from his body walls , and is free at last from the horrific violence, which he had suffered silently.
Vijay Singh was found hanging from the banister rail at his home on one Sunday in 1996.

This was the silent death of an innocent child who was tormented, and mentally and physically tortured. Where his life ended, we begin, to understand the effects of bullying.

Did you know?

• 50% of people have been bullied in school.
• Bullying causes psychiatric injury, a feature of which is reactive depression.
• At least 16 children commit bullycide in the UK every year .
• Many Sikh children have been the subject of racial abuse because they look different.
• At least 1 Sikh student has committed suicide in the UK because of racial abuse.Read his poem below……

“Racism also manifests itself in teachers failing to take racist bullying seriously, even after tragedies such as the suicide of schoolboy Vijay Singh. There are still a huge number of cases of racist bullying, which have been dealt with improperly. this includes a case where a Sikh secondary school pupil was attacked by a number of other pupils, leaving him with a broken arm. His assailants were left unpunished and continue to verbally and physically abuse him. To maintain order, he has been excluded from socialising at school and has received complaints from teachers for highlighting inadequacies in his treatment.”

THE BULLY

Poem …..

Dedicated to Vijay Singh, aged 13, who hung himself at home in Manchester, after being bullied at school.
vijahsingh

Vijay Singh 13 yrs old

“Racist ruffian, low-down scum

Foul mouthed thug do you think its fun

To beat up a kid who’s half your size?

Knock his turban and punch his eyes

He gets good grades and it makes you sick

turban-head’s clever and you’re so thick.

You push and punch and steal his lunch

You swing your fist his nose goes crunch

Bleeding ****! Bloody ****!

Swear a lot then steal his money

Grab his arms – push him to the wall

Punch! Crunch! He takes the fall

vKick! Spit! Watch him crawl

Walk away from his crying call.

Lessons start at the school from hell

Classroom’s more like a prison cell

Sitting in his blood stained clothes

Tears in his eyes and a busted nose

Bully boys don’t stop their taunting

No teacher saw his daily haunting

No teacher said you’re a lion Singh

Be BRAVE, be STRONG but never give in

School bell rings:”Bye-Bye friends I ain’t coming to hell again!”

Running home as fast as he can

No one knows his secret plan

Up the stairs for freedom call

He escapes from his body walls

Free at last from the violence

Hangs himself in deathly silence.

Where he ends we begin

Bullies won’t kill another Singh

Unite as CHILDREN make the change

Don’t let things stay the same

We want freedom – no more crime

We want freedom all the time

No more Singhs will die this way

Unite as CHILDREN – fight them today!

CHILDREN UNITE

IT’S TIME TO FIGHT

THE BULLY BOYS

THE RACIST NOISE

DON’T LIVE IN DREAD

TELL THE TEACHER INSTEAD

YOU’RE NOT ALONE

LET YOUR TROUBLES BE KNOWN”

 

[aristotle]

This is horrific. Horrific and disturbing
Perhaps now they'll start to understand afterall.

 

[namritanevaeh]

Doubtful. :-( Haters usually only understand finally when something happens to THEM...that is positive.

Sikh person bullies non-Sikh person? Sikhs are all bullies (-sic)
Non-Sikh person bullies Sikh person and makes their life so horrible they kill themself...Sikh person "deserved" it, s/he was asking for it, etc. :'( (-sic, again)
Non-Sikh person is being cruel-ly bullied by someone ELSE, also non-Sikh person...Sikh person comes up to them, takes a stand, and defends the person being bullied to the other non-Sikh person (let's say regular playground stuff like "four eyes" for kid with glasses, which is non-racial, non-denominational etc.). THAT is about the only chance people have, I think, at making otherwise would-be haters that hey, they're not only human, but are also decent human beings too...go figure! ;-)

 

[spnadmin]

Doubtful. :-( Haters usually only understand finally when something happens to THEM...that is positive.

Sikh person bullies non-Sikh person? Sikhs are all bullies (-sic)
Non-Sikh person bullies Sikh person and makes their life so horrible they kill themself...Sikh person "deserved" it, s/he was asking for it, etc. :'( (-sic, again)
Non-Sikh person is being cruel-ly bullied by someone ELSE, also non-Sikh person...Sikh person comes up to them, takes a stand, and defends the person being bullied to the other non-Sikh person (let's say regular playground stuff like "four eyes" for kid with glasses, which is non-racial, non-denominational etc.). THAT is about the only chance people have, I think, at making otherwise would-be haters that hey, they're not only human, but are also decent human beings too...go figure! ;-)

namritavenaeh ji

It may be very easy to misunderstand your comment and take it in the wrong way. Please explain what you mean by

(-sic)

so your message is clear to everyone. Particularly, because many people have difficulty finding humor in the subject of bullying, thus even tongue-in-cheek comments can be offensive to them.

 

[Astroboy]

Maybe this dreadful eposide will encourage Sikh families to open a Sikh International School. Some countries have done so, like Thailand and Malaysia.

 

[aristotle]

Maybe this dreadful eposide will encourage Sikh families to open a Sikh International School. Some countries have done so, like Thailand and Malaysia.

That would be a good move. But what I wish for is the general populace would help Sikhs integrate into their society, and Sikh children to be able to attend public schools without discrimination and bullying. Saying that, we have still a long way to go.

 

[AngloSikhPeace]

namritavenaeh ji

It may be very easy to misunderstand your comment and take it in the wrong way. Please explain what you mean by




so your message is clear to everyone. Particularly, because many people have difficulty finding humor in the subject of bullying, thus even tongue-in-cheek comments can be offensive to them.

'sic' stands for 'sic erat scriptum' or 'as was written'. It is usually used to point out that spelling mistakes and such are the work of the author of the quote, rather than of the person doing the quoting.

For example:
I saw, in the market square, a stand with a poster announcing that the earth is flat. Intrigued, I walked up to the stall and took a leaflet from the fellow working there. In it, I read "All SCRIPTURES condemn round-earth theory as DEMONIC. Scientists and astonaughts (sic) are liars and frauds who want to deceive the world and turn us away from the TRUTH".


It can also be used (kind of dishonestly really) as a rhetorical device, to point out and laugh at things that the person doing the quoting finds ridiculous. A more appropriate thing to do if one wants to make fun of the source one is quoting is to place an exclamation mark in brackets after the 'amusing' section.
Example:
After reading some of the leaflet, I put it back and turned to question the man working at the stall. I asked him how could all the thousands of scientists, travellers and astronomers who claim to observe the curvature of the earth on a daily basis be in on the same conspiracy. Smiling, the man told me that this was "no human conspiracy, but rather the work of demons. Through sex, illegal drugs and money, and through satanic pets such as cats or snakes (!), Lucifer gains control of men's souls and causes them to speak lies!"


Or, like Namritavenaeh seems to have done, it can be used as a sort of 'insurance' to put after potentially offensive statements, in order to remind others that that is not the quoter's actual view, but the view of the person they are quoting.

 

[namritanevaeh]

Maf karna.

What I mean by (-sic) is that I don't agree with the summary or "result" of what people assume when the first two instances happen.

You know, I've used (-sic) to indicate things like this before, where I'm trying to show "this is what society or others think, not what I do" and I think it was understood as such but in googling it, it seems to have an entirely different definition than that, which means I learnt it wrongly and have been using it wrong I suppose. :-(

Sorry for the confusion.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=sic "Square brackets are most commonly used around the word 'sic' (from the Latin 'sicut', meaning 'just as'), to explain the status of an apparent mistake. Generally, sic means the foregoing mistake (or apparent mistake) was made by the writer/speaker I am quoting; I am but the faithful messenger; in fact I never get anything wrong myself."

Usually it should be used to show that you are quoting a grammar mistake as it appears in the text you are quoting without correcting it. Not a so-called moral mistake or disagreement...my bad.

In any case that is what I meant by it. If people see the action before (-sic) happen sadly so many people make the assumption I put in also before the (-sic) because they are uneducated.

I hope that clarifies...

 

[namritanevaeh]

Thank you AngloSikhPeace ji for giving this example. You explain it better than I! ;-)

 

[spnadmin]

Thanks,

Many of us understand [sic:] to mean a grammar error or spelling error has occurred, as explained by AngloSikhPeace. That is a common, ordinary, every-day understanding of it.

So those of us who know it that way would not stretch the meaning to be a mistake in thinking by a group of people. And some readers would not make the connection at all.

Thus clarification is essential. This

Or, like Namritavenaeh seems to have done, it can be used as a sort of 'insurance' to put after potentially offensive statements, in order to remind others that that is not the quoter's actual view, but the view of the person they are quoting.

by AngloSikhPeace would escape many readers. Even AngloSikhPeace uses the word "seems" as if he is making an informed guess.

Urban-speak and SMS speak can cause communication confusion.

 

[AngloSikhPeace]

Thanks,

Many of us understand [sic:] to mean a grammar error or spelling error has occurred, as explained by AngloSikhPeace. That is a common, ordinary, every-day understanding of it.

So those of us who know it that way would not stretch the meaning to be a mistake in thinking by a group of people. And some readers would not make the connection at all.

Thus clarification is essential. This by AngloSikhPeace would escape many readers. Even AngloSikhPeace uses the word "seems" as if he is making an informed guess.

Urban-speak and SMS speak can cause communication confusion.

As I am not Namritavenaeh I can only guess what she seems to be doing, I can't pretend to know her actual intentions.
:redturban:

 

[Brother Onam]

I'm sorry, but I was having a problem relating to the initial story. It seemed to be dealing with an actual incident, but was written in an odd, creative-writing sort of style, that I couldn't make sense of what was transcription from diary, what was reporting, what was fiction, and what was a sort of poetry...

 

[spnadmin]

Brother Onam ji

Problem throughout. Ditto~