Many within Australia’s Sikh community are offended by a cartoon depicting an apparent Sikh man smoking a cigar, which was published in the Herald Sun on Thursday.
Tobacco and drugs are strictly forbidden in Sikhism, which is the reason many took offence to cartoonist Mark Knight’s drawing.
“Obviously people who follow the religion feel outraged about it," Executive Producer of SBS’s Punjabi program Manpreet K Singh said.
“You would never see a person of Sikh faith smoking - not even a cigarette, let alone a cigar, so it just seems out of context.”
SBS Punjabi’s Facebook page published a post in relation to the cartoon, which sparked debate online.
“Looking at the responses from our community, it’s been mixed,” Ms Singh said.
“There are some who are completely outraged whereas the others are saying ‘hey it’s only a cartoon, it’s meant to be tongue and cheek'.
“But I do believe a lot of our community were offended."
Mark Knight said the cartoon was in relation to Treasurer Joe Hockey’s policy to make small business the engine room of Australia’s economy.
He commented on SBS Punjabi’s Facebook post, saying “I wanted to show a typical small business so I decided on an Indian couple running a corner store".
“I like to represent real life in my cartoons and seeing that Indian born Australian’s run many of our small businesses, I decided to represent them in a cartoon," he said.
Knight said the cartoon was a reference to last year’s budget “when Joe Hockey and Finance Minister Mathias Cormann were photographed puffing on cigars."
“When I had the treasurer awarding the Indian shopkeeper's cigars it was representative of him saying "you are the hope, the future, the powerhouse of Australia's economic recovery! Here's a cigar!" he said.
Knight said his intention was not to make fun of Sikhs, but rather reflect Australia’s diversity.
“I'm trying to include in my drawing all elements of our community, women in hijabs, our Asian Australians, Indians," he said.
Ms Singh said when you look at the cartoon in context “it’s not offensive", but it was "just creating a stereotype”.
In his post, Knight also said he hoped he “does not have to homogenise my work due to cultural misunderstandings".
Given that Knight was "well aware" of the fact that Sikhs don't some, Ms Singh said she hoped he is "little more careful next time and not portray something with a completely out of context picture".
“I would love for him to continue to reflect the diversity but I guess to be a little more culturally sensitive," she said.
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