Entertainment
Ammy Virk said that Bollywood would often stereotype Sikh characters, but this is changing with people like Diljit Dosanjh and himself entering the industry
Singer-actor Ammy Virk said that the Hindi film industry used to stereotype Sikhs, and would often not even put in the basic effort to get representation right. Instead, they’d cast non-Sikhs in Sikh roles, and put them in incorrectly tied turbans.
In an interview with Bollywood Bubble, Ammy said that with new Punjabi artists making inroads in Bollywood, things will hopefully change for future generations. He agreed that Sikhs have often been restricted to comic relief characters in Hindi movies, but they can offer so much more than just that.
He said in Hindi, “I was watching an interview of Diljit, and earlier what used to happen was that they’d get artists who didn’t even have beards and make them wear turbans in Bollywood films. But now, they prefer casting sardars as sardar characters. Even if they don’t cast sardars, at least they get a Sikh person from Punjab to tie the turban. Earlier, they turbans used to look like caps in Hindi films, and it used to feel strange, because that’s not what we look like.”
