FIVE KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE
- Communication for the Sikh community must move beyond reaction and validation—it must proactively shape thought and protect truth.
- In an age dominated by artificial intelligence, rapid information flow, and manipulated narratives, owning intellectual property becomes essential to preserving identity.
- Sikh contributions to humanity are vast, but without narrative ownership, their meaning risks being redefined by external voices.
- Inspired by Guru Nanak Sahib’s principle of deep listening, communication must be deliberate—rooted in observation, authenticity, and intellectual discipline.
- UNITED SIKHS (UK) is laying the foundation for this transformation, urging investment in storytelling, research, media, and thought leadership to secure Sikh legacy for future generations.
By Harmeet Shah Singh | Opinion |
Community communications is neither reaction nor a search for validation. It is the disciplined shaping of understanding before others define it.
The Sikh community has long exceeded its numerical strength in service and sacrifice. That same resolve must now guide how it expresses itself in a rapidly changing world where technology dictates perception.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has redrawn the boundaries of influence. Information moves faster than reasoning, and attention has become a resource to be mined. The ability to frame thought, build ideas, and protect their ownership is now as vital as the ability to speak.
Communication must therefore become both shield and seed, defending the community’s truth while cultivating its intellectual assets.
The Age of Unquestioned Content
Each moment brings a new wave of digital material. Video clips, altered images and AI-generated commentary circulate as reality. The more one consumes, the less time there is to reflect. Human reasoning is finite, but the algorithm’s appetite for reaction is endless.
Even among the well-informed, the tendency to accept what appears on screen as authentic has become widespread. This is a crisis of comprehension. When everything appears certain, discernment fades.
The ability to think critically, to verify before believing, is eroding.
Anyone with technical skill can design narratives that travel across continents within seconds. What used to be studied debate has turned into digital hypnosis.
Visibility Without Voice
Sikhs have built enduring institutions: gurdwaras that welcome, kitchens that feed and networks that serve. These are living examples of spiritual discipline. But the world now measures presence not by deed but by data. Without intellectual ownership of how Sikh ideas are presented, our stories risk being retold without our participation.
The turban and the beard carry centuries of meaning. They declare dignity and conviction. But meaning can be lost when description comes from outside. The Sikh community must now invest in intellectual properties that define its ideas, history and creative output. Highly-produced films, think tanks, digital libraries and credible media properties can serve as the foundations of that ownership.
Without such development, influence becomes borrowed. A community with deep philosophy cannot remain a passive consumer of narratives shaped by others. It must create its own library of thought and make it accessible to future generations.
Listening as Method
Guru Nanak Sahib, through the Suniye pauris in Japji Sahib, presented listening as the first act of understanding. Listening strengthens perception and nurtures awareness. It teaches the mind to recognise truth and hold it with steadiness.
In communications, that same principle becomes a method. Listening to how the community is represented, to what is misunderstood, and to what remains unsaid allows us to build narratives that educate and connect.
Listening refines message, ensures authenticity, and brings intellectual order to emotional subjects.
When communication grows from attentive observation, it no longer reacts. It defines.
The Role of UNITED SIKHS (UK)
UNITED SIKHS (UK) stands in a position of global credibility. Its humanitarian work has built trust. The next step is to strengthen how it communicates that work and the ideas behind it. Under Chair Mejindarpal Kaur, the organisation has already initiated, through baby steps, a communications framework that reflects Sikh philosophy through professional rigour.
This effort has to be comprehensive: media engagement, training, research and creative production. It focuses on encouraging development of intellectual properties that carry long-term value.
Each documentary, archive or print/visual publication becomes a contribution to global thought.
With more than 25 years in journalism, including with CNN International and the India Today Group, I have witnessed how narratives move institutions and nations. In the modern world, ownership of thought defines influence.
A community that controls its intellectual assets controls its legacy.
Building a Living Legacy
We can lead this transformation by creating a central communications division dedicated to research, storytelling, and intellectual property development. This includes structured publication of community knowledge, and credible online repositories. Such assets ensure that Sikh ideas remain accessible, referenced, and respected in the global conversation.
Guru Nanak Sahib engaged the world through dialogue that combined insight and compassion. His voice travelled through listening, reflection, and reason. The same qualities must now shape Sikh communications.
The Shield of Thought
Communication is not reaction or validation. It is the shield that guards a community’s truth and the workshop where its ideas are forged.
In an age defined by artificial intelligence and rapid manipulation, intellectual property is defence, memory, and continuity.
For Sikhs, this moment calls for investment in thought itself. By creating, documenting, and owning its ideas, the community ensures that its voice will remain distinct, authentic and enduring long after algorithms change their tune.
Harmeet Shah Singh is a career journalist currently serving as Communications and Advocacy Director at UNITED SIKHS (UK), a charity registered in England and Wales.
* This is the opinion of the writer and does not necessarily represent the views of Asia Samachar.
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