Halemi Lehar

Project Description

Halemi Lehar (translating to “Queer Revolution”) seeks to mobilize the term “halemi” as a political and organizing category to center the needs, politics, and experiences most marginalized within the Sikh community. Through this grant, we are seeking to establish this Sikh organization that centers queer, femme, transgender, Dalit and caste oppressed, Black, disabled, and other marginalized groups within the Sikh community. We will go about this through: 1) producing abolitionist, anti-caste, feminist, queer and trans centric critical content and resources rooted in Sikhi; 2) creating spaces of political education and learning for those both within and beyond the Sikh community; 3) building coalitional power across different movement spaces through Sikhi; and 4) organizing to meet both the urgent and long-term needs of those most marginalized within the Sikh community. Through such work, Halemi Lehar strives to challenge the hegemonic understandings and claims to Sikhi that continue to otherize and dispose of marginalized Sikhs. With this grant, we are looking forward to setting up our organization infrastructure, and organizing a retreat that brings together the marginalized Sikhs to collectively build power and strategize against various issues impacting the Sikh community today—both internally and externally.