| Submit your comments on this article |
| Britain |
| Hey, don't call me an Asian! |
| 2005-01-11 |
| Goodness Gracious Me and kiss my chuddies, but just as the world was getting used to the omnibus term 'British Asian' and all its newly-cool, over-curried cultural connotations, Brown Britain is calling time on it and asking to be labelled Hindu, Sikh or Muslim instead. Indians, who constitute more than half of the UK's 3.5 per cent 'British Asian' population, are leading the charge towards separate lives. Hindus are in the forefront, Sikhs just behind them and Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslims are being forced into a default acceptance that they can no longer shelter under the convenient cover-all term 'Asian'. These are the conclusions of a much-hyped new BBC programme 'Don't call me Asian' and its writer-presenter Sarfraz Manzoor told TOI , the three-year-old move towards separate labels may have huge implications for British government and society. "No longer can we say the interests of Sikhs and Hindus are the same as those of all British Asians. The government, will, at some point have to formulate more specific and targeted legislation, not just for all Asians but for specific strands within," he said. Commentators agree that the overwhelmingly well-educated, prosperous and well-integrated Indian community's needs are deeply divergent from the comparatively provincial, poor, insular and failing Pakistani and Bangladeshi. Add to that a growing assertiveness by British Hindus and Sikhs and the term 'Asian' seems clearly inadequate. Says British-born-and-bred London college student Neeta: "Asian is not a term I use for myself at home or with my friends. I don't feel Asian, I feel British and Indian and Hindu." Manzoor and many others believe, the move towards clear labelling may be positive. "Till now, Britain's Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims were defined by others by what they were not — not white, not black," says Manzoor. Now, they are choosing their own definitions. Arguably, it all started after the British Pakistani rioting that set north-west Britain ablaze in the long, hot summer of 2001. British Indians were alternately intimidated and indignant about being linked with the unprovoked mob violence by uneducated, unemployed Pakistani Muslim youths. Says Manzoor, who spent several months making the BBC programme: "Many of the young Hindu women I spoke to said they saw no reason to be lumped with the rioters." Race relations experts say the quest for separate public identities escalated after 9/11, when British Hindus further sought to put a safe distance between themselves and Muslims. Earlier last year, the Indian High Commission here significantly began to speak in much the same language. Sections of the several-hundred thousand Sikh community, meanwhile, began a parallel attempt to be labelled 'Sikh' and not 'Indian'. The ironic result, points out Manzoor, is that just as it has become increasingly cool to be British Asian with all the hip, world-beating music, food, fashion, films and television sitcoms, Asians themselves have moved away from racial to religious affiliation. Manzoor said his conversations with women activists of Britain's largest Hindu youth group and parallel chats with young Pakistani Muslim men underlined the extent of the divide. "The young Hindu women were incredibly well-spoken. The Muslims were really rough. They didn't really have anything in common at all." Except, of course, the colour brown. Till the UK's 2001 census, the demographics of Brown Britain were officially labelled 'Asian', with the add-on explanation that it was a reference to "the most widely accepted current use of the word. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #4 thanks fred. :) |
| Posted by: muck4doo 2005-01-11 8:35:39 PM |
| #3 After the Romans destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 A.D. the Christians insisted on differentiating themselves as separate from the general group of Jews. Its hard not to notice what changes that decision has wrought over the years since! ;-) |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2005-01-11 8:23:56 PM |
| #2 Better now? |
| Posted by: Fred 2005-01-11 8:22:27 PM |
| #1 thisn hard to reed |
| Posted by: muck4doo 2005-01-11 8:08:04 PM |