麻豆社

Good morning.

Today sees the launch of South Asian Heritage Month, which I鈥檓 proud to be a Co-Founder of. It鈥檚 a month long programme of events to celebrate the diversity of British South Asian identity, as well as commemorate the complex history of the community. Its ultimate aim is to achieve greater awareness and effect change through education.

Over 3 million people in the UK are of South Asian heritage, or in other words, at least 1 out of every 20 people. As the pandemic has shown, we as a nation are reliant upon people of all colour in ways that we had perhaps never appreciated before. From our care home workers to our teachers, and from our bus drivers to our NHS staff, brown and black people have helped the country through its most difficult times since the end of the Second World War.

My grandfather, like many people from the former colonies of the British Empire, landed on these shores in the 1960s. He became a postman, and despite the prejudice and discrimination he faced for keeping his turban at a time when most Sikh men decided to cut their hair to fit into British society, he fell in love with the country he still calls home over half a century later.

I鈥檝e always been proud of my own identity as a British Sikh man, and as someone of Punjabi heritage. When I was a teenager growing up in the 90s, Asian-ness was briefly the 鈥榠n-thing鈥�, with pop culture starting to reflect my own life and upbringing. It felt like the British South Asian experience was finally coming into the mainstream, on TV, in music, and in fashion, and then, just like that, the moment disappeared. I鈥檝e often wondered about why that breakthrough never took place just when we seemed on the cusp of it.

Britain has undergone huge change since my grandparents moved here over 50 years ago, and yet the lack of understanding about the interconnected nature of British and South Asian history, culture and identity remains.

Guru Nanak, the founder of the Sikh faith, said 鈥淐ontemplate and reflect upon knowledge, and you will become a benefactor to others.鈥�

I believe that by educating ourselves about the past and the present, we can better appreciate the world around us and the impact, for better and for worse, that Britain has had on the many diverse communities who, like my grandfather, call this home.

At a time when we are re-evaluating our past, as a people and as a nation, I think it鈥檚 important for all of us to be able tell our own authentic stories. That鈥檚 because all of our stories, including the stories which will be told throughout South Asian Heritage Month and beyond, are the stories of this country.

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