FULL SPEECH @
http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=news.story.page&obj_id=131074&speeches=1

………………………………………………………….The lessons of the Ramayana are timeless and go far beyond the sub-continent of India.

It offers something for all of us to learn – devotion to duty, integrity and the pursuit of truth.

And of course, every year at Diwali, Hindus in Britain and throughout the world celebrate the triumph of good over evil.

Hindus – a successful and vital part of Britain

Being here today not only reminds me of the lessons offered by Hinduism as a faith, but also of the example set by British Hindus themselves.

It’s hardly surprising that British Hindus have been such a successful part of our nation.

After all, the values you brought with you when you arrived here are those traditionally associated with Britain: tolerance, honesty, enterprise, and respect for the law.

Indeed, in your desire to live independently of the Government while never shirking from contributing to the community, you embody the British ideal of balancing freedoms with duties.

You have also helped to strengthen some values which have at times seemed to be in decline, such as commitment to the family.

It is a commitment at the heart of my approach to politics.

But the Hindu community isn’t just a part of this country in a strictly demographic sense.

It’s much more important than that.

You’re a vital part of the Britain that we’re building together.

I believe that we’re a dynamic nation with a famous past and a brilliant future.

Who can look at the next generation and not feel optimism and pride?

Problems

Of course, life is never perfect and, as we build, I know there are things that worry you.

Too often, politicians seem to believe that British Hindus have no problems or concerns, and can therefore be ignored.

In a sense, you’re victims of your own success.

Everyone knows that British Hindus are good citizens.

In your everyday lives – within the family, at work and in the community – you’re making real those famous words of Gandhi: “We must be the change we want to see in the world.”

……………………………………………………….

British Hindus are truly British, but have achieved this without giving up their religious and cultural traditions.

And if you prefer to be referred to as British Hindus or British Indians rather than as simply Asians, we should welcome that as a positive thing.

……………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………..

As we bring Britain together so we can start to bring the world together, united in our common humanity.

That is something that Bapu understands better than almost anyone.

And so I’m grateful that you have allowed me to be with you for a short time this morning. I wish you well for the remainder of the Festival.”

FULL SPEECH SEE
http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=news.story.page&obj_id=131074&speeches=1

Incorrect, the BBC is blatantly anti-Israeli and anti-Christian as well.

The coverage of Israel is so biased. I don’t agree with what Israel does BUT the BBC has a duty to respond in a NON-BIASED manner. This is clearly not the case.

And you think Muslims are given job preferences over others? Based on what? That is not what others have found:
http://www.asiansinmedia.org/news/article.php/radio/507

Again, most of your arguments are born out of a victim mentality rather than real figures.

This may be new to some of you folks but ‘Ignoring the Hindus’ trend started a few years ago in our very own backyard by our very own people.
At the BBC ASIAN NETWORK RADIO.
Oh dear.
Do I hear “Here he goes again”.
Tough!

To be honest before they started ignoring Hindus, I didn’t even care, but they just kept ignoring and ignoring and ignoring and ignoring over other religions namely Sikhs and Muslims.

Again it simple things like not getting headlines on the front page of the Newspaper is such a petty demand or complaint to make in light of all the dead and destruction.
But looking at it politically the need for this headline is important in that it shows that the West do have feeling.

So little thing like this builds up. When we ask for recognitions we get slammed for being petty by Muslims would you believe!! Its so funny listening to those hypocrites on the radio. Anitas chat show last Mondays on this identity issue.

Even with simple things like getting employment where the trend after 2001 was to employ Muslims above all other even if they were not suitable. I don’t have figures or direct proof but judging by where I work and the people targeted by my employer and finally employed, it was certainly clear what they meant by recruiting more Asians.
Some of you may remember the Civil Service also wanted more Asians as long they were Muslims.

If you want to favour Muslims then by all means do it, but just don’t do it in he name of Asians and then ignore Hindus and Sikhs.
Little events like these are happening and Hindus are responding to that change.

Another petty example. Lets take the release of Krrish. So how did they ignore Indians. Well on the day of release of Krrish there was very little coverage on the Asian Network in the morning. This is a special film in light of it being a first REAL superhero Indian film. Weve had Mr India and Mr Sahensha but both were rubbish in terms of being called Superheroes.
Off course this week Superman is released and wow, gets great coverage yesterday, today and even became a News item on its programmes!! It will no doubt get more coverage discussion competitions etc tomorrow.
Any other film I don’t give damn but in light of all the pre hype of both Krrish and Superman going head to head in India, certainly deserved the recognition from day one.
Its funny they only decide to interview Roshan today!!!
Why? Sympathy after the bombings?
Its too late BBC.

So my argument about the BBC Asian being biased goes on and I don’t really care if you people mock it don’t agree with it or whatever.
Im not the only Indian saying this either.
The only way Hindus will get recognition is to demand for it.
They certainly wont get it on a plate as do Jews and Muslims.

That is why I welcome the term “British Indian” as opposed to Asian, Hindu, Muslim, etc. Over these 50 years, Pakistan and India have matured their own identities, and it’s about time we reflect that here.

I complained to the BBC about that word after the murder of the Black teenager Isaiah Young-Sam in Birmingham.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/4992966.stm

They said they would pass on the complaint to someone else to deal with. Probably a box standard reply, i don’t know.

- to avoid being associated with other people
- in order to be associated with other people
- to engender pride in your social/religious group (which can then be mobilised to good as well as bad ends)
- to engender solidarity with others in a social/religious group as numbers can provide more power to lobby and for mutual aid.
- to make it easier for other people to understand why you have different habits, rules and preoccupations.

I don’t think any of them can be presumed as always good or bad, so rather than get bogged down in judging them, I’d focus on the different ways we assert identities, e.g., in conflict, in competition, or irrelevant to other identities.

I’d say Hindu identities should complement, not displace Asian or British or other identities. I think PP writers often assert that we have multiple identities and we should not be made to choose between them to serve someone else’s political agenda. This solves our social theory problem, but not the problem of media representation.

The question for me then becomes in what contexts we should talk about Hindu and about Asian and other identities to explain what is happening. Using the Hindu Forum’s example, I think that if the media reports “Asian people rioting”, then that is unfair if the protestors actually do not see themselves as being in solidarity as Asian people in the context of the riots. If they feel solidarity because of a more specific common ethnicity, or as local residents who happen to be Asian, or as members of a particular religion, then it should be reported in that way.

If we do not know the basis of their solidarity, it should not be assumed. The media should undertake some journalism, or report its speculation as being speculation. The description of activities suggests something about the identity dynamics of the riot – so it should be an identity which the rioters themselves would assert in their conflict rather than one that just looks right.

Even this is not specific enough, because what of people who consider themselves to share their identity but not solidarity with the rioters? We’d want a description that is limited to the group that shares this solidarity. This might be too much to expect of journalists to know, so this is probably why they like polls so much. Once they have seen past the apparent identity, to find the asserted identity, people can then research the limits of solidarity within the asserted identity (though I don’t trust this to be nuanced enough to be very meaningful).

This won’t settle any arguments, but we might take a few breaths while trying to understand social dynamics slightly better.

–”has assimilated well into the British culture. Hindus achieve highly in education, have diversified into many professions and have very low crime rates”.

This here points out that Hindus are “well assimilated” into British culture, are highly educated, and have low crime rates (in contrast to which other immigrants and/or minorities??????)*
= Hindus are a model minority.

–“For example, in 2001 there were major riots in parts of North England between Pakistani/Bangladeshi and white communities. This incident was described by the media as ‘Asian’ vs white, although there were no Hindus involved.”

Hindus are different from Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities (who were entangled in riots with whites–maybe because they are not well assimilated and highly educated???)*, but are lumped in with them under the umbrella term of “Asian”.

–”Hindus make a large contribution economically and culturally to British life”

=model minority

–”This lack of unity between Hindus is quite common and does not exist among other faiths in the UK such as in the Muslim and Jewish communities”.

This theme of disunity– and in their mind, in stark contrast to Muslims and Jews– is an obsession of the Hindus here in America. Most all compare themselves to how Muslims and Jews PRESUMABLY have a united, single political voice. They would like to emulate this. And it is interesting that this article was on the webiste of the HSC, a North American set up. This piece was in tandem with a series of articles that claimed that Hindus, because they are “disunited, pluralistic, and tolerant peoples”, have suffered and been the victims and prey of others worldwide. Thus, they need to step up and create both a global Hindu community and a network of transnational alliances (I am being serious, some articles actually stated this).

Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean that the writer of the piece that I quoted had wanted to say this. But that was the whole atmosphere around the time that I pulled this up (circa Oct/Nov 2005) and have been pulled off the website the last time I checked for some mysterious reason (actually, entire section of articles written by “popular writers” [sic] is no longer available.)

*multiple question marks, ie “????”, indicates an inquisitive assertion** that may not be relevant or accurate.

** “inquisitive assertion”??

Probably but I hope that good sense prevails.
I enjoyed watching nearly the entire group of CiF commenters taking the piss out of FB. He almost seems to relish the punishment doesn’t he?

His crack about your “Babu-English” verged on the racist – can you imagine a white journalist writing that and getting away with it?

Heh, don’t be so sure. You think Sikh orgs are not playing this game for a piece of the pie?

Go on Cif and read Faisal Bodi, who is pretty much in support of the religious tagging – no surprise there. As a rule, if FB is in support of a position, sane observers would do well to move to a point that is 180 degrees of that position.

>>And good point about the Chinese – if I was South-East Asian I would be getting quite miffed at all these ‘Asians’ and their ‘issues’.

It was thus with the oldham riots. It was on the telly and news and some of us over here were thinking “Asians in pitched battles with police in the UK? What the fuck was going on?” It was a bit of a shock to see the asian tag being used since so many of us identified with it but the rioters were quite alien to us.

I believe similar sentiments are behind this move by SOME hindus to dissociate themselves from the asian label, slyly abetted by a government that seems keen to deal with ‘faith-based communities’ and cheered on by the likes of Bodi. I don’t know if this move will succeed but hope at the worst, Brit hindus, Sikhs settle for the “indian” identity tag which is an ethnic rather than religious marker

The problem in the UK is that up until the 1980’s there were a lot more ‘Asian’, ‘Black’ or ‘Indian’, ‘Pakistani’ etc organisations, most of them were community funded.

But over the years groups based on religious identity – such as the MCB have taken over that mantel. They privilege religion over everything else and there is a new generation of young Muslims growing up who describe themselves as Muslims above all and put the ‘Ummah’ above any other loyalties.

The government has stupidly encouraged this by going to religious groups – mosques, gurdwaras etc as a means of communicating with ‘minorities’ and we’ve seen the decline of secular ethnic groups and the growth of relgious based organisations as funding is organised around religious identity rather than ethnic background.

Not only has this led to a seperation of Muslims from other Asians (which I believe has happened, at least at the rhetorical level by ‘community leaders’) but also a seperation of Asians and Blacks – where once there were strong anti-racist coalition groups involving people of Afro-Carribean and Asian backgrounds, it is now rare for an Asian person to describe himself as Black or for an Afro-Carribean to take the description seriously. More and more minorities are keen to assert their differences at the expense of a wider shared experience of racism. It’s understandable – as our communities feel less threatened by the host community we are less likely to feel the need to stick together, and as our communities get bigger we find more people who are closer to us – in religion, language, ethnicity – for us to form micro-communities with.

However, I believe we need to be very careful with where we are going with this.

I agree that ‘Asian’ is a hugely broad term and there are of course lots of different religions, ethnicities etc within the term. However, what concerns me is that any desire for distinction should not be based on the need to show that ‘We Hindus are the nice law-abiding, economically contributing Asians – and these Muslims are all lunatic suicide bombers.’ It’s easy to forget that quite apart from the not too distant atrocities in Gujrat, Muslims do encounter discrimination and prejudice in India (even here in the UK I know of one Hindu family who refuses to eat food that has been touched by a Muslim).

Yes, the government has been wrong to focus on Muslims and neglect others and yes, the media is obsessed with Muslims (although if I was Hindu I wouldn’t envy the kind of attention Muslims get these days) and these are serious issues which are clearly dividing communities.

But the attack in Bombay may or may not have been motivated as an attack on Hindus. Whatever the case, the result is casualties of all religions, who are all Indian. In a country where Muslims are an economically deprived minority, with a shocking history of communal violence from both relgions, we need to be careful not to allow these kind of dreadful acts of terrorism to be used to divide ordinary people, otherwise the terrorists have won.

And just a couple more things – Desi Italiana – spot on as are Mirax (as always) and Don.

And good point about the Chinese – if I was South-East Asian I would be getting quite miffed at all these ‘Asians’ and their ‘issues’.

“Hi Desi, interesting this… will get back to you on the identity thing.”

The “identity” thing in post # 71 is clear: this UK organization is obviously trying to build an image of Hindus as the “model minority” in the UK, a move not too far off from the “Hindu Americans” are doing here.

BBC Asian Network today played the lovely ‘Subhan Allha’ song from the film ‘Fanna’ which was about Kashmir terrorism in midst of their coverage of the bombings.
Very timely and very tastefully done for the Hindus as usual at their hour of grief.

Leicester Mercury the local paper in Leicester (where the majority Hindus live and have contributed and loved and made it their own)the paper choose not to make India their front page story.

I wonder why the Hindus want their own identity recognised at political level?