British Asians have changed public life in UK

Perhaps the best-known sketch of the seminal 1990s comedy show Goodness Gracious Me was one in which young Asian friends “go out for an English”. They make a hash of pronouncing the waiter’s name (James), order absurd numbers of bread rolls and dare one another to opt for “the blandest thing on the menu” (scampi).

The sketch was an affectionate pastiche of that quintessentially British ritual, the rowdy trip to the curry house, written by a largely British Asian team of writers, and appreciated by Britons of all backgrounds. Goodness Gracious Me not only marked a new self-confidence on the part of British Asians but also showed that those communities’ cultural foibles had entered the mainstream.

Asians used to be the butt of the joke but, in the 1990s, having achieved success in so many areas of British life, they began writing their own — often in a very British tradition of self-deprecation and wit. On April 9, that Asian cultural assimilation reached new heights with the appointment of Sajid Javid as Culture Secretary. Javid, son of a Pakistani bus conductor, is the first Asian male to lead a government department and is said to be one of the most promising members of government, whose talents took him to be vice-president of Chase Manhattan bank at 25. What makes him more remarkable is that he took a reported 98 per cent pay cut to fulfil his political ambition.

Interracial marriages

Bollywood dancing was followed by a ceilidh (Gaelic) band, samosas (fried pastry) served alongside fish and chips. It would be absurd to think that this is the British norm — but it is getting less unusual: 8.8 per cent of British marriages are now “mixed” (involving one foreign-born spouse). Just 15 per cent of the population oppose interracial marriages today, compared with 50 per cent in the 1980s and 40 per cent in the 1990s. Disapproval of relationships across the racial divide falls away as you move down the age groups. True, my positive experience is conditioned by the privileges of a middle-class background and London’s multiculturalism.

But it was not too long ago that my wife and I might have encountered hostility. I have also had the luxury of growing up in a Britain with an unprecedented diversity of role models. Previously, popular understanding of the Asian immigrant experience was dominated by the twin stereotypes of curry houses and corner shops. Later Indian immigrants often — like my family — arrived with more education, skills and money than their Bangladeshi and Pakistani counterparts.

Those, like my parents, aware of the sacrifices made by their own parents in India, invested heavily in education for their children and typically favoured risk-averse career choices. Second- and third- generation Indians became associated with success in law and medicine. Today, a quarter of Britain’s medical workforce comes from South Asia. Yet these moulds are also breaking. Asians in Britain are scaling the heights of arts and entertainment, diplomacy and journalism — careers to which earlier generations rarely had access. The prominence of Indian characters on so many British soaps is perhaps the clearest sign of cultural familiarity.

Chefs like Atul Kochhar and Cyrus Todiwala have reinforced the role of Indian food in modern British cuisine, just as Indian-origin musicians, artists, and writers have injected Indian themes into the arts. Slumdog Millionaire, a British film set in India and starring a British-Indian actor, is only the most high-profile recent example of the fusion. Of course, not all of these individuals consider themselves defined by their ethnicity; but the point is that it would once have been a constraining factor. Politics has reflected the trend.

Between 1924 and 1987, the year Keith Vaz was elected as a Labour MP, not a single British Asian sat in Parliament. Yet the current parliament includes 18 British Asians. Nearly 60 years ago, Winston Churchill mused about the “problems which will arise if many coloured people settle here”. Last year, David Cameron predicted that the first British Indian prime minister would be a Tory. Now, at a moment of rising disquiet over immigration, it is more important than ever to recognise and celebrate the profound, disruptive and enriching transformation that Asians have wrought on British life. Long may it continue.

— The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2014