In the midst of this identity controversy, this section –named after a radio programme broadcast on Radio 4 on January 11th 2005 in which Sarfraz Manzoor1 investigated why many Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims are turning away from the term
1
He is a writer and broadcaster. His TV directing credits include The Great British Asian invasion for Channel 4 and he is a regular guest on BBC’s Newsright Review. He published his first book, Greetings
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‘British Asian’ to define themselves– stems from the researchers’s curiosity on the wide array of terms used to name the characters’ origin in the primary bibliography.
Examining the impact of September 11th 2001 on the different Asian communities in Britain, Manzoor interviewed young people about why they define themselves as British Muslim or British Hindu and found that many are divided about this. According to the report, Connecting British Hindus, carried out by the Runnymede Trust and the Hindu Forum, Hindus living in Britain do not want to be described as ‘Asian’, according to a big study of the community. Instead, they want to be known as British Indian, Hindu or even Desi, a Hindi word growing in popularity with the young that means being rooted in one’s home country. It is used in media technology and to describe people and culture with its roots in the Indian subcontinent.
This complexity and the difficulty of establishing a homogeneous line of thought in the topics presented in this thesis are also reflected in the teminology used to name the members of the second generation. On the one hand, the term ‘Asian’ is considered something of the past; a term created by administrators at the time of the British Empire that does not conform to contemporary society and whose broad signifiance lumps together all the people from the subcontinent that does not allow any identity specification. Its first appearance in the primary bibliography is catalogued in Meera Syal’s Life Isn’t All Ha Ha Hee Hee (1999), a book published in the 90’s, a time when it acquired a new cultural meaning. As she illustrates in her novel, the wrong social conceptions concerning identity were reflected in literature:
The Yanks would love you! ‘Mark enthused. ‘You look Mexican. Tell them you’re Asian and they’ll expect some bird from Vietnam, say you’re Indian and they’ll ask what reservation. When they twig you’re from the land of Ravi Shankar and holy men, they’ll be creaming their Calvin Kleins.´
‘Is that a good thing? Tania asked. ‘I thought they liked easy to read packaging. You know, WASP, Jap, redneck, Latino...’
‘They like whatever someone tells them the next big thing is going to be. Why shouldn’t it be you?’
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The change from the term Asian to Indian delimits the latter to specific cultural, social, political and historical events that distances it from the peculiarities of other Asian countries. The novels that concern us here represent “renegotiations of identity” (Schoene-Harwood 1999: 54) to which a clearly defined identity is needed in what the same author addresses as a “context of transcultural modernity” (ibid 54). While I agree on the writer’s urge for a redefinition of the discourse of identity, this view of transculturality should not go unchallenged in the analysis of the primary bibliography. Therefore, the female protagonists are challenging their ancestors’ traditions and culture in defending their British upbringing, and intending not to move between two cultural arenas but supporting a unique British identity containing the two implicitly through a background discourse of transculturality. This challenge and the desire to reach a consensus in their negotiation of tradition defends the display of their own behaviour in terms of naturalness and not a petrified artefact about the way Indian women should act and that would apparently permit most of the attitudes and conduct criticised in the stereotypes attached to the white community and that are gathered in 4.2.2.2.
In this new discourse, which has traditionally been highly dependent on “ethnically shaped identities” (ibid 55), the characters’ position as British citizens requires an identity that is not so explicitly and consciously linked to ethnicity but to their position as individuals with a desire for freedom and choices in life that correspond to them as human beings. The difficulty in the achievement of this aim springs not only from the characteristics of a modern world but also from the complexities of a transcultural, multicultural sphere.
In the midst of these paradoxes, the term British-Asian is rejected by most teenagers mainly because of its association with the Bradford Riots,2 according to the interviews under the title naming this section. Nevertheless, as can be observed in the books written by Nisha Minhas, a few contradictory results can be found in the use of words like ‘English-born Asian’ (Ch or Ch 2000), ‘British-born Asian’ (P and P 2004), ‘British-Asian woman’ and ‘British-born Indian woman’, the latter opposed to Indian
2
They began July 7, 2001 in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. It occurred as a result of hightened tension between ethnic minority communities and the city’s white majority, stoked by confrontation between the Anti-nazi league and far right groups, such as the National Front. Similar race riots had occurred a few days earlier in other parts of Northern England.
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women from India (B and B 2005) on the one hand, and ‘Indian men’ (Ch or Ch 2000), ‘Older Indian sisters’ and ‘Indian mothers’ (S and S 2003), ‘Indian girls’ (P and P 2004,
B and B 2005), ‘Indian woman’ (The MM 2006) on the other. The oposition Indian/Asian
girl/woman can also be seen in the same book. A look at the items pointed out in the different books shows that the later the publication the greater the tendency to use the term ‘British’ attached to some connotation to the subcontinent. This complexity is caused by different countries of birth. In fact, and contrary to what is happening lately in British society, no dual combination is seen as could be the case of ‘British-Hindu’ or ‘British Sikh’. Any reference to religion is made on behalf of it without consideration as to birth. Samir calls himself a ‘Sikh’ in Saris and Sins (2003: 415, 416) and Marina a ‘Hindu’ in Passion and Poppadoms (2004: 388, 396). As far as my research is concerned, no literature has been published on this issue except for the report indicated above and Nesbit (1998). Nevertheless, a few conclusions can be drawn from this initial study. First of all, and as has been pointed out above, the complexity which characterizes the context of a dual culture, with its acceptance and refusal of old and new values and, as a consequence, the difficulty of combining both and the gender conflict caused by the freedom of the British culture and the restrictions of Indian tradition is shown in the unstable and problematic nature of the identity terminology. Second, as is shown in the passages from the books, whenever India is set as an example to be followed, the speaker addresses the listener with the term ‘Indian’ (Ch or Ch (2000): 55, 85, 195, 225, 239, 287; S and S (2003): 51, 83, 224; P and P (2004): 71, 137, 148, 245, 245, 378; B and B (2005): 142, 163, 240, 271, 288, 329, 375; The MM (2006): 428) while, when the Western values are opposed to the Eastern ones, the term ‘British-Asian’ is introduced. The term British appears more often in most of the identity identifications in The
Marriage Market (2006), in contrat to the previous novels. A possible explanation for
this is that teenagers feel more identified with Britain and, although they are conscious of their Hindu/Sikh/Indian background they are also conscious of the advantages of combining both heritages. However, this identity needs modification and re-definition, as they do not regard this background on the same terms or as strictly as the older generations. Despite the fact that this statement is applicable to most of the characters from the books under analysis, either male or female, I am not in the position to affirm that other possibilities are not plausible.
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In the midst of this complexity, which does not admit of any easy solution, I now wish to focus our attention on the different factors that shape one’s own self, which is not separated from the dichotomies of identity terminology observed above and which will influence gender relations. Firstly, the focus of interest will be on identity; and, secondly, on issues related to the latter and that are linked to Foucault´s concept of morality analysed above, –that is, the twofold perspective of the term as both the values and rules dictated by tradition– in the Indian case, and the way the individuals act in relation to such values and norms. As will be seen, there is not a unified line of action, though it is also true that most of the female protagonists resist rather than obey the old values.
In order to better understand the analytical section I would like to draw the reader’s attention to three basic concepts that will be directly or indirectly implied in the different sections. Thus, in her study of young British Hindus’ perceptions on their religious tradition, Nesbit (1998: 190) explores their understandings of themselves as British, Asian and Hindu. She examined British-South Asian identities along the three axes of Britishness, Asianness and their religion. Now in our female writers the axes could be reinterpreted in terms of Britishness, the individual’s freedom and birth culture, with a feasible redefinition of the latter in terms of duality and hibridity –as mantained in this thesis- and beyond the enclosed Indian context.