British Indians

My mother is from a totally different background.

She is a British Indian.

She was born in London.

Her parents, my grandparents on my mother's side, came from Fiji.

But the question here to Don Butler...

To follow up with your analogy, the English are a mongrel race until it comes time for reparations, because we know that reparations won't be sought from the Pakistanis in Britain or from the Indians in Britain.

So will she pay for reparations?

If she wants to be, if the British have to pay reparations, and she says, no, we are British, we have to be recognized as British, will she pay for reparations? Well, clearly not.

And he is expressing his obligations towards people who share his ancestry.

And he is making a collective claim.

He's speaking of an us that is Indians in Britain or British Indians or whatever term you wish to use.

But again, you see that from someone like Rishi Sunak.

Let's see.

What else do we have here? Another listener writes in, Sam, I'm British Indian, and I did not take offense to the lady caller that she was on point regarding Mamdani and company.

It's all about assimilation and respecting the country you live in, including freedom of speech and religion.

Thank goodness I'm living here.

I'm born here.

but British Indian is who I identify as.

Yeah.

And how do you think your identity as British Indian shapes the values or shaped your journey in therapy?

Yeah.

So being British and Indian, like being Indian, you, there is a bit of a stigma attached to accessing kind of therapy and counselling.

Let's begin with what the poem is actually about, because understanding the content is the foundation for everything else.

Sing Song is narrated by a young British Indian shopkeeper, a man of Sikh heritage, as the name Singh suggests, who is recently married.

He runs a corner shop, but he keeps abandoning his duties to go upstairs and spend time with his new wife.

The poem is essentially a love song, but it's set in the most ordinary, everyday environment you can imagine.

This is not sloppy writing.

This is a deliberate, sophisticated, artistic choice.

Nagra is representing the authentic spoken voice of the British Indian diaspora, and examiners will award marks to candidates who recognize this and analyze it properly.

Do not call it slang.

Be like the wise aunt.

But like the more cultures you go through, like you, Michael, because I've only ever lived in the UK, but as a British Indian, I probably have two cultures.

But you are, do you find that every new place you've gone, that you're like adding good feathers to your cap in terms of character? Because you're learning from the people there.

The new people.

Um, so I do also have therefore some, like, sympathy to people who have, like, you know, for example, moved to, their families moved to UK in the '50s from India, and they're like, "No, I'm British too.

I'm, I'm Indian-British." I, I, I can understand this idea of dual nationality, actually.

I do think it is a possible thing.

But the thing that makes it work is if you are either able to fully, when you move to a new country, actually adopt that culture and take it as your own, not try and shift it to yours, but go, "Okay, I'm coming from India, I'm going to adopt British values." Now, as it was, like, a lot of Indian values, because of colonial past and so on, actually morphed into British anyway, and so on, so it wasn't such a big jump.