Forty Years On: identification and alienation among Indian immigrants resident in Britain since 1960

Alka Sehgal

‘I don’t see cultural identity as a static notion. I see it as a volatile, ever-changing, re-processing dynamic.’ (Alibhai Brown quoted in Green 1990: 23).

In accordance with Yasmin Alibhai Brown’s recognition of the fluid character of cultural identities, my excavation and subsequent analysis of the experiences and recollections of Indian immigrants to the UK, suggest that their life course has been marked by ebbs and flows of identification with Britishness as well as alienation from it. The purpose of this paper (its title drawn from Alan Bennett’s play about the weakening of Britishness) is to map the changing tides of their identification and alienation, with particular regard for the extent to which renewed or even new identifications with Indian culture may have developed among this cohort in response to an increased sense of alienation from British society. Hence I shall be considering not only the co-existence of identification and alienation, but also the interaction between them.

The key question which I set out to answer, albeit provisionally, is as follows: Among Indian immigrants, has identification with British society and culture strengthened or weakened in the 40 years since their arrival in the UK? The supplementary questions which I have addressed are: If identification with British society and culture has weakened among Indian immigrants, has this weakening been accompanied by a strengthening of identification with Indian society and culture? Finally, what are the factors which have prompted and shaped any such shifts in identification?

By ‘identification’ I mean the propensity for particular human subjects, in this case Indian immigrants, to feel close to or at one with social phenomena, in this instance a range of phenomena associated with Indian and/or British culture, polity and society. Alienation implies the opposite of identification: the propensity to feel distanced from and other than social phenomena associated with Indian and/or British culture, polity and society.

Although ‘identity’ and ‘identification’ are closely linked, my preference is for the latter term over the former. If ‘identity’ is understood as a pattern formed through the recurrence of identifications, my concern is that, despite protestations to the contrary, such patterns are often taken as given, and the processes through which they are formed – the dynamics integral to my thesis – are consequently interpreted not as dynamics at all, but as the mere expression of a pre-existing identity, e.g. British, Asian or Indian.

Recognising the problem of objectifying identity, treating it as an object like a mobile phone, Billig is sceptical of ‘identity’ as a category:

‘The notion of an identity does not take the argument very far. It is seldom clear what an identity is. What is this thing – this identity – which people are supposed to carry around with them. It cannot be an object like a mobile phone…..The problem starts when one expects to find the “identity” within the body or the mind of the individual.’ (Billig 1995: 7)

In referring to ‘identification’ I seek to obviate any tendency towards reification on my own part, and therefore prefer to use a term, identification, which emphasises the primacy of human actors and the secondary character of identity as a consequence of historically specific actions and accompanying aspirations.

Although my starting point is the recognition of changes over time in regard to identification and alienation, the fluid character of such phenomena does not mean that they are free from determinations. On the contrary, excavation of changes over time requires the researcher to attempt to locate social phenomena in a particular time. In the footsteps of Raymond Williams, my initial study of changes in identification and alienation aspires to be as historically specific as his ‘sociology of culture’ which ‘must be…an historical sociology.’ (1981: 34)

Having analysed autobiographical accounts of the changing experiences of immigrants who have lived in the UK for 40 years, I am prompted to question the models of assimilation and multiculturalism which have been in existence for almost as longs as my interviewees have lived in Britain.

Conduct of Interviews

The interviewees are married couples, and all of them were known to myself and to each other. This had practical advantages in that interviews could be arranged at mutually convenient times. More importantly there was already a level of trust established between us. It did mean, however, that both parties had to consider how to express or phase certain questions or thoughts because of prior knowledge we have of each other.

Patai says that being in a controlling position as interviewer also implicates one in an unequal, personal power relationship (Gluck and Patai: 1991). My own experience suggests this is not necessarily the case. Firstly, academic and institutional considerations have shaped the use of my research – I am not a liberty to do what I like with the interviewees’ responses. Secondly the personal relationship I have with my interviewees places me in the position of being a child, like a daughter or niece. Consequently my age, marital and professional status counted for little in the interview context (hence their constant referral to me as ‘Alka beti’ – ‘beti’ meaning ‘child’ in Hindi).

I interviewed each couple, as a couple, once (see appendix 1 for biographical details and copy of guiding questions). The interviews lasted between 1 to 3 hours. I have subjected their tape recorded remarks to a process of ‘narrativisation’ which entails ‘selection, plotting and interpretation’ (Cornell 2000: 163) on my part.

Life Stories

(i) The Parasharas

‘The only reason for coming was to learn how to be a director.’

Mohan Parashara and Uma Parashara arrived in Britain in 1961. Mohan was 28. He had been working at all India Radio in Delhi, where he was a leading light in various amateur dramatic companies. He acted with the Delhi Shakespeare Company and attended drama festivals in Simla – a hill station which was a favoured retreat of the british during the hot season.

Mohan loved the English language, which he had learnt at school and subsequently at college when studying for a BA in Arts. Listening to broadcasts in English at the radio station helped to make him more fluent: ‘I used to stand outside recording studios listening to people speak English’. On arrival in Britain, Mohan was disappointed to find that English people did not speak the standard English which he was familiar with.

When talking about this period of his life, Mohan’s voice and expression became highly animated and expressive. Clearly he loved being a part of artistic/theatrical circles, and it was mainly for this reason that he chose to come to England, where opportunities for cultural activity were greater. The fact that England was Shakespeare’s homeland was also a factor, as was the role and reputation of the BBC as both a national television broadcasting station and a centre of cultural excellence.

Mohan believed that the opportunities for both training and finding work in the entertainment industry would be greater in Britain. He wanted to move away from acting into direction, and the reputation of British drama schools BBC traineeships exerted a strong attraction. In India at that time, the arts were not rated highly either as an academic subject or as a career. There was far more kudos attached to science and engineering. As Mohan recalls, ‘you couldn’t support a family by being interested in art and culture.’

Uma Parashara had worked as a telephonist in Delhi prior to her marriage to Mohan. She arrived in Britain in 1964, three years after her husband, at the age of 23. She had no strong desire to come to the UK, neither did she feel any great sense of worry or fear. Her equanimity seems to have been largely due to her marital status. As a married woman, she accepted that her role in life was to be with her husband, wherever he chose to go. Her main concern was whether she would be able to cope with immersion in the English language: ‘I didn’t know much English….how to cope. This was a worry.’

Struggling for security

‘Now the law is enacted so that you cannot discriminate in any way. We had to struggle politically’ (Mohan Parashara)

Mohan’s artistic ambitions soon gave way to the practicalities of finding work and a stable income in order to support his wife and, latterly, children. He did undertake a course in theatre studies, paid for with money saved from a variety of unskilled jobs; and in the years immediately after his arrival in Britain he took a series of temporary, low-grade jobs in the entertainment industry. But when his son was born in 1967, he knew he could not continue with such work: ‘I needed to earn money regularly. I had to support the family.’

Towards the end of the 1960s, Mohan became a junior clerk in local government. He gained promotion, but at a slower pace than his white counterparts: ‘I thought if this is what you do, I’ll get out and find something better’.

Mohan left his job in local government and tried, unsuccessfully, to run his own import/export business. In 1972 he and Uma decided to run a Post Office together. But their role in running a small business did not prevent them from being union members. Mohan was especially active during the 1970s: ‘I became branch secretary. You see we had to show these people we were here and couldn’t be so treated.’

Uma found work as a sales assistant in a shop called Indiacraft in Oxford Street – this was the time when the Beatles and others were dabbling in Indian culture, and Indian artefacts came to be regarded as fashionable among the young of Swinging London. Later she worked at Woolworths, and then as a clerk at IPC, the publishing conglomerate. Uma was encouraged to work by Mohan, not only for financial reasons: ‘He said it would be the best way to learn more English, meeting and talking to English people everyday.’ She was happy running the post office together with her husband. They continued with this work until their retirement in 1999.

Contradictions

Comparing their children’s lives to their own, Uma and Mohan thought that their children have an easier time in some ways, but harder in others. As they see it, their children do not have to assert their right to equal treatment in the same way or to the extent that their parents did: ‘We were the first. It was a struggle for us to be accepted, and we had to fight for it.’ (Mohan)

On the other hand, Mohan thought that the virtual disappearance of permanent jobs was a new hardship faced by today’s younger generation. But this paled into insignificance compared to the key problem facing the young which both Uma and Mohan identified: conflicts over cultural identity. They both found it difficult to be precise on this, but agreed that insecurity and uncertainty among the young is derived from tension between life outside and life inside the family home: ‘They want to go out and stay out late with their friends, and be more English…and then they are Indian at home. It is confusing for them….’ (Uma)

During the early 1980s three of the couples were part of what they call the ‘havan group’. Every month between 8 to 10 couples meet to participate in a haven ceremony. These are organised by, and take place in the homes of, each couple in turn. The explicit purpose of this activity was to try an instil a sense of Indian culture in their children whom they felt were not showing enough interest in their family and cultural background: ‘We thought it would be nice for the children to meet up with other Indians….learn more about Indian religion and values.’(Uma)

Her observations are themselves contradictory, in that as a young man Mohan’s original motivation for coming to Britain was fully in line with the desire to ‘be more English’. He wished not only to partake of English culture but also to take part in its production. Yet he and his wife acknowledge that they have constructed a home environment in which their children are more or less obliged to be Indian, and are therefore required to leave some of their Englishness in the entrance hall along with their shoes (as is the Indian custom).

When Mohan raised the issue of mixed marriages, it was Uma who became more animated and vociferous, while her husband was largely content to affirm her views. Uma’s strong belief was that mixed marriages were bound to lead to domestic conflict, especially when children enter into the picture: ‘When the couple become parents, their interests will not be the same’.

Uma referred to an Indian-French couple whom she knows personally. The couple, who have a daughter, live in France but were planning to come to England for a holiday, and were keen to stay with a Hindu family: ‘The friction is starting with the name of the children. The daughter has one French name and one Indian name? Why? The child is only one and already she has two sorts of name.’

There was an undercurrent of anger in Uma’s voice, and occasionally it rose to the surface. She thought that the Indian-born wife showed a lack of integrity by marrying out of her ethnicity, and then seeking to re-enter it by staying with an Indian family in Britian:

‘Why did she marry the Frenchman, if she is so particular about the children experiencing life with a Hindu family. After marrying him, now she is playing these games. What’s the good of it?’ (Uma)

Both Uma and Mohan stressed that it was possible for them to be good friends with English people but that ultimately an easy acceptance of both Eastern and Western values is not possible. Their perception of such cultural differences is not necessarily articulated through ‘race’. They agreed that an ‘all Indian couple’ in which one partner was Hindu and the other Christian, would experience the same level of conflict and confusion as a couple comprised of a white partner and an Indian partner. For the sake of the children, they recommended that partners in mixed faith relationships should abandon both religions.

On mixed marriages, Uma had this to say: ‘The sense of belonging is too confused. If you are within your own barriers you have no restriction, then, because your thought, your playing, your eating is the same.’ Thus for Uma, being ‘within your own barriers’ is now identified with consistency, continuity and the freedom to be yourself. This orientation is a long way from Mohan’s starting point, namely, his ambition to realise himself by moving across the world to be a participant in British culture, ‘the culture of the metropolis’ (Mohan).

If Uma was never as motivated by British culture as her husband, her earlier neutrality towards it seems to have been replaced by an assumption that she will never feel as fully at ease with British people as she does with fellow Hindi-speakers: ‘On religion what I have been taught I cannot discuss with any English person, because there is so much difference. We can only come so far in the direction of each other.’

The Sahgals

Jitendra – everyone refers to him as ‘Jit’ – arrived in England in 1952 at the age of 17. His main reason for emigrating was to take up an apprenticeship in electrical engineering with a company based in Glasgow:

‘I was OK academically but not good enough to get into engineering colleges in India….In those days it seemed to be the thing to be an engineer or a doctor……there was too much competition, you had to know somebody or be able to give a good bribe…’.

Academic and vocational opportunities existed in India, but the social, economic and political conditions meant that access to such opportunities was very limited. Britain by comparison was seen as a place where access to opportunities was not so restricted:

‘The company had been in contact with my school…regarding any students who would be suitable for an apprenticeship. If they were inquiring about suitable candidates I felt it must mean there were more jobs to be had in Britain…..and I’ve always had an adventurous nature.’

However when probed further as to why he had decided on Britain as opposed to Australia where his cousin had emigrated to earlier, Jit’s answers indicated a more complex motivation:

‘I had a great interest in literature in those days…..but with literature all you could do in India was teach…..and teaching wasn’t considered to be anything much…it wasn’t very enterprising.’

Jit’s love of literature arose from his study of English at school:

‘English was important. The school I went to was English medium. I was taught English History…the school was a hundred years old. My father had worked there as a clerk when he was younger but in his days Indians were not allowed to study there.’

In fact most schools were English medium at that time. The Lawrence School in Simla to which Jit is referring was formerly a military school. So it would have had a certain prestige. This, combined with the family connection, seems to have been important. The fact that in a newly independent India he could study where his father could not; that a former British-only preserve was now open to Indians, seems to be a source of some pride for him. Similarly, his experience of this school seems to have been formative in creating his affinity for English language and culture.