South Asian Heritage Month is back this Sunday with over 100 events running until 17 August.
The month seeks to raise the profile of British South Asian heritage and history in the UK through education, arts, culture and commemoration, with the goal of helping people to better understand the diversity of present-day Britain and improve social cohesion across the country.
With the concept launched in the House of Commons in 2019, the month was fully virtual last year due to the global Coronavirus pandemic with over 80 million impressions made across social media. This year, it is back with both online and in-person events up-and-down the UK, with even more unofficial events put on by local South Asian community groups.
The month features events such as panel discussions, talks from museums, quiz nights, community cricket, an interactive DJ set looking at historical British sound, poetry, talks on the use of cassettes as a way of sending letters back to home communities in the 1980s, a webinar on South Asians in games, a discussion on policing, celebrating officers, staff, and communities across Britain, and so much more.
Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, The Maldives, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka all make up the South Asia region. Each country has been hugely impacted by its relationship with Britain, primarily through war, colonisation, and the British Empire. People of South Asian heritage are a significant part of the British population, with about 1 in every 20 people in Britain being of South Asian heritage.
Jasvir Singh OBE, co-founder of South Asian Heritage Month, activist and established family law barrister who has been in practice for over 15 years, said: “South Asian Heritage Month is a way of celebrating South Asian British identity, commemorating dates and celebrating relationships. The month is there to educate people on what modern British South Asian identity is.”
Dr Binita Kane is the other co-founder of the month. Dr Kane is a consultant respiratory physician in Manchester and was a contributor to the BBC1 Documentary My Family Partition and Me which aired in 2017 for the 70th Anniversary of the Partition of India.
Dr Kane’s personal journey led her to Parliament in 2018 to campaign for a formal Partition Commemoration Day, which has since been declared 17 August (the day the Radcliffe line was published). She has gone on to create The Partition Education Group bringing together multiple stakeholders from across the UK to campaign and create material for the inclusion of British-South Asian and Colonial history on school curricula.
The month was created to reclaim the history and identity of British South Asians. It is there for British South Asian people to tell their own stories, and what it means to be South Asian in the 21st century, as well as look to the past to see how Britain became the diverse country it is today.
South Asian influences can be found everywhere in Britain, from food and clothes to music and even our words. The streets of British towns and cities are rich with the colours, sights and sounds of proud South Asian identity. Its culture permeates all parts of life and adds to the diversity of the nation.
The month is a grassroots movement that has been driven by the lived experiences of the founders and others in being British South Asian. The Month came about over a cup of chai in December 2018 when the founders came together to discuss how people’s understanding of the interconnectedness between Britain and South Asia could be better understood in the UK.
The concept of the month was inspired by Black History Month and other similar awareness months around the globe. Although there is a South Asian Heritage Month in Ontario, Canada, this is the first South Asian Heritage Month that is celebrated nationally anywhere in the world.
The dates of the month are significant. Between 18 July and 17 August were purposefully picked by the founders of the month due to the history of independence and apt timing of traditions within the South Asian calendar. The month begins on 18 July, the date that the Indian Independence Act 1947 gained royal assent from King George VI, and ends on 17 August, the date that the Radcliffe Line was published in 1947, which finally set out where the border between India, West Pakistan and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) would be.
The start and end dates show just how much of an influence Britain has had on South Asia as a whole over the last few centuries. It also coincides largely with the South Asian month of Saravan/Sawan, which is the main monsoon month when the region’s habitat undergoes renewal.
For the full calendar of events, you can visit here.
