The protest march of 35,000 people through London may have been just a single event lasting only a few hours, and all of twenty years ago, but in retrospect it can be considered as something of a turning point for Hinduism in Britain. While some might consider this suggestion an exaggeration, the fact remains: things began to change for the entire community from that time onwards.
The protest march brought everyone together with one voice, and one aim: to save the temple. But it wasn’t just about one place of worship; it was about the very survival of Hinduism in Britain. For ten years, and through all possible avenues, the Hindu community had sought to find an acceptable solution to what was otherwise a simple planning issue. But the deep undercurrents of racial and religious prejudice that flowed through the legal and political exchanges became very apparent as time passed by. They were largely unspoken, naturally, but actions speak much louder than words, and what the Hindu community heard was what any immigrant community has to hear: ‘You are different from us; your ways are strange and your home is elsewhere – please return there.’
By 1986, when the campaign began in earnest, it had already been some years since Margaret Thatcher’s ‘being swamped by an alien culture’ remarks in the run-up to the elections of 1979, but the long shadow of her comments persisted. Hindus throughout Britain were not generally understood by the rest of the population and their religious beliefs and practises, their dress and language, festivals and food, were regarded with alternating bemusement and suspicion.
But just how do you preserve a distinct religious and cultural heritage while integrating yourself fully in the life of the nation? And how, exactly, do you pass your own culture on to your children without isolating them or having them excluded from mainstream society? The tension between the benefits and losses of complete cultural assimilation take some time to resolve, perhaps more than one generation.
Yet the Hindu community, in just over forty years, seems to have created a solution to the dilemma, and it has been done through an effective cultural synthesis. On the one hand the challenge was to preserve the Hindu way of life; its principles, values and ethics and its unique cultural and artistic expressions. On the other hand, the challenge was to become a major contributor to the success of Britain as a country. In this, Hindus in Britain seem to have been as skilled at cultural balance as their forebears were in India. There, 700 years of Mogul rule and 200 years of the British Empire could not dim the light of the flame of Hinduism, but it did prove that Hindus were good at working cooperatively with others, whatever their culture or religion. Perhaps that is why India has a very good record of religious tolerance, with a long Jewish history in the subcontinent and one of the oldest Christian communities in the world – all 52 million of them.
For Hindus in general, the similarities between religions are much more important than their differences. Hindus are used to the notion of religious diversity because it is written right in their ancient scriptures. Although Hinduism is thought of as a monolithic entity – the early European scholars created the term with the Anglo-Saxon suffix ‘ism’ to suggest as much – it is, in fact, a veritable family of theologies rather than one religion. For a Hindu, there is thus no notion of ‘one nation, one religion’ and to the suggestion of ‘multi-culturalism’ a Hindu would therefore remark: “Why, of course.”
So when hard-working, law-abiding Hindus in Britain, already making a significant contribution to the economy, found themselves misunderstood and somewhat maligned in the name of ‘planning restrictions’ they decided that they had to stand up for what they believed in – or lose it.
Since that time, things certainly did get better. Those who considered themselves Hindu, or those of ‘Hindu origin,’ have seen a resurgence of self-confidence within the community, and an appreciation of their culture from people who knew nothing of it before. The religious landscape has developed, with old temples, hurriedly modified in the 1970s and early 1980s from redundant churches and warehouses, being given facelifts. Elsewhere, new temples now stand proudly as part of their city’s skyline, magnificent pieces of architecture and a living witness to the beauty of India’s spiritual heritage.
Hinduism is taught in schools as part of the UK’s Religious Education curriculum, and teachers everywhere now know something of the life and beliefs of their Hindu pupils. The festival of Diwali is eagerly anticipated by schoolchildren as the celebration of ‘sweets and fireworks’ enjoyed by the entire class. Learning about Hinduism is not, however, confined merely to acting out its celebrations. Children also learn of the famous and much-loved stories from the classics such as the Ramayana, and of the deeper meanings behind Hindu faith expressions. One unprecedented, and perhaps unexpected, area of growth in Hinduism has been the foundation of the first state-funded faith schools. Now numbering four, in London and Leicester, these junior and senior schools have already started to show that the Hindu ethos can also foster good educational achievements.
Hinduism has also developed its own study centre, now officially affiliated to the University of Oxford. The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies. Learning about Hindu festivals, and taking part in them, have not remained simply within the home or the school classroom. Diwali has also been celebrated with great satisfaction within both the House of Commons and the Foreign Office, the Prime Minister, MPs and civil servants joining with leaders of the Hindu community in the lighting of lamps and listening to devotional songs and music. Diwali has also moved out from such privileged enclosures to assume massive proportions in several cities around the country. What began with a small, hesitant gathering of twenty in London’s Trafalgar Square is now an immense evening festival in the heart of the capital, attracting some 25,000 revellers.
From small, unnoticed events to large and highly public cultural undertakings could also summarise the rise of Hindu-origin arts, music and entertainment. Whereas traditional Indian dance and music was once the stuff of small, rented studio spaces and community halls, the sights and sounds of BharataNatyam and Carnatic or Hindi music can now fill concert halls on London’s South Bank. In XXXX Lord Lloyd Webber surprised the critics by investing huge sums in the staging of a story about a lovestruck girl and boy in India. With brilliantly innovative music by A.R. Rahman, Bombay Dreams at London’s Victoria Apollo Theatre pulled in 3,000 people a night for two years before its untimely closure due to the 7/7 events.
Bollywood films, once shown by projector during the 1970s to Hindi speaking audiences in rented community halls, then in homes on video during the 1980s, have now been taken up by the likes of cinema chains such as Cineworld and Odeon. Complete with English subtitles, they now attract a burgeoning and very diverse audience; as does, of course, television drama and comedy with Hindu-origin characters. Just as Bollywood film was gaining a new audience, so Goodness, Gracious Me was also attracting the attention of an appreciative public. First starting on BBC radio, the show successfully transferred to television not long after. Nitin Sawhney, who formed part of the original cast of Goodness Gracious Me, has become very well known and sought-after as a composer. His music pleases both the western and eastern ear, and his albums and film soundtracks have achieved the widespread acclaim of critics and public alike.
The Indian wedding also deserves a mention if we are to describe the growth of Hindu-origin celebrations and the arts. The prosperity of the Hindu community is also reflected in the importance given to one of life’s greatest celebrations. Now with its own glossy magazines and a host of related services and industries, the ‘Asian’ wedding - and for that read Hindu wedding - is now catered for by a very large trade fair at the Excel Centre.
After 1998, the Indian word mela entered the English language. Go to any large city with a Hindu population and there will be some sort of annual gathering of music, theatre, dance and food. And people of all ages and ethnicities turn up to take part. The idea of the mela was so successful that from Britain it spread into Europe, even reaching Scandinavia where it became the Asian Mela of Sweden. And while we’re on the subject of food, it will hardly have gone unnoticed that the ubiquitous and somewhat misnamed ‘curry’ has replaced British fish and chips as the nation’s favourite food. Whether this is a myth created by Indian restaurateurs or whether it is a fact, the taste of Indian spicing is no longer the flavour of an ‘alien culture’ in Britain. We like Indian food, and supermarkets are always well-stocked with spices and ready-made dishes that would have raised the eyebrows of shoppers back in the 1970s.
In the late 1970s and through the 1980s it might have been a Hindu proprietor that ran your local corner shop, but that began to change in the next generation. Second only to the Chinese in their efforts to see their children well-educated, the Hindu community worked tirelessly in order to send their children to university. That educational ethic was rewarded in a high number of professional places being occupied by children from Hindu parents. For a few years, the medical professions were the most attractive, and a career as a doctor, pharmacist, dentist or optician became the very prominent choices. Even today, it is said that Hindu-origin practitioners make up at least one quarter of the National Health Service.
Young people from Hindu families were also drawn to accountancy, banking, investment and the stock exchange; and in the legal profession they were not under-represented. It would be wrong, however, to suggest that Hindus no longer become involved in retail. They surely do, but might just as regularly be involved in industrial manufacturing and distribution. There has also been a growth in building construction, with many business people choosing to diversify into property investment.
Finally, the world of politics, too, has not been passed by in the gradual growth of the Hindu-origin contribution. There are now around a dozen members in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords who can say their origins are in Hindu families. Socially and culturally, politically and professionally, in the pride of their shared identity, in their sense of unity and shared purpose, and in the field of the arts and academia, those persons living in Britain who declared themselves Hindu, or were of Hindu origin, can mark 1996 as something of a milestone. We can only imagine what the Hindu community has to offer to this great country in the coming decades.
