Black And White

Although the Shilpa Shetty controversy is over, it leaves behind debris of questions about racism in British society. Indian reactions diverge. A former journalist and Indian high commissioner accepts racism in British society.
This is refuted by an anglophile television anchor who likes people to know that he buys his clothes at Saville Row. Surely there is racism in England even if Britain may not overtly be a racist state.
British racism draws only indirect strength from the condescension of empire even though lighthearted conversation with Brits will not exclude reference to the fact that they ruled 'you wogs' for centuries. What fuels British racism is immigration.
The face of this racism emerged when Peter Griffiths won the Smethwick election in 1964. So what if Harold Wilson swore to treat Griffiths as a 'parliamentary leper'. Enoch Powell's 'rivers of blood' speech in 1968 echoed his racist 'British' anger.
His being thrown out of the Tory party did not deter Britain from devising racist policies. In 1968, Britain devalued its passport as thousands of Kenyan Asians were denied admittance into England.
The same process was repeated for Ugandan Asians in 1971. The Immigration Act of 1971 represented racist compromises that continue over decades. The immigration machinery was ruthless. Even Labour progressives were embarrassed by the immigration scrutiny process.
In 1980, Anwar Ditta's name became a household word as forensic maternity tests were imposed on her children. Such tests were not imposed on those from the 'white' commonwealth. After the British passport was devalued in 1968, the British Nationality Act of 1981 devalued citizenship.
In 2006, Indian doctors were told they would have to pass unfair tests to establish their 'Britishness' once their services were devalued. This crisis continues. England's immigration policies are racist, provoke racism, deny the right to choice and family life and treat 'whites' differently from 'blacks'.
Britain's attempts to combat racism have been weak. The Race Relations Acts of 1965-68 had no edge. Despite attempts to get a strong law, the Act of 1976 was inefficacious.
My own detailed study 12 years later exposes its inherent structural defects. The legislation's 'community' relations concentrate on 'blacks' as if they are guilty of some original sin.
I lived in England for some 20 years. A victim of a racist attack in Cambridge, I wear the scars on my face with pride. As, indeed, those on my forehead I earned in London. Thrown out of a restaurant for racist reasons at Piccadilly, I got only an apology from the restaurant chain that feared a loss of business.
The moment you crossed Harrow-on-the-Hill on the tube, you sometimes had to jump compartments for fear of attacks from white youth. Bangladeshis at the East End suffered violence as did communities elsewhere. When Brixton burned in 1981, the continuance of racism was confirmed. This was repeated by later inquiries into the police.
The late Maurice Kogan, who ensured my promotion that had been stuck for racist reasons, asked me why I didn't complain. I demurred: "Would it have made a difference?" I gave up my unlimited right to re-enter the UK because the immigration official at Heathrow was racist but not towards a similarly placed American.
Even today, the high commission demands personal interviews from a person who had lived there for 20 years. I have stopped applying.
All this is neither here nor there. Is there racism in England? The answer is surely 'yes'. Is Britain a racist state? This deserves a qualified answer. That the empire was racist is now irrelevant.
When we talk of racist states, we have to look at South Africa's apartheid as a test case; and America, which bears the white man's burden in the Middle East. But Britain's immigration and other policies are racist. They provoke hate and sustain electoral vote banks.
There is also racism in India towards Dalits, blacks, missionaries and Muslims. However, our racism cannot cure theirs. Jade Goody spoke what she felt on Big Brother. Personally, she may not be racist. But she has absorbed the language of racism; and has been punished for it more excessively than she deserved.
But a very serious question arises about racist language on screen. To be sure, it exists and is cashed in on shows like Big Brother. But demonstrative acts of racism should not go over the top. There is a difference between projecting racism and propagating it.
Free speech cannot always be inoffensive. Goody reminds us of everyday racist taunts in contemporary England. For me, she wins too. An Indian columnist put her uncouth crudeness down to "British working class culture". What an indictment. Saville Row has its analytical limitations.
George Bernard Shaw was right: "There is nothing so bad or so good that you will not find Englishmen doing it; but you will never find an Englishman in the wrong. He does everything on principle.
He fights you on patriotic principles; he robs you on business principles; he enslaves you on imperial principles; he bullies you on manly principles; he supports his king on loyal principles and cuts off his king's head on republican principles. His watchword is always duty".
Perhaps, British racism and anti-racism are both doing their duty.
The writer is a senior Supreme Court advocate.