Image courtesy of the BBC[/caption]“Whenever I come to India I realise how English I am.....”, so says Gurinder Chadha in the programme dedicated to tracing her family history. This is undoubtedly a sentiment with which I would concur, particularly when arriving at Kolkata Airport and being driven into the smells and sounds of the city.
‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ is a BBC series delving into the family histories of celebrities. Recently a programme featured Nitin Ganatra, the Eastenders actor, and I realised I had recorded programmes featuring Meera Syal, a comedian / actress / writer, perhaps best known for the TV series ‘Goodness Gracious Me’, and Gurinder Chadha, a film director best known for ‘Bend It Like Beckham’.
Each family had slightly different journeys in reaching the UK. Ganatra and Chadha were both born in Kenya before their parents came to the UK following discrimination against foreigners after independence, while Syal’s parents came directly from India. Their family histories are perhaps representative of many Indian families in the UK, some of whom had to struggle when their qualifications were not recognised and they could not bring money - from Kenya in particular.
I recognised many of the celebrities’ traits and culture. Like me they were all second generation, but often with a deep-rooted insecurity regarding their identity. Were they Indian, wearing Indian clothes and going to festivals, speaking Indian languages, or were they English? You learn these insecurities are perfectly normal amongst the second generation. The celebrities all spoke their parents’ language but could not read or write it. They spoke to their parents in English, and responses were in a mix of languages. When they spoke an Indian language, I realised there was a slight hesitancy as if unwilling, but then the words flowed.
For the Kenyan-born Ganatra and Chadha, the sense of insecurity and dislocation was perhaps even stronger given that they had 3 different cultures to assimilate: English, Kenyan and Indian. Ganatra’s antecedents had come to Kenya from Gujarat to work as labourers on the railroads in the 1890s, and had stayed setting up shops in the newly built Kenyan railway towns. Chadha’s great-grandparents had come from the Punjab as policemen and later set up trading posts. From the photos their lives in Kenya seemed comfortable with a strong sense of community. I was surprised there were Indian schools for the children, temples and gurdwaras, but their development is indicative of the size of the Indian community in Kenya. What was interesting was the continuous contact with relatives in India, bringing brothers to work in Kenya, the sending home of money, frequent journeys and long stays in India to, for example, marry off sisters. So those familial links were always strong and maintained.
After Kenyan independence in 1963 Indians were forced to choose between their British passports and adopting Kenyan nationality. There was increasing tension between the black majority and Indians, and many chose to come to the UK from the late 1960s onwards. Chadha recounted how her father was unable to find suitable work in the UK and felt himself forced to shave off his beard, a religious prerequisite for a Sikh, because of discrimination, and then found work as a postman. Ganatra’s father, meanwhile, found it difficult to raise finance for his business ventures but eventually paid back his first loan, for £2,000, early.
Syal differentiates herself to some extent by focusing on the fact that her parents had a “love marriage” which must have been unusual in its time, perhaps the early 60s, and that they crossed the religious divide, one a Hindu and the other a Sikh. I presumed the marriages of Chadha and Ganatra’s parents were arranged. Syal’s background seemed the most comfortable in India with a grandfather being a journalist in pre-Independence India.
Of the three celebrities, Ganatra’s ancestors appear to have come from the most impoverished background. Ganatra was shocked by the fact that his maternal grandparents were married at the ages of 6 and 10, but what was heart rending was that so many of his uncles and aunts died at a very early age. Often the deaths were not reported but researchers found details of the death of an aunt and Ganatra was given an official death certificate. These early deaths were attributed to the high rate of complications in pregnancy and birth in young girls married before their own bodies were fully mature, as well as the high cost and limited availability of food, and diseases like malaria. It was probably famine and disease that forced Ganatra’s grandfather to take a very hard labouring job in Kenya.
What is surprising at times is how little awareness of family history there is or that facts have been glossed over even from two generations previously. Perhaps there is a desire not to talk about some elements of family history. Ganatra was not aware of his grandparents’ early marriage or of the deaths of family members. In addition, Ganatra did not seem to know about the political tensions that drove his parents out of Kenya. Chadha believes she has a black African cousin but family members alternately support and deny the notion. Her family believes they may be related to a noble house. Amongst my own family anecdotes there is an assumption that my paternal grandfather was doctor to the King of Nepal. I had visions of going to Kathmandu and trying to ascertain the provenance of the story.
Towards the end of each programme the celebrities try to find their home village in India, or in Chadha’s case in what is now Pakistan. Often that is quite moving, particular for someone like them who is a product of a trans-national diaspora. Ganatra found a man who knew his family and, without prompting it seems, knew that they had gone to Africa.
The celebrities also try to find records of their families. Unlike in the UK where it would be a matter of looking at censuses, and registers of births, deaths and marriages, such government records did not exist in India. Instead family histories are noted by priests in books or on cloth going back several generations. However priests, have to manually go through the records as there are no indexes. Syal’s family records are noted on a single piece of cloth to prevent fraud. The sexist nature of Indian society becomes apparent when it is revealed that the records only follow the male line.
I have over time researched a little into my family history. I have records and documents of my grandfather’s medical student days, one uncle painstakingly wrote me out a comprehensive family tree, and I have visited the house in the grounds of a hospital in a small town in West Bengal where my father was born. I have collected more information, and with the help of cousins, and surviving uncles and aunts will try and visit more places relevant to our family including houses that are still family owned.
While the three celebrities and I are second generation, although the Kenyan born-duo’s families might have been in Kenya for 2-3 generations previously, there is a strong connection to India but it remains to be seen how future generations will feel the pull of India. There might be an interest in some elements of culture like food, clothes and Bollywood, but there might be little interest in exploring India and family history. Almost certainly future generations will not speak or understand any Indian languages. My understanding is that, while members of the Indian diaspora in the Caribbean retained some Indian culture, they feel emotionally distant from India. My generation was almost forced to assimilate as there was little Indian culture in the UK to explore. Like the three celebrities I found the pull of India greater as one gets older but balanced by a greater security to explore the culture and my roots.
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