Column

Forty years ago this week, British politician Enoch Powell made a speech that will live in infamy for its evocation of hatred and bigotry.

The speech, popularly known by its mostnotorious phrase “rivers of blood” was a nasty piece of work and created forces that still live on in British society, even if the country itself has moved on towards more tolerance of its ethnic minorities.

Those were more charged times, and Britain was coping with waves of migrants from the Caribbean and the Indian subcontinent. Darker faces were becoming more visible on the streets.

They had come — legally — because Britain needed blue collar workers for the jobs that no local would do. Naturally, their presence created a lot of resentment and hostility. A largely white societyfound it very difficult to cope with this new element in its midst. Myths and prejudices abounded.

Powell gave voice to those prejudices. Calling the blacks “picaninnies”, he
invoked fears of blacks running amok. He claimed black immigrants in Britain were preparing for power and within 20 years would have “the whip hand in this country”. He made his views clear on the subcontinentals too, demanding that Britain once again colonise India, an idea even Winston Churchill found ‘lunatic’.

This hateful rhetoric found Powell support not only from the working classes, already suffering from a slow economy, but also from the more middle-class populations who felt he was voicing the unfashionable views of the majority.

Violence against the ethnic minorities increased. Both the Conservative and Labour parties could not insulate themselves from the general mood which was strongly anti-
immigrant. That mood continues till today and politicians are quick to pick it up; in the last few years, most anti-immigrant and laws in Britain have been backed by the Labour government.

The parallels with India, and specifically Mumbai, are obvious. If it was Bal Thackeray then, it is Raj Thackeray now. Substitute Asian/Caribbean with north Indian (or south Indians or Muslim) and we have a situation Powell would have been quite comfortable with.

There is no dearth of otherwise reasonable people who will tell you that Thackeray (sr or jr) or Narendra Modi“have a point”, but it is the pseudo-secularists who do not understand it.

The bhaiyyas are taking away our jobs, the Muslims are multiplying at a faster rate than Hindus, etc; all familiar argumentswhich never fail to strike a chord among people who somehow feel aggrieved in their lives. It raises the political temperature, generates violence and pays handsome electoral dividends. When other political parties see this, they too join the game.

In Gujarat the Congress tried to play down its secularism when it became clear that Modi had a strong following among Hindu voters. In Maharashtra, the Congress is scared that Thackeray will walk away with the Marathi vote; the result is that no one has stood up with conviction and said that every Indian has a full right to move here and live here; they all want to be Thackeray Lite.

Back in Britain, the ghost of Enoch Powell lives on. Though no politician will risk jeopardising his career with a Powell-like speech, immigration is a hot button
issue. The face and profile of the immigrant has of course changed; it’s not merely the blacks and the browns, but mainly East Europeans, who, it should be pointed out, are coming in legally as EU residents.

But Britain has denied labour rights to the Romanians and Bulgarians who joined the EU this year; it’s all about “British jobs for British workers” now. In many other European countries, where migrants fill essential jobs and keep the economy humming, they are barely tolerated.

In societies where migrants reach a critical mass and become a significant presence, the question of assimilation emerges. Britain now wants a test to check the ‘Britishness’ of its migrants, so does Australia.

Why can’t ‘outsiders’ in Mumbai speak Marathi, ask the Thackerays and other politicians. The point sounds so reasonable, but the idea of one culture is always a minefield. Whose culture and what culture should dominate?

These questions will never go away. Just because there is a lull in the anti-north Indian campaign or because the BJP has kept its Hindutva aside doesn’t mean that the hostility will not resurface. There are many Enoch Powells among us; some are out in the open, but most of them remain hidden.

Email: sidharth01@dnaindia.net