LONDON: A 100-year-old label of a popular coffee brand that showed a Sikh servant standing in deference by his colonial master’s side has been changed in keeping with sensitivities about race.
The label of the brand Camp Coffee now shows the Sikh bearer sitting beside the kilted master and both enjoying coffee on equal terms.
The original, based on a historical scene featuring Major-General Sir Hector Macdonald, attracted allegations of racism from various quarters. In the 1980s, the label was moved to the back and later the Sikh bearer’s tray was removed but he remained standing.
Recently, several Asian shopkeepers threatened to stop putting the liquid coffee and chicory concentrate on their shelves unless the label was changed. After such threats and pressure from race equality groups, the manufacturers have had the scene radically redrawn to show the two men sitting side by side.
A spokesperson for the brand created in 1885 — still made in Paisley and now owned by the McCormick foods group — refused to confirm that the criticism was behind the redesign.
She said only that the brand underwent “continual development”. Mukami McCrum, director of the Central Scotland Racial Equality Council, welcomed the new label. He told the Daily Mail: “Times have changed and it is heartening to see that a new message is being sent out.”
But David Davidson, Conservative MSP (members of the Scottish parliament) for Northeast Scotland, said the change was “political correctness gone mad”. He added that there was “nothing pejorative” about the original label. Major-General Macdonald was said to be a fearless soldier and rose through the ranks to become a hero of India, the Sudan and the Boer War.
Camp Coffee had been created so colonial soldiers who wanted a drink could brew easily on campfires during military campaigns in India. Manufactured in Scotland by Robert Paterson, the concentrate proved such a success that it soon spread to home-based Britons, then across the world. Its slogan remains Ready Aye Ready.
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