Kavita Puri's hidden histories: "I wish that there was no need for specialist history months"

Kavita Puri explores lesser-known stories from our past. This month she questions why we celebrate diverse histories only at particular times in the UK – like Black History Month in October and South Asian Heritage Month in July and August – rather than all year round

Published: September 19, 2024 at 9:00 AM

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South Asian Heritage Month (SAHM) is celebrated each year from 18 July to 17 August, although it is still a relatively new addition to the calendar. Incredibly, 2024 marked only its fourth edition.

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I well remember its inception. In 2017, the TV documentary My Family, Partition and Me aired on BBC One. One of its strands followed SAHM co-founder Binita Kane as she retraced the journey taken by her father, Bim Bhowmick, from East Pakistan – now Bangladesh – to India in 1947. It was a deeply affecting programme, and a transformative moment for her.

Binita had grown up in Wales and had previously known little of her father’s history – the story of his migration across a border, but also of the devastating loss of family members during the partition of British India. After participating in that programme, she made it her mission (alongside her day job as a doctor) to make sure that no one else ever felt cheated of their history.

I’ve watched how, in a short space of time since its launch, SAHM has gained momentum, its reach expanding from museums to blue-chip companies and media organisations as staff hold sessions on British south Asian history and culture.

It is long overdue. First marked in 1987, UK Black History Month is now well established, particularly in schools. That is not the case for SAHM. It’s not helped by the fact that the designated month runs from mid-July to mid-August – timed to coincide with the anniversary of India’s independence from British colonial rule on 15 August 1947, and the creation of India and Pakistan, but outside the school term.

The 2021 census revealed that British Asians are the largest ethnic minority group in Britain. Yet we are only now starting to understand British south Asian history more widely, let alone its complex nature. Rather than one homogeneous subject, it encompasses various south Asian countries, regional histories and socio-economic factors affecting different populations in Britain in different ways over the years.

South Asians have had a presence in the UK since as early as 1600. Rozina Visram’s seminal 2002 book Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History tells this longer history, beginning with the early settlers brought to Britain as employees of the East India Company, which was granted a royal charter by Elizabeth I. The first arrivals were mostly servants but also lascars – seamen who came to ports such as Cardiff, Glasgow, Liverpool and London.

Exploring these histories is important. I wish, though, that there were no need for ‘months’. It would be better if British black and south Asian history simply became part of talking about British history.

So, when learning about the Suffragette movement, we would hear about the significant contribution of Sophia Duleep Singh (1876–1948). When teaching working-class history, we would share the story of Shapurji Saklatvala, MP for Battersea, who spoke out passionately on behalf of those living in poverty in the interwar years.

And when exploring Second World War history we would encounter the story of Noor Inayat Khan, who was sent from London to work as a secret agent with the French resistance before being captured by the Gestapo and executed in September 1944. These are part of wider British history, not only British south Asian history.

On her mantlepiece in Manchester, Binita Kane keeps a vial containing soil from east Bengal, where her father was born as a subject of the Raj. He later migrated to Britain, where he worked for many decades as a doctor in the NHS. His story embodies the point that the history of Britain and south Asia is long and intertwined.

It is time we better understood this shared history, not least because it helps us comprehend contemporary Britain. And it would be nice if this focus wasn’t limited to just one month each year.

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This article was first published in the September 2024 issue of BBC History Magazine

Authors

Kavita Puri

Kavita Puri is a journalist, author and broadcaster. A new edition of her book Partition Voices: Untold British Stories, marking the 75th anniversary of partition, is out now, published by Bloomsbury

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