13.01.2005

Time of reckoning

Gurharpal Singh, professor of inter-religious studies at Birmingham University, is author of a number of studies on the politics of the Sikh minority and the tensions between multiculturalism and political integration. He spoke to Mark Fischer You recently wrote about the controversy surrounding Gurpreet Bhatti's play Behzti and commented that Sikh protests against it were "orchestrated" to a certain extent (Weekly Worker January 6). Were there other elements to these demonstrations?

Undoubtedly there was an element of spontaneity about the Sikh protests in Birmingham. But it was also a particular form of response that reflects a growing institutionalisation of that community in the city. This is partly because these people are increasingly represented through religious channels, as opposed to in the past, when class-based organisations like the Indian Workers Association had some influence. So in a way, it was not purely an emotive response. It also was a reflection of changes in the community and its mode of representation. What accounts for this shift to religion? Broadly, the racism we fought in the 1970s gave way to official anti-racism. Its softer policy edge was the emergence of multiculturalism. But the truth is that multiculturalism increasingly became an operative mode for establishing fiefdoms. Votes would be delivered for patronage and particular sectional advantage. To some extent this has always been the case - and particularly characteristic of minorities' relationship to the Labour Party - but multiculturalism gave a great deal of authority to this process. I refer to this as 'rotten multiculturalism'; the concept of multiculturalism per se is not necessarily rotten, but the reality has looked more like the 'rotten boroughs' of 18th and 19th century England. They were institutionally corrupt. In that sense, the institutions that have won out as a result of this process have primarily been religious: the gurdwaras, the mosques and the temples. Increasingly they are the focal point for not only the delivery of Labour votes, but also for filling the gap left by the extensive downsizing of local government functions that have been hived off to the voluntary organisations. Religious bodies of various sorts have been pre-eminent in this. So charity increasingly takes the place of services previously offered by local government, and religious bodies play an important role in this, giving them status and political clout amongst minority groups? That's right. Increasingly, these religious organisations are responsible for the care of the elderly, for community advice centres and - in some cases - inner-city renewal projects are actually centred on religious, as opposed to secular, institutions. These organisations are very exclusive to their own specific community, to their particular version of its culture - therefore you have very little interaction between the different community groups and this is a potential source of real tension. Has the closure of Behzti bolstered religious authority amongst Sikhs? Will secular politics within this community be further squeezed? It is a pyrrhic victory. There are many people - including Sikhs - who are opposed to this censorship. Such dramatic events underline that there will have to a time of reckoning for the blatant promotion of religion in public life by successive governments, locally and nationally. In some senses, this 'reckoning' is currently taking the form of a backlash from the right against multiculturalism itself. But it is also reflected in the protests and opposition of people who are minorities within the minorities - women's and gay groups, workers' groups and those organisations within these religious minorities who currently have their voice stifled and get no representation. The fact that the play has been taken off appears to suggest that these backward-looking sentiments have won out. But I think it more complex. These sorts of issues will come up again and again; the incentives for this question to emerge onto the social stage are too powerful for it not to be a recurring theme of British political life. Yet many of these minorities come to this country with extremely strong traditions of militant, secular and working class organisation. Absolutely. Right until 1984 when the Indian army entered the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the Indian Workers Association and the Congress Party largely controlled Sikhs politics in this county. The Sikh migrants that came in the 1950s and 60s were at the forefront of setting up the Communist Party of India's overseas organisation here. They actually joined the CPGB - people like Vishnu Dat Sharma were actually directed by the CPI to join the Communist Party in Britain. These migrants were by and large secular. The religious parties did have a presence, but it was articulated through politics, not religion. If they used religion, it would tend to be for issues like anti-racist mobilisation. Today, this religious sensibility has become not simply a useful mobilising tool around issues like racism; it has become a generally positive assertion of identity, not only locally but transnationally. The Sikh diaspora now sees itself as being the ideological spearhead of the Sikh community globally. That kind of transformation does not take place in a vacuum. Aren't we actually facing the results of the cooption of anti-racism from below by the establishment and its transformation into an oppressive ideology? That is, multiculturalism. We have a situation of the promotion of what I dub 'hyper-diversity' in society. In one sense, it is a return to the politics of imperialism. There have always been people on the left who have said that multiculturalism smacks of colonial engineering. Yes, a 'divide and rule' strategy - but much more sinister and insidious than that. It essentialises and imposes definitional parameters on a community's identity - on what it means to be a Sikh, a muslim or a hindu. It does not leave to the people in these communities to self-define through struggle. Thus, it fractures these identities - both internally, between different strands existing in these minorities, and externally, through competition with other communities for patronage and advantage from the state. Such multiculturalism is thus a very effective tool for social engineering from above. So what's the way out? Paradoxically, through a process of division and differentiation. I see lines of demarcation between three broad groups: the traditional right, who are just sitting back and watching this drama unfold, the multiculturalists ('shallow' and 'deep') and the secularists. The 'shallow' multiculturalists essentially tail the official policies coming out of government. The 'deep' variant is made up of people like Lord Bikhu Parekh, who want to totally transform the public space and reorder political institutions according to the nostrums of their highly divisive version of multiculturalism. Then there are those from the old-style secular tradition. I don't think there can be a return to secularism immediately, but certainly we are at turning point. With the government's proposal to bring in a religious hate law and events such as the Behzti controversy, we are seeing 'deep' multiculturalism move mainstream, as it were. The mindset of elements within these minorities has changed. They are no longer being simply defensive of certain traditions: they are intervening directly into the public sphere to create a defined space for their particular version of 'Sikhism' or whatever. Turning that around has to be a long-term process. What about the white working class? Well, we are seeing a similar process in quite a few cities. In comparative terms, minority communities can be relatively easily mobilised through a number of social agents and institutions - semi-official or unofficial political 'fixers', if you will. The same sort of cohesion is just not there, when it comes to white communities. Take Leicester. East Leicester is run like a mafia machine by political fixers; in West Leicester, which is composed predominately of white council estates, social cohesion has collapsed. For a solution from below, we need the politics of cohesion, not differentiation - class, identity, interest. But these cohering factors are just not there yet - certainly in what people perceive of as their interests. So isn't the problem multiculturalism itself? Culturally, people have always integrated in the past, forming multifaceted identities. I am British. But also Welsh; south Wales, not north. A Londoner; but north, not south. (And Arsenal, not Tottenham!). Shouldn't we be for one culture, which is informed, enriched and moulded by others, as it assimilates them? Surely that's a genuinely cohesive project? In that context, it is interesting what Trevor Phillips is now saying - that multiculturalism is "dead" and we need to move on and talk about equality between different people. I hope that it is a short step from there to the concept of class. The debate about culture and identity started in the late 1960s and early70s and took away from the traditional politics of class and disadvantage. We have ended up with profound fragmentation of those below - it has disarticulated communities and effectively disem-powered them. In this way, the negative effects of globalisation are not simply seen in the developing world. Just look at many inner-city areas in this country. There is no cohering agent there apart from religious institutions. They have become beacons of resistance. Very dangerous in the short term "¦ Very dangerous in the long term! We must have a serious debate about the role of religion in public life. One of most interesting developments in this country is how the traditional christian religious right is now allying with minority religious traditions - we have seen this cross-fertilisation around the Jerry Springer opera and the Behzti affair. Obviously these are very different communities, but all with the common interest in legitimising a strong role of religion in public life. This is a very serious - and a very worrying - development.