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Speak English at home: UK minister to Asians: Times of India
London, Sept 17: In the ultimate paradox, earthy Punjabi abuse and choice Hindi phrases have greeted a senior British government minister`s prescription of `more English at home` for Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi immigrants when they talk to their children.
London, Sept 17: In the ultimate paradox, earthy Punjabi abuse and choice Hindi phrases have greeted a senior British government minister’s prescription of "more English at home" for Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi immigrants when they talk to their children.
But even as howls of Asian protest erupted across Britain, at least one Indian-origin MP defended the new linguistic test of Britishness.
Labour MP Paramjit Dhanda defended as "innocuous" British Home Secretary David Blunkett’s essay in a book published on Monday, which said "speaking English enables parents to converse with their children in English, as well as in their historic mother tongue, at home and to participate in wider modern culture. It helps overcome the schizophrenia which bedevils generational relationships". The book, Reclaiming Britishness, is published by a leading London think-tank whose patron is Prime Minister Tony Blair, while the NRI industrialist Lord Swaraj Paul sits on its advisory council.
Asian community leaders told this paper that Asians appeared to have become a useful political football for a British Labour government worried about the rising popularity of right-wing parties across Europe.
The leaders alleged that Blunkett had official blessing for this, his second controversial prescription in less than a week for inculcating ‘Britishness’ in Asians. However, a spokesman for Blunkett’s ministry on Monday stressed that he had emphasised the riots were not directly caused by a "lack of fluency in English".
Labour MP Paramjit Dhanda defended as "innocuous" British Home Secretary David Blunkett’s essay in a book published on Monday, which said "speaking English enables parents to converse with their children in English, as well as in their historic mother tongue, at home and to participate in wider modern culture. It helps overcome the schizophrenia which bedevils generational relationships". The book, Reclaiming Britishness, is published by a leading London think-tank whose patron is Prime Minister Tony Blair, while the NRI industrialist Lord Swaraj Paul sits on its advisory council.
Asian community leaders told this paper that Asians appeared to have become a useful political football for a British Labour government worried about the rising popularity of right-wing parties across Europe.
The leaders alleged that Blunkett had official blessing for this, his second controversial prescription in less than a week for inculcating ‘Britishness’ in Asians. However, a spokesman for Blunkett’s ministry on Monday stressed that he had emphasised the riots were not directly caused by a "lack of fluency in English".
Blunkett, who is a key cabinet colleague of Blair’s, has himself been described as a future prime minister.
Allegations of racism centred around Blunkett’s decision to quote statistics from "a recent citizenship survey… (which found that) in as many as 30% of Asian British households, English is not spoken at home".
Angry Asians demanded why English was not a required "home" language for French, Spanish or Italian families in Britain.
But, the official spokesman said the minister was not presuming to dictate what language people spoke at home.
The think-tank, the Foreign Policy Centre, told TNN that Blunkett’s remarks had been taken out of context.