Dual cultural identity of second generation British Indians

Background

During my London days, as a part-time job, I worked as a waitress at Gujarati weddings. While serving Halwa Purees, Shrikhands and “Asli ghee me dubeehuee Puranpolees”, at these big fat weddings, I used to notice the heavily dressed aunties, authentic dadimas, suited- booted uncles and confused young “half daisies!” It was entertaining to watch them pronounce the names of Indian “food items” in what seemed to me, a weird British accent.

The wedding rituals were exactly the same but the anglicised pandits preferred complete silence during the chants as if this was what was expected to be done at weddings! Personally I don't remember a single “authentic Indian wedding” without loads of masti at high decibels. It was clear that these weddings happening out there were influenced by British mores.  For example, every bride had her bridesmaids, attired in classy saris and other Indian trappings. 

A (con) fusion of identities

Over time, through this process of participant observation, I came to be interested in these people who looked like me and yet were different in some way. Through my Masters’ project at the London College of Communication I decided to figure out this fusion-confusion amongst these young British citizens born in Britain to Indian families.   The purpose was to explore British Indian young people and to understand the experience of living with a `double identity' and in some way support this group with graphic design, my chosen area of work.   

This is something I always wanted to do – use graphic design as a tool to investigate social-cultural aspects of people. Free from the constraints of a commercial client, I wanted to explore how graphic design's processes, methods and techniques can be used to address social concerns. And I thought the British Indians I met in London could be a group I could observe and study with the aim of creating and branding some social platforms that could be of use for them. 

My course structure was exactly like a mini PhD and if I thought Internet was the best place for hundreds of research papers and design work related to this identity crisis, I was mistaken.  Very few artists have experimented with this issue of dual identity, and among them the Singh sisters and the Beard project stood out.  

Besides participant observation, in the course of my research, I used a series of techniques with young people, parents and a few organisations – such as working with focus groups, one-to-one interviews and questionnaires.

For the past one year, especially in summer, celebrating Indian Hindu festivals and programmes, I visited various places like Maharashtra Mandala, Hounslow Mitra mandala for Ganesh festival, organizations like Swaminarayan Trust, ISKON etc. As we know, Indians in Britain have formed some communities or become part of one – either linguistic (Guajarati, Marathi, etc.) or geographical (south Indian association or Manchester Indian club, etc.). So far, I haven’t come across a pan Indian organisation that represents all shades of Indians. 

The Image

I could see that such groupings were by British Indians of an earlier generation, and the objective was to provide a venue for grown-ups to gather and create a community life, away their Indian homes. There was no significant participation from younger people whose home was right there in Britain.   

The young British Indians, I could see, shuffle their double identities.  Participants in my study accepted that family peer pressures exerted their pull to create the twin aspects of their being. Other contributing factors included dress codes, etiquette, and rituals they follow as in the case of marriage. 

A few of the participants were better integrated with British norms and mores. But there were others who felt that they were torn between the culture/ethnicity of their homes and the modern western society they live in. And some behaved differently at home, compared to their life with friends, lovers and colleagues. 

The research helped me to discover and precisely define my target audience. In terms of physical appearance and even language (Hindi / Punjabi /Urdu / Bengali / Tamil), Indians are indistinguishable from other South Asians. While South Asians face similar challenges, the recent emergence of India as a growing economic power and its admittance to the G-20 power bloc, have given the country a degree of prominence, especially when compared to its neighbours like Pakistan or Bangladesh. I believe this change in self perception persuades my target group to consider themselves more as British Indians than as British South Asians. 

For this project, I focused on girls and boys in the age group 16 to 24, born and brought up in UK but raised by India born parents from any Indian state or community. Compared to their elders at peace with their Indian identity, it is the young who confront cultural identity issues on an everyday basis – both internally and externally. 

Defining Duality

Thus it is reasonable to assume that they want to be both British and Indians at the same time.  In a multidimensional metropolitan society of Britain, particularly in London, the British Indians could establish themselves as a distinctive group which draws upon best of both worlds.  Forming communities can strengthen their hybrid identity and anchor their self image. This could help the British Indian youth as the older communities of Indians are not able to engage with them. 

This community could position itself as a unique brand as its appeal would be based on the group’s lived-in experience as British-Indians. They are not asked to make a return to their mythical Indian identity.   

For this report, ‘Indian identity’ refers to  the more publicized aspects of India aspects like Bollywood, Taj Mahal, Himalayas, diversity of languages and  traditions of  Indian cuisine and attire, different schools of classical music, dance and yoga,  acquainted through media or tourism. Plus the image of a youthful country and a rapidly growing economy with the IT sector as its economic brand ambassador.

The community can create a variety of platforms – both real and virtual, to come together, fulfil their needs of celebrations and relationships, express their feelings and showcase their creations. Thus a branding initiative can attempted within the framework of a visual identity, and rendered in an appealing graphic design. 

Gathering the learnings from my research and drawing on my training as a graphic designer, I created the following: 

• Brand Identity
• brand language
• Brand guidelines
• Deck of playing cards
• Website
• Magazine
   

Brand Ideation

I have created the brand _ING, which hopefully can facilitate the creation of a community, where young British Indians can celebrate the cultural duality they experience as a USP.  Free from the pressures to follow the diktats of any social or cultural group, members of this community can feel free at the point of intersection of the two cultures they represent. As British citizens, they could explore their distinct identity as British-Indians.  

In the initial stages of my project, reviewing some of the existing work I was impressed and inspired by the unique work of Singh sisters in the UK. I thought they aptly demonstrated a fusion through an art form. Kilt meets Kirpan by photographer Hermann Rodrigues gave me some visual options for my project. I was also inspired by the unique expression of Victorian Indian fusion in Monarchs of the East End, Fernandez, Gavin (2006) in the University of the Arts, London. Existing brands like Duke of Delhi also helped, making it easy to visualize the look and feel for my brand.

As real bonding of community members happens through direct human interactions and events, I decided to go beyond online pages or networking sites. Thus I decided to create multiple ways – print medium products like a magazine (say a bimonthly) or merchandise like playing cards – to communicate, remind, enact and reaffirm the group identity.  

In choosing an apt name for a community brand, knew it had to be youthful, English with an Indian flavour. I tried fusing various common English words of Indian origin with English words: Desi George, Curry Mantra, Duke & Maharani, West British company etc. Like melange there were words conveying the sense of fusion, but none of these words were making sense in terms of a community. Finally, I came up with ING, merging India and England in a short and simple name. As per grammar Ing indicates present continuous tense; also a state of evolution, dynamism and fluidity. I decided to team it up with an underscore sign as a unique element of recognition. As with internet addresses the underscore in _Ing can be seen as an adjunct to the persona of British Indians. 

Next came the development of a suitable logotype.  Early on, for type face, I had wanted a Hinglish choice, mixing English and Hindi. To create a coherent type face, I studied Devanagari and Roman scripts for similarities. Drawing form my earlier course work, I based my visual language on a circular grid to convey unity, fullness/ completeness and transformation – essentially the attributes my brand was trying to portray. 

For colour, considering ease of printing the logo on a mass scale, I opted for a single colour – red in this case, as in Britain it signifies prominence, authority. I thought red suits the British Indian community's need to stand out and be counted.  

To develop a dynamic brand language, I created visual elements using the circle as the core: red circular rings. For members to gain a sense of creating together this community, the brand guidelines encourage them to create many more patterns in addition to the ones depicted here, as long as they use 2 or more red rings or parts of the rings of the same size. 

The Deck

These cards combine a deck-cum- conversation starter cards, where people can bond over games and conversations. Changing the traditional layout of the cards for a modern dynamic look, in front they use the created brand language to represent spades, hearts, diamonds and clubs. The reverse side of the card are a few visuals depicting various aspects of life - both British and Indian - including home, travel, family and culture. In the deck there are a few pages having just the words and also some cards are kept blank in case someone wants to write his/ her own topic of discussion 

Magaz_ing

Translating the idea of fusion and duality, I created the _ING magazine in print. It is dedicated to today's generation of British Indians, offering them a platform to express their perspectives and creativity.  In this magazine various arts and creative ideas will be published along with interviews. A variety of work from people on how they depict their identity will be showcased. 

The sample given here shows it opening from both the sides – a brochure of the organization on one side and blogs and writings I collected, coming on the other side.  In this particular issue, there is an interview with a UK based artist, Hiten Patel and a review about a movie dealing with the theme of identity expression.

The layout of the magazine is modern yet simple. Use of colours and pictures are in sync with the brand language. Visually, I approached the content with vivid colours and illustrations. 

There is a provision for inserting small cards/invites for various festivals/ events on the back cover of the magazine 

_ing Social 

As a web application I created a social & dating website inspired by Facebook and the popular site for arranged marriages, Shaadi.com,   The site enables users to create profiles, upload photos or integrate with Instagram. One could either sign up with their Facebook or (the more shy/devious ones out there) can create a new account. The interface is kept simple for ease of operation. 

A work in progress

After this intense research and the development of a brand, I have realised that a brand is much more than a mere letterhead, visiting card and printed T shirts. In fact I continue to work on some of the aspects of this project. There is the felt need to create more interfaces between the British Indian community and the larger British community. My target audience needs to have more activities and symbols to depict their British and Indian identity. I need to do something to help my target audience to create a pan-Indian Identity that will blend with their British moorings. This project, for me, is a work in progress.