Coming of Age : 1976 and the Road to Anti-Racism

Gurinder Chadha
The folllowing is part of the talk gave at the launch of ‘Reminances of Rock aganst Racism’,
at Conway Hall, November 2016
In 1976 I was a London school girl. I had no idea who Eric Clapton was, I used to watch
Top of the Pops, but I was suspicious of glam rock and heavy metal, in fact all kinds of rock.
It represented them, people different to me, not like the nice bands that my parents liked,
the Beatles or Cliff. I liked the Jackson 5, never dreaming of seeing someone like me, up
there on Top of the Pops. The only Indian i had ever seen on the show was Biddu, the singing
boy vocals on the song, ‘Kung fu fighting’.
My parents owned a shop, so most of my days were spent either at school or helping
in the shop. I hated being in the shop, you never knew when a racist might come in, and at
best call you a ‘Paki’, and brazenly steal something, or at worst, try and hurt you. Once a
group of English boys came in and mooned my mum then ran off with crates of beer. Many
years later, that unruly moment found its way into my first feature film, ‘Bhaji on the beach’.
At that time, I was amazed how my parents took this in their stride. We often learned
about how other Indian shopkeepers were brutally hurt and hospitalised. It happened to my
uncle in a shop he ran with his wife in Lewisham. On the day the National Front marched
through that part of London, he and his wife were beaten up and hospitalised. We went to
visit them. My dad said afterwards, ‘this is life what can we do’. I was enraged, and helpless.
Do we put up and shut up like that generation? Britain was tense, and years of immigrant
bashing had succeeded in wearing down my parents. The racism on the streets was often
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