Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Queen offers messages of support in dealing with virus

By Amit Roy

AS CHILDREN in the heat and dust of India, we learnt about the “Lady with the Lamp”.


So, it woke memories from long ago to hear Prince Charles refer to her last week when open­ing the NHS Nightingale Hospital in London by video link from his home 530 miles away in Birkhall in Scotland.

“I need hardly say that the name of this hospi­tal could not have been more aptly chosen,” he said, in what I thought was perhaps the most moving speech I have heard him make.

“Florence Nightingale, ‘The Lady with the Lamp’, brought hope and healing to thousands in their darkest hour,” he reminded us. “In this dark time, this place will be a shining light.”

His words brought to mind how independent India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru captured the moment after Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination on January 30, 1948: “The light has gone out, I said, and yet I was wrong. For the light that shone in this country was no ordinary light. The light that has illumined this country for these many years will illumine this country for many more years, and a thousand years later, that light will be seen in this country and the world will see it and it will give solace to innu­merable hearts. For that light represented some­thing more than the immediate past, it repre­sented the living, the eternal truths, reminding us of the right path, drawing us from error, taking this ancient country to freedom.”

The Queen also shone a light when she spoke from Windsor Castle last Sunday (5).

“Across the Commonwealth and around the world, we have seen heart-warming stories of people coming together to help others, be it through delivering food parcels and medicines, checking on neighbours, or converting busi­nesses to help the relief effort,” she said.

“This time we join with all nations across the globe in a common endeavour, using the great advances of science and our instinctive compas­sion to heal. We will succeed – and that success will belong to every one of us.”

Her own memories took her back 80 years when she mentioned her late younger sister, Princess Margaret: “It reminds me of the very first broadcast I made, in 1940, helped by my sister. We, as children, spoke from here at Windsor to children who had been evacu­ated from their homes and sent away for their own safety. Today, once again, many will feel a painful sense of separation from their loved ones.”

At 93 and after 68 years on the throne, the monarch has lived through the dark days of the Second World War when an estimated 80 million people perished across the world, and seen the ebb and flow of fortune.

As Asians we have much to learn from the British, just as they have as much to learn from us.

“The pride in who we are is not a part of our past, it defines our present and our future,” she said.

She ended with a touch of Vera Lynn: “We should take comfort that while we may have more still to endure, better days will return: we will be with our friends again; we will be with our fami­lies again; we will meet again.”

More For You

Media’s new hate figure?
Naga Munchetty

Media’s new hate figure?

NAGA MUNCHETTY should feel secretly pleased that after Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, she has become the number one hate figure in the media, especially for white women feature writers who earn less than her £360,000.

Naga apparently gets cross with junior staff who don’t do her toast right – it apparently has to be burnt the way she likes it.

Keep ReadingShow less
tulip-siddiq-getty

Tulip Siddiq

Getty Images

Comment: Why Asian women in politics can’t afford a single misstep

HERE’S a list of Asian women politicians who have got into trouble in recent years for one reason or another – Rushanara Ali, Tulip Siddiq, Suella Braverman, Priti Patel, Baroness Pola Uddin and Rupa Huq.

Is it that they are held to higher standards than others? Or do some allow their greed to get the better of themselves, especially when it comes to expenses?

Keep ReadingShow less
VJ Day at 80: How India’s fight altered history’s arc

The Cross of Sacrifice and outline of the tennis court at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery in Kohima

VJ Day at 80: How India’s fight altered history’s arc

AS THE King and prime minister lead the 80th anniversary commemorations of VJ Day on Friday (15), this may be the last poignant major wartime anniversary where the last few who fought that war can be present.

Everybody knows we won the second world war against Hitler. But how many could confidently explain the complex jigsaw across different theatres of the wider global conflict? The anniversary is a chance too for the rest of us to learn a little more about a history that most people wish they knew better.

Keep ReadingShow less
Kemi Badenoch’s identity politics

Kemi Badenoch

Kemi Badenoch’s identity politics

THE headline in the Daily Telegraph read: “Kemi Badenoch: I no longer identify as Nigerian.”

The Tory leader, Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke, was born in Wimbledon on January 2, 1980. But her parents returned to Nigeria where she grew up until she was 16. She returned to the UK and is now married to Hamish Badenoch and the couple have two daughters and a son.

Keep ReadingShow less
Are the legitimate concerns of ethnic minorities about racism being ignored?

Demonstrators from Stand Up To Racism challenge a far-right march calling for mass deportations in Manchester last Saturday (2)

Are the legitimate concerns of ethnic minorities about racism being ignored?

SIX days of violent rage last summer finally ended after a call for a racist pogrom where nobody came. That week showed how much small groups of people could shift national narratives.

The violence which flashed across thirty locations saw fewer than 5,000 rioters nationwide. Hundreds came out for clean-up campaigns, sending a different message about what their towns stood for.

Keep ReadingShow less