Skip to content 
Search

Latest Stories

Seth defends choice of white scriptwriter for a suitable boy  

By Amit Roy

A SUBCONTINENTAL expression which amuses me is “a befitting reply”, which Pakistani and Indian politicians and generals deploy every time the two countries have any kind of conflict.


Now, Vikram Seth has given a ‘befitting reply’ to the suggestion that Andrew Davies should have been disqualified from adapting his novel, A Suitable Boy, for BBC TV on the grounds that he is white.

The task should, instead, have been given to an Asian scriptwriter, according to Nikesh Shukla – au­thor of The Good Immigrant – and some others.

Shukla said: “With such a lack of shows about south Asian lives on television, it’s such a slap in the face that a mainstream show was written by a white guy. I am not interested in Vikram Seth and Andrew Davies and who chose who… I am only in­terested in what opportunities there are for brown screenwriters.”

He also tweeted: “If brown writ­ers aren’t approached to write sto­ries that aren’t specifically about being ‘brown’ (ie, in the default world of whiteness) and they aren’t approached to write stories about brown people, what opportunities are there? Where do you go? What do you do?”

Seth has now hit back by saying that race “should have nothing to do with it”. To a great extent, I agree with him, though what Shukla says is also not without merit. Perhaps he should have actually named some suitable scriptwriters, assum­ing they exist.

The author of one of the longest novels in the English language countered with a very pertinent question: “Should I, as an Indian, not have written An Equal Music because it’s set in an English string quartet? Or The Golden Gate because it’s set in California and doesn’t have any Indian characters?”

It should, of course, be pointed out that Seth has had a privileged western education, first at Doon, then at Tonbridge and Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and finally at Stanford University in the US.

Davies, who attended Whitch­urch Grammar School in Cardiff and University College London, is recognised as one of the best script­writers in the business.

Seth continued: “Should Ang Lee not have directed Sense and Sensi­bility because he’s culturally Chi­nese? Should Andrew Davies not have adapted War and Peace be­cause he isn’t Russian?

“There’s only one criterion: are you good at something or not? Col­our, gender, sexuality, religion, age and how many whorls there are in the fingerprint of your left thumb should have nothing to do with it.”

Seth, who was either involved in choosing Davies or blessed his se­lection, added: “After seeing War and Peace and Les Miserables (nei­ther of them particularly English), it was obvious to me that Andrew has a huge gift for bringing the essence of an expansive book into believa­ble, filmable human vignettes – and for connecting these into an organ­ic and compelling whole.

“Of course Andrew is not Indian,” Seth concedes. “But whenever something in the script did not quite fit the context of early post-Inde­pendence India – and how could he possibly have known every detail of that, any more than when dealing with Tsarist Russia? – there were other interpreters to point this out. There was me as the writer, there was Mira (Nair) as the director. We indicated anomalies, and Andrew took things on board.

“Together, through an iterative process, we have created some­thing that retains Andrew’s wonderful moments of television drama but also includes aspects of India, such as considerable chunks of dia­logue in Hindi and Urdu – where they ring true – and that reinforce its authenticity. The result is far bet­ter than I, the anxious author, could have imagined.”

Eastern Eye readers will soon be able to judge for themselves as the six-part adaptation of A Suitable Boy begins on BBC1 on Sunday (26) at 9pm.

More For You

Comment: Last summer’s riots could erupt again without sustained action on cohesion

FILE PHOTO: Riot police hold back protesters near a burning police vehicle in Southport, England

Getty Images

Comment: Last summer’s riots could erupt again without sustained action on cohesion

Could this long, hot summer see violence like last year’s riots erupt again? It surely could. That may depend on some trigger event – though the way in which the tragic murders of Southport were used to mobilise inchoate rage, targeting asylum seekers and Muslims, showed how tenuous such a link can be. There has already been unrest again in Ballymena this summer. Northern Ireland saw more sustained violence, yet fewer prosecutions than anywhere in England last summer.

"We must not wait for more riots to happen" says Kelly Fowler, director of Belong, who co-publish a new report, ‘The State of Us’, this week with British Future. The new research provides a sober and authoritative guide to the condition of cohesion in Britain. A cocktail of economic pessimism, declining trust in institutions and the febrile tinderbox of social media present major challenges. Trust in political institutions has rarely been lower – yet there is public frustration too with an angry politics which amplifies division.

Keep ReadingShow less
The real challenge isn’t having more parties, but governing a divided nation

Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn

Getty Images

The real challenge isn’t having more parties, but governing a divided nation

It is a truth universally acknowledged that voters are dissatisfied with the political choices on offer - so must they be in want of new parties too? A proliferation of start-ups showed how tricky political match-making can be. Zarah Sultana took Jeremy Corbyn by surprise by announcing they will co-lead a new left party. Two of Nigel Farage’s exes announced separate political initiatives to challenge Reform from its right, with the leader of London’s Conservatives lending her voice to Rupert Lowe’s revival of the politics of repatriation.

Corbyn and Sultana are from different generations. He had been an MP for a decade by the time she was born. For Sultana’s allies, this intergenerational element is a core case for the joint leadership. But the communications clash suggests friction ahead. After his allies could not persuade Sultana to retract her announcement, Corbyn welcomed her decision to leave Labour, saying ‘negotiations continue’ over the structure and leadership of a new party. It will seek to link MPs elected as pro-Gaza independents with other strands of the left outside Labour.

Keep ReadingShow less
Amol Rajan confronts loss along the Ganges

Amol Rajan at Prayagraj

Amol Rajan confronts loss along the Ganges

ONE reason I watched the BBC documentary Amol Rajan Goes to the Ganges with particular interest was because I have been wondering what to do with the ashes of my uncle, who died in August last year. His funeral, like that of his wife, was half Christian and half Hindu, as he had wished. But he left no instructions about his ashes.

Sooner or later, this is a question that every Hindu family in the UK will have to face, since it has been more than half a century since the first generation of Indian immigrants began arriving in this country. Amol admits he found it difficult to cope with the loss of his father, who died aged 76 three years ago. His ashes were scattered in the Thames.

Keep ReadingShow less
One year on, Starmer still has no story — but plenty of regrets

Sir Keir Starmer

Getty Images

One year on, Starmer still has no story — but plenty of regrets

Do not expect any parties in Downing Street to celebrate the government’s first birthday on Friday (4). After a rocky year, prime minister Sir Keir Starmer had more than a few regrets when giving interviews about his first year in office.

He explained that he chose the wrong chief of staff. That his opening economic narrative was too gloomy. That choosing the winter fuel allowance as a symbol of fiscal responsibility backfired. Starmer ‘deeply regretted’ the speech he gave to launch his immigration white paper, from which only the phrase ‘island of strangers’ cut through. Can any previous political leader have been quite so self-critical of their own record in real time?

Keep ReadingShow less
starmer-bangladesh-migration
Sir Keir Starmer
Getty Images

Comment: Can Starmer turn Windrush promises into policy?

Anniversaries can catalyse action. The government appointed the first Windrush Commissioner last week, shortly before Windrush Day, this year marking the 77th anniversary of the ship’s arrival in Britain.

The Windrush generation came to Britain believing what the law said – that they were British subjects, with equal rights in the mother country. But they were to discover a different reality – not just in the 1950s, but in this century too. It is five years since Wendy Williams proposed this external oversight in her review of the lessons of the Windrush scandal. The delay has damaged confidence in the compensation scheme. Williams’ proposal had been for a broader Migrants Commissioner role, since the change needed in Home Office culture went beyond the treatment of the Windrush generation itself.

Keep ReadingShow less