IT has been a big year for Sunder Katwala, the director of thinktank British Future.
Known to engage with the public on their hopes and fears relating to integration and migration, British Future have been at the forefront of several significant debates and reports on the hot topic of recent years – immigration.
Katwala, who founded the independent thinktank in 2011, has been one of the central activists who has helped to push the publics opinion forward on such discussions.
Most notably, the thinktank published the National Conversation on Immigration last autumn. It is thought to be the biggest ever public consultation on immigration in Britain.
Along with anti-prejudice civic society group Hope Not Hate, the organisation travelled across the UK to gather panels of citizens in 60 towns and cities and hear their thoughts.
It was incredibly important for Katwala to engage with the general public on such key subject matters within society, as he claimed many felt their opinions were being ignored.
“I think there is a lot of frustration when people don’t think they have been asked their views,” he mused. “There was a real sense that the conversation was bottled up (so) by travelling 16,000 miles across the country, we were symbolically saying ‘let’s sit down for a couple of hours and hear what you’ve got to say.’ (For many), it was cathartic to be invited to talk about it.
“I think that giving people a voice and asking what we should do about it brings out our better selves.”
More recently, in September, British Future launched a new inquiry set to explore citizenship policy in the UK. It came days after The Home Office announced it would be reviewing the process foreign nationals undergo if they want to become UK citizens.
One of their more high-profile engagements occurred last June when the then home secretary Sajid Javid took part in a British Future event, where he was in conversation with Katwala to discuss the challenges of identity in British society today.
At the time, British-Pakistani Javid was running in the Conservative leadership race where he ultimately finished in fourth place. For Katwala, it was an important moment when he ran for the top spot in government.
“It was historic,” he said. “But ethnic diversity is the new normal in British politics now (and) it’s just a moment of time before there is an ethnic minority prime minister."
“I don’t think it would phase the British public that they could have an Asian prime minister in their lifetime,” Katwala, who was the former general secretary of the Fabian Society thinktank until 2011, added.
The debate doesn’t just stop at British Future events, however. With more than 22,000 followers, Katwala is an avid Twitter user under his handle SunderSays and regularly engages with debates on identity, race and immigration.
His influence on the platform has also created something of a movement – #PositiveTwitterDay, a hashtag which has now become an annual fixture on the popular social media platform, was the brainchild of Katwala and social blogger Guido Fawkes.
The idea, which was created due to concerns about the “growing incivility of public discourse”, has become so popular that Katwala met with Twitter creator Jack Dorsey earlier this year to talk about the role that initiatives such as #PositiveTwitterDay can play in society.
“I’m very civil and polite to people on Twitter, my experience on social media has been very positive, but there is this idea that you can disagree well,” he said. “It brings an interesting chance to discuss ideas with people and share intelligence.”
Born as a twin to an Irish mother and an Indian father in Doncaster, Katwala spent his later years growing up in Cheshire and Essex. Throughout his school years, Katwala revealed he was only slightly aware of his mixed heritage as a child.
“I grew up as a mixed-race, Asian, Irish-Catholic all at the time same and there wasn’t anything unusual about it until other people (told me) that it was unusual,” the 45-year-old recalled. “It wasn’t that big of an issue although there was a lot of racism around in the 80s - but it has slightly worried me that we haven’t made as much progress since then than I would have liked.”
On his family life, Katwala describes it as “busy”. Married to his wife Stacy since 2011, Katwala is a proud father of four children - Zarina, 13, Jay, 12, Sonny, 10, and Indira, 7. Giving a nod to his heritage, his children’s names all have some relation to India. Their middle names are all Irish.
His older children have tagged along to some British Future events and have some idea of what Katwala does.
“They’ve got some sense of it,” he smiled, “but I think they’re more interested in football.”
Discussions around their mixed heritage and identity has come up in conversations.
For instance, one day at school, Zarina had been learning about segregation between races in South Africa. When she explained that white children would not be able to sit with Asian children, Jay had questioned that they were mixed race – so which classroom would they have to sit in?
“They agreed that they would be able to decide on their identity, and they could pick. Although when I asked if I could choose too, Zarina said no,” he laughed. “It’s nice that they’ve got an awareness of these issues, but they’ve still got an unconsciousness about it.”
