The Nation's Tortured Body by Brian Keith Axel

Author:Brian Keith Axel [Axel, Brian Keith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Duke University Press
Published: 2001-02-27T00:00:00+00:00

4: glassy junction

There we are, inside the culture, going to their schools, speaking their language, playing their music, walking down their streets, looking like we own part of the turf, looking like we belong. Some third generation Blacks are starting to say “We are the Black British.” After all, who are we?

–Stuart Hall, “Ethnicity: Identity and Difference”

Diasporic Landscapes within the Nation

On 17 January 1995, Tarsem Singh Purewal, editor of the Punjabi newspaper Des Pardes, was murdered in Southall, West London. The homicide immediately became a national news focus, fueled by rumors that such violence was a result of conflicts between different U.K.-based groups fighting for a Khalistan. Scotland Yard’s Anti-Terrorist Branch began an investigation, as did the Greater London Action for Race Equality. Translators went to work on back issues of Des Pardes. The national media sent out teams of reporters. Race specialists and public intellectuals offered commentary. Details, however, remained murky. No one was convicted of the crime, nor did any individual or group immediately claim responsibility. Nevertheless, the image of Purewal, envisioned at the moment of death, was made abundandy clear: a man with a dark beard and a yellow turban whose body “practically exploded, spraying blood 2ft into the air” (Independent, 9 February 1997, 7).

Throughout 1995, the national media would repeatedly explode Purewal’s body, using the bloody scene as a means through which to examine the Sikhs of Southall. On 28 January, the Guardian reported the initial findings of Detective Superintendent Colin Hardingham, who said that he was “unable to say how many people were involved in the murder”; but, he added, “whoever shot him would have been very heavily bloodstained” (p. 7). Attempting to consider all possible motives, Hardingham suggested that something “more personal” may have been at stake: “For example, his newspaper takes a particular stance on community issues such as individuals’ personal lives or the way people run their businesses.” A spokesman from the Indian High Commission challenged this view, saying: “Violence against individuals is not a part of India’s ethos.” In February, the Independent sent reporters to Southall to uncover the particularities of this “ethos” imagined to be embodied in the neighborhood’s Indian population of 26,620 (most of whom were Sikh):1

The investigation has uncovered a hidden community that appears happy to police itself rather than attract the spotlight of publicity.

A stroll down the High Street reveals how different the district is. Almost every shop is Asian, windows piled high with brilliantly coloured sweets, rolls of brightly coloured cloth, exotic fruits and Halal meats.

After translating the past three month’s editions of weekly tabloid in the search for clues to a motive, the police have discovered the newspaper . . . regularly names adulterers, rapists . . . and child abusers.

Chief Inspector Gordon Cuthburton, community liaison officer for Ealing, said: “The Sikh population sees this as part and parcel of their community. Southall is still seen as a community within a community, a self-contained unit unaffected by the surrounding areas.” (Independent, 9 February 1995, 7)

The

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