Dia Chakravarty questions whether loving England requires erasing Bengali identity
Writer challenges the expectation that immigrants must adopt English ethnic identity to belong in Britain.
What to know
- Chakravarty argues that being English should not require erasing ethnic heritage or adopting English ethnic identity.
- The post challenges what she characterizes as liberal orthodoxy on immigrant integration and belonging.
- The question centers on whether national belonging and ethnic identity are inseparable or can coexist independently.
Dia Chakravarty Writer
How it unfolded 1 development · click the chart to see its coverage posts
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Dia Chakravarty poses question on English identity and ethnic heritage
Chakravarty posted on X questioning the premise that loving England requires either co-opting English ethnic identity or erasing one's own ethnic identity. The post framed this as a challenge to what has become the "only liberal position" on immigrant belonging.
“That I am ethnically Bengali is irrefutable. To love England and consider it to be my home, why must I co-opt the ethnic identity of the English, or indeed, erase my own?”
— Dia Chakravarty -
Fascinated by the Englishness debate. That I am ethnically Bengali is irrefutable. To love England and consider it to be my home, why must I co-opt the ethnic identity of the English, or indeed, erase my own? How has that become the only liberal position on this matter?
2 more of the top 3 · 15 posts in this stretch
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'The only liberal position on this matter' What a fantastic example of the straw man fallacy. Most left of centre folk I know are keen on the idea of nuance. That a person can choose to enjoy and identify with the culture of both their current home and that of a different birthplace, or in the case of 2nd/3rd generation brits be proud of both…
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I'm not looking for offence not am I offended, as I don't but into it i the first place - I'm asking why you haven't labelled it as such. So the floor is yours, why haven't you? Neither of those alternatives work - if Rishi is "Indian English" he is by the same metric European. Caucasian just further evidences your view being polluted by…
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What people are saying 11 voices from 1 site · best of 15 · verbatim
- Yesterday
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This is how it is on this sub, the right will never counter what you say, they mainly try to silence and play victim because you were a little mean to them.
- Sep 22
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How much cultural association did he have with Aborigine people, customs and culture? Do you even believe that Richard Ayoade and Chris Eubank are British?
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Yes. And Richard Ayoade was bought up in the 'culturally English' part of the UK.
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No more than it would make Richard Ayoade Northern Irish culturally. Just because you are culturally of the prime nation doesn't automatically mean you are culturally of all sub-groups there. Did you miss the point I was making in that Richard Ayoade and Chris Eubank are culturally english because they were born and raised in England and have…
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Miriam Margolyes has the right to reside ni Australia. Does that make her aboriginal? Bob Katter claims to be aboriginal. Do you believe him?
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if you have ancestry in both these places, you have some stake in both these places
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Culturally English is one who acts like an English. But if there is such thing as a Culturally English, then there is a point of reference of someone who is English English. Otherwise, the distinction would be meaningless. An English person is one who is ethnically English.
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I think ethnicity is a useless concept in general - I'm not sure what purpose it serves other than to categorise people for the purpose of excluding them. I feel emotional about this debate. My family are from all over the world. By "ethnicity" I am not English at all. But I feel extremely English and am very proud to be from here. Any suggestion…
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Assimilation is the process of a small group being absorbed into a larger group. Normans barely changed the wider population and the number of Huguenots that came over a century is a few weeks worth of current day immigration. If the incoming groups end up being as large or larger than the original, it's not assimilation, it's replacement.
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I think it's complicated but I agree with you - culture matters most of all. Another poster used the example of Richard Ayoade, he's ethnically mixed race, European and Nigerian, but as a Scotsman I see him as explictly and unambigously English/British - he's got an English accent, he uses English/British humour and fits in culturally. We don't…
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So then mitochondrial DNA isn’t a great definition if it excludes 15% of the population.