The liberal and the conservative libertarian view of immigration is that it is good for society. Immigrants fill the demand for particular categories of jobs, they work hard and contribute to wealth creation. It was a view I encountered in a slightly unexpected setting: a taxi ride in Cambridge, UK. The conversation with the driver went like this:
Taxi Driver: So where are you from?
me: Scotland, mate.
Taxi Driver: (Laughs) No I mean originally.
me: Oh I see. Originally from Bangladesh. And you? (knowing well that he is a local chap)
Taxi Driver: (Laughs) So you must be a millionaire then?
me: em..What? Sorry I don’t follow…
Taxi Driver: All you Bangladeshis come over here with twenty pounds in your pockets and then you become millionaires….
I twigged what he meant. He was referring to the phenomenal success of Bangladeshi owned restaurants in the UK. I was astonished by this summary of Bangladeshis. I was still under the impression that Bangladesh is exclusively associated with floods or the George Harrison concert but here was a view where Bangladesh is associated with wealth and, more importantly, wealth creation. For a second I got nervous.  Was his a liberal/libertarian view or was his comment tinged with xenophobia? Was he begrudging the success of Bangladeshi entrepreneurs ? I tested him:
me: So, do you like curries?
Taxi Driver: I love ‘em mate. Been to all the curry houses in the area. Know the owners of….
He reeled off a long list and asked whether I knew some of these formidable restaurateurs..He counted some as his friends. As we discussed restaurants and as I bemoaned the bastardization of the curry in the UK, I tested him further. Tell me, I said, what else do you know about Bangladesh. His answer was not totally unexpected: “Well there’s that bird Fariah Alam.” He even got her name right…I suppose that is only to be expected, as I do believe Fariah has received more headline news coverage in the UK than any other Bangladeshi woman ever! So there you have it. The new image we are projecting here in the UK is that we are successful entrepreneurs and we have a b-list celebrity who bonks top football officials. I gave the chap a huge tip and wished he was a PR consultant for the Bangladesh High Commission here. Believe me, I would rather project this image than one associated with fundamentalism, bombs and carnage.
13 Responses for "Re-Branding Bangladeshis in the UK: Curries and Celebrity Sex"
[…] 2) Branding: Shafiur describes his recent experience that ‘curries’ and ‘celebrity sex’ are re-branding Bangladeshis in the UK. […]
This Faria Alam really helped us in the U.K. I mean I know she bonks football execs but hell its better than Sk. Abdur Rahman. No publicity is bad publicity. Thanks to the Sylhetis for the curry-ization of Bangladesh. I think they did an awesome job growing their influence. Ok, so they are also into forced marriages and stuff but no one is perfect!
[…] imperct world 2006 on the changing perception of Bangladeshi Diaspora in the UK. […]
:O Where have I’ve been?! The Swedee went for a Bangladeshi…
I am a British Bangladeshi and inshallah one day i will go back to my motherland. This is an interesting article and i am proud of being a Sylheti and i am proud of the fact that there are a lot of successful Bangladeshis in the UK.
I’m a Brit born Sylheti and I am glad to have been born here! I am proud of the Brit Sylheti community here and our achievements in business and education. Gradually we are joining the mainstream. The Non-Sylheti Dhakaiya Bengali immigrants need to learn a thing or two from us. Try and better yourself rather than carrying the baggage of Awami-BNP useless personality politics from back in BD.
It’s great to see that my fellow deshi brothers and sisters are doing so well in UK but i wish it wud happen here back in the states
WHY “TATA” IS DANGEROUS,
WHERE AS OTHERS ARE NOT ?
TATA, THE TERROR IN BANGLADESH :
Few months ago, TATA was the name of a terror in Bangladesh. Now the fear is over because situations was ripe in Bangladesh to pronounce a big “Ta Ta” to this very “special multi-national company” of India. With a gloomy face, Mr. Ratan Tata, the representative of Tata-India accepted, or better had to swallow the “bye bye” from Bangladesh. By this time however, Mr. Ratan Tata could successfully waste several hundred million Rupees of his organization, excepting however, his own commissions and kick-backs.
TATA, THE HATED TERROR IN WEST BENGAL, INDIA :
At this moment TATA is the name of another terror to the common people of West Bengal, India. The CPM government of West Bengal is after patronizing Tata’s investment definitely for lucrartive kick-backs. However, the local people are endeavouring their best to kick-out this demon from their land. It is high time to analyze and discover why Tata is so unpalatable to the common people of these two countries.
TATA-US DUET IN BANGLADESH :
Taking the scope of unprecedented corruptions by the autocratic governments in Bangladesh during the period 1975 to 1990 and then, during the reign of corrupt governments (from 1990-1996 and 2001-2006), a number of Gas and Oil companies from USA succeeded in getting the contract of marketing natural gas in Bangladesh. And they could manage the deal at extremely cheap rate. In the reality of constant increase of gas price throughout the globe the US companies remained silent for few years. Then they intended to sell gas to India through pipes. The bottling of this gas for marketing was not found economically feasible because of the availability of gas in the Gulf countries at much cheaper rate. All endeavours made by these companies to sell gas to India, however, failed because of the shrewd activities of the Pakistani lobby working inside the country. Achieving gas by India was seen by Pakistan as a threat to their economy. At this stage USA was in need of an alternate policy. All on a sudden the people of Bangladesh saw Mr. Ratan Tata to visit Bangladesh with the all-time largest foreign investment offer in electricity and steel productions. Tata wanted to use natural gas in these industries. Even though the then government of the country highly spoke of this alluring investment, the steel-producers could rightly see their peril in this investment. Also it was crystal clear to the people of this country that in the disguise of Tata’s alluring investment it, in fact was the US policy to use up Bangladesh’s scarce gas resources. In addition, the Pakistani lobby was also active. In such a situation, the government could not give green signal to TATA in spite of US government’s insistence. After wasting several hundred million Rupees, finally Mr. Ratan Tata had to accept he heartily “ta-ta” from Bangladesh.
TATA-CPM DUET IN WEST BENGAL :
One fine morning Tata declared their extremely alluring proposal of manufacturing and selling of small car at a price of One lac Rupees each. The CPM government gave them green signal. Immediately Tata managed a large chunk of fertile land in Singur. The CPM government dreamt many sweet dreams in Tata’s Eklaki Nano car project. They already have got the taste of sweet kick-backs, they dreamt of jobs for their ‘party harmads’, big contracts for their relatives and so on so forth. However, the local people could not believe in the “unbelievable love and affection of this political party for country’s industrialization”. They already witnessed that this is the same party that so carefully worked to smash the backbone of Industries for over three decades in West Bengal. The people of Bangladesh have been successful in kicking away TATA, now they are eagerly waiting to see what the people of West Bengal do.
COMPARE TATA WITH BIRLA OR MITTAL :
Tata is definitely a large Indian company, but it is not the largest. On the other hand there are numerous large Indian companies who are successfully doing business in India and abroad. There are both profit and loss in business. But no one has ever heard of the other Indian companies (I mean to say, companies other than Tata) to take up such non-feasible, impractical and childish projects and then to return back after great wastage. We shall soon explain why Tata is going to face a big failure and to earn ill-names, even if their “Eklaki Nano car project” in Singur comes out successful.
WHY TATA OR RATAN TATA IS SO DIFFERENT :
When the big companies are doing business peacefully at home and abroad and earning good profit, what makes Mr. Ratan Tata to take up such absurd and hazardous projects, and to loose money ? If it is a riddle, it is not a very difficult one. Mr. Ratan Tata’s company is basically different from the other Indian companies. In the non-Tata companies the directors have great concern for the good and bad, image, profit and loss etc. of their respective companies. In case of Tata, however, the Company belongs to the government, where the Tata family enjoys certain percent of the profit. As a member of the family that previously used to own the entire company Mr. Ratan Tata enjoys extremely high position in the decision making act of the company. Thus he is a person, whose family owns a small percent cent (2.5%) of the profit of an extremely large company. As representative of the same company this gentlemen however, enjoys huge financial and non-financial privileges. Those who are aware of the inns and outs of business might know that many a times the chief executive may be more benefitted from the flop projects than from successful ones. I believe this much will be sufficient for the intelligent people to understand what are there behind the super-activities of this gentleman.
NANO WILL BE A CURSE :
As of today (31st August, 2008) the problem with Tata factory at Singur has not been solved. And we do not know what would happen tomorrow, or after a few months. Even if Mr. Ratan Tata becomes successful (even though it seems grim), the Eklaki Nano car of Tata would bring a curse for the company and thousands of its users. Why ? Let us mention one example.
Few years ago, the corrupt BNP-Jamat Government arranged to import cars from selected manufacturers of India to be used as Taxi-cab in Dhaka city. A number of 10,000 cars were imported. After a period of 5 years only 2,500 of those in dilapidated condition are running in the road. The remaining 7,500 cars are waiting in fields in extremely dilapidated condition. Even though the government of Bangladesh have given the cab-owners clearance to import cars from the same manufacturer against their previous sanctions, none of the users have shown interest to do that. On the other hand they have proposed for importing 5-year old Japanese cars. Just imagine, the cab-owners want to import 5-year old Japanese cars, and not brand-new cars from India. You should not blame them. They are not anti-Indian fanatics, but honest businessmen. They had certain assumption regarding the life-span of the brand new cars and it was 10-12 years. What happens to their calculation of profit when they discovered that :
(01) The cars started to go out of function after 2 years.
(02) 75% of the cars went out of use after 5 years.
(03) The remaining 25% now ply on road with their dilapidated and worn out bodies and extremely high-sounding engines.
In Bangladesh the poor people are in the habit of collecting every little piece of iron from the road, because those have resale value. The dilapidated cars I mentioned above, however, may be seen to stay side by side quite peacefully, because no one is interested to utilize their extremely thin and low-quality steel sheets, not to say anything about the rusted and defragmented engines. These cars came from a company other than Tata. This company is quite renowned for their product and the price of their car is much higher.
In the above situation, Tata’s thin-body Nano cars would only cheat and befool the buyers. There remains the possibility that most of those would surrender their youthful fluffy bodies to incessant dents within one year and shall go out of use after 3 to 4 years.
In such a context, foiling of Tata’s Eklaki Nano car project may save thousands of its probable users from severe loss. Whether successful or not, the project, by this time has been able to ensure the expected “success” for Mr. Ratan Tata
PROF. BIJON B. SARMA, HEAD ARCHITECTURE DISCIPLINE, KHULNA UNIVERSITY, KHULNA, BANGLAESH
Let us see who wins in Singur.
Hi. Stumbled on a very interesting article about the diaspora on the web edition of the Daily Star (BD). Check it out!
http://www.thedailystar.net/magazine Its the cover of the 28th Nov issue.
Tell me what you think.
This one here?
http://www.thedailystar.net/magazine/2008/11/04/cover.htm
Yes there is another review which came out a two or three years ago. I will find it and post. That review is particularly good.
http://www.thedailystar.net/magazine/2008/11/04/cover.htm
http://www.thedailystar.net/magazine/2008/12/02/history.htm
Those are the links. Brilliantly sketches the past present and future of the diaspora and the complex links with the ancestral land, I thought!
bravoooooooooo…. bangladeshi
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