Chitra Ramaswamy: ‘That’s the thing about identity. Like fashion, politics and, erm, sharks, it has to move with the times to stay alive’

Published on Tuesday 14 February 2012 00:00

WARNING, people. This column contains meditations on independence. I realise it should probably begin with something incomprehensibly clever, distracting and self-eating, like: “Do you agree that this is a loaded, biased question?”

But being just one undecided member of this undecided society, I will have to fling aside the polls in the manner of Madonna flinging gold pom-poms during the Superbowl and just express myself.

So let me take a moment to hitch up my skirts (made in Turkey rather than Scotland, England or that shadowland we call Britain), grab my identity (made somewhere between Bangalore, London, Glasgow and Edinburgh), flex my wellies (the Duke of Wellington, to complicate matters, was a native of Ireland) and wade into the debate.

Some basics. I am a Londoner, which I suppose makes me English. I am Indian and I think of myself as British. I have been a resident of Scotland for almost half of my life. I vote and pay my taxes here and my partner is Scottish. I am a Leither, and a Glasgow girl at heart. Turns out there’s not much basic about these basics after all.

So be it. My national identity, like yours, changes as much as the weather on this small island. I have no idea how Scotland will vote in a referendum but, whatever the outcome, this flux will remain. That’s the thing about identity. Like fashion, politics and, erm, sharks, it has to move with the times to stay alive.

When I was a nipper I was English in the most annoying of senses. I would never have called myself English – no way, that was for white people – yet I thought all full breakfasts were English, the north started on the other side of the Thames and Scotland was a faraway land of skirmishes between Super Gran and Scunner Campbell. When necessary, I ticked the box marked British Asian. The rest of the time I was a south-west Londoner.

Then, in 1997, I came to Scotland. And lo, suddenly I was English for the first time in my life. OK, this was mainly by virtue of not being Scottish, but it was a new and strange look all the same, like the combats, cropped tops and bodywarmers I was sporting at the time (listening to All Saints singing ‘Never Ever’ on repeat was going to have some negative effect, all right?).

When asked, I would deny it (my Englishness, not my All Saints obsession, which was sadly all too obvious). So, funnily enough, it was being called English that made me British. This wasn’t about unionism. It was simply the term that fit more snugly with being Indian. It was a box I had long been ticking. It was a box that included me. Well, we all have our reasons.

All of this has changed, is changing or will change. This is a good thing. But in the midst of it we are being asked to weigh our Scottishness, Englishness, Leitherness, Weegieness – however we see ourselves – against our Britishness. This, to return to my London roots for a moment, is completely doing my head in. How to compare the feeling of coming home that I get every time I pull into Glasgow Central with my pride in London, the great capital that my parents made their own? How to compare then and now? And what about what will be? I can’t do it. And more to the point, I don’t want to.

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flyinngscott

Tuesday, February 14, 2012 at 11:21 PM

"So be it. My national identity, like yours, changes as much as the weather on this small island" Erm, Chitra, no. From the moment of birth I was Scottish, and have always seen myself as such. Having my history bleached out by the British establishment, through the deliberate (mis) education policy when at state school didn't make a blind bit of difference. Scottish, never British.======= With your story, I get your point, but its your story not mine. There are one or two others who might agree.

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