Bristol University Student Criticised by Asian Community2 min read

Ignorance and stupidity come in many different levels. This week around the country, a case of the previously mentioned peaked due to a certain Bristol University student celebrating his 21st birthday.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with celebrating your birthday. It creates great memories and promotes togetherness with those close to you. In fact, many on big birthdays opt to have their parties with a specific theme.

Jack Prosser, the Politics and Social Policy Student celebrated his 21st with an ‘Indian glamour’ theme, which his father described as “Indian Glamour meet Colonial Chic”.
The party, dubbed as ‘A Night At the Maharajah’s Palace’, was hosted at One Belgravia in London and featured Prosser and his friends & family dressed in traditional Indian attire – Jack wore a turban and a bindi on his head.

Obviously many in the Asian community were outraged by the posts and pictures published on social media whilst others have dismissed the party as just a little bit of fun.

Though there arguably is proof of cultural appropriation, what concerned me the most was the invitation post Prosser put up on Facebook.
As an Indian myself, I wasn’t really too keen in talking about this; not until I saw one specific sentence in the post that really got my gears grinding.

Describing what the party was going to be like, Prosser wrote: “A luxurious yet debauch throwback to the glory days of the early 20th century, where Britain and India lived side by side”.

This…was indeed not the case in the 20th century or before then; even now people from Britain’s Asian community and other minority groups struggle to find work in the UK.

A more accurate representation would be top and bottom, with Britain riding on India’s back for 200 years.
Lands were robbed of their resources, people divided from their families and let’s not forget Asians had to pay for their jobs with the amount of tax implemented by the British Raj.

To this day, we have been in service to a Britain who faces heavy debt from all of the idiocracy they spread.

You can argue that Britain privileged the Indian subcontinent by introducing democracy and railroads; but that simply isn’t enough for all the years of heartbreak caused by the royals and aristocrats.

To top it all off, in the post world war era, Black people and Asians were subjected to racism even though they fought for Britain in the millions against their own will.

All we ask for is acknowledgement of the right from wrong and to educate yourself before doing something idiotic.

Remunerations are off the table; so the way you can repay us is by doing two simple things.

Show some respect. Know your history.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash