Hypothetically if I’m born in India would I be Indian

[eRobin]

I’m a bit nervous asking about this subject incase it’s taken the wrong way. I was speaking with a not-quite friend (an acquaintance as I don’t know them very well but we’re friendly) from Bangladesh. I am Celtic. I asked him hypothetically if I was born in Bangladesh, India, or Africa, would be considered Indian or British or both because of my ethnicity/skin colour. He said I wouldn’t be considered Bengali because I wouldn’t be part of their culture/religion, and other places like India or Africa would feel the same. But when I asked him why he considers himself to be British despite being born here if I couldn’t be classed as Bengali if I was born over there, a woman from Dubai who was also present said that my comment was racist - but I felt that what the person from Bengali had said was racist. Do celtic people not have a culture?

Do People from Celtic countries have a particular culture? If you’d have lived a 1000 years ago and this question came up you might have had a point.

Do you follow a Celtic religion. Do you worship the old Gods. Are you pagan?

I think if you were born in Bangladesh etc as a white person and lived and breathed their culture, observed their religious practices, spoke their language then you might have a point too.

i do kind of get what you are saying though.

on a minor note, my nephew was born in Glasgow to English parents, he moved to Lincoln when he was 1, he regards himself as English not Scottish and certainly not Celtic.

Ive lived in wales since I was a child, im English by Birth, I speak a little Welsh and have a Welsh accent. I’m still English but my friends say I’m adopted Welsh 😂

someone will come along and be far more articulate than me about this subject I’m sure, I’m rubbish at explaining things lol. Race, culture and identity is such a tricky issue

Yes I have backgrounds from Scotland, wales, Ireland and England. So it was easier to say Celtic. I honestly don’t know very much about race and the terminology etc. I’m very anxious about getting something wrong

Obviously there's a difference between nationality and ethnicity or heritage. I don't know the rules for Indian citizenship, but if you are ethnically white and born in India then you may well be/become an Indian national (ie with citizenship) but you'd have white/Anglo heritage. Obviously just being born there wouldn't mean that you were ethnically Indian or had Indian heritage though.

Your friend may be born in Bengal with Bengali heritage therefore he is Bengali, but he may well have British citizenship or has lived here for a long time so he considers himself British because that's a nationality not an ethnicity.

you wouldn’t be ethnically Bangladeshi but you could become a Bangladeshi citizen - acclimatised into that culture and so treated as a Bangladeshi

same the other way around. I’m a British Asian - and live and breathe British values and that is my culture. But I’m not ethnically English. Although some people also say race js simply a social construct anyway

If you have an Indian passport, you would be an Indian citizen. Being born in India does not change your ethnicity to Indian.

The Bangladeshi man is British because he has a British passport.

You are mistakingly conflating ethnicity/race with citizenship. This is why there are terms like Korean-American, Chinese-Jamaican, white South-African etc to explain the difference.

This is such an interesting question!

I would think yes, it would make you Indian. Like if you're born in the UK, it makes you British, right? Or born in the US, you are American.

Your colour or creed isn't the same as your nationality, is it?

But is it culture that makes you belong in the country of your birth? People don't have to be Christians or Wiccans to be British. If they were born here they can be Muslim or Seikh or Hindu and still British, so why would that not be true in reverse?

I am from India and I follow Hinduism (a non-Abrahamic faith which is very different from an Abrahamic faith). If you were born in India as a white person and lived in a city, you would be considered Indian and if you spoke a local language along with English, you would definitely be Indian.
Now what you must understand is that India is very different to Pakistan and Bangladesh both of which are very Islamic and operate very differently to India and Indians.
So, in short you would be treated as an Indian in India especially if you spoke the local language but I can't say the same about Bangladesh or Pakistan as I have no experience of those countries.

Yes, you would.

I think colonisation is a key factor here...

Other places 'like India or Africa?'

Africa is a huge continent with many different countries, cultures and religions.

I was born in England but my dad was born in indianso ethnically I am half indian as my mum is also British. However my nationality is British as I was born here and I do not have indian citizenship.

I think that is my point. I find it all so confusing

Well yes Celtic people’ do have a culture. It might not be that dufference from the English culture or Scottish or even let’s say French. But they do have a culture. And it’s massively different from the one in Bangladesh or in India (or China etc….)

I think it’s a good question you’re raising.

I have no issue saying that someone born in the U.K. whose parents are from l,ets say Japan are English/british. Why not? They’re born here so have the citizenship. They’ve been brought up here so will have absorbed lots of the British customs and way of thinking. Just from going to school.

Imo it also works the other way around. A child born and brought up in India/Japan/Argentina etc… will be feeling they are from ‘there’ too.
Ive spent most of my childhood overseas and certainly felt I belong there.

The only thing I’d say is that it is true IF the parents haven’t stayed in the ‘expat sphere’ never mixing up with the ‘locals’, sending the child to an international school etc… I think in that case, your colleague might have a point.

You don’t gain British citizenship simply by being born in Britain, and haven’t for decades.

Interesting. My personal view is that if you are born and grow up in a country, speaking the language and going to the local schools then you can say you are that nationality. I would.

But if I was born somewhere and moved to England before I was 5, or went to an international school, spent all my time with British expats and didn't integrate then I wouldn't consider myself the local nationality.

My friend was born in Kenya to English expat parents who moved back here when she was a toddler. She definitely considers herself English, not Kenyan. As would I.

Maybe with India previously being a British colony it affects the feelings of ethnic Indians towards white Indians? I don't know.

I know plenty of white African people, who all consider themselves African. Mostly South African and Zimbabwean.

I don't think religion or skin colour is the deciding factor for me. It's the dominant culture you grow up in for me.

My father was born in an African country - he's fair, with red-auburn hair & blue eyes. Most people I know from that country, whatever their colour, regard him as African.

But my experience of my father's connections with Africa suggest that black Africans are extremely welcoming and kind - anyone born in Africa is African, I've been told many many times.

You gain British citizenship automatically if you were born in the U.K. and your parents had indefinite leave to remain. Which most/a lot of people do if they have been in the U.K. for a while.

Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) is gained after living 5 years in the U.K. on a work or family visa fir example.

I imagine that, in the case we are discussing, people have been settled for many years and do have ILR.

Could you expand on that?

I think you have a point there but can’t quite put my finger on it

Yes but not simply by being born here, which lots of people have suggested on the thread.

I think it's vanishingly rare for white people to move to countries like India or Bangladesh and raise their children within those cultures, speaking the language etc.

Most white people who live in those countries - and there aren't many who do so at all - live an "expat" type life rather than integrating themselves into the local community.

Whereas it isn't that unusual vice versa.

I think it's one of those things where the rules aren't the same both ways, although they probably should be.

It probably is a numbers game. Think about the number of white people with European parents who are born and raised in India. It's a very small number and there's a high chance that their parents are diplomats, or people working on an expat contract, who haven't deliberately chosen India as a place to immigrate to and perhaps don't plan to stay forever. Their children probably go to international schools in places like Mumbai, rather than attending the local primary. So, a vanishingly small number of people to start with, and the number who actually attempt to assimilate with the local population, speak the local language fluently and so on, is even smaller.

Then think about the vast numbers of Indian people who have settled in the UK, in large communities with extended families, shops and restaurants selling Indian food, products and clothes, their own places of worship and so on.

If there were only a handful of Indians living in the UK they'd probably be considered Indian by everyone even if they were born in the UK, but because there are so many people of Indian origin living in the UK, British Indian has become an identity in its own right, meaning people of Indian origin who are born and raised in the UK and highly integrated into British life, but have that particular ethnicity and usually speak the languages of their extended family and have retained their Indian religious and cultural customs.

But until there is an equivalent number of white British people settling permanently in India, the odd person who does that will remain...well, odd. And will probably never be considered Indian. The best thing they can do is to marry and have children with an Indian and then at least their children will fit in a little better.

There are, in fact, older people of English ethnicity who were born and grew up in India in colonial times still alive now, so the question does not have to be purely hypothetical.

I'm not English, but I was born in England. I haven't lived in England my entire life, but I do now. So I'm English. But my heritage is my parent's nationality and ethnicity, and I'm 100% not English other than my nationality.

Hang on, that's not true, is it? Being born in a country doesn't automatically make you that nationality. I was born in Greece, I am not Greek, I was just born there.