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?

Tbf I've read of a few Raj types who knew Hindustani better than they knew English

My DGFs first language was Hindi. It's where I picked up a tad (I can count to ten and say "Hello", "How Are You" and "Very well" or "Not so well".

Which can be fun ....

Also depends on where you're raised. You describe being raised in Wales to Welsh parents. OP isn't really clear on whether she's talking about simply being born in India or being raised there as well (and obviously somebody raised in India may be raised in an Expat bubble or integrate into the culture, which would probably lead to different feelings about nationality depending on which path the parents choose).

That's interesting. So he grew up in the Raj? Did he enjoy his time there?

My great great grandfather spent time in India as a soldier & apparently kept a diary, but it was donated to a museum & no one can remember which one.. I've always been interested in that period though..

Incorrect. Polish definitely is an ethnicity.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=www.lawsociety.org.uk/en/topics/ethnic-minority-lawyers/a-guide-to-race-and-ethnicity-terminology-and-language&ved=2ahUKEwiQsuPdxeqQAxX5VUEAHXu9LUoQFnoECHwQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3jXQwgraHMSdle73XCg4WB

Italian is also an ethnicity.

https://www.britannica.com/place/Italy/The-people

I think a lot of them lived in a predominantly English colonial environment though.. similarly, if a group immigrated here and mixes only within their immigrant group, it's hard to say they've meaningfully integrated into the culture. Otoh some did, as I've said, I've read of some who spoke better Hindustani than English and felt extremely connected to Indian culture, more so than Britain.

I've seen people use actors like Lumley, Felicity Kendal & Jenny Agutter, who were born in colonial Asia as gotchas, but they're clearly not as Expat life (or any other kind of 'bubble' life) is very different to integrating into the population.

A similar thing could be said of the kids of British expats to Spain. I've read of some who feel Spanish as they mixed & integrated with the local population, but lots don't as they mainly lived with other Brits etc

Op, could you clarify if your acquaintance is a Bangladeshi national who happens to be in the UK at the moment? Or are they an immigrant to the UK? Or were they born here? That affects the issue a lot.

Another thing I don't like about your emphasis on Celtic ethnicity is that it excludes Jewish, Romany and Irish travellers. These groups have deep historical roots in England, but according to your metric they can't call themselves English as they aren't ethnically English.

I have an old school friend who was born here to Indian parents. I have always considered him British, but if Indian descent, because his accent is British and his parents assimilated. They didn’t maintain many Indian traditions and adopted many British ones. I adored them. Such welcoming people. Anyway, he’s married an Indian with American citizenship, moved to the United States and his parents have died. He has no family in the U.K. and his children are American, not British citizens. They could apply for British passports by descent but haven’t bothered. He has no reason to bring them here. As far as he is concerned, even though he loved his childhood and he’s glad to have a British accent, he’s moved on. Britain was a stepping stone. India is his ancestral homeland. The United States is his home. That’s the difference between citizenship ( administrative) and ethnicity (where you come from). Your Bangladeshi friend is British like my friend. He is a citizen. He has the same legal rights as you or me, but a different family history. You will always be British regardless of your citizenship, whereas he is only British because of his citizenship. Neither one is better nor worse. They are just different family stories.

It's been a year. I don't think OP will come back to clarify anything 😂

Ethnically you'd be British/celtish whatever you want to call it. But you would also be Indian as a nationality. Like a Bangladeshi person from Britain would be Bangladeshi British.

I am ethnically Irish (both parents migrants) but was born in UK so am of British nationality.

A white person born in India would experience culture and life probably quite differently from an ethnically Indian person. It would also depend on what religion you followed as that part of the world is pretty strongly religious.

Also they may be heavily still reliant on the caste system which could be considered classist. And where a white person would sit in their 'social grades.'

Ohh sorry, I didn't realise it was that old! 🤣 Still, it's an interesting topic.

I wonder if OP was on a wind-up? It does seem a bit faux-naive. Or maybe I'm over suspicious.

Interesting story.

Tbf we don't know if OP's friend (assuming the OP wasn't a wind-up) is British. They way she wrote it made me think the man happened to be visiting here and normally lived in Bangladesh.

Celtic means nothing by itself. Are you Irish? Scottish? French? Egyptian? Morrocan? (Celtic paganism comes from North Africa).

What he was trying to say is that India isn’t an ethnicity. It’s a nationality and one entirely made up by white British people who systematically destroyed the Indian nations in a divide and conquer strategy so they could take it over. So if you had an Indian passport yes, in India, you would be classed as Indian. But you wouldn’t be able to call yourself Gujarati / Bengali / Tamil because just like English / Welsh / Black Irish all of that has racial conatations. But that applies in India

In the UK ‘Indian’ is a racial identity like ‘English’ and ‘Welsh’ while ‘British’ specifically refers to the British Empire of which India (and many African countries) were part of. So he can refer to himself as Indian and British. But you as a ‘Celtic’ person wouldn’t count as either according to that view. The Celtic people haven’t officially existed for centuries.

You could have looked up all this on ChatGPT instead of using it to dogwhistle the racists though.

Yes a lot of people don’t get this, people would consider me Pakistani, but I’m actually Gilgit.

This is an interesting new addition to a very old thread that doesn't even seem to have read the thread.

As far as I can remember he did. It was Darjeeling which an Indian colleague told me was very like "a nice England".

My DM remembered him being thrilled when Indians came to the UK after the war as he could get a decent curry and have a gas natter.

His DF (my DGGF 😀) went to India to work for the civil service in customs somewhere.

My DB was starting a family tree. My DGM (his wife) seems to have some French heritage, judging from surnames.

All of which goes towards my views about what it is to be anything - very little of which has to do with where you are born but quite a lot who you are born to and completed by who you are.

It's interesting, isn't it?
I think it's far easier to call yourself British and immerse yourself in the culture then it would be for the average British person to 'become' Indian or Ghanaian, for example.
Basically because we don't have much of cohesive identity in this country, which makes it easier to fit in. I would think you could call yourself a member of any country if you lived there all your life, spoke the language, practiced the religion and immersed yourself in the culture.

One irony of some people who ask questions like the OP is that they're often very keen on the royal family (I say that as a royalist, I do think they need drastic reform though).

Of course, our royal family has had immigrants in forever : in fact, the immigrant Prince Albert, for one , forged so much of our national identity with his reforms. Were Queen Mary, Queen Alexandra & others not British? Queen Victoria for that matter, raised by her German mother & governess, to the extent that her first tutor said she had a strong German accent as she mainly spoke to them? Prince Philip was of course derided' for being foreign but arguably was less so since he was schooled and mainly living in Britain from the age of nine (before that he went to a US school in France and then a German one).

Hmm..I'm not sure if I agree. I think Britain does have a cohesive identity, and I think it would be possible for someone to become Ghanian or Indian if they were born & culturally immersed (or alternatively if they moved as young adults and really committed to becoming so)

Part of the reason for Britain seeming more open is that we at least nominally spread the idea in colonies that subjects became British (eg. Kids in Jamaica etc taught about the mother country, as Floella Benjamin for one has spoken of). Whereas France, for one, didn't teach their colonial subjects that they were becoming French, so the connection is different

Im a tall pasty ginger man with blue eyes, I could move to india and become indian through citizenship but I will never be ethnically indian or a native of that land.

I did DNA tests once and funny enough Im 100 percent european (irish and british mostly), Im not built for warm climates like india 🤣

@RingoJuice Gender is still sex but left wing idiots in recent years have changed the defianition of it because they think a man with a cock should use womens bathrooms lol

It's fascinating how the Romans viewed citizenship and it's relationship to geography culture and state.

Op seemed to be talking about people born there though, though it was vague whether she meant raised in the culture, or in Expat bubble or something else!

Something that this kind of discourse of India overlooks is the small but vibrant & longstanding Anglo-Indian community. They're descended from British soldiers who married Indian women, and are culturally a mix of Indian & old-fashioned English, often preserving Victorian traditions like maypole dancing and others which are less practised here now (a bit like the way Scottish-Americans, say, often preserve 18th century culture from their ancestors which modern Scots don't follow).

After independence (which many had fought for) they were often treated as traitors due to their British blood & many emigrated to Britain, Canada etc. Others remain & preserve their mix of Indian & British traditions. To me, they're a nice example of Eastern & Western culture synthesising.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Indian_people&ved=2ahUKEwianKm7lvSQAxUJXEEAHQX7Nk4QFnoECBsQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2e8Rb4roT6lcJlMMQfIfr2