Rahul Jacob: A political shadow lengthens over London's South Asian summer

Mint

2 days ago

Earlier this summer, an unusual depiction of a zebra gifted to Mughal Emperor Jahangir drew attention to the Iranian artist Mansour, who had painted it. A white nephrite jade cup that was part of Shah Jahan's collection and subtly embossed with his titles was also much remarked upon. A good bit of the exhibition was on loan from the Al Sabah royal family of Kuwait.
If asked to guess in which city this art appreciation crash course on Mughal India was being conducted, most of us would have picked London. Indeed, The Great Mughals exhibition, which ended on 5 May, offered a foretaste of a particularly South Asian flavour to London this summer.
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The British Museum currently has a show that pays tribute to the art and sculpture of Jainism, Buddhism and Hinduism between 200 BCE and 600 CE in a show titled 'Ancient India: Living Traditions.' And ramblers through West London's mystically beautiful Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park would encounter both a retrospective to artist Arpita Singh and a temporary summer pavilion, a prestigious commission done annually that was designed this year by Bangladeshi architect Marina Tabassum.
The vaguely Cubist exterior of Tabassum's creation provided shade during this unusually warm past week. It featured a pop-up reading room, featuring books by South Asian authors. But whatever visitors made of the puzzling structure, it was yet another emblem of London's multiculturalism. The alternately moving and arresting Arpita Singh retrospective was thoughtfully put together by the Australian curator Tamsin Hong. At the National Theatre, publicity has already begun for staging Shakespeare's Hamlet in a couple of months, starring Hiran Abeysekera, an impishly gifted actor of Sri Lankan origin who also starred in Life of Pi.
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The National Theatre is headed by another Briton of South Asian descent, Indhu Rubasingham.
London has long been a trailblazer of what Salman Rushdie once described as a 'melange, hotchpotch, a bit of this and a bit of that." This, he added, 'is how newness enters the world." But, in this very Indian summer of high culture and high temperatures, at the forefront of the UK's paradoxical politics, populist leaders are gaining support by stoking anger against immigrants.
This summer was also heralded by an unprecedentedly strong showing by Nigel Farage's Reform Party in May, when it won 677 of about 1,600 seats it sought to fill in local council elections, eating into support for the Conservative Party but also the ruling Labour party. A YouGov survey last week showed that if parliamentary elections were held today, Reform would win the most seats but not an outright majority. This is an alarming prospect at many levels, given that this party was the most vociferous proponent of Brexit, which has led to a loss of the UK's momentum in economic growth.
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The UK's Labour government led by Keir Starmer has had a lacklustre first year in office after winning what was aptly described by commentators as a 'loveless landslide" a year ago. On Wednesday, the bond market's nervousness over the government's policies resulted in a jump in 10-year bond yields.
This was after the government had to water down proposals for welfare reform that seemed tone-deaf to demands for equity among Labour Members of Parliament. It was also an unfortunate reprise of a plan to cut winter fuel subsidies for pensioners, which was announced last year and contributed to the government getting almost no political honeymoon period at all.
The rollback this week means the government will forgo £5 billion in savings. It required a forceful backing of Chancellor of Exchequer Rachel Reeves by Starmer for calm to be restored.
Indifferent leadership in London creates more space for populists to gain power—just as we saw in Washington. And this will almost certainly put London's vibrancy as a cultural capital at risk. Can the centre hold? I am not sure anymore, but that is all the more reason to treasure London's melange of cultures.
On Monday, friends hosted a sumptuous dinner that included plump English asparagus with a Middle Eastern touch to the dressing. One of the guests spoke authoritatively about Indian handloom; her company, Robe de Voyage, features khadi and 'ahimsa silk'. Another guest told me about a magical haveli in Rajasthan. In the vast variety of food options at Wimbledon, a sandwich filling startlingly included an onion pakora. I remain in awe of it all.
The author is a Mint columnist and a former Financial Times foreign correspondent.