The BBC’s Big British Asian Summer was billed as one of the TV events of 2018. A whole month of programming dedicated to the Asian experience in the UK, and a chance for untold stories to be heard. Patrick Holland, BBC Two controller, laid out his ambitionsfor the season which focused around two goals: attracting new voices and creating a “cultural moment”. “Seasons like this are valuable on a number of levels: they create a shared cultural moment, they allow us to grow talent in front of the camera and also allow us to supercharge the way we commission and produce,” he said before the season kicked off. “I hope this season inspires programme makers to look at the range and depth of storytelling about British Asian culture and know that there is a home for them at the BBC.”
But the season’s first programme proved more divisive than harmonious. Mehreen Baig’s Lost Boys? What’s Going Wrong For Asian Men explored the lives of young British Pakistani men living in Bradford and asked why they aren’t personally and economically developing like their counterparts in other ethnic groups. It suggested that Kashmiri Pakistani families have unsuccessfully integrated into British society, with two of the main reasons offered by the show being their laziness and love for quick cash. Baig touched briefly on the class and race issues within the community, but didn’t explore the responsibility of institutions and effects of austerity. It was praised by some (The Guardian gave it four stars) but it was criticised by others for blaming Asian communities almost exclusively instead of looking outward at the structural hurdles that still exist for Asian people in cities such as Bradford.
“It made me think of how conversations around austerity are super white,” says writer and editor Hussein Kesvani when I ask him about the programme’s perceived lack of depth. “This is a city with few jobs, that’s been massively hit by austerity and where mosques actually provide a lot of resources where local government hasn’t. With ethnic-minority working-class groups and especially Asians, the narrative often feels like it’s a failure of your own community.”
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