South Asians across the world have been cheering the ascent of Scotland’s first minister Humza Yousaf. When Yousaf was elected leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) earlier this week, a new era of diversity entered British politics.
His victory is not just significant for Scotland. According to Sunder Katwala, director of the British Future think tank, he is the first Muslim politician to be chosen to serve as a national leader in a Western democracy. Moreover, Yousaf is the first-ever ethnic minority leader of a devolved government in the UK.
In his victory speech at Edinburg’s Murrayfield, the child of migrants remembered his grandparents, who migrated to Glasgow in the 1960s and were unable to speak English. “As immigrants to this country, who knew barely a word of English, they could not have imagined their grandson would one day be on the cusp of being the next first minister of Scotland,” Yousaf said. “They couldn’t have imagined, in their wildest dreams, that two generations later, their grandson would one day be Scotland’s first minister.”
Yousaf wore the kilt with a sherwani in 2016 as he took his oath of loyalty in the Scottish Parliament, in both English and Urdu. He has frequently remarked that his personal upbringing serves as an illustration of Scotland’s socially liberal and ethnically diverse terrain, even going so far as to describe himself as having a “bhangra and bagpipes” history.
Given that his triumph came so soon after the election of Rishi Sunak as Prime Minister of Britain last year and Leo Varadkar as Taoiseach of Ireland, the British, Scottish and Irish leaders are all of South Asian descent for the first time in history. Even the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, is a child of migrants born in the UK.
It was once believed that the sun would never set on the British Empire, which at its peak included India and Pakistan as its crown jewels. What was once a seemingly historical fiction has become a reality of contemporary times.
“The empire strikes back,” tweeted Jelina Berlow-Rahman, a human rights lawyer in Glasgow, after Yousaf’s victory.
And yet, there are still good reasons to be cautious of such representation politics and optics. The term ‘migrant’ has become so divisive that it is harming support for the issues it is meant to highlight. And ironically, some of the politicians who are opposed to more immigration to the UK are also those who benefited from the system.
The ascent of South Asians in UK politics has been hailed as a turning point in British South Asian history, from the colonial era to leading figures of the empire’s metropolis. As has been a norm, the right-wing parties can climb up the ladder because of its representation optics, and it is very much likely to see more South Asian faces in UK politics. However, there is no doubt that the current political elite makes less effort to acknowledge ― yet merely understand ― the glaring disparities that continue to haunt the South Asian community. All at a time, when weaponising and building on fake identities is the new norm.
On Monday, Yousaf said, “We will be the team that brings independence to Scotland.”
The final word ― a senior British journalist sent this to a friend in India: “The irony: a Pakistani Brit ― Yousaf― negotiating with an Indian Brit ― Sunak ― for the partition of Britain. Hope they do a better job than we did in India!”
Kalrav Joshi is an independent journalist based in London. He writes on politics, culture, technology and climate.
