With the British Asian population now numbering over 3 million, the BBC has announced a new season of programming focusing on both modern and historical issues, to reflect the experiences of Britain's biggest minority group.
The series will also celebrate the cultural as well as artistic contributions of Asian Britons as well as exploring the fractious nature of white and non-white Britain and its subsequent tensions.
"The Big British Asian Summer is a wonderfully rich season of programmes from across the BBC exploring the cultural, social and familial impact of these two regions of the world coming together. From Bollywood to Sharwoods,” said Alison Kirkham, Controller of Factual Commissioning.
Mehreen Baig, who appeared in the RTS award-winning Muslims Like Us, will explore the stories of a number of different British Asian communities, and the challenges facing some of their young men in British Asian Men (w/t).
The first wave of programmes announced also includes:
- Passengers - a three-part series piece together the lives of arrivals to Britain from the Indian subcontinent 1930s and 1960s through the passenger lists of ships from this time. The surviving people and their descendants are tracked down and interviewed about their experiences
- Bollywood: The World’s Biggest Film Industry, a two-part series with Anita Rani exploring a world that has captured the imaginations of some British Asians so wholeheartedly that they are traveling East to seek fame and fortune - that of Bollywood
- One-off film Leicester Sings (w/t) a new documentary musical by Brian Hill’s for BBC One telling the story of a family, exiled from Uganda in 1972, arriving in Leicester with nothing and becoming a glorious success story of immigration and multiculturalism
- In A Taste Of Home (w/t) cook and restauranteur Nisha Katona explores the secrets of incredible homemade curries
- BBC Two favourite Inside The Factory, will shine a spotlight on curry in a special episode, with Greg Wallace visiting a Nottingham factory which produces 250,000 jars of curry sauce every 24 hours
- Gardeners' World, will celebrate South Asian influences on British Gardens
- BBC Four will show The Stolen Maharajah: Britain’s Indian Royal - a documentary about the last Maharajah of the Punjab, who was wrenched from his mother's arms as a child and put into the care of an official of the British Empire
- Made In Asia: Looking For Mum (w/t) tells the unfolding story of four women adopted from the Indian subcontinent as a baby, trying to find their biological mothers
