The BBC launched a Big British Asian Summer series on Monday with the release of a survey to reflect mindsets and attitudes of Britons with their roots in the Indian sub-continent.
The survey, conducted by ComRes for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), found that British Asians tend to be more conservative as well as more optimistic than the wider UK population.
Of the 2,026 respondents to the British Asian survey, 1,197 were born in the UK – with countries of origin being predominantly Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.
A similar number of UK citizens responded to the same questions to generate a reflection of the views of the wider population.
“More than half of respondents say that they've toned down their Asian identity in order to better fit into British society. This could mean people using Western-sounding names or altering their accents,” said BBC Asian Network representative Nomia Iqbal.
“It seems that British Asians are, as a whole, more optimistic than the general population – indicating that despite the internal and external challenges, people are confidently navigating society. Living with contradiction becomes second nature,” she said.
According to the survey, British Asians held on to conservative views with more than a third (34 percent) offended over sex before marriage, compared to just 5 percent of UK-wide respondents.
On same-sex and gay relationships, 15 percent of UK-wide respondents said they were not acceptable, which rose to 36 percent among British Asians.
On religion, 46 percent of British Asians said it was "very important" to them, compared to just 12 percent of the general population.
“When they ended up staying [in the UK] so did those values which many passed to their British-born children. This is perhaps why the survey suggests that the British Asian community has more socially conservative views on gay relationships and sex before marriage, even amongst the younger generation,” explains Iqbal.
The BBC’s Big British Asian Summer series will be held across various platforms of the corporation, to reflect the lives and views of the UK’s three million- strong South Asian community.
"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,” said Alison Kirkham, Controller, Factual Commissioning, at the BBC.
“From Bollywood to Sharwoods [British Asian food company], the season will encompass a huge range of shows – sometimes celebratory, sometimes challenging, always inspiring,” she said.
The series is set to celebrate the cultural and artistic contribution of Asian Britons, and also explore the fault lines between white and non-white Britain – as this unique fusion of cultures hasn’t happened without tensions, the BBC said.
Programmes include a three-part series 'Passengers', which uses archive to piece together the lives of arrivals to Britain from the Indian subcontinent in the 1930s and 1960s.
There will also be specially commissioned episodes of regular shows such as ‘Inside The Factory’, which will shine a spotlight on curry, as food from regions like Bangladesh is referred to in the UK, and ‘Gardeners' World’, which will celebrate South Asian influences on British Gardens.