"It was just an Asian": the racist killing that fuelled a civil rights movement

"It was just an Asian": the racist killing that fuelled a civil rights movement "Though things have improved, there are still battles to be fought", writes Kavita Puri June 2026 marked 50 years since Gurdip Singh Chaggar was stabbed to death in a racist attack in Southall, aged just 18. I have written about him before here but he has been occupying my thoughts again recently, as the half-century of his murder approaches. If he were alive today, Chaggar would be 68. I wonder what he would be like now – whether he would have enjoyed a successful career as an engineer, as he hoped – and whether he would have had children, perhaps even grandchildren. Seeing blood staining the pavement on the morning after the stabbing in 1976, one passer-by asked a nearby policeman whose it was, only to be told: “It was just an Asian.” The man who asked the question was Suresh Grover. Incensed at Chaggar’s killing and at the policeman’s dismissive reaction, Grover joined the large throng of people who took to the streets of Southall to protest against the killing. Part of a younger generation of British south Asians unwilling to put up with the pervasive racism they faced, he became a founding member of the Southall Youth Movement. “We are likely to die in this country,” Grover said when I interviewed him back in 2015. “We don’t have a place we can call home like our elders – going back to India, Pakistan, Bangladesh or Sri Lanka. We want to live as equal citizens. So if it means staying and fighting, that’s what we have to do – and we’re not going to give an inch to that.” Similar youth movements sprang up across the country, chanting their slogan at demonstrations: “Come what may, we are here to stay.” Today, half a century after Chaggar’s murder, Grover continues his efforts as an anti-racist activist. Sadly, such work remains necessary: though things have improved, there are still battles to be fought. In his excellent new book, Come What May, We’re Here to Stay (Manchester University Press, 2026), journalist and historian Taj Ali documents Grover’s remarkable story and the longer history of south Asian resistance in Britain from the early 20th century, using archival research and oral history. He begins his account in 1905 in Muswell Hill, north London, at the home of Shyamji Krishnavarma. Inspired by Irish republicanism, Krishnavarma – an Oxford graduate – founded the Indian Home Rule Society with a handful of other diasporic Indians. Working to promote self-rule in its members’ homeland, they produced and distributed propaganda to that end in Britain. The book then continues with the story of the Indian Workers’ Association, an organisation with socialist and communist roots established in the 1930s by Indian immigrants in Coventry. Initially founded to promote Indian independence, over time it evolved to support working-class rights. Ali goes on to chart industrial disputes from the 1950s onwards, the fightback against the visceral racism of the 1970s and 80s, and the 2001 race riots in Oldham, Bradford, Leeds and Burnley. His on-the-ground reportage is powerful, especially when describing the challenges that continue to face British south Asians today. I still find it surprising that British south Asian history, and that of its civil rights movement, is not better documented. Ali’s book is an important addition to the literature, revealing the complexity and diversity of the community, including religion, caste and class. Particularly moving are the first-hand accounts of the generational struggles undertaken by the diaspora for well over a century. They have long been striving for equality before the law, but also recognition that they are British, and that the battles fought were waged in alliance with many others in our country. This is a British history – and one that should be better known across the nation. This article was first published in the July 2026 issue of HistoryExtra Magazine Authors Kavita Puri is a journalist, author and broadcaster. A new edition of her book Partition Voices: Untold British Stories, marking the 75th anniversary of partition, is out now, published by Bloomsbury