Prof Kay Hampton
chairperson of the Commission for Racial Equality
For one who was discriminated against in the apartheid South Africa, Prof Kay Hampton, who is of Indian descent, does not favour affirmative action or reservation or quota
New Delhi
3 November 2007
Indian diaspora with helping her both understand and cope with the issues of integration,
cultural differences, religion and race. It helped her to appreciate why some communities
in the United Kingdom were grouping in the way they were and what are the issues
Britons should be sensitive to.
Prof Hampton is the chairperson of the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) and a
commissioner of the newly-formed Equality and Human Rights Commission in the United
Kingdom. A fourth generation Indian herself, Prof Hampton told this newspaper in an
exclusive interview that she learnt from the Indian experience how diversity operates.
She says that Britons do not fully understand the nuances of different cultures and
languages. "Post-9/11 there had been a minor backlash [from the Muslim communities]
with people retreating into traditionalism and level of mistrust growing," she recalls.
India, with her diverse cultures and a sizable Muslim population, showed to the world in
general and Britain in particular that multiculturalism and integration need not be
mutually exclusive. "I learnt that complexity comes in different forms. India is very
complex. [We have] nationality issues in Scotland, Wales and England. Religion plays a
role in indigenous populations, like sectarianism in Scotland. So we wanted to know what
do they do in India? How do they manage those tensions?" she says.
"The Indian community," according to her, "is one of the most diasporic communities in
the world and we have our presence all over. Some countries there is a huge success
story as to how the Indians have actually integrated, became part of society and are
actually doing better than the locals and are prospering and are very happy."
"History of Indian community outside internationally is one of a success story. Basically
we felt that we needed to learn because we also found that although everybody came
from India, there were different levels of progression between different community
groups and we wanted to understand why someone was more successful than others,"
she adds.
Kay Hampton was born in South Africa but has made Scotland her home. She brings her
experience of living as a "minority", first in South Africa and later in Scotland, to her role
as CRE chairperson and a commissioner of the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
"I couldn't compartmentalise who I was," she says, recalling her life in the "old" South
Africa and her initial years in Scotland, where she moved to in 1994. Prof Hampton is
currently a lecturer in criminology at Glasgow Caledonian University.
"I usually describe myself as a child of apartheid because I was born in apartheid South
Africa. [Ours] was an immigrant community in South Africa. We were a minority
community within that as well, so I've had the experience of living as a minority I
suppose all my life," she says. "My ultimate ancestry and roots are in India. I'm
technically a fourth generation Indian in a sense but born in South Africa. My family
moved to in early 20th century. My grandparents were born in South Africa so it
obviously goes deeper."
She is very satisfied that she has had the "experience of inequality" in two countries
(South Africa and the United Kingdom). "I've learnt from both countries and applied my
learning in trying to bring together my personal experiences and to understand the gap
between policy, practice and theory," she says.
For one who was discriminated against in the apartheid South Africa, Prof Hampton does
not favour affirmative action or reservation or quota. "Affirmative action is legalised
discrimination," she asserts, adding a country must invest in its people so that they can
compete as equals rather than resort to artificial or token gestures such as reservation.
She says that equality in Britain has become a very fundamental part of how Britons live
and work but "our approach to equality is slightly different from that in India."
"In principle, we don't set quotas," she says. "We don't do affirmative action, which is
illegal in terms of our law. Affirmative action and reservation are illegal. Our law is very
clear in that you cannot discriminate on the basis of a person being Asian or a person
being white. If there is a case ... then they have the right to ask for feedback on why they
didn't get it (job) and if they feel that the feedback is unsatisfactory and they feel that
they were discriminated because of their gender or their ethnicity or ethnic origin, then
they will come to us. We investigate the case, we gather information, we ask questions,
we immediately write to the organisation involved. If we feel that the process hasn't been
done fairly, then we will take that as a legal case and get them to address it. We can do
that out of court or through the legal system."
Prof Hampton believes in setting targets, not quotas. "Target is something different from
quota, setting quotas is problematic it means ultimately you are reserving positions for
people. What we would like to guarantee is that the quality in any job, whether it is in
politics or whether it is in ... that the quality of the service or the performance of a person
is not compromised in the selection of the candidates. I feel that if you just put people in
there who are not on the basis of merit but on the basis of who they are, you are
resolving one problem to creating another because nobody wants to have people who
can't perform at a higher quality."
She hastens to add that the CRE does "need to identify areas where there are over-
representation of inequalities or gross disadvantage". The CRE approaches politics, for
example, in a non-partisan way. "We are aware that there is an under-representation of
people in politics or in political parties e.g. Asian, African-Caribbean. Then we ask them
to ensure that when they are fielding candidates they ought to be sensitive to fielding
candidates in areas that are not too hopeless in terms of winning votes and so on. We
give them guidelines, encourage them 'Operation Blackboard' actively encourages to
participate in political process," she informs. "We have organisations like young
parliamentarians [who] shadow ministers [to get a] feel of political life, to gain
confidence, to sharpen their debating skills [so that they are encouraged to become
leaders in their own right.] We also let young people sign up and sit in on our meetings."
The CRE receives "hundreds of thousands" of complaints per year but the number of
cases that go through finally into court are not as large. That is because some people
manage to resolve the case out of court or by reconciliation.
No comments:
Post a Comment