"Sometimes that fight would be against the far right"
Channel 4’s Defiance: Fighting the Far Right premiered on April 8, 2024, and it detailed the history of British Asian resistance to the racist violence of the 1970s and 1980s.
The documentary is produced by Riz Ahmed and the first episode featured the killing of 18-year-old Gurdip Singh Chaggar.
During the summer of 1976, people quietly walked past a police cordon outside the Victory pub on Southall’s busy high street.
Behind the tape was a pool of blood that had come from Gurdip Singh Chaggar, who had been stabbed to death during a racist attack.
Gurdip was targeted in an unprovoked attack by a gang of white youths.
The engineering student was out with friends when he was attacked by the group on the night of June 4.
His death sent shockwaves across the town and sparked a weekend of protests which saw hundreds of Asians voicing their anger.
Two white teenagers, Jody Hill and Robert Hackman, were found guilty of killing Gurdip in May 1977.
However, they only received four years in prison after admitting manslaughter.
In the judge’s closing statement, he said that it was not a racially motivated attack, which triggered waves of anger. It essentially denied racism as an issue.
Speaking about the documentary, Riz Ahmed said:
“I was too young when a lot of this was going on but I’d hear stories from my uncles about really having to fight to survive.
“Sometimes that fight would be against the far right, sometimes it would be police officers who wanted to trouble some lads who were fresh to the country.”
Defiance: Fighting the Far Right is produced by Rogan Productions and is created in conjunction with Riz’s Left Handed Films, responsible for his Academy Award-winning short film The Long Goodbye.
It is the first of three episodes.
The documentary also centres on the killing of Muslim father Aftab Ali near Brick Lane in 1978, and Parveen Khan and her three children, who died during an arson attack on their home in Walthamstow in 1981.
These attacks led to a wave of resistance and protests by British Asians, during which period a series of landmark arrests, judgments, and laws were made.
He continued: “Sadly, it’s a history that not many people are aware of.
“One of the aims of this is to take people on this ride and open their eyes to this rich history of defiance in the face of the rising far right.”
Director Satiyesh Manoharajah adds:
“One of the things that’s so interesting is that these look like unassuming uncles and aunties, but they were beating up fascists on the street.
“I don’t know where this idea of Asian people being meek comes from.”
“People think we came here, worked hard and kept our heads down and then Rishi Sunak became prime minister.
“But in the middle, there was a lot of pain, and people had to fight for their lives. They did fight and they won.
“We know all about Martin Luther King and the movements in America – but this was our civil rights movement here in Britain.”
All three episodes of Defiance: Fighting the Far Right are available on My4.
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