Welcome to the History Extra podcast, fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History Magazine.

The UK is currently marking South Asian Heritage Month, with a particular focus this year

on journeys, migration and movement.

But what's the value of such themed months? And are there stories from South Asia that are still

being overlooked? Matt Elton assembled a panel of three expert historians, Shalina Patel,

Samita Mukherjee, and Shraveni Basu to find out.

We are currently marking South Asian Heritage Month and I'm delighted to say that I'm joined by

a really excellent panel today to discuss some of the issues and some of the histories related

to this. So before we go any further, if you could all introduce yourself. Hi, I'm Shalina Patel. I'm a

history teacher by day in a secondary school in Northwest London, and I'm also the author of the

history lessons. I'm Samisa Mikigji. I'm Professor of Modern History at the University of

Bristol. I work on the histories of South Asian migration to Britain. Hi, I'm Shrabini Basu. I'm a

journalist and an author and I like to write about the hidden stories between India and Britain.

It's really nice for all to be here. Thank you so much for joining me today. I wanted to first of all

talk a little bit about what you think the value is of marking

South Asian Heritage Month. Do you think this kind of specific history month is generally a good

thing? Do you think it comes as any problems? So I think one of the key things really is

when we think about a history, a dedicated month to a certain type of history, I think we all

think about Black History Month, right? And I think it's really important to remember that Black History Month was

started in the UK, certainly in 1987. And it was kind of created at a time when there was a real

huge absence of understanding about Black history. And so that was kind of the point of the month

then to kind of really raise awareness for that. And now, when you think kind of fast forward, you know, 30 plus years later, you've got groups that I work with, for example, like the black curriculum, who are now advocating for Black History 365, right? So for this idea that actually Black History shouldn't be, as they see, kind of relegated to a month, but it should be something that's integrated all year round. And so if we think about that journey that Black History Month has

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