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Kahin aap, Kahin hum
As Indians and Pakistanis across the world celebrate their independence from British rule this week, an Indian-origin writer in Norway explores Southasian identity in this Scandinavian country, and how new immigrants and the second-generation navigate complex intersections of belonging, solidarity, and challenges.
It’s not every day that Bollywood icon Shahrukh Khan finds himself eclipsed – and that too by a Norwegian-Pakistani actor and producer. This happened in the 1990s when he was shooting for the film ‘Badshah’ in Norway.
Nasrullah Qureshi was the line producer for the film’s songs shot in Norway, where his family had migrated in 1976 when he was 14.
While traveling for the film shoot, the team took a break at a gas station.
“A bus full of children was passing by, and came over to take pictures with me,” recalled Qureshi.
Shahrukh Khan was amused at not being recognized.
‘Kahin aap, Kahin hum,’ Qureshi told Khan – ‘In some places, it’s you. In others, it’s us.’
Southasianism
Qureshi’s stints on Norwegian television include the role of Khalid Shah in the popular family TV series ‘De Syv Søstre’ (The Seven Sisters) that aired from 1996 to 2000. For the past 23 years, he has run the Bollywood Festival to packed audiences, primarily in Lørenskog, near Oslo.
“Urdu, Hindi and Punjabi become shared languages among us,” said Qureshi of Southasianism in Norway.
Despite some shared languages, Southasians have not become a coherent unit of identification in Norway. However, Norwegian media are increasingly noticing this otherwise near-invisible community.
Besides individuals like Nasrullah Qureshi, some ‘desi’ origin groups have established a global presence with a distinctly Norwegian flavour, like the rap duo, Karpe. One of its two members is Chirag Rashmikant Patel, of Indian and Ugandan origin.
Another is the hip hop dance troupe, Quick Style, founded by Norwegian-Pakistani twins whose wedding dance video went viral in 2022. They continue to influence reel trends.
Migration to Norway
When Southasians began migrating to Norway in the 1970s, looking for skilled and unskilled work in better conditions, Pakistanis led the move. Norwegians relate with this community the most among Southasians, and immigrants in general.
Indians also began migrating here around the same time, followed by Sri Lankan Tamils seeking refuge from the civil war (1983-2009). Afghans also sought asylum, even as many were turned away. Bangladeshis and Nepalis, at least in significant numbers, came later. The Maldives and Bhutan have an even more limited presence here.
By the end of 2024, immigrants comprised a little more than 17% of Norway’s 5.5 million population, of which 5% are from Asia.
Norwegian South Asians -A public presence
“Norway seemed culturally homogenous in the 1970s,” said global development and technology expert Anantha Krishnan, who was in his 20s when he moved here from Kanyakumari and Mumbai, India, where he was born and grew up.
A civil servant and activist who organizes students and workers, building anti-racist collectives and transnational solidarity, he told Sapan News that Southasian presence is more visible in Norway today. “There is a growing sense of solidarity rooted in lived experiences of migration, racism, and identity negotiation.”
Several figures have contributed to this public presence, particularly through political interventions. They include Pakistan-born human rights activist Fakhra Salimi who set up the MiRA Resource Centre for Black, Immigrant and Refugee Women in Oslo in 1989. Academic, activist, and artist Farida Ahmadi from Afghanistan found symptoms of the same malaise haunting women in Afghanistan and in Norway, which she publicized.
Several Norwegian Southasians have also gained prominence in the literary field. The words of best-selling novelist Zeshan Shakar, raised by a Norwegian mother and Pakistani father, speak to the lives of second-generation Southasians of Norway.
Norwegian-Japanese-Sri Lankan Tamil author and journalist Yohan Shanmugaratnam, who writes for Norway’s left newspaper, Klassekampen, addresses the intersection of politics, culture, and history, bringing together issues of ‘race and roots’ in his non-fiction books.
The most famous Norwegian-Southasians are, possibly, the politicians Kamzy Gunaratnam, of Sri Lankan Tamil lineage, Arvinn Eikeland Gadgil, part Indian origin, and Hadia Tajik and Abid Qayyum Raja, of Pakistani descent.
Khriezomeno, who hails from Northeast India and goes by one name, is an advisor to international students. She was 16 when she moved with her sister and mother from Kohima in Nagaland to Tromsø in Norway, more than 200 miles above the Arctic Circle. It was here, through the work of Sámi rights’ activists, that she connected to her ‘Indigenous roots’. This, and Norway’s free healthcare, and education and work opportunities, helped her settle here.
For 29-year-old Jisha (name changed on request), born in Norway, similar guarantees of freedom and equality are reasons to celebrate. Growing up in a Sri Lankan Tamil household in Oslo, she attended a Tamil language school every Saturday, building long friendships within the community.
Biryani or pizza?
At her regular school, Southasian students “bonded over our strict rules of going straight to school and back home and Shahrukh Khan movies,” she said. And, of course, biryani at birthday parties over pizza. Yet, she will also stand up for famous local brands like Peppe’s Pizza and Kvik Lunsj alongside her fellow Norwegians.
But shared identities do not always emerge even where there is biryani. They need to be organized, through events like the annual Mela Festival in Oslo, started in 2001. The Bangladeshi community in Tromsø hosted celebrations of International Mother Language Day (IMLD) on 21 February in 2019 and 2020, hoping to continue them annually. They brought people from across the world, not just Southasians, together. Their Eid celebrations are famous for biryani.
“We tried to organize these events, but COVID-19 restrictions and a continuously floating population put an end to IMLD,” said Sharmin Jahan, who moved to Tromsø with her husband in 2015, at age 28.
Having graduated from Dhaka National University, she studied fisheries management at UiT, The Arctic University of Norway. She is now a mother language teacher for Bengali students who moved to Norway at five years old. The policy is designed to assist students in integrating better into the Norwegian schooling system. Similarly, university employees and students can access free adult language education.
“Learning Norwegian is essential if we want to live here for the long term,” said 30-year-old Binod Baniya. Now a senior engineer at the UiT’s Department of Information Technology, he came to Tromsø from Pokhara, Nepal in 2021 as a Master’s student in computer science, drawn by Norway’s free higher education provided, even to foreigners at the time.
Norway’s introduction of tuition fees for students outside the European Union in 2023 led to an 80% drop in international student attendance. In June this year, the government decided to allow universities to set their own fees for international students.
But with each community organising its own festivals, Southasianism remains elusive.
“Southasians don’t cooperate on anything,” noted Baniya who often celebrates festivals like Dashain with his Nepali community.
For new immigrants, Norwegianism is also elusive. Norwegians are notoriously specific about how they socialize.
“My daughter’s friend’s parents wanted to socialize with us on weekends, but I had to work during weekends, so we never formed a deep relationship with them,” said Alia (name changed on request), a Southasian mother in Tromsø.
“Socializing is a highly coded activity in Norway,” admitted Theodor Sandal Rolfsen, a kindergarten worker in Oslo. Growing up in 1990s Oslo meant associating Asians with Chinese, Koreans or Japanese, till it became more common to mingle with the Pakistanis. If you cannot ski, play football and piano, or afford to take your children to three different activities after school and participate in volunteering, it’s hard to belong to the social milieu. This seeps both into parent-to-parent relations, and into children-to-children relations, explained Rolfsen.
Barriers and ‘non-discrimination’
A weak collective and media presence, loose social networks, and continued bullying of ‘melanin-rich’ or children of colour in the classroom leave Southasians, particularly new immigrants, in a limbo, There are also other factors, like barriers to adult language learning – not enough courses to handle the increased need and inability to devote time to learning the language alongside jobs..
Even as Norwegian media often highlight racism, immigrant children continue to come home with pleas for help, or report quickly losing friends. Sapan News learned from parents that children complain of peers calling them ‘skitne’ (dirty) and teachers treating them unfairly. In 2024, the Norwegian Directorate for Children, Youth and Family Affairs reported discrimination of ‘people with a minority background.’
For second-generation Norwegian-Southasians, representation and historical recognition still come through association with the term ‘immigrant’.
Some wonder when they will stop being immigrants. While categorical identification helps fill job quotas, the equality and anti-discrimination policies pit first-time immigrants against second-generation Southasians and others who are unable to master the Norwegian language as adults. Simultaneously, it keeps intact the distinction between ‘ethnic’ (white) and other Norwegians.
Accordingly, and as part of job applications, many employers ask applicants to check off relevant boxes to be considered part of a certain minority. The burden of wanting to be considered part of the immigrant background quota is strangely on the applicant. The company says they will ensure one person from each category is called in for an interview to ensure non-discrimination. However, it has been reported that immigrants, no matter which generation, are being discriminated against in Norway based on their names. Job applicants from Southasia, Africa, and West Asia/Middle East are reported to be among the most discriminated.
But it’s not just race. “We are in the university system so people at least try to talk to us. It’s a pity for those identified as refugees,” observed Alia, who felt that class is an even bigger factor of exclusion, not just for Norwegians, but also Southasians.
And where there are Southasians, there is caste. “They may not pack spices in their bags when they come here, but they will pack caste,” Ari Gautier, a Franco-Dalit poet and writer from Pondicherry, told Sapan News.
“I am a proud Dalit,” added Gautier, who moved to Norway in 2005 at age 40.
While Norway’s equal rights regime largely stifles caste, this social construct continues to lurk as a Southasian export.
For young Norwegians of Southasian origin, said Krishnan, religion has also become an increasingly prominent identity, overshadowing national and linguistic affiliations. This was not so for Southasian migrants of the 70s and 80s who “brought with them a clear understanding of structural injustice. This enabled them to identify and challenge institutional racism and discrimination in the Norwegian context.”
Today, some among the second and third generation Southasian youth are caught between loyalty, identity, and patriotism, even as others rally against narrow forms of nationalism, for resistance and self-reflection.
With Southasianism hard to build in Southasia itself, the diaspora must become “important actors in the pursuit of justice, sustainability, and global solidarity,” asserts Krishnan.