Jasvinder Sanghera

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

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For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.

Presenter0:34

My Castaway this week is the writer and campaigner Jasvinda Sangera.

Presenter0:39

She has counselled government and travelled widely, advising on how to put a stop to forced marriage and so called honour violence. She speaks powerfully and she speaks from experience. Brought up in Derby, her dad, a Sikh, worked at the local foundrig and enjoyed a few of the local traditions with it. He had an allotment and shared the odd pint with friends. However, at fourteen Jasvinder was shown a picture of the stranger thousands of miles away that she was to marry, and in the face of constant intimidation she fled her family, chose her own husband's and gained a first class degree. Her books have shone a piercing light on the veiled world of shame, brutality and coercion that some young women endure, whilst the pioneering charity she set up and runs offers refuge and practical help.

Presenter1:26

She says, My life has had to take paths where responsibility was the key thing. Now I'm at a point in my life where I'm more content than I've ever been. I've reconciled the disownment. So, uh, Jasvinder, your work as a campaigner has been recognized by a number of awards, it should be said. Um, Cosmopolitan Woman of the Year, that was in twenty ten, Pride of Britain Award in two thousand nine, Woman of the Year Award in two thousand seven. I'm sure they're all important to you, but I'm wondering if there's

Presenter1:52

One that stands out particularly.

Jasvinder Sanghera1:54

For me, the one that stands out more than any of them would be the Pride of Britain Award because.

Jasvinder Sanghera2:00

I always make the point I was born here in England. England is my home.

Jasvinder Sanghera2:05

And what Britain gives you is independence and freedom, and to be recognized as being part of Britain is extremely important to me. Cool.

Presenter2:12

Pharma Nirvana is the name of the charity that you have set up, and it's focussed on reducing what are colloquially known as honour crimes. If you could sum them up for our listeners, how would you sum up those crimes?

Jasvinder Sanghera2:24

Crimes of honour are rooted within a family that operates a system whereby they control their daughters, as I was, into behaviours where they do not wish you to bring shame or dishonour on them. So the kind of things that we were not allowed to do that were deemed as dishonourable were things like integrating in wider British society, dating, wearing makeup, cutting your hair, exploring your sexuality. And if you did them, you were at risk of being harmed, forced into a marriage. And indeed, today we know here in Britain there are murders which are deemed honour killings. I respect and absolutely embrace lots of wonderful things about my culture and my tradition. I respect arranged marriages where there is consent, but you cannot accept what clearly is abuse.

Presenter3:11

When you deal, as you constantly do, with hundreds of young women, and indeed sometimes men, who contact your organization, how much does your own personal experience factor in the kind of advice that you give these young women?

Jasvinder Sanghera3:25

I think my personal experience is a key factor. It has to be because it's what forms me, and it it's what forms the organization and sharing that experience inspires people and gives them courage as well. Once upon a time it was something I did because it was my coping strategy. Today it's a very different energy and I absolutely love doing it. Tell me about the first track then. What are we going to hear? The first track is a Bungra track by Abbanasen Geet.

Jasvinder Sanghera3:55

Any Bangara track for me reminds me of my father, my heritage, all the wonderful things about being an Indian girl here in Britain with a Sikh heritage. And as one who was rejected by her family, it's so important to remember the good times.

Speaker 34:18

Oh, they be chibi hida habito is all the hair.

Speaker 34:23

Oh there is a beat up.

Speaker 34:27

Eh, Mitako Isaje, Kali Dildi Da Sakole O de China.

Presenter4:42

Mira Yarba Jigdoll, sung there by Apna Sangeet. Um, Sir Jasmine, you were born in nineteen sixty five, seven sisters and one brother. You were the second youngest. Can you paint me a picture of what I imagine was an incredibly busy household?

Jasvinder Sanghera4:56

Yes, my sisters, four of us in total, all shared one big double bed, two at the top, two at the bottom.

Jasvinder Sanghera5:02

Growing up I also remember having to do household chores from the age of eight and learning that when men visited the house we sat in one room, the men sat in the other room, but we would serve the men. My brother had a very different life. He had his own bedroom. He went to a better school than what we went to. We were chaperoned to the shops and back and even to school and back. And he had far more freedom and independence. My brother was dating young white women from a very young age.

Presenter5:33

You were categorised by your mother as the difficult one, were you?

Jasvinder Sanghera5:36

Yeah. I was. I was the one my mother used to say um was the rebel because I was born upside down. Right from birth she said I was difficult and

Jasvinder Sanghera5:46

My mother used to remind us that she was cursed because she had seven daughters, because there was an expense attached to having daughters. And people would look upon her and feel sorry for her, and I would hear that growing up. Did you only speak English at school?

Jasvinder Sanghera6:02

Yes, my mother and father didn't speak English, so when we came home we spoke fluent Punjabi. How were you getting on in school? I was doing very well. I absolutely loved school. I loved English reading. I loved RE, not very good at maths, but hey. But, you know, we were never encouraged to do our school work. I remember my mother used to say to me, The only reason why I send you to school is it's because it is the law.

Presenter6:29

Now, like so many of us in the eighties, you made the appalling decision to get a perm, but for you the consequences were much greater than just severe embarrassment. Tell me what happened.

Jasvinder Sanghera6:37

Somehow I believed I could get away with having my hair cut and permed. And when we had hair we could sit on, that's how long it was. And one day I made an excuse to go out and I went to the hairdressers. All my friends were having their hair permed.

Jasvinder Sanghera6:53

And as the hairdresser was cutting it I was envisaging my mother's face, but equally I was extremely excited at the fact that I was having this perm.

Jasvinder Sanghera7:03

And I went home.

Jasvinder Sanghera7:04

put a tile on my head as if I had just washed my hair, thinking I could get away with it, until my mother knocked the tile off my head and then that was it. She screamed at me, hit me, and I was sent to my sister's house in London until my hair grew back. Let's have some more music then. What are we going to hear now, Jazzwinder?

Presenter7:22

Yeah.

Jasvinder Sanghera7:23

Within our household we were not encouraged to listen to any Western music. My mother would get angry at us watching Top of the Pops. But my brother was a huge Bob Marley fan. And you know, you could hear Bob Marley blaring through the house because he was indeed a light to listen to his music. And my father used to drive us to school every morning.

Jasvinder Sanghera7:44

And on the way to school he would be singing Jamming in the car, the Bob Moyley track. He didn't know any other line bar the one word jamming.

Speaker 47:54

Watch out, man.

Speaker 47:59

I wanna jam it with you.

Speaker 48:02

What time?

Speaker 48:04

Jama

Speaker 48:06

Then I hope you like Tim and True

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We can do it anyhow.

Speaker 48:14

I and I will see you through

Speaker 48:17

Cause every day we pay the price We're delivering sacrifice

Presenter8:24

That was Bob Marley and Jammin. So, Jaswinder, you were fourteen then, I said in the introduction, when it was your mother, was you who was it who showed you this picture of the man that you were due to marry?

Jasvinder Sanghera8:30

When we

Jasvinder Sanghera8:35

My mother sat me down one day when I came home from school, and she presented me with a photograph that I was to learn was the man I was to marry, and I was promised to him from the age of eight. I had witnessed my sisters being taken out of British schools, taken abroad, and entering into marriages, so I knew it was imminent.

Jasvinder Sanghera8:54

And so your mother showed you the photograph?

Presenter8:55

We already know that she had you pegged as the unruly, disruptive daughter. What was your immediate reaction to her face to face?

Jasvinder Sanghera9:03

My immediate reaction was, I'm not marrying this man, and it just came out, and I said that to my mother. And she humoured me, smiled at me, she said she would put the picture on the mantelpiece and I'll get to like it over time.

Jasvinder Sanghera9:18

And I said, Mum, no, I want to do my G C S you know, I want to finish school. Dare I say, go to college For me It was the thought of being with somebody from India whom I had no connection with whatsoever. I was not going to do that.

Presenter9:33

So you decide that it is not going to happen to you. Can you tell me what happened in the months after that?

Jasvinder Sanghera9:39

Well, I went back to school and the challenge really happened when I was almost fifteen and a half, because that was when my family were making decisions. Sixteen leave school, she can go to India now.

Jasvinder Sanghera9:52

And that's when I protested more so. My family took me out of school, I was held.

Jasvinder Sanghera9:56

in my bedroom at home with a lock on the outside of the door until I agreed to the marriage.

Presenter10:02

Practicalities, things like meals and getting washed and all of the things we all need to do. What happens when you were locked in the bedroom? Were you let out?

Jasvinder Sanghera10:08

Were you let out to do those things? Well, somebody was always watching the door and I had to knock on the door and food would be brought to my door. What was going through your head? Desperation, isolation, thoughts of suicide.

Jasvinder Sanghera10:23

thoughts of wanting to escape, but didn't know how to.

Jasvinder Sanghera10:27

Really felt like I had no choice but to go through with the marriage.

Presenter10:31

You managed one night to run away from home. How did you manage that?

Jasvinder Sanghera10:35

Because I had agreed to the marriage, they unlocked the door, and I was allowed some freedom.

Jasvinder Sanghera10:41

And that was when I planned my escape with my best friend, and her brother said he would help me, and I just saw an opportunity whereby the front door was open, and I ran.

Jasvinder Sanghera10:52

and I sat outside his place of work in Derby until he came out, and then I begged him to please take me now, and I hoped that by running away from home my parents would see sense and they would say It's okay, you don't have to marry him come back home.

Presenter11:09

Let's have some more music then, Jess Vender. What is it and why have you chosen it?

Jasvinder Sanghera11:13

I have chosen Stevie Wonder Part-Time Lover because it was the first vinyl LP I ever listened to and the music just lifted me and made me feel that I was actually living part of my adolescence and youth when really I wasn't but it made me feel alive.

Speaker 411:32

Call up ring mom, hang up the phone To let me know you made it home Don't want nothing to be wrong

Speaker 411:40

Fun time lover

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It is with me, I'll paint the lights to let you know tonight's the night for me and you.

Speaker 411:51

My part-time lover

Speaker 411:56

I'm the first time on the rock

Speaker 412:00

Chase in love.

Presenter12:02

Stevie Wonder and part-time lover. So I wonder, Jaswinda Singer, when did you actually make contact with your parents again? You you'd run away and you'd run away with your boyfriend, you'd gone to Newcastle. What did you do? You called them?

Jasvinder Sanghera12:11

It continues.

Jasvinder Sanghera12:14

No, I was reported missing to the police. My parents reported me missing, and I was tracked down by the police. So almost thirty two years ago, here was an officer presented with this young teenager, crying her eyes out, begging him not to send her back home because she was being forced to marry.

Jasvinder Sanghera12:33

And he believed me, and he he reassured me that he would not tell my family where I was on the condition that I rang home.

Jasvinder Sanghera12:41

and told my family I was safe and well.

Jasvinder Sanghera12:44

And I miss my family dreadfully. I wanted to go back home, so I rang home in a payphone up north.

Jasvinder Sanghera12:51

And my mother answered the phone.

Jasvinder Sanghera12:53

And I said it's me, mum.

Jasvinder Sanghera12:55

I don't want to marry that man. And she said, You come home and marry who we say, or from this day forward you are dead in our eyes.

Jasvinder Sanghera13:06

And I never for one minute anticipated that response. And she was very clear about that. And she told me that I was equal to a prostitute for having running away. I dishonoured the family. She couldn't put her head up any more. People spat at her in the street from our own community.

Jasvinder Sanghera13:27

that I had done this to her.

Jasvinder Sanghera13:29

And she made me feel as if I had betrayed them and I was the perpetrator and not the victim.

Presenter13:37

You've written and spoken very thoughtfully about the other side of leaving home, which was you know you missed the smell of the spiced tea as it was bubbling all the time on on the cooker and your mother sitting there chopping all the onions in the sitting room because it was the only place where there was space to do that.

Jasvinder Sanghera13:42

Spiced tea as it was bubbled.

Speaker 413:43

Yeah.

Speaker 413:45

Well

Speaker 413:48

Sitting room

Presenter13:51

Things are not black and white, are they? Things are not simple because there can be pools to home on the one hand, and yet the knowledge on the other hand that it's not the best thing for you. That must have been.

Jasvinder Sanghera13:55

Mm-hmm.

Presenter14:01

Very difficult to do.

Jasvinder Sanghera14:02

Absolutely. The the pressure to go back home was always there, always present. You miss home. You know, home is all you know. I miss my family. I love my family dearly. I miss my heritage. I miss sharing the Wali festivals, the food, the music, the clothes, everything.

Jasvinder Sanghera14:19

But I knew that if I went back I would have to marry that man.

Presenter14:24

Through all of those years, from from running away to then making a life for yourself, making relationships for yourself, getting yourself to university. In the last year of university you were pregnant, getting your first class

Presenter14:37

Degree, how much contact had there been between you and your family? You know, when somebody is disowned, does that mean literally all ties are cut?

Jasvinder Sanghera14:41

Is that

Presenter14:44

Or were you sending them you were sending them things, yes.

Jasvinder Sanghera14:47

One of the things I continued to do was write cards for them, write letters, send photographs of my children. And I have to say sometimes my family did engage with me, but it was always on their terms. For example, I was not I was told categorically I was not allowed to attend funerals. You know, that was difficult to hear about things that had happened in the family that you couldn't be a part of anymore.

Jasvinder Sanghera15:10

But I was happy with the little bits that they gave me, because for me it was better than nothing.

Presenter15:17

Let's have some more music then, Jess Vinder. It's time for your fourth piece of music. What are we going to hear?

Jasvinder Sanghera15:22

I've chosen REM Losing My Religion because this was a track that was around when I was at university and I was always the mature student in class and I had responsibilities of children and there's the feeling of I was at university but I didn't really have a university life.

Speaker 415:41

Oh life.

Speaker 415:45

It's bigger.

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It's bigger than you, and you are not me.

Speaker 415:53

The links that I will go to

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Distance and you rise

Speaker 416:03

Oh no, I've said too much

Presenter16:07

That's

Presenter16:09

I set it up.

Presenter16:11

That was REM and Losing My Religion. Can we talk just for a minute, Jasvinga, about this idea of shame? You've talked about it a lot. You know, your mother saying to you, you're bringing shame upon the family, you bring shame into the community, people spit at me in the streets. What is it that is considered what was it that was considered shameful about the idea that you might get a good education and choose your own husband?

Jasvinder Sanghera16:33

Well, my mother lived her whole life trying to gain the acceptance of people in her community, the Sikh community, and not just here in England, but also abroad. And that was linked

Jasvinder Sanghera16:48

To how her daughters behaved. In her mind, it was honourable for her daughters to be married at a very young age within this arranged marriage, and people in her community thought the same way. And from a young age, I remember her teaching us how to cook chapatis. She said, No child of mine is going to leave this house and become a daughter-in-law and not make ran chapatis. She was almost grooming us to become these dutiful daughter-in-laws in a way.

Presenter17:19

And you've written beautifully. You paint these incredibly evocative little scenes from your childhood of glimpsing your father while he was grouped with friends, kind of sharing a can of beer and having the odd cigarette, and he seemed to assimilate happily. Is is that fair?

Jasvinder Sanghera17:27

Kind of share.

Jasvinder Sanghera17:28

And having the odd cigarette and

Jasvinder Sanghera17:33

It absolutely is fair to say that. And you know, he was this gentle, kind man who used to smile at us and used to say, Oh, don't worry about her, meaning my mother and in a way

Jasvinder Sanghera17:44

I felt as if my father was a victim, because my mother was the one that was upholding these systems and the most difficult thing for me was when I turned to my father for help and he couldn't help me.

Jasvinder Sanghera17:57

When my father died

Jasvinder Sanghera17:59

He actually made me an executor of his will, which I was absolutely shocked by. So here I was

Jasvinder Sanghera18:07

Kise's house went into his house.

Jasvinder Sanghera18:11

and in the bedroom, in the corner on the wall,

Jasvinder Sanghera18:14

He had put my graduation picture in a frame.

Jasvinder Sanghera18:18

But he couldn't speak that when he was alive.

Jasvinder Sanghera18:21

But it meant so much to me to see it there, because I know he had a sense of pride for me, even if he wasn't able to express that. Tell me about your sister

Jasvinder Sanghera18:33

Rubina

Jasvinder Sanghera18:34

was taken out of education when she was fifteen years old.

Jasvinder Sanghera18:38

And taken abroad, where she was married to a man. And when I was disowned by my family, she would speak to me in secret. My sister suffered a horrific marriage, but she left her husband and was allowed to marry the man she wanted to marry. But within that marriage, she suffered domestic violence. And I said to her, Come to me, I'll protect you. And she would say,

Jasvinder Sanghera19:03

That's easy for you to say, because you don't have to think about what people think about honour, about mum, about dad. Who sent her back and told her it was her duty to uphold the family's honour to make this marriage work? And she was absolutely right, because I was disowned. In the end, my sister sadly took her own life. She set herself on fire. I went to my mother in mourning and was told that I was not allowed to show my face at the funeral or come to the house when it was daylight, because people would see me.

Jasvinder Sanghera19:38

And for me that was a turning point, because I naively believed that to lose a daughter in such a horrific way would actually soften my mother's heart, would actually it reinforced my disownment.

Presenter19:53

We're going to take a break for some music. Um what are we going to hear now?

Jasvinder Sanghera19:58

We're going to hear Maxwell, this woman's work, because there's a line there that talks about all the things we should have said that we didn't say. I remember being at my mother's bedside when she was dying of cancer, looking at this woman who was weak.

Jasvinder Sanghera20:16

And thinking why, mum?

Jasvinder Sanghera20:18

Why have you wasted all these years behaving as you have?

Jasvinder Sanghera20:23

And my mother's last dying words were, In Punjabi, Rubina, I'm coming to you.

Jasvinder Sanghera20:29

And it's that feeling of regret and how these families can disown their children and miss out on so much life, including my children.

Speaker 420:39

Be crying but I just can't let it show. Should be in the mind, I can't stop thinking of all the things we should have said, that we never said. All the things we should have done, that we never did. All the things we should have given, but I didn't. Oh no.

Presenter21:08

That was Maxwell and this woman's work. It should be said to our listeners, Jessoinda Singeri, that anybody who was to meet you today in any circumstances would meet a woman with a very optimistic look on her face and a surface of energy, and somebody who seems to have a very buoyant disposition, and yet it's been born out of all these difficult times that we've heard about. Tell me about why you were moved to set up your charity. At what point in your life did you think

Presenter21:33

I'm gonna put my energies here.

Jasvinder Sanghera21:35

The turning point for Karma Navana was Rubina's death.

Jasvinder Sanghera21:39

because it was that moment in time that I finally owned that I wasn't the bad guy here, I wasn't the perpetrator, this had been done to me.

Jasvinder Sanghera21:49

and in nineteen ninety three Karma Nirvana was born in my front room.

Presenter21:54

Let's talk for a moment about the idea that we feel that if it is not if it's not a culture that we entirely understand, that we must step back and not step into their communities. Do you think that, that has played an important role on the suffering that a lot of young women have had to go through?

Jasvinder Sanghera22:10

I absolutely do believe that still today plays a significant role in our victims not being believed because some professionals fear the repercussions and the fear of being called a racist. And I remember when I gave evidence to the select committee inquiry on the issue of forced marriages, and Keith Farr's MP chaired it, and he said to me

Jasvinder Sanghera22:33

Jasvindra, are you saying that Asian children missing from education are not afforded the same level of protection as their white counterparts? And I said that is exactly what I'm saying, because it cannot be right that hundreds of young people go missing from our schools and we're not asking where they are and it may be linked to the issue of a marriage.

Presenter22:55

There are, of course, many thousands of happy, healthy Sikh families and within the wider British Asian communities who would listen to what you're saying and say it's an unfair portrayal.

Jasvinder Sanghera22:59

The S and

Presenter23:06

You're saying that these communities are just riven by this upset and this lack of equality in young girls who are suppressed. In fact, it's not that way. In fact, how it is is that communities respect their own traditions.

Jasvinder Sanghera23:13

It's

Presenter23:16

and that it's important for the flourishing of those communities to respect those traditions well.

Jasvinder Sanghera23:19

To respond.

Jasvinder Sanghera23:20

Well, I absolutely accept that, and I am experiencing that now with my daughter's own family that she's married into now. What we have to have regard for is that this is significant abuse within South Asian communities and indeed other communities we see Kurdish, Iranian, traveller communities. And we have to accept that as a community and not be defensive. And where those communities do have the luxury and I call it a luxury of a family because I didn't have that, please stand shoulder to shoulder with people like me and speak out against what are clearly abuses within our community.

Presenter24:00

Let's have some more music then. What are we going to hear now, Jazz Vinder?

Jasvinder Sanghera24:03

Lionel Ritchie and Dinah Ross, Endless Love. The first reasoning is, when I grew up, one of the things we understood to be extremely shameful was dating. You couldn't even talk to a boy.

Jasvinder Sanghera24:15

And I had a secret relationship with a young man, and he was the man I eventually ran away with.

Jasvinder Sanghera24:20

And we have a daughter in common, Natasha, and she danced to this song as her first wedding song and we were both there with pride, with tears in our eyes. It was a reminder of the love we had at that time and also our daughter today having the right to choose whom she wanted to marry because of the decisions we made back then.

Speaker 424:47

Heart See you.

Speaker 424:51

You mean the world to me?

Speaker 424:58

I love I found in you.

Speaker 425:06

My innest love

Presenter25:14

Lionel Ritchie and Diana Ross with Endless Love, and you were saying just as we went into that Jaswinda Singhira that that was an important uh piece of music for you when you were a teenager and first in love, and your daughter Natasha played that as the first dance at her wedding. I'm wondering what your uh kids make of having a campaigner for a mother. That can't always be easy.

Jasvinder Sanghera25:33

No, uh they've grown up with it and they're very proud. I think the risk element has been a concern for my children at times because there are people out there that don't agree with me.

Presenter25:43

What you come under threats and so on, do you? Absolutely.

Jasvinder Sanghera25:45

Absolutely. What sort of threats? I've had threats on the phone, threats to life. I remember once this real threat of being told there was a bomb underneath my car. Human feces made on office windows, notes left on my car. They're the kind of things I think I have to protect my children from.

Presenter26:02

Let's talk for just

Jasvinder Sanghera26:03

Yeah.

Presenter26:03

Yeah. The moment about the case of Shufilia Ahmed. Farzana and Iftakar Ahmed were found guilty last year of murdering their daughter Shufilia. She had been suffocated by them in front of her siblings in two thousand three by having

Jasvinder Sanghera26:05

T

Presenter26:14

a plastic bag forced into her mouth.

Presenter26:17

How significant in the end do you think that prosecution was? The prosecution

Jasvinder Sanghera26:22

is extremely significant because what we have to be mindful of is Shofilia's profile as a victim is a profile of one of many. And the actual sentence sends out a very strong message here in Britain to the people who are perpetuating this kind of abuse.

Presenter26:38

Recent figures from the government's forced marriage unit show that they helped at least two hundred and fifty children, including one as young as two years old, and gave advice to nearly one fifteen hundred people in twenty twelve.

Presenter26:52

Do you feel like you are making significant steps forward?

Jasvinder Sanghera26:55

Absolutely. We actually have a government that supports us. We will see a criminal offence of forced marriage this year. We have a forced marriage unit, a national helpline. We really need to get down into schools now. That's where we're going to prevent this. I hear cases and share platforms of people who've been through forced marriages in the late 90s, 2000 as well. So it was always there. It's just that we haven't been looking for it. And it is significant within South Asian communities.

Presenter27:25

Tell me about your own daughter, Natasha. You said when that last piece of music was on you gave her an important piece of advice when she was thirteen or so that she blithely ignored.

Jasvinder Sanghera27:28

You

Jasvinder Sanghera27:34

I know when a young Asian girl marries an Asian boy, you marry a family.

Jasvinder Sanghera27:39

And I used to say to Natasha from the age of thirteen, Natasha, whatever you do, do not go out with an Asian boy. She used to say to me, Mum, you can't say that. That's racist, mum. And I would say, No, Natasha, as a mum, as a parent, I'm concerned that if you marry that boy, they're going to take it out on you that your mother has disowned. She ran away from home. She married out of caste. She's divorced, etc. Tell me what happened. And as children do, they do the opposite of what you tell them. She fell in love with a young Asian boy in university. He was a beautiful young Asian man who comes from a beautiful family, a family that has encouraged their children to embrace independence. And they're wonderful.

Presenter28:18

Let's have some music then. What are we going to hear now?

Jasvinder Sanghera28:21

My seventh track is Kanye West Jesus Walk.

Jasvinder Sanghera28:25

My family were devout Sikhs. My mother was a devout Sikh woman, and one of the things that she made me believe as a young person was that.

Jasvinder Sanghera28:34

I had to go through with the marriage because it was written within the Guru Granth Sabh, which is the Sikh Bible, and as a young person.

Jasvinder Sanghera28:42

I believe that because you believe what your parents tell you.

Jasvinder Sanghera28:45

But being forced to marry has nothing to do with religion whatsoever. In fact, Sikhism is fundamentally underpinned by equality and compassion. So I learnt that later in my life and in my late twenties I was baptised as a Christian and my faith became the most significant factor in my life because ultimately it taught me how to let go of my family and forgive them. But one of my fears was, and this is the line in the song, I hadn't spoken to God for so long and I was afraid He wouldn't listen to me. So I'd like to play Jesus Walks.

Speaker 429:21

And I don't think there's nothing I can do now to right my wrongs I wanna talk to God but I'm afraid cause me spoken so long God show me the way because the devil's trying to break me down

Speaker 429:38

The only thing that I pray is that my feet don't fail me now And I don't think there's nothing I can do now to break my bones I wanna talk to God but I'ma pray cause we spoken so long

Presenter29:53

Kenya West and Jesus Watts. So, Jez Vinder, what are your ambitions for yourself now? Twenty years running this charity, making sure that funding for the helpline is secure. What next?

Jasvinder Sanghera30:03

Well, I c will continue to campaign.

Jasvinder Sanghera30:07

Who knows? Maybe I will go into politics. I have conviction and that is what politics should be about. So watch this face.

Presenter30:16

Do you think the world is ready? I'm not going to say ten Downing Street, because I may be overshooting the mark. But in politics on the front line, could you see yourself as a

Jasvinder Sanghera30:22

The mark

Jasvinder Sanghera30:25

I I can see myself as a government minister one day. I don't know if I would ever make it to number ten, but I think what the world is ready for is for individuals that are in connection with people in real lives, and that's what politics should be about, the representation of the real lives of people and the honesty to be able to raise your head above the parapet, even if you are not liked. And believe me, I've had twenty years of that.

Presenter30:52

And what about your kids? A m mother to three. What what are your hopes and ambitions for your own children?

Jasvinder Sanghera30:57

Like any parent, you want your children to achieve and aspire their dreams and their independence, to embrace it and to do well in their life.

Jasvinder Sanghera31:06

All three of my children are activists in their own right, you know, and they are very vocal, they are loving, they are kind, they have respect, self-respect and respect for others. They experience the things I never did experience, and my choices in my life I think have given them that. So they don't take that for granted because in a way I think they understand the challenges their mother had to go through in order for them to have that.

Presenter31:34

Let's have your final piece of music then. What are we going to hear?

Jasvinder Sanghera31:37

It is Cat Stevens' moonshadow because I didn't even know Cat Stevens existed until seven years ago.

Jasvinder Sanghera31:44

And I remember being bowled over with his music, so I'm finding new things out even today.

Jasvinder Sanghera31:50

As I'm being followed

Speaker 431:51

Biomo Uh

Jasvinder Sanghera31:53

Uh

Speaker 431:53

Shadow, wound shadow, wound shadow.

Speaker 431:57

Leaping and hopping on a moonshadow Moonshadow, moonshadow.

Speaker 432:05

And if I ever lose my hands, lose my plow, lose my land, oh if I ever lose my

Presenter32:15

I have Oh we

Presenter32:19

Cat Stevens, Moon and Shadow. So, Jazvinda, I'm going to give you the books now. To go to the island, you get the complete works of Shakespeare and the Bible, and you're allowed to take another book. What would you like to take?

Jasvinder Sanghera32:29

I'm going to take the first book I ever read.

Jasvinder Sanghera32:33

The Caged Bird Sings by Mayangelo

Jasvinder Sanghera32:37

and this is an autobiography about her early years, but it really spoke to me personally. The strength of character and the love in that book, and I truly understood why the caged bird sings.

Presenter32:49

Right. We shall give you that book then, and your luxury. What will that be?

Jasvinder Sanghera32:53

Um I don't know if this is a real luxury, but it is to me. My father was a farmer in India, and he came here in nineteen fifty two and he kept an allotment, and I remember he used to bring all the vegetables home, and he used to have a milk chirp

Jasvinder Sanghera33:09

And used to go to our local dairy and bring the milk back to the house, and I have that milk churn at home. When I think about my family and the hurt and the rejection and the pain, that is the one thing that reminds me of all the love that ever existed, and that's so important to embrace in your life. That can be yours then.

Presenter33:27

And if you had to save just one track from the eight that you've chosen, which one track would you save?

Jasvinder Sanghera33:31

It would have to be Mirayar by Apna Singhit.

Presenter33:36

It's yours. Deswinda Singera, thank you very much for letting us hear your Tesla Tyland discs. Thank you.

Presenter34:16

You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio Four website: bbc.co. uk slash radio four.