Sunny Hundal

Sunny Hundal (born 1977) is a British journalist, blogger and academic.

Born in London to Sikh parents of Indian origin, Hundal has a degree in Economics from Brunel University. He is best known as the founder and editor of the centre-left group blog Liberal Conspiracy. The Guardian's Comment is Free website named him as their blogger of the year in 2006.[1] Hundal has also written for publications including The Guardian, The Financial Times and The Independent. He is currently a journalist-in-residence at Kingston University. [2]

Projects

Hundal has founded and edited a number of politically progressive websites: Liberal Conspiracy,[3] a group weblog about politics and media, Asians in Media,[4] Barfi Culture community websites,[5] the Pickled Politics weblog,[6] and the New Generation Network in 2006, a group and manifesto that attempted to challenge the current discourse on race relations in the UK. All these have been wound up.

In February 2007 he made a BBC radio documentary Lost in Translation about Asian brides brought to the UK.[7] The BBC also quoted his claim that Shahrukh Khan's endorsement of skin-lightening creams was "completely immoral".[8]

Political stances

In 2008, he wrote a blog post saying that non-white voters should consider voting Conservative, on the basis that "brown people" were being deliberately targeted by anti-terrorism legislation brought in by the New Labour government of Gordon Brown.[9] In 2010, on his Liberal Conspiracy blog, he backed the Liberal Democrats in the UK General Election.[10]

About three months after the formation of the Coalition Government, Hundal joined the Labour Party in order to influence its political direction.[11] In August 2010 Hundal backed Ed Miliband in the Labour leadership election.[12]

Hundal has criticised various religious organisations including the Islamist Hizb ut-Tahrir,[13][14] the Muslim Council of Britain,[15] Muslim Public Affairs Committee UK,[15] Christian Concern For Our Nation,[14] Sikh Federation[16] and Hindu Forum of Britain.[16] He has been awarded the Fourth IRDS Awards for Print Media for fighting against religious obscurantism, awarded by the Lucknow-based Institute for Research and Documentation in Social Sciences (IRDS).[17]

In 2014 he defended the Tricycle Theatre's decision to boycott the UK Jewish Film Festival as a result of a £1,400 donation the festival received from the Israeli Embassy.[18]

A vegetarian, he describes himself as a strong environmentalist.[19]

References

  1. ↑ Blogger of the year at Comment is free on The Guardian
  2. ↑ http://fass.kingston.ac.uk/activities/item.php?updatenum=2565
  3. ↑ Liberal Conspiracy
  4. ↑ About AiM at Asians in Media magazine
  5. ↑ About Barfi Culture at Barfi Culture
  6. ↑ Contributors at Pickled Politics
  7. ↑ Lost in Translation, 26 Feb 2007, BBC Asian Network
  8. ↑ Beyond the pale?, 25 Sept 2007, BBC News
  9. ↑ It’s time for brown people to switch to Tory, 16 June 2008, Pickled Politics
  10. ↑ "The Guardian endorses the Lib Dems and I'm with them", Liberal Conspiracy, 1 May 2010
  11. ↑ "Why I’ve decided to join the Labour party", Liberal Conspiracy, 16 August 2010
  12. ↑ "Why I think Ed Miliband is the right person to lead the Labour party", Liberal Conspiracy, 23 August 2010
  13. ↑ Sunny Hundal "The enemy within", The Guardian (Comment is Free), 1 April 2007
  14. 1 2 Sunny Hundal "Fundamentally flawed", The Guardian (Comment is Free), 21 May 2008
  15. 1 2 Sunny Hundal "Stop whining!", The Guardian, (Comment is Free), 9 June 2006
  16. 1 2 Sunny Hundal "The tables have turned", The Guardian (Comment is Free), 2 November 2007
  17. ↑ IRDS Award Winners 2013, Institute for Research and Documentation in Social Sciences
  18. ↑ Hundal, Sunny; Cohen, Nick (9 August 2014). "Was the Tricycle theatre right to ask the UK Jewish film festival to 'reconsider' its funding?". The Guardian. Retrieved 13 October 2015.
  19. ↑ Introducing guest blogger Sunny Hundal, The f word (feminist blog), 18 January 2009
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