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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