Admirers say if there were some way of summarising Lord Parekh's core belief, it would highlight his focus on the 'other'. Whether he is talking about whites and blacks, rich and poor, Israelis and Palestinians, he is always careful to emphasise the importance of listening to all points of view, paying particular attention to those who are not necessarily part of the mainstream, majority consensus.

How much of this holistic approach is imbibed from Lord Parekh's ancestry — he comes from the same state in India as Mahatma Gandhi — and how much of it is the result of intellectual introspection is an open question. But there is no question that the wider world has benefited from its application.

Lord Parekh has been from the start something of a prodigy. He was born in the village of Amalsad in 1935, where his father, a goldsmith by vocation, was described as a man with 'basic' education. Undeterred by any absence of intellectual tradition in his immediate home environment, he excelled at school and graduated at 19 with a Bachelor's degree from the University of Bombay. At 21 he obtained a Master's degree before leaving for the UK, where he received his PhD from the London School of Economics.

Later he taught at the LSE and the universities of Glasgow and Hull, combining these appointments with visiting professorships at British Columbia, Concordia and McGill in Canada, as well as Harvard, the Institute of Advanced Study in Vienna, the University of Pompeu Frabra in Barcelona, Pennsylvania and France's Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. Between 1981 and 1984 he was Vice Chancellor at the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda in India.

Although Bhikhu Parekh likes to describe himself as a Professor of Political Theory, he is much more than that. A regular participant in relevant radio and television programmes, he was an active participant in a UK government-appointed inquiry into the educational problems of ethnic minority children. Between 1985 and 1990 he served as Deputy Chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality.

Some of Lord Parekh's significant contributions to contemporary political discourse are embodied in his thoughts about how to foster a multicultural society in a country like Britain.

In an influential essay published five years ago, he took an issue with both the assimilationists and the integrationists. The assimilationists argue that a stable society has to be underpinned by a common national culture that some immigrants find difficult to embrace. Integrationists accept immigrants as a fact of life, but require loyalty, participation and acculturation as the quid pro quo for not excluding them from the mainstream.
'The integrationist approach suffers from several limitations, many of which it shares with assmiliationism', Lord Parekh wrote in Prospect magazine. 'The onus to integrate is always on the immigrants, so is the blame for their failure to do so.'

Integrationist logic, he pointed out, also requires a society either to avoid 'difficult' immigrants or subject them to a harsher regime of control. Thus black, Muslim and other so-called 'inferior' immigrants are seen as a problem in ways that others are not.

'No one cares or even notices whether the Americans or even the Japanese immigrants to Europe marry only among themselves, lead socially and culturally self-contained lives or retain close ties with their countries of origin, but great anxiety is expressed in relation to the inferiorised or “less desirable” groups.
'Muslims are accused of inadequate loyalty if they fail to issue loud and unambiguous condemnation of Islamic terrorism in distant parts of the world, but no such demands are or were made of Irish immigrants in relation to IRA terrorism…'

What is required, Lord Parekh pointed out, is a sensible response at several levels, including an immigration and asylum policy that is fair, transparent, coherent, publicly debated and consensually grounded. In conclusion, he observed, there is a reasonable chance for multicultural societies to succeed 'if we accept cultural diversity as an ineliminable and valuable part of human life and devise imaginative ways of forging social unity out of it'.

Besides highlighting the often unequal treatment meted out to non-white immigrants, Bhikhu Parekh in his personal life has been something of a trailblazer in showing how it is possible to be loyal to one's country of adoption while retaining close ties with one's ancestral homeland.

Thus Professor Lord Parekh has managed to retain the affection and respect of friends and colleagues in the UK, while keeping alive his links to India. A Professor's job in the UK did not preclude or prevent him from accepting a Vice Chancellor's post at an Indian university. Being a member of the House of Lords did not restrict his regular trips to India, where he has participated in political debates about the future of that country.

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