Some 38 percent of South Asians said they felt only slightly or not at all British, in a poll for BBC Asian Network radio marking the 60th anniversary of the partition of India.

Almost half felt they were not treated as British by white Britons and three-quarters felt their culture was being diluted by living in the kingdom.

More than a third of South Asians surveyed said they agreed that in order to do well in Britain, they needed to be a "coconut" -- a sometimes derogatory term for somebody who is "brown on the outside but white on the inside."

Twelve percent said they considered themselves to be "coconuts."

However, 84 percent of South Asians said they were satisfied with life in Britain and nearly half thought they had more opportunities in Britain than in their countries of ethnic origin.

Half of South Asians and nearly two-thirds of whites surveyed agreed it was too easy for immigrants to enter Britain.

The 2001 census recorded that 2,331,423 people, or four percent of the British population, classified themselves as being Asian or Asian British.

That included 1.8 percent of the population who said they were of Indian origin, 1.3 percent who said they had Pakistani roots and 0.5 percent who said they were of Bangladeshi origin.

Pollsters ICM Research conducted nation-wide telephone interviews with 500 people describing themselves as Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi or Sri Lankan aged 16 to 34, and 235 white people aged 18 to 34.