The South Asian Association (SAA) plans to call for an apology from the publishers of The Unofficial Guide to Life at Harvard for the use of the word “Paki” in a nightclub description.

Short for Pakistani, “right-wing politicians and white gangs” in Britain coined the term in response to substantial South Asian immigration after World War II, said Ali S. Asani, professor of the practice of Indo-Muslim Languages and Culture.

The slur was used indiscriminately to denigrate South Asians in general, a practice that Asani said is becoming more common in the United States.

“It’s like the term ‘nigger,’ you wouldn’t use that term,” Asani said. “It’s offensive.”

“‘Paki’ really carries the weight of that kind of racist, anti-immigrant, anti-South Asian rhetoric,” said Sharmila Sen, an assistant professor in English and American Literature and Language, who specializes in Anglophone literature from South Asia.

The term, used on page 293 of the Guide to describe the clientele of Boston dance club Karma, was noted by The Crimson yesterday.

“The club du jour of the upscale, international crowd, bringing together the exotic and the moneyed who…exchange hugs and new cell phone numbers with the Pakis and Habibis they haven’t seen since [they] were all here a week ago,” the passage reads.

Cindy L. Rodriguez ’02, president of the guide’s publisher Harvard Student Agencies, said HSA had not known that “Paki” was a racial slur when it decided to keep the previous year’s blurb for this year’s edition.