South Asians in Britain : A Historical Profile

Rohit Barot Department of Sociology

University of Bristol

Published in French as Une Perspetive Historique sur l’immigration et le peuplement en provenance d’Asie du sud en Grande-Bretagne in the journal Migrance 6/7, 1995, pp. 32-47

Introduction

Although people of South Asian and African origin have lived in many societies of Europe long before the modern period, since the end of the Second World War, their presence has become one of the most distinctive features of European urban life Now People of South Asian and African origin live in almost every advanced industrial society including countries of Eastern Europe. The purpose of this article is to explain the factors which account for migration and settlement of people of Indian subcontinental origin in Britain with some related observations on settlement in Britain of people of Chinese and Vietnamese origin. The method for explaining this complex phenomenon takes into account the relative primacy of important changes in the relationship between capital and labour - the relationship which provides a set of objective factors that determine the direction of labour flows from one part of the world to the other (Cohen R : 1987) This relationship is analysed at several different levels to gain an understanding which illuminates the importance of structural factors but also allows us to appreciate the connection between such indicators and their subjective expressions in awareness of those individuals who choose to or are compelled to emigrate. Migrants express this self-consciousness most clearly in social organisations and institutions they develop for themselves. First of all, for any systematic analysis of capital and labour, the historical dimension is of critical importance for most European nations like, Britain, France, the Netherlands or Portugal. The expansion of the European powers in Asia and Africa has brought about radical transformation in political economies of these continents. Underdeveloped and overpopulated through complex working of the colonial economic policies designed to benefit the metropolitan capital, many of these societies have become net exporter of unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled workers. The changing economic, political and ideological relations in Asian and African societies as well as changes in advanced industrial societies in past 50 years provide a context for an analysis of migrant labour and their current status in the West. Besides these historical and structural considerations, there are the migrants themselves - individual men, women and children . They are vibrant, lively and energetic actors whose life shows that people strive to escape from poverty and deprivation as well as political oppression which, not only threaten their liberty but also their very existence as well. In keeping with these objectives, this article attempts to explain several interconnected themes. First of all, it provides a relatively descriptive account of colonisation. Colonisation has brought about most radical economic and social transformation all over the world in creating societies dependent on wage labour and modern market relations. Having examined the importance of colonisation in the movement of populations between states, the author proceeds to explain the nature of South Asian migration to Britain in two separate phases. First of all, there is the phase of Indian migration which is largely created by the economic need of British imperial system. The second phase is usually described as mass migration which occurs in leading European countries immediately after the second world war in response to the demand for cheap labour as well as due to global changes which mark the decline of colonial and imperial domination in South Asia and Africa. The relationship between economic

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and political factors is complex and changing. As a consequence, economic, political and various ideological factors combine to influence migration and migration policies. Migration of South Asian people to Britain as well as to other European countries has given rise to the development of traditional communities in new metropolitan setting. A complex series of general and particular factors influence the pattern of South Asian settlement in Britain. This article attempts to focus on some of the general factors which readers will find helpful for drawing comparison between European societies, especially between ex-colonial and imperial powers whose experience of non-European migration shares certain significant historical parallels.

The Imperial and Colonial context of migration

The British Union Jack and the French drapeau tricolore fluttered over vast surfaces of the globe. Just as the British and the French went to settle and rule various parts of the world, through the complexity of historical connections of economic and political kind, they have attracted migrants from the territories dominated by their economic, political, cultural , educational and linguistic influence. Both the British and French empires developed as economic systems on a global scale and determined the pattern of uneven growth and the kind of life chances people would have had in these territories. In the economic transformation of colonial possessions, what was needed most was a relatively stable labour force. Throughout the course of seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, forced migration from the Western coast of Africa had provided unfree labour to plantation economy in the Caribbean as well as in the United States. The labour destinies of regions in America, Africa and Asia became intertwined and development in one part of the world brought changes in the labour regimes far removed from it. The end of slavery in 1830s and the beginning of indenture provides one such an example. Just as the slavery ended, Europeans instituted what a well-known scholar of overseas Indians Hugh Tinker called “a new system of slavery” in the title of his book on Indian indentured labour (1974). Under this system, where the employers were able to determine the length of the contract as well as the nature of working conditions, thousands of Indians travelled to distant corners of the British Empire. The Indian indentured labourers worked in places far removed from their homeland and country. Their earliest destination was the Caribbean where they entered the colonial plantation system as “coolies” whose main task was to labour on sugar plantations in Guyana and Trinidad where they still constitute significant minorities just as they do in East Central and South Africa where they often found themselves sandwiched between the dominant white minority and subordinated and politically less influential black majority. In such colonial system, they occupied an important but eventually a precarious and unstable niche in the local economy. They went to Fiji, Mauritius, Aden, Hong Kong to work and to trade under the colonial stimulus provided by contract labour or through opportunities to become traders and merchants in rapidly changing societies of Asia and Africa. The French recruitment of Indian labour to work in overseas French territories was less intensive but it did occur and affected destinies of thousands of Indians who were transported to French overseas departments of Guadeloupe, Martinique and Reunion to become permanent settlers there. A similar historical narrative equally applies to Indians in Surinam who were recruited to work on plantations and became colonial Dutch citizens. In all these imperial possessions, the notion of imperial citizenship and its legacy was of paramount importance during the period of decolonisation in 1960s and 1970s. As this chapter explains in a later section, this particular form of citizenship was going to tie Indians as colonial subjects to the metropolis where they would eventually endeavour to become permanent settlers with their presence being an important component of the local labour markets and the political system.

Patterns of Migration to Europe

When sociologists and anthropologists consider the question of ethnic relations in European countries, there are two issues which they mainly focus on First of all they examine and analyse the phenomenon of mass migration after the Second World War and consider this in particular with reference to migrants and settlers whose origins can be traced to any one of the non-European societies. While this approach is perfectly legitimate, it tends to obscure the fact that non-European migration to the West has a long history before the Second World War and that it is nearly as old as the connection between metropolitan societies and their colonial and ex-colonial possessions. In view of importance of this fact, it is necessary to divide the account of migration to Europe into migration which occurred before the Second World War and to distinguish it from the pattern of mass migration which developed after the Second World War. The following account of South Asian migration to Europe with a particular focus on Britain, first provides a narrative on the migration to

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Britain before the commencement of the Second World War. The second narrative deals with the migration after the Second World War and attempts to examine the dynamics which influenced it most.

South Asian Migration to Britain before the Second World War

Britain has always received migrants from many different part of the world both through colonial and non-colonial economic and political factors. The case of Irish migration to Britain shows the importance of both colonial factors as well as the structural factors of economic change which attract migrants to sources of work and employment in an advanced capitalist society. In contrast to the Irish, Jews from Russia and Eastern Europe fleeing from most severe forms of exclusion, harassment and violence provide an example of a persecuted minority in search of a safe heaven. To render the differences between two examples into current set of categories, it is helpful to identify the Irish as economic migrants in search of better material prospects in Britain and Jews or boat people from Vietnam as refugees who are compelled to leave their homes as they find it increasingly difficult and even impossible to live without considerable harm coming them and their families. Besides those who seek work and political asylum, there are a wide variety of travellers and visitors to Britain. When their status changes, they can become economic migrants or refugees, depending the way in which political conditions change in the countries of their origin.

As soon as the East Indian Company became established as a locus of both economic and political power in Bengal, the Indians started coming to Britain for a variety of reasons . As Rozina Visram explains in her book on the Indian presence in Britain from 1700-1947, the Indians were brought to Britain as domestic servants and soldiers (1986) . However, they saw themselves as short term workers who were bound to serve the British and did not form permanent communities. Most of them returned to India after the end of their contract and the rest of them were repatriated to India. Throughout the course of 19th century, there was a steady stream of small number of visitors. Many of them were visiting dignitaries like princes who often took up seasonal residence in Britain, and many students who came to study and spent an extended period of time in the UK.

One of the most famous Indians to visit both England and France was the famous Indian reformer Raja Rammohan Roy whose name is associated with the abolition of the sati, an ancient Hindu custom according to which a Hindu widow was expected to immolate her self to death on her funeral pyre . He had come to see the result of orthodox Hindu petition against the abolition of sati lodged in the Privy Council and appeal to the directors of East Indian Company to raise annual emoluments of the last Mogul King. During three years he spent in London, a tall graceful man who wore a magnificent turban with his Indian dress, Rammohan Roy was a familiar figure in the upper section of the English Society of his time. In 1833 he came to Bristol to meet some of his Unitarian Christian friends whom he knew from his association with the Unitarian missionaries in Bengal In his brief visit to Bristol, he caught meningitis and died in the city, leaving a lasting memory of association between Bristol and Bengal. In 1844 a monument in the style of a small Hindu temple was erected over his tomb to remember him .British Bengali followers of Rammohan Roy come to Bristol every September to pay homage to this great man and his memory. Close association between the Unitarians and the followers of Rammohan Roy in India attracted many Indian visitors to Britain as well as to Bristol. In 1870s Mary Carpenter, a leading Bristol Unitarian received Keshub Chunder Sen, a leading figure in Brahmo Samaj, a modernist and a leading figure in Brahmo Samaj, a reformist religious movement which Rammohan Roy had helped to found. The number of Indian visitors and students increased throughout the last quarter of 19th century and brought to Britain students like Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi who became well-known as Mahatma Gandhi. There were little less well-known individuals like Dwijadas Datta who studied agriculture at Royal College of Agriculture in Cirencester and whose son Dr. Sukhsagar Datta became one of the first Indians to settle permanently in Bristol before the First World War and lived in the city till his death in 1967. A successful doctor, he also became a chairperson the Bristol Borough Labour Party and campaigned for freedom of India. He founded Bristol Indian Association in August 1947 to mark the end of British rule in India (Barot R: 1988). From the beginning of this century till 1960s, numerous Indian students came to study as well as to advance the cause of Indian independence in Britain . Most of them had upper caste, middle class background and often took active interest in British politics. Successful middle class Indians like Dadabhai Naoroji , Shapurji Saklatvala and Mancherjee M.

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Bhownagaaree took active part in politics and represented their local constituency in the Houses of Parliament. Besides successful Indians like them, many professional Indians settled permanently in Britain especially after they were, like Dr. Sukhsagar Datta in Bristol, married to local English women.

With the exception of Sikhs of Bhattra origin who came to Britain from rural districts of what is now Pakistan, almost all Indians who came to Britain before the Second World War, shared a whole range of distinctive characteristics. Most of them came from upper caste and had a relatively privileged access to education in India as well as in Britain and had strong middle class background in Britain and India. Indeed many of these middle-class professionals were to rise to the position of leadership in the Indian Congress Party This factor accounted for their interest in Indian nationalist identity which mattered to them much more than their religious, linguistic or regional origins. Most of them would have regarded these background factors as less and less relevant in contemporary India as modernisation brought progress and liberation. They formed in many British cities, just as in Bristol, a part of the local middle class and were perfectly happy and comfortable with their English wives as well as their English friends in bodies like the India League nationally or in local organisations like Bristol Indian Association.

The Second World War ended the oppressive rule of the Nazis but also highlighted a monumental tragedy which the European Jewry had suffered as a consequence of anti-Semitic racism. The War had brought about a massive destruction of human life and property both inside as well as outside Europe. The War, like the First World War, had affected population all over the world and had generally increased the awareness of metropolitan societies like Britain and France in their respective domain of influence After the War had ended, through the United States Marshall Plan, the European economies went through a major transformation and reconstruction. This transformation in Britain, France, Germany and the Netherlands created a massive demand for labour In Britain, the authorities had already incorporated displaced Poles and Italians in a wide range of jobs. However, this still left a large gap in the labour market which could not be filled by sources of labour power which were exhausted and strained all over Europe. The demand for labour as well as major economic and political transformation which was to follow the post war period attracted a large number of migrants from Asia, Africa and the Caribbean to rapidly changing and growing economies of European countries. The following narrative provides a brief summary of South Asian migration to Britain after the Second World War to argue that the new mass migration to Britain had a very different character from the kind of migration of middle class professionals which had occurred before the Second World War.

Migration to Britain After the Second World War

Outbreak of two World Wars had most profound effect on the global economic and political relations. There were a number of economic and political changes which stimulated migration of large number of Third World migrants to societies in Western Europe. The post war reconstruction of European economies created a phenomenal demand for more workers in the manufacturing sectors in major European countries like Britain, France and Germany The demand for workers and their systematic recruitment in the West Indies and South Asia attracted a large number of migrants to Britain just as the Algerians and other North Africans were attracted by work opportunities available in France and other European countries. The European reconstruction was one of the most powerful factors in stimulating the post war migration to European countries. Although this demand has to be a major part of explanation for the movement of labourers from South to the North, in itself it does not explain fully the nature of change that had already occurred in non-European societies after the Second World War.

The end of the Second World War gave a powerful impetus to movement for freedom throughout Asia and Africa. With the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947 the wind of political change was to sweep through much of South Asia and Africa. This change began to end the formal, political domination of European powers in Asia and Africa, ushering a new era of decolonisation which, as this article explains, had a significant effect on the movement of colonial subjects to the metropolitan societies.

Through their imperial and colonial connections as well as through the notion of common citizenship of the empire as enshrined in 1948 Nationality Act, the British were able to attract workers from the

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former colonies without having to recruit formally as Germany did in Turkey. Overpopulation, underdevelopment and persistent underemployment and unemployment were critical in inducing peasants and workers in South Asia and the West Indies to look for better opportunities in Britain. In South Asia, decolonisation and independence created violent conflict between the Hindus and Muslims in creation of Pakistan and India. The partition of the subcontinent into two independent states not only brought about the butchery of upto two million Hindus and Muslims, but also generated movement of Hindus and Muslims across the new national boundaries. This traumatic change was to force the Punjabis - mainly Sikhs to choose overseas migration as an option to find work to sustain their families and livelihood. Sikhs had already migrated to Canada and the United States before the beginning of the First World War and the idea that one should seek one’s fortune outside India was no longer new in Punjab. The effect of local impoverishment, loss of property and land due to partition of India combined with availability of opportunities to find employment in the United Kingdom attracted steady Sikh migration to Britain. As mentioned before, the Bhattra Sikhs who originated from a cluster of villages around Rawalpindi had already started coming to Britain to trade for short periods of upto two years before returning home for an extended length of time. The partition of British India in 1947 made it impossible for them to sustain this pattern of dual residence in pre-partition India and Britain and they were forced to fend for their families and dependants. In absence of provision for their families in post partition India, they had no choice but to invite the members of their families to Britain and thus to end their seasonal migration based on dual residence. Besides the Bhattras, thousands of Sikhs and Hindu Punjabis from the Indian state of Punjab came to Britain to take up unskilled and semi-skilled employment in factories in metropolitan areas like London, Birmingham and Manchester where they have settled in large numbers. The state of Gujarat had not been affected by partition in the same way as the Punjab except for a large number of Sindhi refugees from Pakistan who sought work and settlement in Gujarat Gujaratis had already developed a mercantile tradition of migration before the colonial era. More and more Gujaratis from less well developed areas like Kutch and Kathiawar and parts of Charottar sought work abroad in former British colonies and more recently in Europe and America and they too began to arrive in Britain in significant number in 1950s and 1960s. As their migration from East Africa to Britain constitutes a separate case, it is described and analysed later in the chapter.

In 1950s, the new state of Pakistan had been greatly affected by the aftermath of partition as well as by problems of rapidly growing population with relatively lower levels of productivity and prosperity in rural areas as well as by conflict with India with regard to the status of Kashmir and its Muslim population. The construction of Mangla Dam near Mirpur was going to flood a large rural areas from where people were being displaced and encouraged to settle elsewhere including the UK. Those migrants to Britain who were successful in finding work , housing and some degree of stability, invited their relatives and friends to join them , thus building up a pattern of migration . From what used to be East Pakistan and then Bangladesh from 1971-72, Bengalis from Sylhet district were already involved in travelling abroad as they worked on ships and settled in British towns and cities where they often ran Indian restaurants. Besides South Asians from the subcontinental societies, there were the Hong Kong Chinese who were, like the Indians both the colonial subjects who were able to enter the United Kingdom without any restrictions first.

In contrast to African Caribbean migration to Britain which attracted both men and women, what was remarkable about South Asian migration was that most of the migrants came as single males who lived in all-male lodging houses with the aim of making enough money to return to their homeland and to use their capital to buy land and to become successful entrepreneurs. This desire to “return home”, however realistic it might have been at first, was affected by a variety of factors which were often well beyond the control of individual migrants. A single male migrant living in Britain, with his wife and children still in his homeland was under constant pressure to assume his responsibility to his family as well as to other kin. As more and more men found it less easy to return to their homeland according to their plans, they had no choice but to arrange for their wives and children to join them in the UK. As soon as a migrant was able to pay for rented accommodation or for a house, his wife or his wife and children would come to Britain to complete the family. The presence of family and especially the schooling of children began to produce a measure of stability unknown in the single male household of 1950s and early 60s. As the number of families began to increase, there were to different kinds of communities which began to evolve. First of all there was the growth of local Indian communities which consisted of small number of Indians with diverse social and cultural

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origins As soon as the families belonging to a particular community began to increase, they were able to form their particular community. This process often undermined the notion of Indian community - which, in many instances was undermined and often constituted little more than an ideal of Indian community. The formation of diverse range of linguistic, religious, caste and sectarian communities was the most important step leading to a desire for consolidation of a wide variety of groupings.

The question of “race” and the East African migration to Britain

The idea of race had been already applied to populations in Europe throughout 19th century and eventually globalised to classify human population in terms of difference between those who were regarded as physically and culturally higher and those who were equally believed to be physically and culturally inferior (Banton, M: 1987) According to such ideas, people who were brown or black or Jews were always inferior to white “races”. Although scientists have consistently argued that “race “ has no basis in science, the idea that there are superior races and cultures as there are inferior ones is firmly embedded in popular consciousness as recent revival of racism in Europe shows.

Be that as it may, what is important to note here is that British public and eventually British politicians like Enoch Powell and others voiced fears about increasing immigration of non-white people to Britain and how their presence would undermine the “British way of life”. The post war prosperity of 1950s was gradually declining without corresponding decline in the migration from South Asians. The expression of concern over “race” and immigration became a heated political issue throughout 1960s which led to imposition of immigration controls in 1962 through the introduction of 1st Commonwealth Immigration Act. This Act ended the “open door “policy to Britain as the entry to UK was administered through employment vouchers issued by British embassies and British High Commissions in New Commonwealth countries, supposedly to tailor the migration to the needs of the British economy.

Just as the presence of people of South Asian and African Caribbean origin became increasingly associated with politics of race and immigration from the early sixties, decolonisation of Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika Nyasaland and Rhodesia created special problems with regard to population of South Asian origin who had been citizens of the United Kingdom and colonies. The idea of sense of “ belonging ” to UK was increasingly defined, if not explicitly, in terms of unstated idea of “ racial” origins.

In East and Central Africa, South Asian minorities had formed economically dominant sections of the population without any significant political influence. The events in Belgian Congo leading to the fall of Patrice Lumumba and the disorder it created generated a feeling of fear in South Asian communities in all African countries. When the rule of the Sultan ended in Zanzibar, the new Revolutionary Council demanded integration of local Asian population . They demanded that Asian women should marry African men. There were some instances of forced unions between African men and Asian women which alarmed the Asian population throughout East Africa as they feared that the Africans were going to use their power to threaten the very basic fabric of the Asian society. In the context of these radical political changes, when African governments offered the choice of local citizenship to Asians, only a small minority opted for African citizenship and majority of the Asians decided to sustain their status as British subjects. Of course, they had a choice of returning to their ancestral homeland back in India. It was obvious to many that returning to India would mean hardship and a decline in their social and economic standing . African governments were not prepared to allow non-citizen Asians to sustain what they believed to be a privileged position based on colonial stratification. They introduced Africanisation policy in public sector employment as well as in trade and commerce in Kenya in the early sixties. As a consequence of this policy, a large number of Kenyan Asians lost their livelihood and were compelled to leave the country. As most of them decided to settle in Britain for better prospects, there developed a pattern of East African Asian migration to Britain..

As hundreds of Kenyan Asians began to arrive at airports in London, the British press and politicians expressed opposition to their arrival although they were legally entitled to come to Britain as subjects of the United Kingdom and Colonies. As Kenyan Asians feared that the British authorities may bar their entry to Britain, even those Asians whose job and work was not immediately threatened, decided to come to UK to secure their residence before the passage of any restrictive legislation. As the collective sense of panic grew both in Britain as well as among Kenyan Asians, the number of

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Asians coming to Britain increased and the British Parliament introduced 2nd Commonwealth Immigration Act of 1968 according to which one had to have a substantial connection to the UK to qualify for a free entry. In other words unless one’s parents or grandparents were born in the UK, one was not entitled to admission to the UK. The purpose of this Act was to prevent Kenyan Asians coming to Britain and to phase their entry through a voucher system according to which the British High Commissioner would allow 1500 heads of the families per year to Britain. This restriction caused much injustice and distress to hundreds of families who were not allowed to come to Britain even after they had lost their livelihood in Kenya. The desperate Asians who simply took the plane to fly to London were not allowed to land at British airports. Nor were they allowed to return to Nairobi. They became the infamous “shuttle cock” Asians who spent long time in airport lounges throughout Europe before being finally admitted to UK. Their unjust treatment did much to tarnish the prestige of Britain as a fair liberal democracy in the international community .

In 1972, the President of Uganda Iddi Amin Dada announced that on 3rd August 1972 when he was travelling through South Karamoja, he had a dream in which God reminded him that the Asian problem was becoming extremely explosive and that he had to declare an economic war against Asians. He soon issued a proclamation which said, “The Government of the Republic of Uganda has decided that British Citizens of Asian origin and the nationals of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh ,must leave Uganda within 90 days from Wednesday the 9th August 1972”. As Iddi Main threatened to put British Asian citizens resident in Uganda in concentration camps, Edward Heath’s Conservative Government was presented with a serious diplomatic problem as it could no longer persuade the Ugandan Government to allow thousands of Asians to stay in the country so that British could organise their phased entry to UK through the voucher system they had already instituted for all British citizens of Asian origin resident in East and Central Africa. Having been inspired by God to declare economic war against Asians who were milking the Ugandan economy, Amin was unlikely to make any concessions and the Asians had to leave Uganda within 90 days with the exception of those whose services were regarded as vital for national interest.

A sense of crisis and panic gripped the British media and politicians as the Conservative Party finally resolved to allow Ugandan Asians to resettle in Britain or in any one of the European countries which was prepared to accept these families. Public hostility towards the refugees was intense as it was assumed they would appropriate resources which should really “go to our own people” - a theme which was reproduced in many local authorities throughout Britain. The Government set up Uganda Resettlement Board to disperse Ugandan Asians all over Britain so that they did not settle in “red” areas which were identified as inner city areas already overcrowded with ethnic minorities. The Labour controlled Leicester City Council put a full page advertisement in Uganda Argus, an English language paper in Kampala, asking Asians not to come to settle in Leicester. The expression of racist sentiment was powerful in various quarters and the members of the racist British National Front mounted protest at Gatwick airports as Ugandan Asians began to arrive in Britain. At first the media claimed that there would be hundreds and thousands of Asians who would come to Britain. In reality the Asians dispersed in various places in Europe and many went back to India. Uganda Resettlement Board did not receive more than 26 thousand Asians in Britain. Although required to settle in “green” areas where there were fewer Asians, most of them settled in “red” locations in London, Leicester, Birmingham Manchester, Leeds and other cities where they had relatives and friends and sources of support With the initial assistance from the local authorities for housing and employment , majority of South Asians who came from Uganda have settled and adapted successfully to life in the United Kingdom.

What is most notable about East African Asian migration to the United Kingdom is the importance of colonisation and decolonisation in the movement of colonial and postcolonial migrants to the metropolitan societies. The settlement of Vietnamese and Algerians in France, and Indonesians and Surinam Indians in the Netherlands provides comparative examples of similar processes at work at different times and in different socio-legal and political contexts. As far as the British authorities are concerned , the effect of decolonisation and implications it may have for migration to Britain are far from over. The end of colonial rule in Hong Kong in 1997 with the scares about the communist Chinese take over of Hong Kong and their alleged opposition to democracy and free market has created a deep sense of unease among the Hong Kong Chinese. Many of them, especially the professionals who are able to sell their skills in the international market have migrated to Europe,

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America or Australia. Although most Hong Kong Chinese will qualify to be “overseas British citizens” with no right of entry or settlement in Britain according to the British Nationality Act of 1981, in view of the pressures brought to bear on the Foreign Office by Hong Kong authorities, the British Government has agreed to issue British passports to relatively well to do Hong Kong Chinese who will qualify for entry and settlement in the United Kingdom

South Asians and their settlement in Britain

According to 1991 Census, the total population of the United Kingdom is 54,055,693. There are 834,574 Indians, 474,400 Pakistanis, and 161,271 Bangladeshis who live in Britain. As a largest ethnic minority population from South Asia, they roughly constitute about 4% of the total population in Britain. Although people of South Asian background now live in most parts of Britain, most of them live in Great London area and West Midlands with concentrations spread in most urban areas of Britain. In terms of their class positions, South Asians occupy a wide range of places in the class map of UK. There is a small minority of wealthy South Asians, especially Indians who own and manage multi-million pounds multinational companies on the one the other side, there are numerous men and women who work as unskilled and semi-skilled labourers with small shop keepers and a wide range of professionals falling in between. Although it has been common to identify the lot ,migrants with the lowest socio-economic level in society, all the census data and surveys of South Asian groups show that there are significant number of South Asians who can be identified as those who are in a middle class position. However, the profile of economic activity for men and women between different communities varies considerably, for example, with respect to the position of women. It is more probably that the Indian women are more likely to work full time than their Pakistani or Bangladeshi counterparts. The levels of literacy and education, likewise may vary between groups Amongst Indians, those who come from East African Asian background tend to be more successful than others There is no doubt that in last thirty five to forty years, especially those who came from East and Central Africa with mercantile tradition did an initial period of factory work to create a basis for accumulation in order to establish their own businesses. However, this generalisation can not be applied to all South Asians as it is now well known that Bangadeshis in East End of London and sections of Pakistanis in Midlands face special disadvantages which stem from their particular history of migration and intractable difficulties they had with immigration authorities to bring their families over to Britain. Besides the effect of racism and exclusion, their rural background and lower levels of literacy combined with the desire to sustain more orthodox aspects of their tradition, for instance with respect to gender roles has affected their position. As a consequence, families who share these characteristics often find themselves trapped in deprivation, poverty and marginality.

South Asian Cultures : Religion, Language and identity

In the earliest stage of their migration, people of South Asian origin saw their stay in Britain as temporary and therefore they were less concerned about watching their children grow in Britain as a long term project. After the families were unified, the dream most people had of returning to their idyllic rural communities has faded as the growing generation of young Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis have been more than reluctant to return to their homeland for permanent settlement. As soon as the families began to form communities of thousands , a whole range of institutional developments have occurred to give these communities a more permanent residential character in most part s of the United Kingdom.

The issues which affect most South Asian families concern the place of their religion, language, caste and sect as the families, especially the young people born and brought up in the United Kingdom experience wide range of social changes as a consequence of their residence in a metropolitan society.. Although religion did not feature as a critical issue in the earlier phase of migration, as South Asians began to settle on a permanent basis, concern with religious values and religious identities became centrally important as families saw their young going through a process of socialisation outside the family and community which did not accord with their own conception of themselves in terms of their particular religious and cultural traditions. From the earliest phase of their settlement, South Asians began to reproduce their religious institutions in Britain. Initially the places to worship had humble beginnings. At first the families would gather in a small room to say their prayers. With the passage of time, as members of the communities were able to pool together their material resources , they were able to buy residential properties which were used for religious gatherings , often not without much hostility from the local white neighbourhood. As the need for

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large communal place grew stronger, members of the communities would, unite and buy large halls or disused old churches and refurbish them into their temple, gurdwara or a mosque. The final stage in these process was for the communities to reproduce the full architectural splendour of their particular religious traditions in places of worship. As a consequence, to day we can witness the construction of Hindu and Jain temples, Sikh gurdwaras and Islamic mosques in many cities and towns in Britain with some places of worship like the Regents Park mosque located in the centre of metropolitan London. The consolidation of religious institutions and religious organisations has been one of the most striking phases in the recent history of South Asian communities.

Sensitivity to matters which concern religion were most notably expressed during the Rushdie affair in Britain as well as in other European countries and throughout the Islamic world. The Rushdie affair arose as the author Salman Rushdie had made a number of uncomplimentary and rude comments on the life of prophet Mohammed and his family life in his well-known book The Satanic Verses According to Muslim criticism of the book, these remarks were deeply insulting to the Muslims. British Muslims , Muslims in Europe as well as throughout the world mobilised to see the book banned and Rushdie punished for his “crime” against Islam. In February 1989 Ayatollah Khomeini declared a fatwa, a directive to all Muslims to punish Rushdie by taking his life. The Rushdie affair brought about a most effective collective mobilisation amongst British Muslims and a campaign to extend blasphemy laws to non-Christian religions. Although the mobilisation against Salman Rushdie has lost much of its intensity, the affair has by no means ended as Rushdie has sought international support against the Iranian fatwa, just as the Iranians have renewed fatwa to see Rushdie punished or at least doomed to livng in hiding. The Rushdie affair raises a whole range of issues which concern, not only Muslim groups in Britain and Europe but minorities and majorities throughout Europe. For liberal democratic majorities, it has raised the question of freedom of expression and constraints on it. For those minority communities for whom religion and religious values have become the most significant points of their social and cultural identity, a whole range of complex issues arise. There is a question of marginality and impoverishment of these groups in several European countries and the effect of racism and disadvantage on their position coupled with their sense of anger and frustration for lack of appropriate levels of support for them to access allocation of resources for their specific needs.

Relevant to the question of religion is no less contentious an issue concerning minority languages and cultures South Asians speak Gujarati, Hindi, Bengali, Punjabi in numbers which may well exceed the number of people who speak Welsh language. The dominance of majority languages such as English, French or German and their use in schools and throughout society as well as the implied assertion that these languages are superior has a special effect on the minority perception of their own languages. This dominance may generate the view among minorities that their languages are not important, especially in a situation where the majority expect the minorities to conform to prevailing linguistic conventions in society. In the initial phase of their settlement which was marked by the idea of returning home, it may be that a whole generation of South Asian boys and girls failed to acquire skills in the use of their own languages After the formation of religious, social and cultural institutions, minorities have now organised themselves to sustain the teaching and transmission of their languages through their own resources and institutions as well as by bringing pressure on the local state to make a contribution to vernacular language teaching in state schools. The example which is familiar to the author concerns development of Gujarati language spoken by more than 300,000 Gujaratis who live in the United Kingdom. Men and women who have been concerned with sustaining Gujarati as a medium of communication in Britain have formed Gujarati Sahitya Academy or Gujarati Literary Academy which promotes the cause of both Gujarati language and literature. Under the leadership of a number of committed individuals, the Academy has now created a well organised infrastructure which supports proper teaching of Gujarati. The organisation has developed a curriculum and textbooks for teaching Gujarati. It holds oral and written examination in the language for thousands of young Gujaratis in Britain every year. In addition, it organises numerous events such as visits of Gujarati literary figures from the state of Gujarat and a whole range of conferences and seminars which use Gujarati medium to express issues which affect Gujarati speakers most. The Academy recognises fully the importance of English language for all Gujarati speaker and therefore promotes healthy bilingualism in order to argue that Gujaratis should be sufficiently literate in English to achieve success as well as sustain their own language and literature to preserve their cultural heritage. Similar examples can be drawn from other minority language

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groups , especially the Punjabi and Urdu speakers who have done much to support their vernacular language and created their own literature to produce hundreds of books which record their own life experiences as well as changing character of their life in Britain The degree of state support which the minority groups receive for maintaining their mother tongue is bound to vary from one European country to the other as well from one area to the other within a country, depending on the kind of policies the local education authorities are allowed to pursue on these matters.

In addition to religion and language, leaders of minority communities are likely to be concerned with the creation and preservation of a wide range of groups of corporate kind within their own community. As far as South Asian population in Britain is concerned, this applies to caste and sectarian communities which, by and large, are closed communities, especially with regard to rules of marriage. Indians, for instance, can not reproduce the traditional caste system in an environment outside rural India. But they do reproduce the caste groups which tend to survive with a high degree of resiliency wherever the Indians settle in any significant number. Numerous caste and sectarian communities now exist in Britain . They use the most modern methods of research and data collection in order to keep proper record of their own group and use a variety of modern methods to sustain the loyalty of young men and women in these seemingly traditional communities. For , although such groups may appear to have a traditional format, in response to living in Britain they continue to change and increasingly adapt to more liberal and individualistic needs of British born South Asians. One of the crucial tests of the survival of these groups is the degree to which they can maintain endogamous boundaries of their group. Such boundaries are not inflexible as groups constantly respond to stimuli for change. The incidence of mixed marriages within South Asian population which cut across caste religious and linguistic boundaries provides one direction of change. Increase in so-called mixed marriages which involves men and women from different ethnic groups indicates another direction of change and such change affects the extent to which the leaders of closed groups can demand conformity to groups norms of marrying within one’s own caste or sect. However, the pressures which both men and women, women in particular, encounter to maintain the traditional pattern of finding partners is strong enough to bring about disappearance of caste and sectarian group as such groups offer more than the rules of endogamy. These groups usually offer a great deal of support to every individual of the group. This allows them to enjoy a sense of security which is not always easy to achieve in social and cultural context of the wider British society When British born young men and women choose to follow the rules of these groups, they appreciate a sense of identity and stability they acquire as a consequence of their membership to different communities in a metropolitan setting, which, for the minorities, creates a wide range of uncertainties and insecurities.

Racism, minorities and multiculturalism in Britain and Europe

Insecurities which non-European minorities experience stem from a variety of sources in which racism, discrimination, harassment , racial violence all play a significant part, not only in Britain and France or Germany but also in smaller European states like Italy, Belgium and Sweden. Legal protection, not only against direct and indirect discrimination but also against the threat of harassment and violence by racist groups of various kinds is an essential step for minorities to live without fear and to enjoy their civil rights like the rest of the citizens of the state. Contemporary forms of resentment and hostility towards visible minorities stems from a complex set of economic, political and ideological factors. Economic, change, especially recession that has affected countries like, Britain , France , Germany and Italy has been a critical factor in stimulating hostility and violence against easily identifiable minorities like South Asians and Blacks. In Britain there has been a phenomenal rise in racial violence against ethnic population, especially against people of South Asian origin and the right wing political activity, as recently noted in the minor electoral success of the British National Party, a racist political organisation. In other European societies, principally in France, Germany and Italy, minorities and refugees fleeing from persecution have been subjected to inhuman treatment, especially in reunified Germany which has seen some of the worst examples of neo-nazi racist violence against identifiable people from minority groups. The treatment of people of Maghreb and Africa living in France and Italy leaves much to be desired and different degrees of respectability accorded to racist views among the followers of Le Penn and others present a profile of considerable concern to those who want to see Europe as a source democratic, liberal and civilised values.

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A complex set of economic and political factors bring about the kind of negative outcome which minorities have faced in a number of European societies. Like Britain, deindustrialisation and rising unemployment and increasing inability of the state to provide welfare to unemployed, disabled and sick, increasing competitiveness which is further intensified by massive transformation of the economies of the Pacific rim countries, especially China, affects the prospect of partial or full employment in Europe. In societies where the authorities fail to provide reasonable means of livelihood to young men and women, their inability to support themselves and their families in a climate of decreasing share of welfare payments will create sufficient dissatisfaction which can turn against members of minority groups. Such dissatisfied and disenchanted sections of the population may define minorities as causing their troubles and may express their hostility and anger towards the members of the minority communities. Such climate in turn has considerable impact on the immigration policy and imposition of strict immigration controls which often turn out to be immeasurably harsh and unjust to those members of minority population who have legitimate right to enter the United Kingdom. Demand for immigration controls may be an inevitable feature of international relations. What is absolutely fundamental for the protection of rights of individuals irrespective of their national or ethnic origin is that such policies should be applied rationally and consistently and they should not appear to be discriminatory against people of non-European origin in particular. As for social policies which provide the best possible access to equal opportunity to all, but specially to men, women and children from ethnic minority communities, as Professor John Rex has recently observed, “it goes without saying that such policies can be expected to work in a society where there is perceived equality of opportunity for all and in which religion and ethnicity have ceased to be markers of inequality, oppression and exploitation” (1993).

References

Banton, M. (1987) Racial Theories, Cambridge : Cambridge University PressBarot, R. (1988) Bristol and the Indian Independence Movement, Bristol : University of Bristol Historical AssociationCohen, R. (1987) The New Helots : Migrants in the International Division of Labour, Aldershot : Gower Publishing Company.Rex, J. (1993) “Religion and Ethnicity in the Metropolis” in Rohit Barot’s (ed.) Religion and Ethnicity : Minorities and Social Change in the Metropolis, Kampen: Kok Pharos Publishing House.Tinker, H. (1974) A New Sytem of Slavery : The Export of Indian Labour Overseas 1830-1920 , London : Oxford University Press for the Institute of Race Relations.Visram, R. (1986) Ayahs, Lascars and Princes : The Story of Indians in Britain 1700-1947 , London: Pluto Press

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