HVK Archives: The new Indian immigrant - the UK story
The new Indian immigrant - the UK story - Outlook
Sagarika Ghose (London)
()
4 September 1996
Title : The New Indian Immigrant
Author : Sagarika Ghose (London)
Publication : Outlook
Date : September 4, 1996
>From the heart of Punjab and small towns on the Gujarat
coast, they fled deprivation, clutching the last of their
material possessions. in the chilly drizzle of their
adopted country, they tentatively settled, often five
families under one roof, slogging at menial trades,
sweeping floors at alien airports, cleaning out First
World gutters, bewildered by western culture and buffeted
about by free market crises like recession and unemploy-
ment. Yet all the while they clung to the hope that one
day the world of the 'sahibs' would offer them social
prestige and well-to-do lifestyles. The Gujarati sho-
powner in Leicester and the Sikh bus driver in south
London lived through the weary humiliation of their days,
with a single motivating factor in their hearts: our
children will have a better life.
And now their children have grown into adulthood and
vindicated their parents' struggles. According to a
recently published report-Social Focus on Ethnic Minori-
ties-published by the Office for National Statistics of
Great Britain, Indian immigrants are doing far better
than their Pakistani or Bangladeshi counterparts although
minorities in general still face social disadvantages
compared to the white majority. However, the gentrifica-
tion of the Indian migrant is evident from the fact that
a larger number of Indians own their own homes, compared
to other South Asians. Eighty-three per cent of Indian
households own or are buying their own homes, compared
with 36 per cent of Bangladeshi and 40 per cent of black
households.
Indeed, the editor of the report, Carol Summerfield, has
been quoted as saying that the report shows that there
are often bigger differences between the various ethnic
minority groups than between the ethnic minority popula-
tion as a whole and the white population.
Nitin Patel, a descendant of shopowners in Leeds, is a
banker in the City of London. He now lives in a 'ware-
house apartment' in chic Hampstead, earns what he calls
'a fairly embarrassing salary'. 'I am very interested in
reviving Indian culture,' he says, 'but 1 am first and
foremost a Londoner. My family has done better here than
they could have ever hoped to do back in Gujarat.' Patel
says his parents are steeped in Hindu culture and tend to
secialised amongst their own community rather than foster
links with Pakistanis or Bangladeshis. "Yes, I suppose,
Indians are by and large the most prosperous Asian com-
munity here," her agrees.
Driving through Tower Hamlets where most Bangladeshis in
London live and walking Southall, which is dominated by
Indians, are quite varied experiences. In Tower Hamlets,
lungi-clad and bearded Bengali Muslims are seen peeping
warily out of their tenements, entire kinship systems
crammed into spaces designed for nuclear families. Burk-
ha-clad women scurry by, casting furtive glances down the
squalid streets. A recent study found that only one-third
of all Bangladeshis in Britain speak English, let alone
read or write it.
In Southall by contrast, mini-skirted or jeans-clad young
Punjabis swing confidently down the shop fronts, cockney
accents fill the air, a Toyota zooms by, bhangra-rap
blares, chutney and pickle shops do brisk business. In
fact, the entire atmosphere is one of confident 'integra-
tion'. "Indians are mostly professionals now," says
Gurinder Singh, whose sons are training to be lawyers,
"they are doctors or they have their own businesses.
They have ceased to live in blocks, they have their own
houses."
In his popular book, Desh Pardesh, sociologist Roger
Ballard writes: "The younger generation of Indian mi-
grants has made a substantial shift towards professional-
ism or becoming self-employed. Medicine, the law, sci-
ence and engineering are the chosen goals and as a group
are becoming more middle class than their working class
parents." Ballard also points out that British Muslims
have attained a much lower level of achievement than the
Hindus and Sikhs, let alone the Jains and Parsis.
The minorities report shows that while only 12 per cent
of Indians are unemployed, almost 27 per cent of Pakista-
nis and Bangladeshis do not have work.
Economic miracles are far more in evidence among the
Indian community than among most other ethnic groups.
Nareshbhai Patel, a prominent member of the Gujarati
community who started life in Britain washing dishes, is
now chairman of chains like Europa Foods and Colorama
Photographic Laboratories. It is estimated that there
are over 100 Gujarati millionaires in Britain. Ballard
states that while Sylheti families from Bangladesh crowd
together in decaying council tenements in areas like
Spitalfields and face racial harassment and unemployment,
Gujaratis by and large have moved into comfortable subur-
ban neighbourhoods and are courted by senior members of
the Conservative Party.
Martin Browning, a member of the Labour Party, speaks
about the political implications of the recent Indian
metamorphosis. "As Indians have moved out of ghettos,
they have ceased to be a vote-bank in the subcontinental
sense for the Labour Party because now their vote is much
more diffused. However, because the Pakistanis and
Bangladeshis are still ghettoised and live in groups,
each head of family can deliver at least 20-25 votes.
Perhaps this explains why the Labour Party takes the
stances it does on the Kashmir dispute. Indians now
often have Conservative affiliations." No wonder then
that Labour tends to be more pro-Pakistani than Indian.
So how have the Indians managed to pull away from their
South Asian compatriots and achieve middle class status?
Says an immigration official: "A lot of it has to do with
the country of origin. From the beginning the Indians
had high aspirations and worked out strategies by which
they could achieve greater affluence. They were rela-
tively more urbanised than the extremely rural migrants
from Pakistan and Bangladesh and from the start they
chafed at a 'black' identity. They wanted to be seen to
be on a par with the whites. And, of course, the East
African Indians from places like Uganda were already used
to western ways."
A watery slogan on a London wall plaintively argues:
"Stop multi-culturalism." But it is only a last zrear-
guard protest from the beleaguered British, forced for
the first time to confront an assertive, successful
alternative culture. Apache Indian pumps out Indian rap,
Indian shop assistants steer Fashion Cafe (the fashion
shop owned by top models Christy Turlington and Naomi
Campbell) to new heights, Ritu's boutique dispenses
salwar-kameezes to Jemima Khan clones and at Mezzo's, the
trendiest eatery in Covent Garden, a Sikh with a psyche-
delic turban dishes out nouvelle cocktails to its spiky-
haired patrons. "Devvi (Devinder) is a lark," laughs
Harry Levine, former headboy at Eton. Fifty years after
India secured Independence from Britain, there are some
upwardly mobile jewels in Britannia's crown.
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