By Ashis Ray, formerly editor-at-large of CNN
Broadly, there are two categories of British Indians: people who migrated from India to Britain and thereafter took up British citizenship; the others are people of Indian origin (PIO) from other parts of the world, who either held British passports or of the country they emigrated from.
Post-Second World War Britain experienced a shortage in manpower. To overcome this, it introduced a British Nationality Act in 1948, which enabled people from British colonies as well as Commonwealth member states, like India, to live and work in the country. Thus, traffic from India increased exponentially in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, reflecting a transition of industrial workers essentially from Punjab who were mainly Sikhs. But also doctors from other states. Unlike the generation before them, they abandoned the idealism of returning to India, now proudly independent, and a majority among them in due course switched to British nationality.
PIOs are in the eyes of Indian officialdom foreigners. But the Government of India have gradually come around to embracing them and making them feel at home. This process began when the Congress party prime minister, Indira Gandhi, returned to power in 1980 and initiated a policy to enable non-resident Indians (NRIs), who are Indian citizens living abroad, and PIOs to invest in India. It gained further momentum when Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao liberalised the Indian economy in 1991 – and India’s ambassador in the United States, Siddhartha Ray, even proposed an ‘Orange Card’ for PIOs – which has now metamorphosed into the Overseas Citizen of India Card.
But a more motivated governmental outreach towards PIOs, particularly those in the United States and the United Kingdom, manifested under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee. For him and his party, it was a capitalisation on a relationship which dated back to the 1940s.
Vajpayee was a member of the Hindu supremacist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which was established in India in 1925, but made limited headway in influencing Indians to its ideology. In contrast, when it ventured to British-controlled East Africa in the 1940s, in the garb of its overseas wing, the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS), it was distinctly more successful in impressing the overseas Indian there. Therefore, when East African Indians were compelled into a mass exodus from Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania to Britain and the US in the early 1970s, they became fairly fertile ground for the HSS, which had created its first shakha (branch) in the UK in 1966.
In December 1984, the BJP were decimated in the Indian general election. They were, in fact, reduced to two seats in a 543-member Lok Sabha, India’s House of Commons. Even Vajpayee was defeated. More to the point, not even their staunchest supporters in India were willing to underwrite them anymore. At this critical juncture, the BJP via the RSS and HSS turned to East African Indians now well settled and prospering in the West to rescue them. This they unhesitatingly did on being disinformed that Hinduism was in peril from Islam in India, especially in Gujarat!
The target audience were principally of Gujarati descent. Hindus were eighty-nine percent of the state’s population, whereas Muslims constituted a mere nine per cent. Yet, trusting the HSS, they accepted the claim; indeed, became the BJP and RSS’s enthusiastic partners in the Hindutva project, which in 1992 demolished the Babri mosque – described by the Supreme Court of India as a serious crime. At the same site has now risen a Hindu temple dedicated to Lord Ram.
In 2001, Vajpayee as prime minister even appointed a US-based Indian, Bhishma Agnihotri, as India’s ambassador-at-large for the Indian diaspora with an office in New York. The gentleman’s tenure, though, was short-lived as Indian diplomats felt the enterprise trespassed on their turf, which they were not exactly happy to cede!
Among the RSS volunteers despatched from India to propagate its cause in the US was Narendra Modi. He became a known face among Gujarati Americans. Consequently, when he hit a career-ending crisis after the terrible 2002 Gujarat riots under his watch as chief minister of the state - with Vajpayee as prime minister inclined to dismiss him – in addition to the Hindutva organisations on India and deputy prime minister, Lal Krishna Advani, the Gujarati diaspora, including the segment in Britain, stood by him like a rock. Thereby a special bond was forged.
British Sikhs used to be unswervingly loyal to India, many of them adhering to the Congress. But after the Indian Army’s siege of the Golden Temple in Amritsar in 1984 – to flush out armed rebels – they became disillusioned. Eventually, the prime ministership of Dr Manmohan Singh, a Sikh, between 2004 and 2014 reconciled the aggrieved religious group to a status quo ante. However, a residual section subscribing to a Punjab separate from India or Khalistan remained.
Akin to immigrants from India, East African Indians in the UK initially gravitated towards the more immigrant-friendly British Labour party as compared to the Conservatives. But with the manifestation of their proclivity towards the politics of Hindu nationalism, an expanding section of them have attached themselves to the Conservative party. More recently, this has been catalysed by the fact that three Hindus figured as cabinet ministers in Conservative prime minister, Boris Johnson’s government – one of them – Rishi Sunak – proceeding to become prime minister!
Besides, with the ascent of Hindutva in India under government patronage, British Hindus, especially Gujaratis, have become more strident in asserting their religious identity. Indeed, to cater to them, there is even an All Party Parliamentary for British Hindus.
It is unsurprising that the RSS and the Modi-led BJP have challenged the fundamental concept of republican India after British rule; that of a ‘sovereign socialist secular democratic republic’ as enshrined in the Indian constitution. It’s an ideological battle inside India; and time will tell what Indians’ verdict finally is. A non-Indian national should ideally have nothing to do with this. Yet, a section of British Indians are immersed in it.
East African Indians – Hindus, Muslims and Sikh – bore the brunt of post-British colonial Africanisation policies. Upon settling in Britain, they lived in amity and solidarity in Leicester, constituting nearly 44 per cent of the population. That is until a decade ago. In his significant work, presently a book entitled Hindu Nationalism in the Indian Diaspora, Edward Anderson wrote: ‘Following an India versus Pakistan cricket match, held in Dubai on 28 August (2022), tension spilled over into violence. Videos circulated widely online showed crowds of people on the streets of Leicester chanting “Pakistan murdabad” (Down with Pakistan), as clashes erupted between groups of young Hindus and Muslim men …’
Then on 17-18 September, he narrated: ‘Hundreds of masked Hindu men marched through an area of the city with a large Muslim community, shouting “Jai Shri Ram” (Hail Lord Ram) and other slogans with an intimidating effect. Later, young Muslims descended upon a Hindu neighbourhood and pulled down a saffron flag on a Hindu temple … A more recent article claimed that messages and memes that fanned the flames were circulated in WhatsApp groups of Hindus in Leicester by “India-based BJP activists” … Transnational Hindutva was on the radar in the UK perhaps more than it had ever been before.’
What that underlines is British Indians are today deeply divided, indeed unprecedentedly so. Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs are preoccupied with their respective narrow interests, which collide with each other and are against India’s vital needs. Since 2020, the Chinese military have advanced into areas hitherto accepted as territory on the Indian side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC), which is the de facto border between the two countries. Yet, not a single protest by British Indians has occurred in support of India. This is in sharp contrast to demonstrations in the streets of London when India faced aggression in the past.
Of course, British Indians have no obligation to root for India – they should, in fact, rightly pass the Tebbit Test! Indians do not demand fidelity from PIOs. Indians, though, have justification to expect non-interference in India’s internal affairs by foreign nationals.
Until the present BJP government amended the law, it was illegal for a foreigner, including a PIO, to remit money to India for political purposes. Not that this didn’t happen surreptitiously – and the Charity Commission for England and Wales once warned a UK-based Hindutva organisation for raising funds which ended up for sectarian activities in Gujarat. The new policy has, however, ultimately blown up on BJP’s face after the Supreme Court of India last month banned an 'Electoral Bonds Scheme', which permitted, among other liberties, anonymous donations from abroad. Foreign funding has also been deciphered in Modi’s PM Cares Fund – whose incomings and outgoings are also being kept a secret.
Clearly, a segment of people in the UK now think their Hindu heritage is more important than their Indian ancestry. The All Party Parliamentary Group for British Hindus is a symptom of this. Indian Muslims, who are now British, have, considering the atrocities their families and friends in India are currently encountering, no reason to be excited about their original home, other than when a Mohammed Shami – in a multi-religious Indian team – conjures victory in a cricket match! Moreover, twenty percent of Sikhs in the last British census did not wish to be categorised as being of Indian race.
Until Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher cracked down, following the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1984, gurdwaras in Britain were misused to generate resources for Sikh cessation in India. In contrast, Indian extraction Muslims in Britain are not known to advocate disassociation, despite the persecution inflicted on Indian Muslims in Gujarat for two decades and more recently in Hindi-speaking states.
The beginning of Britain’s conquest of India in the shape of Bengal being annexed in 1757 was a consequence of treachery on the part of Indians. Mir Jaffer, the paymaster in Bengal’s army, together with businessmen Jagat Seth and Amir Chand, conspired with the British against the ruler Nawab Siraj-ud-Daula. www.britishbattles.com testifies: ‘The British were assisted by traitors in the Nawab’s high command.’ 190 years of bondage for Indians followed.
A 62-year struggle spearheaded by the peerless Mahatma Gandhi created a dynamic unity which finally overthrew the Raj and ushered Indian independence. Like this phenomenon, great moments in free India have been accomplished when Indians have in a secular spirit been united. Whether in computer science, space exploration, nuclear technology, the incomparable triumph in the Bangladesh War, domination of world hockey and wins in cricket, communal harmony has been a reason for success.
The Muslim League insisted the British partition India to create Pakistan on the premise that Muslims would not receive justice in a Hindu majority independent India. The enlightened prescription of free India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, embedded equity, a unity in diversity, in the Indian system, which for decades demolished the League’s doctrine, with people of Islamic faith - 14.3 percent of the Indian population - continuing to be Indian and not regretting this. It would be a defeat for laudable idea of secular India if the League’s justification for Pakistan came true.
Thus, if British Indians wish to be helpful, they could unify within and signal to the section of erring Indians back home to follow suit. A united India can be an unbeatable force.
Ashis Ray can be followed @ashiscray on X, previously Twitter.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this are those of the author’s
