Much is written today about the success of the Indian community, mostly due to our high educational achievement, ability to gain well-paid professional employment, home ownership and low levels of crime compared to other ethnic communities. Our Chancellor of Indian origin is being touted as the next Prime Minister, whilst curry remains the dish of the nation. With Indian names visibly leading rich lists and being seated at top tables across industry, politics and the media, the community is often described as a “model minority”, showboated as a template for successful multicultural integration.
A great deal of this success can be attributed to the work of strong community-led institutions that became the voice of Indians in corridors of power. One of the earliest institutions of its kind, created in 1928, was the India League. It was originally established to attain the independence of an 'undivided India' and to ensure that the early immigrant population settled and thrived amongst the native British.
The India League was secular in its truest sense and believed that politics should be conducted based on debate, not dogma. A testament to this is that Nobel Laureate and atheist, Bertrand Russel was Chairman from 1932-39. He followed the leadership of V.K Krishna Menon, a close friend of India’s first Prime Minister, Nehru. The League were in constant correspondence with Gandhi and in 1968, they funded a statue to commemorate him in London’s Tavistock Square, a tradition kept alive by Chairman, CB Patel today. Whilst being India focused, the League was inclusive, multi-racial and catered for all spiritual traditions and none. They were organised, intelligent, and dedicated, allowing it to be 'the' Indian body in the UK for many decades, caring about Indian civilisation and how its values, stories, and philosophy should be decolonised and shared.
The spirit of India League remains just as relevant to us today, as we seek to understand the relative success of our community against the backdrop of movements such as Black Lives Matter. Although evidence of integration is undeniable, the question remains whether the process is complete. Are we so woven into the fabric of British life, beyond integration to assimilation, that being of Indian no longer limits access to opportunities for progress or prosperity?
Recent Black Lives Matters protests shine an interesting light on the question. One distinctive feature of the movement is the sharing of equalities data on the black community- most of which shows how much work needs to be done. The other enduring feature is the call from young people to look back into the past, acknowledge and understand uncomfortable truths from history, and use this to understand how to pave the way for a better future. In doing both, the black community is reclaiming its own narrative and addressing injustices they see today.
Taking and applying these lessons to our community shows that further work can be done to better understand our own narratives. With focus on the Indian community’s relative success, we have yet to explore the complex perspectives of Indians in the UK, especially the younger population that is increasingly identifying with the narrative of being a 'global citizen' and are more likely to be of mixed heritage. This is unsurprising, given that wide consultation of the Indian population has not been done, with existing polling agencies and the government finding the cost of engagement prohibitive. Studies are therefore not always representative and require larger sample sizes for further analysis.
The truth is that as a community of individuals, with different migratory stories, languages, social capital, experiences of education and access to services, the Indian experience in the UK is complex. It is easy to use the veil of success to prevent us from looking under the hood to understand what is really going on. The importance of good data and a better understanding of our history has never been more relevant. It is therefore fitting that the India League, having been present through the ever-evolving history of Indians in the UK, should be revived to lead the way in a modern context.
The India League today will act as a platform for critical thought on British Indians and India, whilst upholding its original values of non-partisanship, pluralism and dialogue. It once lobbied for a free India and will now be used to tackle contemporary problems, using data and research to explore relevant solutions. Its latest project, the British Indian Census, is in collaboration with the University of Oxford. It will survey a representative sample of the 1.5 million British Indian population and intends to explore the diversity of heritage, identity, beliefs, and behaviour of the community, whilst identifying key issues of concern to British Indians. Tackling the issue of a lack of representative data, the India League intends to go directly to Indians in Britain to accurately illustrate their lives and thoughts on issues of the day. The British Indian Census data will go on to form the basis of a seminal British Indian report, painting a portrait of the community in 2020.
Take part in the historic British Indian Census at https://www.indialeague.org/british-indian-census.
