British Indians

Indians in the United Kingdom

George Edalji, Shobna Gulati, Lakshmi Mittal, Mark Ramprakash
Regions with significant populations
Throughout the United Kingdom In particular London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leicester, Leeds, Glasgow, Preston, Sheffield, Liverpool, Nottingham, Southampton, Bristol, Newcastle upon Tyne, Slough, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Stoke on Trent, Coventry
Languages
English (British English, Indian English) · Hindi · Punjabi  · Urdu · Gujarati and Various Other Languages of India
Religion
Hinduism · Sikhism · Islam · Christianity · and many more
Related ethnic groups
Asian British · Indian Diaspora · Indian people · Anglo-Indians

British Indians (also Indian British or Indian Britons) are citizens of the United Kingdom whose ancestral roots lie in India. This includes people born in the UK, who are of Indian descent or Indian born people who have immigrated to the UK. Today, Indians number around one and a half million in the UK (not including those of mixed Indian and Other ancestry), making them the single largest ethnic minority population in the country. They make up the largest subgroup of British Asians, and are one of the largest Indian communities in the Indian diaspora, largely due to the Indian-British relations (including historical links such as India once being part of the British Empire and still being part of The Commonwealth of Nations). The Indian British community is the fifth largest in the Indian diaspora, behind the Indian communities in the UAE, USA, Malaysia and Burma. Also worthy of note is that the UK has the highest percentage of Indians per head of the population in the Western World.

History

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Freddie Mercury of Queen was the first British Indian rockstar

No one knows the earliest origins of settlement of Indians in Great Britain for certain; if the Romani (Gypsies) are included, then the earliest arrivals may have been in the Middle Ages — although not normally included as South Asian, the Roma and Sinti (most in the UK have been Sinti) are both believed to have originated in parts of what is now North India and Pakistan and to have begun travelling westward around 1000, though they have mixed with Southwest Asians and Europeans over the centuries. Romani began arriving in sizeable numbers in parts of Western Europe in the 16th century.

People from India have settled in Great Britain since the East India Company (EIC) recruited lascars to replace vacancies in their crews on East Indiamen whilst on voyages in India. Many were then refused passage back, and were marooned in London. There were also some ayahs, domestic servants and nannies of wealthy British families, who accompanied their employers back to "Blighty" when their stay in Asia came to an end.

The Navigation Act of 1660 restricted the employment of non-English sailors to a quarter of the crew on returning East India Company ships. Baptism records in East Greenwich suggest that young Indians from the Malabar Coast were being recruited as servants at the end of the seventeenth century, and records of the EIC also suggest that Indo-Portuguese cooks from Goa were retained by captains from voyage to voyage. In 1797, 13 were buried in the parish of St Nicholas at Deptford.

During the 17th to 19th centuries, the East India Company brought over thousands of Indian scholars, lascars and workers (who were mostly Bengali and Muslim) to Britain, most of whom settled down and took local British wives, due to a lack of Indian women in Britain at the time. Due to the majority of early Asian immigrants being lascars, the earliest Indian communities were found in port towns. Naval cooks also came, many of them from the Sylhet Division of what is now Bangladesh. One of the most famous early Bengali immigrants to Britain was Sake Dean Mahomet, a captain of the British East India Company. In 1810, he founded London's first Indian restaurant, the Hindoostane Coffee House. He is also reputed for introducing shampoo and therapeutic massage to the United Kingdom. By the mid-19th century, there were more than 40,000 Indian seamen, diplomats, scholars, soldiers, officials, tourists, businessmen and students in Britain, and by the time World War I began, there were 51,616 Indian lascars living in Britain.

Following the Second World War and the break up of the British Empire, Indian migration to the UK increased through the 1950s and 1960s. The Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962 and Immigration Act 1971 largely restricted any further primary immigration, although family members of already-settled migrants were still allowed. In addition, much of the subsequent growth in the British Indian community has come from the births of second- and third-generation Indian Britons.

Although post-war immigration was continuous, several distinct phases can be identified:

• Manual workers were recruited to fulfill the labour shortage that resulted from World War II. These included Anglo-Indians who were recruited to work on the railways as they had done in India.
• Workers mainly from the Punjab region arrived in the late 1950s and 1960s. Many worked in the foundries of the English Midlands and a large number worked at Heathrow Airport in West London. This created an environment to where the next generation of families do not lose their identity as easily. A good example would be the area Southall to which is populated by many Sikhs.
• During the same time, medical staff from India were recruited for the newly formed National Health Service. These people were targeted as the British had established medical schools in the Indian subcontinent which conformed to the British standards of medical training.
• During the 1960s and 1970s, large numbers of East African Indians, who already held British passports, entered the UK after they were expelled from Kenya, Uganda and Zanzibar. Many of these people had been store-keepers in Africa and opened shops when they arrived in the UK.

The Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962 and Immigration Act 1971 largely restricted any further primary immigration, although family members of already-settled migrants were still allowed. In addition, much of the subsequent growth in the British Indian community has come from the births of second- and third-generation Indian Britons.

Demographics

Indians have existed in the UK for generations and have long been the country's largest visible ethnic minority group, estimated at 1.6 million they can be found in all corners of the UK.

Ethnicity

In the 2001 UK Census, Indians in the UK were most likely to have responded to code 41 - Indian or Indian British. Indian was one of only five sub categories in the UK census which represents a nation (along with Irish, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Chinese).

Population

The United Kingdom holds host to the fifth largest Indian diaspora on the planet

According to the 2001 UK Census 1,053,411 people (1.8% of the country's population) was of Indian descent. Between 2001 and 2005, National Statistics has released estimates for the number of Indians in England only. They were as follows: 2001 - 1,045,600, 2002 - 1,074,700, 2003 - 1,109,100, 2004 - 1,156,000, 2005 - 1,215,400. In 2008, including those of Partial Indian heritage, there are likely to be at least 1,500,000 in England alone, with around 1,600,000 in the UK as a whole.

Population spread

See also: Lists of U.K. locations with large Indian populations

The table below shows the dispersity of Indian people in the United Kingdom. The figures for all of the English regions, cities and boroughs are based on 2005 estimates, whilst the figures for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are from the 2001 Census.

Indian population in the United Kingdom regions
Region	Population of region	Indian population	Percentage of total population	Significant communities
London	7,512,400	491,300	6.50%	Harrow - 22.0% Indian Hounslow - 18.3% Brent - 18.1% Ealing - 15.0% Redbridge - 14.3% Newham - 12.1% Hillingdon - 10.0% Barnet - 8.8% Croydon - 7.5%
West Midlands	5,366,700	196,500	3.70%	Wolverhampton - 12.0% Indian Coventry - 8.1% Birmingham - 6.0% Walsall - 5.5% Sandwell - 9.4%
East Midlands	4,364,200	141,900	3.30%	Leicester - 24.9% Indian Oadby and Wigston - 11.2% Charnwood - 5.0% Derby - 4.0% Blaby - 3.5% Nottingham - 3.0% Northampton - 2.2%
South East	8,237,800	131,000	1.60%	Slough - 14.7% Indian
North West	6,853,200	95,200	1.40%	Blackburn - 10.2% Indian Preston - 8.3% Bolton - 5.9% Trafford - 2.4% Manchester - 2.3%
East	5,606,600	81,000	1.40%	Cambridge - 2.7% Indian Bedford - 4.3% Luton - 4.2%
Yorkshire and the Humber	5,142,400	71,800	1.40%	Bradford - 2.9% Indian Leeds - 2.2% Kirklees - 4.2% Sheffield - 1.1%
South West	5,124,100	37,500	0.70%	Bristol - 3.9% Indian Gloucester - 2.0% Swindon - 3.0%
Scotland	5,094,800	17,000	0.30%	Glasgow - 2.4% Indian
North East	2,549,700	17,900	0.70%	Newcastle Upon Tyne - 1.7% Indian
Wales	2,903,085	8,200	0.30%	Cardiff - 1.3% Indian
Northern Ireland	1,685,267	1,600	0.10%

Communities

London

Main article: Indian community of London

Indians number over half a million in London, which is the city's single largest ethnic group. Indians have a significant impact on the culture of the British capital. Within London, Southall, Hounslow, Brent, Croydon, Redbridge, Ealing, Barnet, Tooting, Harrow and Wembley, the latter of which is one of the few places outside of India where Indians make up the largest ethnic group (almost 4 times larger than the indigenous White British population).

Religion

According to the 2001 Census, the religious breakdown of Indians in the UK can be seen in the table below. Although the majority of British Indians are Hindu, the UK is home to the largest Sikh community outside of India. Notable Gurdwaras in the country include: Gurdwara Sri Guru Singh Sabha, Guru Nanak Gurdwara Smethwick, Guru Nanak NSJ, Soho Road, Birmingham, see also: Gurdwaras in the United Kingdom. Notable Hindu temples include BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir London (the largest Hindu temple outside of India), Bhaktivedanta Manor, Shree Jalaram Prarthana Mandal, Skanda Vale, Sree Ganapathy Temple, Wimbledon and Tividale Tirupathy Balaji Temple. There are also significant numbers of Muslim and Christian British Indians.

Religion	Percentage of Indian pop.	Percentage of total British pop.	Population (2001)
Hinduism	45%	British Indian Hindus represent 88% of the British Hindu community and 1.4% of the UK population	475,000
Sikhism	29%	British Indian Sikhs represent 64% of the British Sikh community and 0.8% of the UK population	316,000
Islam	13%	British Indian Muslims represent 11% of the British Muslim community and 0.3% of the UK population	126,000
Christianity	5%	British Indian Christian represent represent 0.2% of the British Christian community and 0.1% of the UK population	53,000
Other	8%	British Indians of another religion represent 0.2% of the UK population	84,000

Notable Indian Britons

Main article: List of Indian Britons

See also

• British Asian
• List of Indian Britons
• Indian community of London