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===Cuisine===
===Cuisine===
[[Image:Veeraswamy 2008 07 01.jpg|thumb|right|Veeraswamy restaurant on [[Regent Street]], [[London]] is by far the most famous single site Indian restaurant in the country]]
[[Image:Veeraswamy 2008 07 01.jpg|thumb|right|Veeraswamy restaurant on [[Regent Street]], [[London]] is by far the most famous single site Indian restaurant in the country]]
{{main|Anglo-Indian cuisine}}
{{see also|Anglo-Indian cuisine}}


[[Indian cuisine]] is extremely popular in the United Kindgom, and even above the [[Roast dinner|British roast]] and [[Fish and Chips]], the hybrid dish "[[Chicken tikka masala]]" always comes out on top as the UK's favourite meal. There are around 8,500 Indian restaurants located across the UK, which equates as approximately one per 7,000 people, this an extremely large number and suggests that any village or town with a population of over 2,000 is likely to be home to an Indian eatery. Over 2 million Britons eat at Indian restaurants in the UK every week, with a further 3 million cooking at least one Indian based meal at home during the week.<ref>[http://punjab.co.uk/content/view/6/8/ Indian restaurants in the UK]</ref><ref>[http://www.j-tull.com/musicians/iananderson/indian.html Indian cuisine and eating in the UK]</ref> There are many competitions to crown the best Indian restaurant in the country including the ''Top 100 Indian Restaurants'' as well as ''The British Curry Awards'', which covers various aspects of what makes a restaurant good (with his competitions there are winners by area).<ref>[http://www.britishcurryaward.co.uk/index.html British Curry Awards]</ref> [[Veeraswamy]] is an extremely famous Indian restaurant located on [[Regent Street]] in [[London]], it is known as the oldest surviving Indian restaurant in the UK, having opened in 1926. It has also seen an extremely large number of famous diners.
[[Indian cuisine]] is extremely popular in the United Kindgom, and even above the [[Roast dinner|British roast]] and [[Fish and Chips]], the hybrid dish "[[Chicken tikka masala]]" always comes out on top as the UK's favourite meal. There are around 8,500 Indian restaurants located across the UK, which equates as approximately one per 7,000 people, this an extremely large number and suggests that any village or town with a population of over 2,000 is likely to be home to an Indian eatery. Over 2 million Britons eat at Indian restaurants in the UK every week, with a further 3 million cooking at least one Indian based meal at home during the week.<ref>[http://punjab.co.uk/content/view/6/8/ Indian restaurants in the UK]</ref><ref>[http://www.j-tull.com/musicians/iananderson/indian.html Indian cuisine and eating in the UK]</ref> There are many competitions to crown the best Indian restaurant in the country including the ''Top 100 Indian Restaurants'' as well as ''The British Curry Awards'', which covers various aspects of what makes a restaurant good (with his competitions there are winners by area).<ref>[http://www.britishcurryaward.co.uk/index.html British Curry Awards]</ref> [[Veeraswamy]] is an extremely famous Indian restaurant located on [[Regent Street]] in [[London]], it is known as the oldest surviving Indian restaurant in the UK, having opened in 1926. It has also seen an extremely large number of famous diners.

Revision as of 21:06, 6 February 2009

Indians in the United Kingdom
(British Indians/ Indian Britons)


Notable Britons of Indian origin:
George Edalji, Shobna Gulati, Monty Panesar, Lakshmi Mittal, Mark Ramprakash, Dev Patel, Katrina Kaif
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
British Asian · 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.

History

File:FreddieArgentinaCrop.JPG
Freddie Mercury of Queen was the first British Indian rockstar

Middle Ages - 16th century

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.

17th - 19th centuries

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.

Year/
Time period
Number of Indians
in the UK
Growth rate
on previous count
~1850 40,000[2] N/A
~1900 70,000[3] 75%
1991 840,255[4] 1100%
2001 1,053,411[5] 25%
2008 1,600,000[6] 52%

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.[7] 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 lascars, scholars and workers (who were mostly Bengali and/or 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.[8] Due to the majority of early Asian immigrants being lascar seamen, 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.[9] By the mid-19th century, there were more than 40,000 Indian seamen, diplomats, scholars, soldiers, officials, tourists, businessmen and students in Britain.[2]

20th century

By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there were around 70,000 Indians in Britain,[10] 51,616 of whom were lascar seamen (when World War I began).[11]

A flag used to represent the Indian community in the United Kingdom

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.

21st century

By the early 21st century, the British Indian community had grown to number over one million. According to the 2001 UK Census, 1,053,411 Britons had full Indian ethnicity (representing 1.8% of the UK's population). The overwhealming majority of these recided in England, 99.3% infact (in 2008 the figure is thought to be around 97.0%). Since then, the population has continued to increase considerably, with more than 1.6 million Indian estimated to currently recide in the UK.[12]

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 more than 1,600,000 in the UK as a whole.[13] Today there are considerable numbers of Indian Britons who have ancestry via the Caribbean, South and East Africa as well as the Pacific Islands. See also: British Indo-Caribbean community, Ugandan British, Kenyan British, South African British and Tanzanian British.

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
England London [14]
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%
England West Midlands [15]
5,366,700
196,500
3.70%
Wolverhampton - 12.0% Indian
Coventry - 8.1%
Birmingham - 6.0%
Walsall - 5.5%
Sandwell - 9.4%
England East Midlands [16]
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%
England South East [17]
8,237,800
131,000
1.60%
Slough - 14.7% Indian
England North West [18]
6,853,200
95,200
1.40%
Blackburn - 10.2% Indian
Preston - 8.3%
Bolton - 5.9%
Trafford - 2.4%
Manchester - 2.3%
England East [19]
5,606,600
81,000
1.40%
Cambridge - 2.7% Indian
Bedford - 4.3%
Luton - 4.2%
England Yorkshire and the Humber [20]
5,142,400
71,800
1.40%
Bradford - 2.9% Indian
Leeds - 2.2%
Kirklees - 4.2%
Sheffield - 1.1%
England South West [21]
5,124,100
37,500
0.70%
Bristol - 3.9% Indian
Gloucester - 2.0%
Swindon - 3.0%
Scotland Scotland
5,094,800
17,000
0.30%
Glasgow - 2.4% Indian
England North East [22]
2,549,700
17,900
0.70%
Newcastle Upon Tyne - 1.7% Indian
Wales Wales
2,903,085
8,200
0.30%
Cardiff - 1.3% Indian
Northern Ireland
1,685,267
1,600
0.10%

Communities

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.[23] Although the majority of British Indians are Hindu, the UK is home to the largest Sikh community outside of India.[24] 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 as well as Ravidassias with their main temple (Bhawan) in Handsworth, Birmingham.

Religion Percentage of Indian pop. Percentage of total British pop. Population (2001)
Hinduism 45.00% British Indian Hindus represent 88% of the British Hindu community
and 1.4% of the UK population
475,000
Sikhism 29.06% British Indian Sikhs represent 64% of the British Sikh community
and 0.8% of the UK population
316,000
Islam 12.70% British Indian Muslims represent 11% of the British Muslim community
and 0.3% of the UK population
126,000
Christianity 4.89% British Indian Christians represent represent 0.2% of the British Christian community
and 0.1% of the UK population
53,000
Buddhism 0.18% British Indian Buddhists represent represent 1.7% of the British Buddhism community
and less than 0.002% of the UK population
2,900
Judaism 0.06% British Indian Jews represent represent 0.3% of the British Jewish community
and less than 0.001% of the UK population
1,000
Not Stated 4.63% 0.12% of the UK population 74,000
Other Religion 1.75% 0.06% of the UK population 28,000
Agnostic 1.73% 0.06% of the UK population 28,000

Diaspora

Today the British Indian community is extremely well established and it even has its own diaspora, many Indian British people now live abroad including in Canada (some 11,200), the United States (around 17,000), Oceania (largely Anglo-Indians) amongst others.

Culture

Cuisine

Veeraswamy restaurant on Regent Street, London is by far the most famous single site Indian restaurant in the country

Indian cuisine is extremely popular in the United Kindgom, and even above the British roast and Fish and Chips, the hybrid dish "Chicken tikka masala" always comes out on top as the UK's favourite meal. There are around 8,500 Indian restaurants located across the UK, which equates as approximately one per 7,000 people, this an extremely large number and suggests that any village or town with a population of over 2,000 is likely to be home to an Indian eatery. Over 2 million Britons eat at Indian restaurants in the UK every week, with a further 3 million cooking at least one Indian based meal at home during the week.[25][26] There are many competitions to crown the best Indian restaurant in the country including the Top 100 Indian Restaurants as well as The British Curry Awards, which covers various aspects of what makes a restaurant good (with his competitions there are winners by area).[27] Veeraswamy is an extremely famous Indian restaurant located on Regent Street in London, it is known as the oldest surviving Indian restaurant in the UK, having opened in 1926. It has also seen an extremely large number of famous diners.

Film

The British Indian film industry is a successful enterprise, and over recent years many British Indian actors have rose to prominence globally, particularly in Britain, India, and the USA. Notable films include Bend it like Beckham, one of the better known productions revolving around British Indian life, and Slumdog Millionaire (a UK drama film staring many British Indian actors and filmed largely in India). The latter has won four Golden Globes, and has been nominated for eleven BAFTA Awards and ten Academy Awards. Besides British produced Indian based films, there are many Bollywood productions which have been filmed in the United Kingdom. These include Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, Yaadein and Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. Other notable British Indian productions include:

Music

Indian music has a strong influence on global music as a whole. Today, British Indian musicians exist in almost every field and genre, however there is an extremely large number of Bhangra artists that cement the UK as the stronghold of traditional Indian music outside of India. Notable British Indian Bhangra acts include DCS, Juggy D, Mentor Kolektiv, Ms Scandalous and Sukshinder Shinda. World famous award winning singer-songwriter Freddie Mercury (a former member of the rock band Queen) was born on the island of Zanzibar to Parsi parents, originally from the Gujarat area of India. Mercury (born Farrokh Bulsara) and his family fled when he was 17 years old due to the Zanzibar Revolution; he remains not only one of the most famous British Indian musicians of all time, but one of the most famous British musicians. Some more contemporary British Indian singers include Jay Sean, whose parents immigrated to the United Kingdom from the Punjab region, Panjabi MC, S-Endz and BRIT Award-nominated Nerina Pallot.

Television

Out of all of the countries in the Indian diaspora, the UK is most likely to be the best at portraying Indian culture and life in the UK through television. EastEnders, Coronation Street and Emmerdale all have significant numbers of Indian characters. By far the most notable British Indian televisions show is The Kumars at No. 42, this talk show stars many famous British Indian actors including Sanjeev Bhaskar, Meera Syal, Indira Joshi and Vincent Ebrahim. British Indian actors not only have a strong presence in the UK, in the United States, Parminder Nagra, Naveen Andrews and Nicollette Sheridan (who are all Britons of Indian origin) have found fame in ER, Lost and Desperate Housewives respectively, however Nagra is the only one to portray an actual British Indian citizen. There are dozens of channels aimed at the British Indian community available on Satellite and Cable, these include:

India Indian owned Sky channel Virgin Media channel Other
Sony TV Asia 782 806 N/A
STAR One 783 N/A N/A
STAR Plus 784 803 N/A
Zee TV 788 809 Channel 808 (Tiscali TV)
Zee Music 789 N/A N/A
Zee Cinema 617 810 N/A
Alpha ETC Punjabi 798 812 N/A
SET Max 800 806 N/A
Aastha TV 807 N/A N/A
STAR News 808 802 N/A
STAR Gold 809 N/A N/A
Zee Gujarati 811 N/A N/A
SAB TV 816 N/A N/A
Sahara One 817 N/A N/A
Aaj Tak 818 N/A N/A
Peace TV 820 N/A N/A
Zee Jaagran 838 N/A N/A
United Kingdom British owned Sky channel Virgin Media channel Other
MATV 793 823 N/A
India United Kingdom Joint owned Sky channel Virgin Media channel Other
B4U Movies 780 815 N/A
B4U Music 781 816 Channel 504 (Freesat)
9X 828 N/A Channel 662 (Freesat)
9XM 829 N/A N/A
NDTV Imagine 831 N/A N/A

Radio

The BBC Asian Network is a radio station available across the entire United Kingdom which is aimed predominantly at Britons of South Asian origin under 35 years of age, besides this popular station there are only a few other national radio stations for or run by the British Indian community - including Sunrise and Yarr Radios. Regional British Indian stations include Asian Sound of Manchester, Hindu Sanskar and Sabras Radios of Leicester, Kismat Radio of London, Radio XL of Birmingham and Sunrise Radio Yorkshire based in Bradford (which itself has a much larger Pakistani than Indian community).

Notable individuals

See also

References

  1. ^ 1.6 million people of Indian origin in the UK
  2. ^ a b Fisher, Michael H. (2007), "Excluding and Including "Natives of India": Early-Nineteenth-Century British-Indian Race Relations in Britain", Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 27 (2): 303-314 [304-5]
  3. ^ Ansari, Humayun (2004), The Infidel Within: The History of Muslims in Britain, 1800 to the Present, C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, p. 37, ISBN 1850656851
  4. ^ http://www.sovereignty.org.uk/features/articles/immig.html
  5. ^ [www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=455 www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=455]
  6. ^ 1.6 million people of Indian origin in the UK
  7. ^ Lascars in The East End
  8. ^ Fisher, Michael Herbert (2006), Counterflows to Colonialism: Indian Traveller and Settler in Britain 1600-1857, Orient Blackswan, pp. 111–9, 129–30, 140, 154–6, 160–8, 172, 181, ISBN 8178241544
  9. ^ "Curry house founder is honoured". BBC News. 29 September 2005. Retrieved 2008-10-09.
  10. ^ Radhakrishnan Nayar (January 5, 2003). "The lascars' lot". The Hindu. Retrieved 2009-01-16. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  11. ^ Ansari, Humayun (2004), The Infidel Within: The History of Muslims in Britain, 1800 to the Present, C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, p. 37, ISBN 1850656851
  12. ^ 1.6 million people of Indian origin in the UK
  13. ^ 1.6 Million Indians in the UK
  14. ^ "Resident Population Estimates by Ethnic Group, All Persons - London - Neighborhood Statistics". Office for National Statistics.
  15. ^ "Resident Population Estimates by Ethnic Group, All Persons - West Midlands - Neighborhood Statistics". Office for National Statistics.
  16. ^ "Resident Population Estimates by Ethnic Group, All Persons - East Midlands - Neighborhood Statistics". Office for National Statistics.
  17. ^ "Resident Population Estimates by Ethnic Group, All Persons - South East - Neighborhood Statistics". Office for National Statistics.
  18. ^ "Resident Population Estimates by Ethnic Group, All Persons - North West - Neighborhood Statistics". Office for National Statistics.
  19. ^ "Resident Population Estimates by Ethnic Group, All Persons - East - Neighborhood Statistics". Office for National Statistics.
  20. ^ "Resident Population Estimates by Ethnic Group, All Persons - Yorkshire and the Humber - Neighborhood Statistics". Office for National Statistics.
  21. ^ "Resident Population Estimates by Ethnic Group, All Persons - South West - Neighborhood Statistics". Office for National Statistics.
  22. ^ "Resident Population Estimates by Ethnic Group, All Persons - North East - Neighborhood Statistics". Office for National Statistics.
  23. ^ "Ethnic groups by religion". 2001 Census. Retrieved 2008-07-28.
  24. ^ Britain isvhome to the largest community of Sikhs outside India with about 750,000 devotees
  25. ^ Indian restaurants in the UK
  26. ^ Indian cuisine and eating in the UK
  27. ^ British Curry Awards