The New Indian Immigrant

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 unemployment. 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 shop owner 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 Minorities —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 gentrification 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.

바카라 웹사이트Indeed, 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 population 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 'warehouse apartment' in chic Hampstead, earns what he calls "a fairly embarrassing salary". "I am very interested in reviving Indian culture," he says, "but I 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 socialise amongst their own community rather than foster links with Pakistanis or Bangladeshis. "Yes, I suppose, Indians are by and large the most prosperous Asian community here," he agrees.

Driving through Tower Hamlets where most Bangladeshis in London live and walking through 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. Burkha-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 'integration'. "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 migrants has made a substantial shift towards professionalism or becoming self-employed. Medicine, the law, science 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 Pakistanis 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 suburban neighbourhoods and are courted by senior members of the Conservative Party.

바카라 웹사이트Martin 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 relatively 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."바카라 웹사이트

A watery slogan on a London wall plaintively argues: "Stop multi-culturalism." But it is only a last zrearguard 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 psychedelic turban dishes out nouvelle cocktails to its spiky-haired patrons. "Devvi (Devinder) is a lark," laughs Harry Levine, former head-boy at Eton. Fifty years after India secured Independence from Britain, there are some upwardly mobile jewels in Britannia's crown.