India in Britain: Recalling diaspora history by the Thames
LONDON : A large number of visitors, tourists and passers-by at the London Bridge pier have been stopping to learn the largely unknown history of the Indian diaspora in the United Kingdom - from the first Asian MP Dadabhai Naoroji to Indian doctors treating British patients and beyond.
Titled “At the Heart of the Nation: India in Britain”, the photographic exhibition has been researched and curated by academics from the Open University and the University of Exeter in collaboration with the Indian high commission and the Nehru Centre.
“Many schools in Britain don’t teach this history. Indians made a huge contribution to British life. This is about Britain now, not about India only. It is not only about Dadabhai Naoroji, but also about wars,” said Susheila Nasta of Open University at the launch event on Tuesday.
One of the concluding events of the UK-India Year of Culture, the exhibition is on a tour of Edinburgh, London and Leeds. Large photographs of Indians in Britain over the centuries and decades recall the many layers of interaction between the two cultures in Britain.
Author Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, who has written extensively on racism and British history, said: “Indians in Britain have a longer history than the better known one of those who arrived in the 1960s or 1970s. This is about the making of Britain, not the making of India in Britain.”