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The browning of Leicester

Shibi Alex Chandy in Leicester

'Banda ye bindaas hai, banda ye...'

The latest Bollywood number wafts out of the car stereo tuned to the Sabras radio station as Prasun Sonwalkar cruises past a branch of the Bank of India, the Ladlee ladies' wear showroom and an assortment of gaudily done-up shops selling saris, searching for a parking slot.

He finally finds space outside the Mirch Masala retail outlet. As he steps out, Sonwalkar, a PhD student in this British city, exclaims in obvious delight: "This is India, man."

It could well have been, but for the bracing, late August English weather -- a glorious English summer's day. The weather, however, might soon be the only thing English here.

Ethnic minorities, a majority of them South Asian, are expected to account for 35 per cent of the population when details of the 2001 census are released -- the highest percentage of non-whites for any town or city in Britain.

Already, 50 per cent of schoolchildren of five years of age are non-white. And, according to the city authorities, Leicester is projected to become the first European city with a non-white majority by 2011.

Once a rundown district, this neighbourhood has been transformed by the Gujarati Hindus who fled Idi Amin's Uganda into a thriving centre of commerce.

There are so many Indian-owned jewellery shops on this road that the authorities actually call it the 'Golden Mile'. The South Asian presence is, in fact, almost overwhelming and Indians clearly dominate.

Bejewelled women in bright saris are a common sight on Belgrave Road, if not the rest of the city. The local lawmaker is the tainted former minister for Europe Keith Vaz, who traces his roots to Goa.

There is more. Twelve of the 50 councillors are of Asian origin (more than 30 per cent are non-white); so is the deputy chief of police, the lord mayor and deputy to the lord lieutenant.

A good 22 per cent of the city council's employees are from the minority communities. Asians own an estimated 3,000 small and medium enterprises, and these are believed to account for nearly half of Leicester's commercial turnover.

Thus it hardly comes as a surprise that all the documents put out by the city council are published -- apart from English -- in Hindi, Punjabi, Gujarati and Urdu.

The story of Leicester's "browning" is a fascinating one, and the fact that this transformation is occurring peacefully -- Bradford, Burnley and Oldham, recent flashpoints of racial tension, are little over two hours away by road -- has a lot to do with the city's history of tolerance.

Reputed to be the birthplace of the modern English language, it was here that the warring Anglo-Saxons and Vikings are said to have set aside their differences to live peacefully and prosper.

This peace was threatened briefly in the early 1970s, when persecuted South Asians fleeing East Africa began arriving in large numbers.

Hostilities boiled over in the riots of 1972, spearheaded by the racist National Front.

But tens of thousands still came flooding in between 1968 and 1975. The Gujarati Hindus and Punjabis who formed the bulk of the immigrants were focused on commerce. And like any community that creates wealth, they needed peace to prosper.

As Resham Singh Sandhu, chairman of the Leicester Inter-Faith Council, put it: "We are interested in peaceful coexistence, not confrontation."

With their entrepreneurial abilities, the educated Gujarati and Punjabi migrants are a sharp contrast to the immigrants of strife-hit Bradford or Oldham, who are mostly workers.

The 1970s saw them put their noses to the grindstone and accumulate wealth. And they are now employers themselves, with Asians, whites and blacks on their rolls. Six of them are millionaires.

It is thanks to their unique character that Leicester has today become something of a model for peaceful multi-racial, multi-cultural, multi-religious existence.

It is also a model that British Prime Minister Tony Blair is hoping the troubled parts of the island nation will adopt, while several European cities with large ethnic minority populations have sent delegations to study just how the city did it.

The city's coat of arms may carry the legend Semper Eadem (Always the Same), but things are not quite the same anymore.

Indo-Asian News Service

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