The Indian Influence in the UK: Beyond Curry and Culture

Walk through Southall in West London on any given weekend and you’ll hear Punjabi and Gujarati spoken as freely as English, catch the scent of freshly ground spices drifting from grocery stores, and see temples standing a few doors down from traditional British pubs. This is not a recent phenomenon – Indians have been shaping British life for centuries. Today, with over two million people of Indian origin living in the UK, the British Indian community is the single largest visible ethnic minority in the country. Their story is one of migration, resilience, economic muscle, cultural pride, and an ongoing negotiation between two worlds.

How it all began: a history of Indian migration to the UK
Who are British Indians today?
The curry that became British: food as cultural exchange
Business, the “brown pound,” and political power
Festivals, temples, and the preservation of cultural life
The harder story: racism, discrimination, and the “model minority” myth
Identity between two worlds

How it all began: a history of Indian migration to the UK

The relationship between India and Britain stretches back to the early 17th century, rooted in trade and colonial power. The first Indians to set foot on British soil were lascars – sailors recruited by the East India Company – along with domestic servants and the occasional student accompanying their British employers back from the subcontinent. The first Western-educated Indian to live in Britain, I’tisam-ud-Din, arrived as far back as 1765.

But the real shift came after World War II. Britain’s post-war industries were booming and severely short-staffed. The British Nationality Act 1948 opened the door to Commonwealth citizens, and Indian workers – particularly Sikhs from Punjab and Gujaratis – responded in large numbers. They filled labour shortages in textile mills, steel foundries, transport systems, and the newly formed National Health Service. Indian medical professionals were specifically recruited for the NHS because British-established medical schools in India had trained them to British standards.

A particularly significant wave arrived in the late 1960s and early 1970s. East African Indians – predominantly Gujaratis and Punjabis who had settled in British colonies like Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania – were forcibly expelled following Africanisation policies and Idi Amin’s 1972 decree. Many already held British passports. They arrived in the UK often with capital, strong educational backgrounds, and sharp business instincts, and they would go on to become a cornerstone of Indian entrepreneurship in Britain.

Research has also shed light on the motivations behind individual migration decisions. A study of Indian households in Bradford found that while 39% of migrants moved for purely economic reasons, over 60% of Punjabis and 50% of Gujaratis cited local status competition – the desire to match or surpass the standing of families who had already emigrated – as a significant driver. Migration was as much a social act as an economic one.

Who are British Indians today?

According to the UK’s Office for National Statistics, 240,000 people migrated from India to the UK in the year ending June 2024 alone, reflecting a continuing and growing movement. The community today is far from a single, uniform group. British Indians are majority Hindu, but the UK is also home to the second largest Sikh community outside India. Geographically, the community is concentrated in Leicester – where Indians are by far the largest minority group – as well as Birmingham, Harrow, Wolverhampton, and large parts of London including Southall, Brent, and Wembley.

The 2021 census showed that Indian pupils consistently outperform the national average at every key educational stage – with 76% meeting the expected standard in Key Stage 2 reading, writing, and maths, compared to 65% of White British pupils. Indian households also show notably low rates of lone-parent families and high rates of homeownership. These patterns reflect the community’s emphasis on education and family stability across generations.

The curry that became British: food as cultural exchange

Perhaps no aspect of Indian influence in the UK is more visible – or more misunderstood – than food. The story of Indian cuisine in Britain is not simply one of immigrants opening restaurants. It is a long, layered exchange that predates mass migration by centuries.

The first Indian recipe appeared in a British cookbook in 1747. Hannah Glasse’s The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy included a recipe titled “To make a Currey the Indian Way.” By the early 19th century, returning East India Company officers had developed a taste for spiced food, and in 1810, Sake Dean Mahomed – a former soldier turned entrepreneur – opened the Hindostanee Coffee House in London, the first restaurant in Britain to serve exclusively Indian food.

Post-war Indian immigration transformed this niche curiosity into a nationwide institution. In 1960, there were approximately 300 Indian restaurants in Britain; by 1970 that number had grown to 1,200, and by 1980 it reached 3,000. Cities like Bradford, Birmingham, and Southall became known as “curry capitals.” The dish Balti, a meat curry served in a wok-style pan, was actually invented in Birmingham in the 1970s – a British-Indian creation for a British customer base.

By 2016, the UK had around 12,000 curry houses, employing 100,000 people with combined annual sales of approximately £4.2 billion. The number has since declined to around 8,000 – partly due to a shortage of trained cooks and partly because ready-made curry sauces and meal kits now occupy every supermarket aisle – but the cultural imprint remains absolute. In 2001, Britain’s then-Foreign Secretary Robin Cook famously declared chicken tikka masala “a true British national dish,” describing it as a perfect illustration of how Britain absorbs and adapts external influences. Curry now contributes more than £5 billion to the British economy annually.

Business, the “brown pound,” and political power

Indian entrepreneurs have built an extraordinary economic presence in the UK. What began with corner shops and small textile businesses has grown into a sprawling network of enterprises spanning retail, manufacturing, IT, healthcare, and finance. In 2003, marketing specialist Anjna Raheja coined the term ‘Brown Pound’ to describe the growing economic power and disposable income of the Indian community – a term that helped reframe the community’s image from a workforce defined by physical labour to one defined by ambition, aspiration, and enterprise.

The political trajectory has been equally striking. British Indians have gone from being largely excluded from formal political life in the early decades of settlement to occupying some of the most powerful offices in British government. Rishi Sunak’s appointment as Prime Minister in October 2022 marked a historic first – the first person from an ethnic minority background to hold the office. This political integration did not happen in isolation; it was built on decades of community mobilisation, civic participation, and a track record of measurable socio-economic success that made the community impossible for the political establishment to ignore.

Festivals, temples, and the preservation of cultural life

Indian cultural life in the UK is not confined to the private sphere. Diwali celebrations in Trafalgar Square and Leicester’s Golden Mile draw tens of thousands of visitors each year, making them among the largest Diwali events outside India. Holi, Vaisakhi, and Navratri are publicly celebrated in cities across the country. Bollywood film screenings and classical dance performances have found large and enthusiastic audiences well beyond the Indian community.

Religious institutions play a central role in cultural preservation. The BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in Neasden, London – built using traditional Indian stone-carving techniques and materials – is one of the largest Hindu temples outside India. It functions as more than a place of worship; it serves as a community centre, a school of Indian traditions, and a gathering point for new arrivals. According to the 2021 census of England and Wales, close to 800,000 British Indians identified as Hindu and just over 385,000 identified as Sikh.

Language maintenance is an ongoing effort. Punjabi, Gujarati, and Hindi are taught in community schools and through cultural organisations, though generational pressures make this a constant challenge. Accounts from within the community reveal how some families deliberately avoided speaking heritage languages at home, fearing it would disadvantage their children in an English-immersion environment – a choice that secured economic opportunities but came at the cost of linguistic inheritance.

The harder story: racism, discrimination, and the “model minority” myth

The success story of British Indians is real, but it must be told alongside the obstacles. Starting in the late 1960s, Indians and other minority communities were frequent targets of racist violence, often carried out by supporters of far-right organisations like the National Front and the British National Party. The 1976 formation of the Rock Against Racism movement was a direct response to these attacks. Community organisations like the Indian Workers’ Association played a vital role in resisting racial violence and advocating for legal protections.

Discrimination did not disappear with legislation. It shifted in form. Social mobility within the British Indian community, while remarkable, often involved absorbing significant cultural loss and navigating a system where success was defined by proximity to whiteness. The “model minority” label – frequently applied to British Indians – obscures the internal diversity of the community and the unequal conditions under which that success was achieved. Bengali and Tamil communities, for instance, face markedly different economic realities than Gujarati or Punjabi communities, but these distinctions are regularly flattened in public discourse.

Discrimination in hiring remains a documented issue. Diaspora communities in the UK continue to face racism and xenophobia that limits social mobility and complicates integration into mainstream society. Representation in senior corporate roles, while slowly improving, still lags behind the community’s educational achievements. For second- and third-generation British Indians, the challenge is often subtler – navigating cultural expectations from within the family and prejudice from without, simultaneously.

Identity between two worlds

For many British Indians, identity is not a fixed point but a continuous negotiation. The first generation arrived with a clear sense of Indian selfhood and built communities that could replicate – as much as possible – the rhythms of home. The second generation often struggled with cultural differences and discrimination, sometimes leading them to distance themselves from their heritage. The third generation grows up in an established ethnic community that has already learned to retain religion, traditions, and culture in a British environment – but now faces the question of what to preserve, what to adapt, and what to let go.

Younger British Indians are increasingly forging what sociologists describe as hybrid identities – drawing on Bollywood and British pop, celebrating Diwali and Christmas, cooking biryani and Yorkshire pudding in the same kitchen. This hybridity is not cultural confusion; it is cultural creativity. It produces new forms of art, literature, comedy, and music that neither wholly Indian nor wholly British, but distinctly British Indian. Writers like Hanif Kureishi and Meera Syal have given literary form to this in-between experience, capturing both its richness and its friction.

The Indian presence in the UK has never been simply about migration. It has been about transformation – of British food, British politics, British commerce, and British identity itself. What began as a tide of workers filling post-war labour gaps has become one of the most consequential cultural stories in modern British history. And it continues to evolve.

What do you think? The Indian diaspora in the UK has shaped British national identity in profound ways, yet challenges around discrimination and cultural preservation persist. Does the widespread embrace of Indian food and festivals in Britain represent genuine multicultural integration – or does it reflect a selective adoption of culture that sidesteps harder conversations about race and belonging? And as third and fourth-generation British Indians carve out hybrid identities, what does it mean to preserve a culture across borders?

References

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Table of Contents

How it all began: a history of Indian migration to the UK 🔗

Who are British Indians today? 🔗

The curry that became British: food as cultural exchange 🔗

Business, the “brown pound,” and political power 🔗

Festivals, temples, and the preservation of cultural life 🔗

The harder story: racism, discrimination, and the “model minority” myth 🔗

Identity between two worlds 🔗