"Imagine starting a life with so little": the stories of South Asians in Britain

I remember looking in the BBC archives for stories of the first arrivals of South Asians in the postwar years, and being surprised at how little programming had been made documenting the experiences of my parents’ generation. That was well over 10 years ago now. From then on, I began to record testimonies of people who came to the UK from South Asia after the Second World War for my Radio 4 series Three Pounds in My Pocket. The title of that programme was inspired by the fact that, for years after the war, strict currency controls dictated that those arriving from India could not bring more than £3 into the UK. Imagine starting a new life in a new country with so little.

Over time, I went on to record accounts from the descendants of that three-pound generation, hearing about their struggles and achievements. Many of the people I first interviewed – including my father – are no longer with us. I feel so grateful that I was able to capture their stories: memories of what these former subjects of the Raj had imagined Britain to be, what it was actually like when they arrived, how they were received and, so many decades on, where they now felt ‘home’ was.

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Asians comprise the largest minority ethnic group in Britain today, yet it’s always struck me how little the history of South Asians in Britain is known – among South Asians themselves as well as across the country as a whole. It’s noticeable that in 2025 there is still no central British South Asian cultural archive, and that South Asian Heritage Month is only in its sixth year.

South Asians have had a presence in Britain for centuries, as Rozina Visram’s seminal 2002 book Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History discusses. The first such settlers came as sailors and servants, brought by the East India Company. In time, students, ayahs (nursemaids), princes and professionals arrived. In 1892, Dadabhai Naoroji was elected as Liberal member of parliament for Finsbury Central, becoming the first MP of South Asian heritage. He supported free education, votes for women and home rule for Ireland, and campaigned for representation for Indians in the government of India.

Large-scale immigration from the subcontinent started after the 1948 Nationality Act was passed. It conferred on subjects of British colonies and the Commonwealth the right to settle in the UK. But the South Asian experience has not been as well documented as that of those coming from the Caribbean. Dr Florian Stadtler, co-author of Asian Britain: A Photographic History (2013), believes one of the reasons is because “there was no Windrush moment”. But it could also be because the term ‘South Asian’ encompasses so many people from different places on the Indian subcontinent, with their own distinct regional histories, languages, cultures.

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An important new digital hub has just launched. South Asian Britain: Connecting Histories (southasianbritain.org) aims to explore the complexity of this longer story. It discusses themes ranging from family and politics to multiple migrations and resistance, as well as education and intellectual life. There are some wonderful oral testimonies. Bari Chohan, for example, explains how some of his family came to Britain in the 1870s, setting up homeopathic clinics across the country. His great-uncle married a nurse, and they were one of the first mixed-race couples in north-east England. His father, who was in England at the outbreak of the Second World War, fought with the British Army. There’s so much history in that one family’s story.

Understanding and acknowledging this long presence of South Asians in Britain is important. As identity in politics comes to the fore once again, and questions are asked about who is British and who belongs here, these stories take on a greater significance. South Asians have lived in, contributed to, fought and died for Britain. It’s time this is more widely recognised.

This column was first published in the October 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine