Today, the vast majority of immigrants to the UK are Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Gurkhas, as well as people from other British colonies. Among these colonies, India's role was significant during the First World War.
According to the BBC: “In Europe, Indian soldiers were among the first victims to suffer the horrors of the trenches. It was Indian jawans (young soldiers) who halted the German advance at Ypres in the autumn of 1914, while the British were still recruiting and training their own forces.”
Many Asians regret the attitude of British politicians and media, which do not highlight these sacrifices effectively. Shashi Tharoor, a prominent Indian politician and author, regrets that history has largely forgotten these sacrifices.
During World War II, 2.5 million Indians, 3.34 million South Africans (both white and black), 3.2 million East Africans, 2 million West Africans and 16,000 Caribbeans fought for Britain.
Indian troops made a huge contribution to the war effort, winning 30 Victoria Crosses. 87,000 Indian soldiers died. Gurkha troops fought in Italy, Greece, North Africa, the Far East and elsewhere. More than 110,000 soldiers served in 40 different battalions, and 30,000 were killed or wounded.
Gurkha soldiers won 12 Victoria Cross medals. Some historians give a higher figure. For example, according to the StGeorgeWoolwich website, more than 132,000 Gurkhas served with the Allied forces in World War II and received 2,734 decorations for valour.
Indians, blacks and other non-white nations continued to give their lives for the British Empire even though they were not treated humanely. In some cases, white nurses were not allowed to treat black volunteers or soldiers.
Indian soldiers continued to fight amid accusations that British policy was partly responsible for the annihilation of more than three million Bengalis in the famine of 1943.
Many Indians and other immigrants also played an important role in rebuilding the country. For example, according to Linda McDowell, a human geographer at Oxford University, the UK faced a labour shortage after World War II.
“The total working population had declined by 1.38 million between mid-1945 and late 1946, as many married women and older people who had delayed their retirement left the jobs they had held during the war. People were also leaving the country.
“In the late 1940s and early 1950s, many families emigrated to parts of what was then known as the 'old' Commonwealth (including Australia, New Zealand and Canada), countries that were in need of labour and were eager to encourage white settlers from the United Kingdom in an effort to maintain their old colonial links and European notions of citizenship and identity.
“As these territories were recruiters rather than sources of white British workers, attention turned to citizens of the 'new' Commonwealth countries, especially, in the early post-war years, those resident in the Caribbean, as a potential source of new employees.”
McDowell notes: “The migration of colonial citizens began slowly. From 1948, when the Empire Windrush arrived, until 1952, between 1,000 and 2,000 people entered Britain each year, followed by a steady and rapid increase until 1957, when 42,000 New Commonwealth immigrants entered, mainly from the Caribbean. Numbers almost halved in the next two years, but by 1960 they had risen again to 58,000, and then more than doubled in 1961, in anticipation of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962 which would restrict opportunities for entry.
“In 1961, according to the national population census, the number of people living in England and Wales who had been born in the Caribbean was just over 161,000: 90,000 men and just over 71,000 women. The most common sectors in which Caribbean people found work were, for men, manufacturing and construction, as well as public transport. Many Caribbean women found employment in the National Health Service as nurses and nursing assistants, as well as in public transport and manufacturing, especially in the growing domestic appliance industries in the cities.”
As well as killing 450,700 Britons, World War II also caused massive destruction. For example, the German Luftwaffe dropped thousands of bombs on London between 1939 and 1945, killing almost 30,000 people.
More than 70,000 buildings were completely demolished and another 1.7 million damaged in London, while 200,000 homes were completely destroyed across the country. Amidst all this destruction and labour shortages, tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands of white Britons decided to leave, emigrating to Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States.
The question now is: could post-war reconstruction have been possible without the contribution of immigrants who worked in labor-intensive sectors, rebuilding the shattered country?
It was not illegal immigrants who arrived en masse to take away jobs, but British government policy that paved the way for immigration that would not have happened had the country not been in dire need of labour. The British Nationality Act of 1948 provided that all Commonwealth citizens could hold British passports and work in the UK. Many of the early arrivals came from the West Indies, South Asia and Cyprus.
What prompted the government to come up with a plan to encourage immigration? It is claimed that the UK was suffering from a severe labour shortage after the Second World War, particularly on the transport network and in the newly created National Health Service.
The fact that large areas of major cities were destroyed by air raids prompted the government to launch a reconstruction programme that needed workers. British policies are said to have been partly responsible for the violent partition of India and Pakistan, the civil war in Cyprus and the underdevelopment of the Caribbean economy, which created mass unemployment there. All these factors fuelled immigration.
It may be true that thousands or perhaps tens of thousands of migrants have entered the UK illegally over the decades, but the far right creates the impression that all migrants come to the UK illegally and also under false pretexts. In reality, a significant number of them were brought here or were forced to leave their countries to flee persecution or seek protection.
For example, the first waves of black Africans were not illegal immigrants, but were brought as slaves. According to Migration Watch, a research institute focused on migration, from the 1650s the number of Africans brought to the British Isles began to increase markedly, and by the end of the 18th century, tens of thousands of people of African descent were living in Britain.
“Most estimates range from 10,000 to 20,000, although some outlier estimates put the figure as high as 30,000. Some have estimated between 14,000 and 20,000 for London alone in the late 18th century, out of a population of about 675,000.”
It is claimed that in 1734 there were only 6,000 Jews in the UK, but pogroms, persecution and discrimination forced the community to seek refuge, raising their population to 400,000 by the 1940s.
Migration from Eastern Europe also appears to have been driven by war and conflict. According to the 1901 census, there were only 82,844 Eastern Europeans in Britain, but their population experienced a phenomenal increase during and after two world wars.
According to Migration Watch, during World War II, hundreds of thousands of Poles were stationed in Britain and the Polish Resettlement Act of 1947 offered citizenship to 200,000 Polish soldiers who did not wish to return to Soviet-dominated Poland. “The 1951 census subsequently recorded 162,339 Poles living in Britain. After World War II, a fairly large number of other Eastern Europeans were allowed to settle in Britain.”
To be continued…
The author is a freelance journalist who can be contacted at: [email protected]
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author himself and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Geo.tv.
Originally published in The News
