Today, Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Gurkhas, as well as people from other British colonies, make up the vast majority of immigrants in Britain. Among these colonies, India played a significant role in World War I. According to the BBC, “Indian soldiers in Europe were among the first to endure the horrors of the trenches. It was Indian jawans (young soldiers) who stopped the German advance at Ypres in the autumn of 1914, while the British were still recruiting and training their own troops.”

Many Asians complain that British politicians and the media do not give sufficient prominence to these victims. Shashi Tharoor, a leading Indian politician and author, complains that these victims have been largely forgotten in history.

In World War II, 2.5 million Indians, 3,340,000 South Africans (white and black), 3,200,000 East Africans, 2,000,000 West Africans and 16,000 Caribbeans fought for Britain. Indian troops made a huge contribution to the war effort, winning 30 Victoria Crosses. Up to 87,000 Indian soldiers were killed. Gurkha troops fought in Italy, Greece, North Africa, the Far East and elsewhere. Over 110,000 soldiers served in 40 different battalions, with 30,000 killed or wounded. Gurkha soldiers won 12 Victoria Cross medals. Some historians cite a higher number of Gurkhas. For example, according to the website StGeorgeWoolwich, over 132,000 Gurkhas served in Allied forces during World War II and received 2,734 awards for bravery.

Indians, blacks and other non-white peoples continued to sacrifice their lives for the British Empire despite inhumane treatment. In some cases, white nurses were not allowed to treat black volunteers or soldiers. Indian soldiers even continued to fight despite accusations that British policies were partly responsible for the decimation of over three million Bengalis during the 1943 famine.

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, Britain suffered from a labour shortage after World War II. “The total number of people in employment had fallen by 1.38 million between mid-1945 and the end of 1946, as many married women and older people who had postponed retirement gave up jobs they had held during the war. People also left the country.”

“In the late 1940s and into the 1950s, many families migrated to parts of what were then called the ‘old’ Commonwealth (including Australia, New Zealand and Canada), countries that themselves had labour shortages and were anxious to attract white settlers from the United Kingdom in order to maintain their old colonial links and European notions of citizenship and identity. Since these areas were recruiters rather than sources of white British labour, attention turned to citizens of the ‘new’ Commonwealth countries, particularly in the early post-war years, Caribbean residents, as a potential source of new workers.”

McDowell notes: “Colonial immigration began slowly. From 1948, when the Empire Windrush arrived, until 1952, between 1,000 and 2,000 people came to Britain each year, followed by a steady and rapid increase until 1957, when 42,000 migrants arrived from the New Commonwealth, mainly from the Caribbean. The number fell by almost half in the two years that followed, but had risen again to 58,000 by 1960, and had more than doubled in 1961, in anticipation of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962, which would restrict entry.

“In 1961, according to the national census, the number of people living in England and Wales who were born in the Caribbean was just over 161,000: 90,000 men and just over 71,000 women. The most common sectors in which people from the Caribbean found work were manufacturing and construction for men, and public transport. Many Caribbean women found employment in the NHS as nurses and nursing assistants, as well as in public transport and manufacturing, particularly in the growing white goods industry in the cities.”

The Second World War not only cost 450,700 Britons their lives, but also caused massive destruction. For example, from 1939 to 1945, the German Luftwaffe dropped thousands of bombs on London, killing almost 30,000 people. More than 70,000 buildings were completely destroyed, another 1.7 million were damaged in London, while 200,000 houses were completely destroyed across the country. In the midst of all this destruction and the lack of labor, tens of thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands, of white Britons decided to leave the country and emigrated to Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States.

The question now arises: would post-war reconstruction have been possible without the contribution of immigrants who toiled in labor-intensive sectors and rebuilt the devastated country?

It was not illegal immigrants who came in droves to take jobs, but the policies of the British government that paved the way for immigration. This would not have happened if the country had not been in desperate need of workers. The British Nationality Act of 1948 stated that all Commonwealth citizens could hold a British passport and work in the United Kingdom. Many of the first arrivals came from the West Indies, South Asia and Cyprus.

What prompted the government to devise a plan to encourage immigration? It is claimed that Britain suffered severe labour shortages after World War II, particularly in the transport network and the newly created National Health Service. As large parts of the major cities had been destroyed by air raids, this prompted the government to launch a reconstruction programme which required workers. It is claimed that British policies were partly responsible for the violent partition of India and Pakistan, the civil war in Cyprus and the underdevelopment of the Caribbean economy which led to massive unemployment there. All of these factors fuelled immigration.

It may be true that thousands, or perhaps even tens of thousands, of immigrants have entered the UK illegally over the decades, but the far right creates the impression that all immigrants come to the UK illegally and under false pretenses. In reality, a significant number of them have either been brought here or forced to leave their countries to escape persecution or to seek protection.

For example, the first groups of black Africans were not illegal immigrants, but were brought as slaves. According to Migration Watch, a migration research institute, the number of Africans brought to the British Isles began to rise significantly from the 1650s, and by the end of the 18th century there were tens of thousands of people of African descent living in Britain. “Most estimates range between 10,000 and 20,000, with some estimates as high as 30,000. Some have estimated 14,000 to 20,000 people in London alone in the late 18th century, out of a population of about 675,000.”

It is claimed that there were only 6,000 Jews in the United Kingdom in 1734, but pogroms, persecution and discrimination forced the community to seek refuge and their population rose to 400,000 by 1940. It seems that migration from Eastern Europe was also fuelled by wars and conflicts. 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, hundreds of thousands of Poles were stationed in Britain during World War II, and the Polish Relocation Act of 1947 offered citizenship to 200,000 Polish soldiers who did not wish to return to Soviet-ruled Poland. “The 1951 census subsequently recorded 162,339 Poles living in Britain. After World War II, quite a number of other Eastern Europeans were allowed to settle in Britain.”

To be continued…

The author is a freelance journalist and can be reached at [email protected].