Top politicians in the UK, including the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, are of African Indian descent. Other high-profile examples include the country’s two most recent home ministers β Priti Patel, who served from 2019 to 2022, and her successor Shwela Braverman, whose term ended abruptly on November 13 when she was fired by Sunak.
The secretary of the interior is responsible for law enforcement in England and Wales, national security and immigration.
Sunak’s grandparents left Punjab in northern India for east Africa in the 1930s. His mother was born in Tanzania and his father in Kenya.
Patel’s parents were Immigrants from Uganda; born in UK and loves it”deeply held British values.β
BravermanHe was also born in Britain. Her mother grew up in Mauritius, a former French colony, and her father is of Kenyan Indian descent. Braverman calls herself a “child of the British Empire.”
All three are part of it African Indian diaspora. Do they tell us anything about the group of people who had the same experiences as children of immigrants and as members of a diaspora?
I have was investigated the Indian and African diasporas and found that, in fact, members of the diaspora have flexible and dynamic political positions. Sunak, Braverman, and Patel, among others, provide real examples of how diasporic people present wide range political beliefs, perceptions and opinions.
Some researchers believed that diaspora and immigrant communities would function as βunitary stateβ β everyone can vote the same way. This thinking is true for many whose work focuses on diaspora and politics β but for those, like myself, who research diaspora and migration, there has been a shift in the last decade or so towards more complex concepts. My research is qualitative, allowing me to delve into the complexities and idiosyncrasies of diaspora communities.
Dispersions in motion
One African Indian is a member of the Indian diaspora whose family is or has recently been based in Africa.
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In the early 1970s, former Ugandan president Idi Amin implemented many hostile, xenophobic policies. In 1972 he ordered all Ugandan Indians to permission the country. Many East African Indians, including those from Tanzania and Kenya, migrated due to open discrimination against them, heading to countries like Canada and the UK in greater numbers.
It was not Amin alone who expelled those of Indian origin from the continent. Throughout the 20th century, and especially after the second world war, colonial subjects of Britain began to arrive in the United Kingdom. In previous centuries, British imperialism and settler colonialism as well being pushed several waves of immigration, including some of the African Indian diaspora.
A diaspora group lives in a geographical location different from its original homeland. Researchers have long been interested in whether members of ethnic or religious diasporas would act as a bloc of unified political actors to influence their homeland policy or the political climate in them new adopting countries.
Dynamic, dialectical identity
Researchers have is emphasized how diasporas can be “redispersed” as children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren move to new locations; Diaspora members may choose to identify with multiple homelands and host countries over time.
But they may choose to identify with one more than the other or do something else entirely. Take Braverman: although a member of the Indian and African diaspora, she has been outspoken about tightening the UK’s immigration policy. It is recorded that he has he said:
Look at immigration to this country β the largest group of people who overstay are Indian immigrants.
It’s not reasonable to expect her to have an automatic connection to her past. Recent scholarly work on diasporic identity has attempted to understand identity not as static and “essentialist” but as dynamic and discursive. It is also co-constructed, created as an interaction between the individual and structures β race, ethnicity, religion, national context, and so on. β in which it is located.
Read more: Idi Amin’s ‘economic war’ hits Uganda’s Africans and Asians
Real-life examples like those of Patel, Braverman, and Sunak can help diaspora scholars like myself sharpen our analysis of diasporic communities. As scholars, we cannot assume that we know how members of the diaspora will define themselves and what their politics will be without doing extensive research. This will create a better understanding of the complex ways in which diaspora communities will contribute to society in their new homes.
All we can say with certainty is that diasporic identities and identifications are fluid, mobile and creative. The diaspora cannot pigeonhole them or put them in a box.