The South Asian community in a west London district known locally as Little India reflected on Commonwealth history as Queen Elizabeth II, Britain’s longest-serving monarch and symbol of stability, died in a turbulent era that saw the decline of the British empire. .
The Associated Press reports that for many in Southall, the queen’s death reopened old wounds from a complicated history.
“You feel your heart goes out to the family because she was a mother, she was a grandmother and beyond that she was the queen of the country,” said Dalawar Majid Chaudhry, who owns a Pakistani restaurant in Southall.
(AP: King Cheung)
However, Chaudhry added that many people in the community also had “mixed reactions” because of the British colonial history.
Southall’s first South Asian immigrants left the subcontinent a decade after partition in 1947, arriving in London to work on factory assembly lines and as custodial crews at Heathrow Airport.
Wages were low and hours were long.
Workers from northern India, in particular, had lost land and savings due to the mass dislocation that accompanied the partition of India.
This turbulent history, combined with the recent arrival of social movements like Black Lives Matter, has sparked an awakening among young people seeking to dissect colonial legacies.