Ugandan Asians

Debate between Jonathan Ashworth and Shailesh Vara

Thursday 6th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Shailesh Vara (North West Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House commemorates the 40th anniversary of the arrival in Britain of Asians expelled from Uganda, notes their contribution to Britain and welcomes their integration into the fabric of the nation.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee warmly for allowing me to have this debate. It was originally due to take place last Thursday, but was postponed because of the need for the Prime Minister to make a statement on the Leveson inquiry.

On 4 August 1972, the Sandhurst-educated President of Uganda, General Idi Amin, informed troops he was addressing in Karamoja in east Uganda that he had had a dream in which God had appeared to him and told him that he had to deal very quickly with the problem of the Ugandan Asians. This referred specifically to some 57,000 Ugandan Asians who held British passports. The problem, if it can be called a problem, was that they numbered 1% of the population but controlled approximately 90% of the country’s economy.

The response from Idi Amin was brutal and swift. He said that they had 90 days in which to leave the country, and during those 90 days they had to carry red identity cards at all times. He made it absolutely clear that if any of them remained in the country after the stipulated 90 days, they would be rounded up and thrown into concentration camps. Churchill described Uganda as the pearl of Africa, yet, with such a pronouncement, a climate of fear and desperation fell upon the Ugandan Asians. The sense of desperation was eloquently summed up by the late Manubhai Madhvani in his autobiography, “Tide of Fortune”, in which he described the atmosphere at the time and his own imprisonment in a military prison from which few people returned.

As for the response in Britain, there was clearly a fair amount of hostility, both in Parliament and the country at large. Some of it was based on basic prejudice, but there was also genuine concern in areas with high unemployment, in areas with long waiting lists for social housing and in areas with large immigrant populations already settled, such as Leicester. Leicester city council certainly took no chances, because it took out adverts in Uganda telling people not to come here, especially to Leicester, because they were not welcome.

Credit must be given to the Government of the time, led by Edward Heath, who took a courageous decision.

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate. He mentioned Leicester, so I thought I ought to spring to my feet. It should be remembered that not all councillors on Leicester city council in the ’70s agreed with the council’s decision. In fact, the current Mayor of Leicester, Sir Peter Soulsby, as a young councillor, voted against it. It should be said that Leicester today is a much stronger, more confident and more vibrant city because of the contribution of the Ugandan Asians.