Max Russel

Anand, first thing I wanted to ask you is why did you decide to get involved in this project?

Anand Dattani

So I think that it was a bit of luck and fate that we met at the time we did because I was already in the process of gathering stories about my own dad and his family's journey, so his siblings specifically because they grew up in Jinja, in Uganda, and in the beginning for me it was purely the fact that I realised how little I knew about my grandparents, and especially my great grandparents, and looking at sort of my nephews and nieces now, and then my children in the future, if they even had the slight inclination to want to know a bit more about their journey I thought what better way than, now that we live in the world of [the] digital age, to actually capture their stories by audio and in some cases video. So for me it was just capture the stories now so that I can learn a bit, but more that they can be passed on, and then through that I guess I didn't really know what I was expecting to find out about what life was like for South Asians in East Africa. I knew kind of some of the turmoil and how it was like to be forced out, but I guess I didn't know the very personal elements of getting off a plane and being in this completely new place, only having £50 in your pocket. So I just gathered those stories and then I met you and you said you were gathering similar stories but with maybe with a slightly different angle, but because I found it so interesting, gathering my own family stuff, I thought this would be a great thing to get involved in, finding out from other families perspectives what I could see that was similar or different.

Max Russel

And of course as you noted there you have experience of recording and interviewing your own family members, and also you have your own podcasts, so you're very familiar with oral history, but you also came to one of the oral history training days, how was that for you in terms of meeting other people as well from this community, and what were your reflections on the training?

Anand Dattani

Yeah that was really good. I guess I didn't really know what to expect, and then it sounded interesting anyway, but I think I got from it more than I expected, because firstly the other people that I met, it was quite a range of people from different backgrounds, but also why they were there, but everyone was cool. It wasn't the case I felt like I was in a room full of, and no offence to these people, but say like archaeological historians, because it's just not something that I have much experience or knowledge of, whereas it was people who, whether it was from a very personal element of wanting to uncover difficulties, or what was the racial or ethical situation and tensions and how does it compare to now, it’s these kind of like current sociological and behavioural topics that I find really fascinating, and I noticed that in the other people that were there, so it was really easy to get along with them. And then from the training itself there were two things, it was cool to hear from the lecturer [Professor Becky Taylor] who was a specialist in this field to know that, like you said because I do my own [interviews], what do I do that's similar and what do I do in my one year of podcasting versus someone who's done it for decades in trying to uncover these stories, what is different and do I agree and disagree, and how do my views compare to the others in the room. But the best thing for me was on the day I definitely met people that I didn't expect to get along with so well.

Max Russel

Amazing and then you conducted three interviews for the project, over the space of I think about 4 months. Two of those you went to the person’s house, and one of them you met in a neutral space. What was that like going into someone’s house, was that something you had experience of doing with your podcasting or was that a new dynamic?

Anand Dattani

Yeah good question. It’s not something I’ve had experience doing with my own podcasting but honestly I would say that it actually wasn’t a shock or awkwardness at all, and I think that probably is because of the dynamic of what the interview is. I’m a first generation immigrant, if you want to call it [that], the children of parents who have moved from Africa to the UK, and obviously the people I was interviewing are those of my parents’ generation so I felt that because they knew a bit about me and I was stepping into their space, which is a space that I’m very likely to be familiar with, which I was, it was almost for them like they were inviting in their friend’s son or a nephew they haven’t seen in a while, it was sort of a very easy transition in where I knew what to expect, out of respect you take your shoes off and then I sat down, and I knew they would offer me some chai and snacks because it’s just very much part of the culture. So I think because of those elements it became really easy to enter someone’s house that I hadn't been to before.

Max Russel

And out of those interviews, they were all unique and super interesting and different aspects of what they covered in those people's lives, was there anything that really stuck with you from those interviews that you can remember, it's obviously a few months ago now so it might be hard to recall, or were there any similarities or themes that seemed to flow through all the interviews, or differences?

Anand Dattani

Yeah I think I can cover both. I mean when you're talking about the things that stood out there's definitely two or three elements which, like I say after doing my own families’ one, by then I thought that there wouldn't be that much that I would find that would be like “Oh this is a surprise” right, but when I was speaking to one of them they spoke about what their dad went through. In the one with Smita she spoke about the situation of her dad and you hear about these things of violence and killings as well, but to hear it kind of first-hand from someone whose own father went through it, where he was taken away in the middle of the night and they didn't see him for days, to the point where they assumed that he was dead, and I won't give it all away but it was kind of almost by a spot of fortune that he ended up still being alive. So for that it's like “Wow these things actually did happen there were actually situations where people were beaten”, because the stories that I mostly gatherer are people who have managed to almost escape and set up a new life for themselves, I don't get to hear as much about people who nearly witnessed a fatal end, so that was definitely a shock, and then I guess the other one was when I spoke to Bharat and he said something of how even in all these years of being here, and he's very favourable to his life here, but he said that he could never ever see this place as home, and then I started to even hear in his voice and the subliminal things he was saying how much there is still a bit of a tension that he has towards really connecting with the life here. So that was still a surprise, because for me most of the people that I've spoken to, they’ve kind of accepted that this is their home and they would find it difficult to move back because Uganda has changed so much since then, but to hear that it was like “Wow there are still people who feel this, this thing of even though I've been here for decades I still don't feel I’m at home”, those things really stood out to me. And then I think that ties into your next point of similarities and differences. So one of the differences is that not everyone's journey is the same, and it sounds a bit cliched, but even though they went through that same experience of, you were there in 1971 and by 1972 your life had changed and you had to leave, everything that followed after that, people have had a very different perception on it, so I guess it just reinforces the idea that you can live the same thing but what it does for your mindset and your ethos can be very different.

Max Russel

Completely. I think personally if I was to say, that is the biggest takeaway of the project for me, is how varied experiences are and no two people are the same [in] what they've gone through or how they feel and how they reflect on it. I also wanted to ask, how has talking to these three individuals, has it changed the way you look at your own families’ history or how you talk to your parents about what they went through, has it sort of provided a greater context to maybe stuff that they didn't discuss before or…?

Anand Dattani

Yeah that’s a good point actually because I guess speaking to my dad and his siblings there was a lot of stuff that I could easily relate to, because they would tell stories about people that I knew, maybe not that well, but still my dad and my uncle would say that “Oh I used to go down to the pool club with this uncle” and I would know who that uncle was. So it was very easy to then picture that, and relate to that, and be like “Oh I can almost imagine that same scenario happening here” but obviously he was talking about different things about going in underage and having to be home by a certain time and the classic things of what it is to be a kid, and also realising that my uncles and dad were once children who also got up to mischief, than hearing other people's stories where I am kind of an outsider from the perspective of I don't know the individual people, like even Smita’s father I don't know what he looks like I just have to recreate the images based on the stories, so it's almost like I'm empathetic towards it in a different way, because I'm not seeing it from the inside, I'm seeing it from the outside, but I just know enough about what happened at that time, so I guess it makes me appreciate that, actually it really does make me appreciate some of the real strengths of my own family's situation, in terms of how close the siblings are, it's not that case for everyone, where my dad has eight siblings and the fact that they kind of were always a unit I guess really helped them to be where they are today, whereas in some of the cases that I spoke to they don't have that many siblings, or they don't still have that relationship with those other members in their family, so it's almost a bit more difficult for them to do things alone, so I appreciate that my family has that kind of solidarity that probably helped even me get to where I am now, so I appreciate that.

Max Russel

Completely. So now we’re 51 years on since the 1972 expulsion, this project is sort of coming to its end, lots of the anniversary work from last year has wrapped up and has reached a conclusion. What do you think, going forward, is the next step for this history, and how can people make sure that this history does become well known and is part of British history?

Anand Dattani

Yeah that is a top question actually. I kind of see two answers that I want give, or two sides to this. One is to get recent history in the education system in the UK, and I’m quite a few years removed from school so this could already be happening, I'm not really involved with the education sector to say this is what it's like now, but just speaking from when I was there we learn about Roman history, Vikings, Napoleon, these kind of things, which is great to kind of appreciate even how the United Kingdom and Great Britain became what it is, but we don't even really go into much of the British Empire of the last century, and I know that’s a very sensitive topic in a lot of ways, if one side is pro I guess also you’d get a lot of backlash of people who think differently of the empire, but even more recently than that is this history of the last, in this case 50 years, that have made a huge difference on the environment that we live in. Me being in London is a prime example, it wouldn't be the [case], well actually my dad came before, but in a lot of cases of people like me they wouldn't even be in London if it wasn't for what happened in 1972. And then through my podcast, the reason I've carried on doing it is because now I'm collecting the stories of other people from my generation with different backgrounds, because I've just learned so much about the history of Israel, South Africa, France and Algeria, Cameroon, places of the people I've spoken to where I'm like “I had no idea this had happened and that really explains why you or people of your background are even in a place like London”. So I just think if there's a way to do what I'm doing on a huge scale, where people are either collecting these stories, like I'm doing, or just getting these stories down. So that feeds into the second point which is, and I guess maybe I should have said the second first, but if people are collecting accounts of their own family’s history, or their own heritage in a way that can be passed down to the next generation, then that way it gets, not just preserved, but appreciated and understood of why are there such a mix of cultures in different areas. It's easy to see it and say “Okay this place is very multiracial and multicultural” but why has that happened, and by understanding it probably could help you appreciate those cultures more, and I know we live in a society that's moving to a lot more of accepting diversity inclusive place, but imagine how much it could have potentially eliminated prejudice and discrimination in the past if people just understood some of the back stories rather than just seeing a takeover of a different culture. So I think the second one is a more lower hanging fruit, easier thing to influence, where if people just start collecting their own stories from their own family to have them then archived in a place, like you guys are doing really well to archive some of these stories, but then I think the next step is, can it then be put into the education system, so it's more like let's learn about recent history because that's what we actually directly seeing in society around us. Those two things that would be a great next step.

Max Russel

I think those are great points for an optimistic future. Thank you so much Anand, are there any other final points you'd like to raise, or any thoughts you'd like to give?

Anand Dattani

The project was super fun to do, I would have happily collected more stories because it's close to home for me, it’s kind of defined like I say, why me being of Indian background but then parents born in East Africa, some people still find that fascinating to hear, especially once I go outside of London. So the fact that these stories are getting collected it makes me realise how almost exotic [we are], it is quite unique, there were a few 100,000 people that went through this in a world full of billions, but I think just to reiterate that even at the basic level of learning more about your own family journey, and the sort of culture you were brought up in, it could help people even just understand themselves better, let alone if they don't have a care to understand the history of the world or the society around them, not everyone needs to, but I guess just for your own [understanding] “Why am I the way I am?” or “Why do I believe in the things that I do?” or “Why do I not believe the things that I don't?” I think understanding that family background really really helps.

Max Russel

Fantastic Anand, thank you so much.