Anand Dattani

So, I think what would be interesting for me is also to know even before we get started on your story, do you have an idea about how you know your parents or grandparents generation how they ended up moving from wherever they were born to Africa in the first place?

Bharat Joshi

I remember how my grandfather moved. That was simply to help father and family, farming in those days did not always  generate money in those days and as understand his younger brother didn’t want to be a farmer he wanted to go and do something else. He became a teacher, so Uganda at that time was the land of opportunity, so my grandfather [I] think it was early 1940s left India, Gujarat went to Kenya, lived in Ramasi where he started a small restaurant, or a lodge as they used to call it back then, and my father who was five years old along with his older brother  and my grandmother joined my grandfather in Ramasi.

Anand Dattani

Do you remember roughly what year or decade?

Bharat Joshi

Yes my father was born in 1940 and he moved, while the Second World War was still going on, they went by boat, on a sail ship, and it took them, the journey that was supposed to take about 20 odd days took them 45 days simply because of the weather. He’s really funny when he still tells me [about it] that “The ship would move forward for two days and then we’d go to bed sleep at night, and it would have gone back sort of a day [in direction]” and by the time they were getting closer to Mombasa the only food that was left for them to eat was raw onions and Rotla,(Bread made from millet floor)

Anand Dattani

Maybe that's why we like onions!

Bharat Joshi

And that was it, and the other thing he really remembers, they were stuck in a storm where they both, he and his brother, were literally tied to a post so they wouldn't go overboard. That's how bad it was and they remember as they were crossing hearing fire, obviously it was gunfire or cannon fire from World War II boats, and they were crossing this just to get across to Africa to meet there father.

Anand Dattani

Was it common for people that they knew to do this or were they one of a few families to?

Bharat Joshi

No no it was common because India in those days, from the Gujarat state, things were very bad because you never had rains and if you are a farmer you relied on good crops so if one or two years you had bad crops then you had to survive on what you saved. So just to help people back home a lot of these guys moved to Africa to work on sugar plantations or factories or wherever they could.

Anand Dattani

And was the plan to always relocate permanently or do you think they had it in mind to see [how it went] and then take [money] back?

Bharat Joshi

I think my grandfather's plan was always to move to Africa for a point where they could earn enough money and always move back to India, but when they got to Kenya and they got into this way of life then, from Kenya moving to Uganda, my grandfather ended up getting a British passport sort of with my grandmother and then my father and my uncles they’ve all got British passports and then they just stayed there. I don’t think they wanted to move back to India because as far as Africa was concerned, Uganda & Kenya, you were living in a mini India anyway, life was very similar there. Was there a point to moving [back]? No you could earn and live here and still provide support to family in India.

Anand Dattani

What do you remember about your time there, where were you born?

Bharat Joshi

We lived in a town called Kakira, I was born in Jinja in 1962 and I still remember my time there. I’ve never been back to Uganda but when I talk to my children or anybody else, I still remember all the roads, the streets, the houses were people lived.

Anand Dattani

You were still very young.

Bharat Joshi

Yeah, I was nine years old when we came over here. That memory is still there.

Anand Dattani

So, what was life like?

Bharat Joshi

The life was a very carefree open life, it’s very difficult to describe but a lot of people that I think you may have spoken to would all say that there is no place like that, that they’ve lived in, or they’ve visited. It was just a very special place. There was nothing unique about it, there were just simple houses. I mean the house we lived in was made up of corrugated metal sheets, it was two rooms and the main room that served as my mum and dad’s bedroom also served as a reception so if we had visitors they sat in that room. So it wasn't were you could turn around and say “Well it was a five/six bedroom house mansion” nothing like that and everyone lived in that simple manner but I think it was just that sense of community that you all belong. I only found out about caste systems when we came here, there I didn't know that “I’m a Brahim he’s a Sutar” we were all just one big family.

Anand Dattani

It's really interesting that you say that I definitely want to get on to that but you mentioned community do you remember that being mainly between other Asian immigrants or even with local Africans?

Bharat Joshi

Even with local Africans because a lot of the local Africans, we’ve been in this country what fifty odd years and I’ve yet to meet one English person who's learnt to speak Gujarati or Hindi, Punjabi or any language but there a lot of Africans actually learned to speak Gujarati and they were part of the community and one of the people who worked with us they used to live right behind our house they had one of the rooms and when his wife used to make ugali she knew I liked it so it was fresh hot she would literally come round tell my mum “I’m taking him” and I used to be in their living room eating ugali with them I didn’t see them as anyone different to me, the skin colour never came into it.

Anand Dattani

And then of the course the main speech that changed things came [on] the 4^th of August 1972 but before that did you feel [a change]?

Bharat Joshi

As soon as he’d won the election [Idi Amin] there was a change you could feel [it] in the atmosphere that something was not quite right, things were changing. And I was still young, I didn't take that lot of interest in it, but when adults were sitting talking, there was always a fear that started to creep into people’s lives, that this person is not the right person, that we may not start having the freedom that we had, persecutions may come in. But no one I don't think anyone ever dreamt that he would make this announcement, people thought that we’re here, we’re here for life, and that was it.

Anand Dattani

I know you were quite young, but what kind of changes [were there], maybe I guess for your parents’ situation or even for yours? But was it mainly like a change in business or like actual safety, personal safety?

Bharat Joshi

Personal safety because I could literally wonder the streets before at night time without the fear of parents being worried, but as soon as he came in the attitude of a lot of the local peoples started to change towards the Asian people. We were not allowed to then “Don’t be outside the house after this certain time, don't trust people” things like that started to change and [while] before a lot of them couldn’t do enough for you, the local people, and all of sudden they started to say “Well actually no, do it yourself, I’m not going to do it” so you started to feel that and started to feel the resentment.

Anand Dattani

So they were quite influenced by what was being said?

Bharat Joshi

It was because what he was telling them and the picture, he was painting was that “Reclaim this land, your home, and you'll have all these riches, you’ll all have the trappings of [what] these people have got. You will not be servants to anyone or slaves or anything like that” he really painted a picture where all of a sudden life was going to be so beautiful for them, little did they know that he wasn't interested in them he was just interested in himself whatever he could get.

Anand Dattani

Did it trickle down that, like [to] the kids level, people your age, did you notice that even those local African kids’ [attitudes] were [changing]?

Bharat Joshi

Yeah they started to, not all of them, but some of them started to keep their distances their parents told them to keep their distances, not to mingle with us, not to trust us and you started to see some of the bonds gradually break, but as a child you didn't think anything of it you just thought “Okay this will blow over, its natural, things will get back to normal” but it never did.

Anand Dattani

And what do you remember about the days or weeks leading up to having to leave?

Bharat Joshi

Before the announcement had been made two of my maasis were getting married in Nairobi so my father had travelled up with them from Jinja to Nairobi, me and my mother were going to follow up later on to attend the actual wedding itself, and all of the sudden this announcement was made and they then said that from a certain point borders between Uganda and Kenya and Tanzania were closed off so no one was going to be allowed to come in or leave. So there was this great panic in my mum, it was my mum myself and my nanima and my dad was in Kenya, how were we going to manage if he’s not going to be allowed to come back and then my father finding out when my mama (maternal uncle) told him early morning “Look this has just been announced” and my father’s thought was “Well I don't care, I’ve got to get back to my family”. So that first week it was just the panic of my father coming back home, nothing else seemed to matter at that point, we had people around, but it was just “If we’ve got to leave how are we going to leave? What are we going to do? How’s the family going to get back together again?” that was the first thing for us rather than “Which country am I going to go to?”

Anand Dattani

And how did you reunite?

Bharat Joshi

Well, my mama managed to get him [father] on a train from Nairobi and I think, if it wasn’t the last train it was one of the last trains that was allowed to come in, so he managed somehow to get back. But I do remember that when he was coming in he had a lot of money on him but by the time he got home he had nothing left because soldiers were going on trains, looting people and whatever and he was having to bribe them to go from one station to the next. Yeah overnight it just changed from where you felt that you were home you [now] felt you were an alien and your life was in danger you were in peril.

Anand Dattani

And so how did you go about deciding where you were going to go?

Bharat Joshi

Well first off most Asians, a lot of people that we [knew] said “Okay we’re Indians, we’ll go to India” so we went to the Indian High Commission and they said “Well no you’ve got a British passport therefore you can’t come to India, you’ll have to go to Britain” so India were only taking people back that had Indian passports, anyone else if you had a different nationality you had to go to those embassies, and credit to the British embassy they turned around and said “You’ve got a British passport yeah we’ll take you, you’ve just got to line-up” and they were even giving people £50 pounds so when they came here they had a bit of money on them. But you had to queue and my father queued for days on end and it never came up [the money] and we’d already booked flights to come to the UK. So by the time it came to going to Kampala, to Entebbe my father had never got that £50. So we literally came to this country and there was not a penny in our pocket.

Anand Dattani

Did you experience any horror stories of the process of [leaving]?

Bharat Joshi

Personally, the way we [left], one of the locals that worked for us John he was actually a thief. he was a criminal, but he’d been with us for so many years and when we were leaving my father trusted him with a lot of our valuables and a lot of money and he said “I’ll go up ahead” and my mother said “Look if they stop you just let them have it, don’t risk your life for anything” and everyone said “You're trusting him, he’s a criminal, you’re not going to see him [again]” and my father said “Chances are we might not even see that money, chances are it may be taken before we get to the airport”. So, he made his way to Entebbe, my father had a lot of money that he kept with him, we were going from Jinja to Kampala and there were checkpoints where soldiers would stop us, look at our papers, inspect the cars, and then you would offer them bribes to let you go through. So, the money he kept aside, by the time we got to Entebbe, it was finished. But we did hear a lot of horror stories where people were beaten, were assaulted, we’ve heard that a lot of families their daughters/wives were taken away. We were fortunate that we didn't experience any of that but all those horror stories I don't remember at that time, it was we came here and heard about it. But I think as a youngster all parents were just trying to shield their children from what was actually happening.

Anand Dattani

Yeah, it shows how much they had to keep that experience as [calm as possible].

Bharat Joshi

And because we were in Kakira and there were rumblings that started as soon as Idi Amin came into power my father, I remember in our house we had a rifle that was kept behind the cupboard, and my father slept with a small handgun under his pillow which he’d never [done] but as soon as [Idi Amin] came in and these rumblings started happening that’s how unsafe people were begging to feel.

Anand Dattani

So eventually you got the plane, and you came across?

Bharat Joshi

Yeah, even then there was a story to that, we were coming over with my grandparents, all my father’s siblings, all of us, and my mom’s cousin he was travelling with us when we got to Entebbe airport and he, for whatever reason, I think he just had that moment where he lost it and he said “I’m not getting on that flight, I'm not going anywhere” and he kicked up a stink and my father was trying to pacify him but he wouldn’t and then it was noticed by the soldiers. So they took my mum’s kaka and my dad but we missed the flight that we were due to fly on, it was a British Airways flight, and they were taken away for a number of hours. Eventually my father came back and then we were put on board a Ugandan Airlines [flight], it was about 12 hours later, and I remember the flight because we had a lot of turbulence. I was sick on the plane, we didn't have any food or water while we were on the flight.

Anand Dattani

And of course, you weren’t allowed to bring [that with you].

Bharat Joshi

They went through all our personal belongings to see what was there. But what we didn't realise until we landed at Heathrow and went to collect our main luggage [was] that only four of five pieces of luggage came through the rest of it they kept back there and the ones that did come through they had literally taken knives and just slashed the top of the suitcases opened them up to see what was in them and then they just sealed them with black tape. I’ve still got one of the suitcases at home as a reminder.

Anand Dattani

Do you remember your feeling or your first thoughts when you got off the plane?

Bharat Joshi

Yeah one of the feelings that I had was “Okay I’m going to a new country, a new land [where] I didn’t know anyone” but it was always, everyone said “We were going to London” all my friends, so as far as I was concerned “I’m going to London, okay it’s going to be a new place, but when I land there I will see people I know, I’ll see friends” and when we did land at Heathrow airport I had my shorts I had a jumper on, it was raining early morning and I was thirsty, parched as hell, and as we were walking past I see a vending machine, there's a Coke in there, so I said to my dad “Can I have a Coke? I’m really thirsty” and that was the first I literally saw my father cry because he didn’t have any money to buy me a Coke. As we were coming out of the terminal I see a lot of white people but I don’t see anyone I recognise.

Anand Dattani

From the flight?

Bharat Joshi

From the flight, just in the airport I thought my grandparents would be there, no, no one. It was just the four of us, we were on a flight [were] we didn’t know anyone.

Anand Dattani

Where did you go from there?

Bharat Joshi

From Heathrow Airport, obviously they went through all the medical checks and things like that, and we were put on a coach and taken to a camp, RAF Camp in Honiton in Devon, we stayed there for just under two weeks.

Anand Dattani

Did you know that that's where it was taking you or did you just get told “Get on this coach”?

Bharat Joshi

We were told that we would be taken to a place of safety, a camp, but we weren’t told where it was or if they did my father knew but I didn’t. We were taken to the camp and were shown to our rooms, our quarters that we had. Later I found out that we were one of the fortunate ones, one of the lucky ones, that we had the officers barracks so our beds were not wooden beds but they were metal beds but you didn’t have a bath in there, you didn’t have toilets. You had to go use the public toilets on-site, public baths on-site, so again I was in this camp with people I didn’t know. I didn’t know anyone there.

Anand Dattani

Were they all people from Uganda?

Bharat Joshi

All from Uganda, the camp it was just for the Uganda refugees. And then as they went out, my parents would go out, and then they would meet someone that we knew, so some people from Kakira they’d come [on] a different flight but they had arrived and stayed in the same camp. One of the things that I remember is the camps were kept open for nearly two years and a lot people lived in those camps for those two years, they didn’t relocate anywhere.

Anand Dattani

Out of choice?

Bharat Joshi

Out of choice because they had a place to stay, they were being given spending money, they were being fed and I think for lot of people they stayed there but I think it was just in the hope that “Okay Idi Amin will not last that long, after what he’s done, the outcry, maybe he’s going to get thrown out and we can all go back” so a lot of them I think stayed in the camps in that respect, in the hope that “We will go back” but I think when reality sunk in after two years or so [it was like] “This is it, we need to do something”.

Anand Dattani

And what were the helpers and the volunteers [like]?

Bharat Joshi

They were fantastic. My first memory of the helpers we had was a clergyman, a Vicar from Honiton a local church, he must have been in his 70s. He and his wife were there, they were the first ones to greet us at Heathrow, then when they heard I hadn’t eaten or drunken anything his wife took us along to a table and got us tea, biscuits, and water. They got us warm clothes to wear that had been donated by people across the country. So, they travelled with us on the same coach to Honiton, but I don't know what it was, some sort of bond or something, but you know we talk about previous lives that somehow, we’re connected, that’s what it became with them and my father, they adopted my father as a son, and we used to see them literally every day. They’d come and visit us, take us to their home. I even remember we went there for Sunday afternoon tea, where we had tea, cakes, and biscuits, and I accidentally knocked over a cup of tea and, not in this country, but back in Uganda & India if you did something [bad] you always got a slap and that’s what my mother did, just gave me a slap, and the wife Mrs Smith was livid she said “Don’t hit a child! It’s only carpet that can be cleaned”. But we stayed in touch with them until they passed away and my only regret was that I couldn’t go back to Honiton and see them before they passed away. They were elderly at that time and by the time we moved out, set up our own lives, rebuilt everything, going anywhere was not an option. You were just literally living day to day trying to save what money you can to get by and to rebuild your lives.

Anand Dattani

I mean they really sounded like they made it a lot more of a pleasant experience. But was that the rare situation of volunteers or how did it compare [to the local response]?

Bharat Joshi

No, it was the rare case. If we went into the local town in Honiton people resented you. The local bar there they wouldn’t let coloured people in.

Anand Dattani

So, it was quite explicit, they didn’t try and hide their [discrimination]?

Bharat Joshi

No, no, I mean lot of pubs at that time used to have signs that said No Irish, No Travelers, we were classed as Travellers so you couldn’t go in and it wasn’t so explicit that it happened then in the 70s and then all of a sudden things got better in the 80s. Even I remember in the 90s I’d [gone] to North London, we went to a wedding, and we walked into a lunchtime pub and as soon as we walked in one of the persons turned around and said to us “Don’t think you should be in here" so the acceptance there, thinking we’ve been accepted, hadn’t have gone even at that time, the prejudice was still there. To this day I still think it is there. Even from the official point of view the prejudice was there because even when we were in the camp my kaka had bought a house, not bought but rented a house in Leicester where all my grandparents, fathers brothers and sisters were all there, and my father contacted them and they said “Look just get to Leicester there’s room here” and the camp official says “No, no more people are allowed in Leicester” so we were put onto a relocation program where they were going to relocate us and they gave us two options my father could have stayed in Honiton, been in Exeter, were they would provide housing provide my father with a job, my mum with a job, free housing, it was a four bedroom house. My father asked them “Okay but how many families are relocating to Exeter?” “You’ll be the only Asian family in Exeter” and my father said “Not being funny but we’re different, how are we going to be accepted? If something goes wrong if no one’s there to help us” so then they said “Okay fine then, you can go to New Zealand we’ll put you on a flight, you’ll have housing, jobs” my father said “Well I want to go to Leicester” “No” “[I] Want to go London” “No, if you want to go to London or anywhere else you go of your own free will. We will not help you in any shape or form, not financially or anything like that”. For us to move to London, we had friends who lived right next to us in Kakira before they moved, she literally was like my mum’s sister, Ben (Gujarat term), and for the first two years of my life she brought me up I was used to call her ba. So, when we got to the camp my father had their number and he phoned them and the first thing she did was send her youngest son by train to come and visit us at the camp and he brought along food and tasting home food after so many days, it was just something different, and he went back and told his parents what the situation was. So when my father rang again she just get said “I don’t care how you do it just get here” and my father said “We haven’t got money to buy tickets or anything like that so until I can sort money out” and she said “No we’ll get your tickets you just get here” but my father didn’t want that because he knew once they would not take money from him, so he was trying to figure out a way because the camp officials had said “If you want to go to London we are not giving you any money”. The barracks we shared with another family, they were from Kampala, didn’t know them at all, we’d only known them for those few days that we were together they were talking, and he just came to the quarters one evening and gave my father £50 and said “Look here’s £50. Get yourself to London, relocate do whatever you need to” and my father said “I haven’t got this to repay you back and I don’t even know where you will be after a year” and he said “I don’t know where I’ll be but my daughter lives in Leicester. Here’s her number when you have enough money just phone her, tell her, and give her the money” and he said “I’m not telling you I want the money in one month, two months. When you can and if you can't, then you can’t” so that was the sort of the trust that we had back in Uganda with each other that we first saw there. It took my father a year and a bit to save up £50 because when he started work, he was earning I think £5 a week and my mum when she started working her salary for a week was £2.

Anand Dattani

And how did they get into the workforce?

Bharat Joshi

In those days it was so easy. So we travelled from Honiton to Forest Gate, East London we stayed with friends of ours and they said “Just get yourself jobs it’s not difficult at all” and they knew people who worked in factories, friends, so they got my father a job in a factory that made ladders it was an American company and my Saroj Bhabhi (sister-in-law) who worked in a ribbon factory, manufacturing ribbons for typewriters, she got my mum a job working there where she was. Regardless of the problems, but in the 70s you could go to work leave at lunchtime and say “I don’t want to work here” and walk out and literally in the afternoon could find yourself working somewhere else. So there was work in those day and Asian people were taken on as cheap labour.

Anand Dattani

True yeah, and so you went to school?

Bharat Joshi

I went to school, but it wasn't so easy. We lived with our friends for about two weeks then found rented accommodation. My mum and dad had started working at that time, so they didn't know how to go about getting me into school. The family that we lived with were a Sikh family, he owned the house but they were very typical Indian people at that time so I wasn’t allowed to go into their longue because I could ruin the carpet. We were only allowed to stay in the rooms that we were given, their children were of my age they used to go to school and my mum asked the landlady “How do I get him into school?” and she said “Oh I don’t know, you’ll have to ask her husband  how he does it” and he would just fob [her] off. So, I wasn’t going to school for four/five weeks that we’d been [in East London], I’d been handled by nanima. But the house we lived in there was a school right across and my nanima said to me one day “Why don’t you just go there? It’s a school” so I went there and the children were playing in the playground   and as I was walking in there was someone looking after the kids, a teacher, but I just said to him “Please can I come to school here” and they took me up to the Headmaster’s office and the Headmaster asked me “What’s your name, where do you live?” so I told him and I said “I want to come to school, I want to go to school”. So one day after school he came to our house to see my mum and dad and he helped find me a school, there was no place in that school, the school I did get a place at was I think just about a mile and a bit [away] and okay, expenses were tight so what do you do, you walk to school, and when I joined the school in my class there were only three coloured people and the whole of the school I think must have been about 50 people at most.

Anand Dattani

And how did they treat you guys?

Bharat Joshi

Within the school they’d be all really nice, I never had any issues, but as soon as walking home then yes children from other schools or local people walking past, yeah you got abuse.

Anand Dattani

Do you think it came from a place of actual hatred or just ignorance “We don't know who you are, we don’t get you so this is our way to get [back at you]”?

Bharat Joshi

Some of it was ignorance and a lot of it was pure hatred it was just “You don’t belong here, we don’t want you here, you were thrust upon us”. It’s sort of the things you see now with a lot of the asylum seekers coming here how it’s blown up in the media and how the public frenzy is around people coming in. Some of it is justifiable, a lot of people coming in are not genuine asylum seekers or refugees they’re coming over here to abuse the system, and many aren’t and those that aren’t they are looked at [in] the same vain. But those of us who came over were in that situation we know what it’s like.

Anand Dattani

Obviously nowadays it's so easy to access media and along with that comes a lot of fake news but back then do you think the media played a big role in influencing how [the public saw the Ugandan Asians]?

Bharat Joshi

Oh it did because at that time you had Enoch Powell a conservative politician who was so far-right and making speeches about the Rivers of Blood he was stirring up, this was a mainline conservative party MP talking about, what was going to happen if let all these people come into the country and the newspapers obviously jumped on that and they were spreading that hatred. I don't think either of the political parties really wanted to take us, it was because of pressure from within the country from a lot of the population that they felt they had to, and also because it was from a Commonwealth country they felt that they had to.

Anand Dattani

Probably even on how their international reputation [would be affected].

Bharat Joshi

Yeah, it was very much to show that we care, because they didn’t want us, they really did not want us.

Anand Dattani

Was it to the point where there was a safety concern or was it more of “Okay right I'm on a serious backfoot I’m going to have to find a way to integrate”?

Bharat Joshi

No in those days there was safety concern because you had the National Front, you had the skinheads. So when you were going out you were always fearful that you might, I felt it on a few occasions, coming home from school on my own there were skinheads that didn’t beat me up badly but kicked me, punched me, and these were older children.

Anand Dattani

And how did you eventually find your place or did you find your place?

Bharat Joshi

Well, we eventually, I even until this date now I don’t think I have found a place in this country, I don’t think I belong. Alright there are good things I’ve had from it but my children, people of your age born in this country, you feel this is my country, my home whereas I look at it, it’s a country that took me, it’s a country that I live in, I work in, I contribute towards, but is it my home? No, it’s not. Because I was in a similar position in another country which I thought was my home, which I believed was my home, but within a sort few months I was told “You’re an outsider” and in the back of my mind that can happen here as well.

Anand Dattani

That’s a very good point actually, do you feel even for your parents or just people who went through that, that it took away a lot of just trust and faith either in a political system or just in people in general?

Bharat Joshi

It took a way a lot, I mean there are people who accepted it, who have got on with it, and a lot of people like myself who’ve not. And in the back of my mind that’s always there “Remember you are in alien country this is not your home”

Anand Dattani

Do you think something needs to be done that can change this understanding or just awareness in people that [situation]?

Bharat Joshi

Yeah, one of the things I still see, and this is more politically lead than anything else is within, they have rules guidelines in workplaces that you’ve got to take a percentage of people from ethnic minorities, a percentage of people from disabilities. No, you’ve got to say people should be taken into work on merit, not on gender or the colour of their skin, it’s what they can bring and contribute. In my working life I’ve worked in many many companies and one of the companies I got a job in I thought for quite a while that it was because of my ability or my education and one day I was sitting down with my line manager, we’d gone out and by the time he'd become a friend, and he said to me “You know the reason why you got the job that you did?” and I said “I really don’t know Howard” and [I was thinking] he [would say] because that “I could do the job, my qualifications” he said “No you got the job because we had to fill in a quota of ethnic minority of employees”. So, I was taken in because of my colour not because of what I could do or what I could contribute in, and that comment stuck in my mind so much that every time I’ve gone for a job even now it’s still there that “Am I there because of what I can bring ,what I can do, or is it because I'm just here to fill up the quota?”.

Anand Dattani

Yeah it says a lot and I think especially coming from a generation where, like you were explaining early about your grandparents and leaving India, it's kind of driven by a desire or passion to advance, to grow, so when you’ve grown up in that I think being told something like this it makes you think “Well you know I have it in-built in me that I want to do well and be recognised for doing well” and then when you get told this it’s a…

Bharat Joshi

It’s a kick in the teeth. I still go out with friends, sometimes they’re in a pub and the topic of immigration comes up and they’re talking about it and the P word comes up “They’re taking over this, they’re doing this”. They tarnish everyone, if you’re brown skin as far as they’re concerned, you’re a Paki and then I’m there and I’m looking at them and saying, “You’re talking about people of my colour, don’t you see me that I’m standing in front of you” but then they say, “But you’re different”. How am I different? The other thing is pronouncing Indian names they say, “Well I can’t pronounce your name don’t you have an English name you could have?”  “No” my attitude has always been this is my name if I can learn to pronounce your name learn to pronounce my name and I have a big gripe with Indian people who take on English names, that’s not your identity, don’t be afraid, be who you are.

Anand Dattani

It's almost like the experiences that you went through for some it made them lose their identity.

Bharat Joshi

Yeah, exactly and some have their identity [altered] to such a degree that when they are talking about Indians or India it’s as a third person, a third country, they feel that they are totally English, but why do you have to feel that?

Anand Dattani

That they’ve separated themselves.

Bharat Joshi

Yeah, totally its either that they’ve separated because they want to or it’s just that’s the only way they think they are accepted.

Anand Dattani

Kind of on that, the cultural influences whether its food, drink, music, do you feel that [those things] you were still able to hold onto or carry with you even after moving here?

Bharat Joshi

Yes, we were fortunate that the circle of friends we built were of the same ilk, they're all from Uganda, or people that we knew, friends of friends, they hung onto that identity. So all our functions Diwali, Holi we all got together, we all celebrated together. That was carried on from people of my parents’ generations through myself and even with my children now, they will still celebrate those things even though they identify themselves as British citizens, but ultimately, they’re Indian, and they will celebrate all of our cultures, everything to do with our culture they’ll celebrate. Bringing up my children I’ve not tried to be divisive and say, “Look this is us and this is them” its “This is us, don’t forget who we are, go out and celebrate Christmas go around and celebrate Easter but don’t forget your traditions, your culture” and I’m fortunate with my children a lot of children they’ve lost because their parents have given up the ghost. I feel now that’s wrong.

Anand Dattani

Because it does still define a lot of who they are, or it should.

Bharat Joshi

My children have been back to India many times, my wife’s from India, my family’s from India but I’ve always wanted my children to keep going there because simply in the back of my mind again is “If you have to leave this country and you have to go there, you need to be prepared” if India has to become a home you need to be prepared you need to, so that’s how I’ve been doing it.

Anand Dattani

Just to finish you were touching on it before and even you’ve just mentioned it now but what or where would you call home then for you?

Bharat Joshi

Okay, I don’t feel this is home, don’t feel I belong here. Uganda was home but after being thrown out, I’d like to go and visit see it, but would I call it home? No. I genuinely feel, even though when we were leaving Uganda India said “No we won't take you in because you’ve got British passports”, the first time I visited India was when both my children were young and I got off at Mumbai. When I just got off, breathing in the air for the first time ever, you know people remind you of the stench and all of that but I actually felt then that I was home, that this is home.

Anand Dattani

That’s amazing.

Bharat Joshi

Yeah, just the smell.

Anand Dattani

Something in that the DNA from your grandparents.

Bharat Joshi

Yeah just landed there and thought “I am home” and even now I say to my wife “I’ve got a few more years were I’m going to work, then I’m retiring and we’re going to spend more time in India than we will here”. It is unfortunate that I can’t call this country home it’s just…

Anand Dattani

I think it’s a genuine thought and opinion that you hold, like you say you're not trying to say the right thing to fit in to appease people, this is from the heart.

Bharat Joshi

I’m saying to people “This is who I am this is what I am, accept me for what I am. I’m ready to accept you for who you are so why not me? I’m not trying to impose myself on you I’m not saying my culture is your culture” but I’m just saying “We’re two different people but we can live side by side” but that acceptance isn’t here yet, okay we’ve got an Indian Prime Minister, but for me he’s just a token.

Anand Dattani

Just to finish, the point that it’s still a highlighted thing show’s that you’re seen as different “Look at this!”

Bharat Joshi

And to make things worse in the news [they ask] has he got a private GP? Well did you ask that question of any of the previous Prime Ministers? The Health Service has always been in trouble for the last 10-12 years so why weren’t the previous Prime Ministers asked the same question, why this one? And the thing you should be saying is “Well that’s fine he’s got private health he can afford it, that’s fine” what I’m after as a person, an everyday person is I want the service that I pay for and that’s what you ask him of and say “Look this is what we want, regardless of what your colour is I don’t care” but when this comes about…

Anand Dattani

It just brings to the surface what’s never actually disappeared.

Bharat Joshi

Yeah it’s just glossed over and I just feel sad that a lot of the younger people don’t see that, and that sort of breaks my heart. You’ve been taken in but if it comes back, you’ll be hurt.

Anand Dattani

The first target.

Bharat Joshi

Yeah, they will be and because they’ve called this home so much, going anywhere else in the world they’ll find it so difficult. I’ve seen it first hand young people, who don’t speak Gujarati because where they’ve lived in there’s not that many Indian people. But even them it was up to them, to their parents and when they went to India for the very first time, they found the country was alien and the thinking was sort of very English it’s like when you see on the comedy shows when English people used to go to France “Why can’t they speak English? Why can’t they serve English food?” and you think “If that’s what you wanted why did you go on holiday?” So white people don’t like me because of the colour of my skin and yet for two weeks of the year they’ll go into some hot country so they can look like me.

Anand Dattani

Yeah but then complain that the country’s culture doesn’t match theirs.

Bharat Joshi

But one thing that does stick with me is a quote from the Tom Cruise movie The Last Samurai it’s right towards the end when the Emperor of Japan said one thing he said “We shouldn’t forget who we are or where we come from” and that sticks in my mind and I think “Yeah he is right”

Anand Dattani

Yeah, it’s very true that’s a great way to finish, thank you so much for saying that. It was really really eye opening and I just appreciated [you] speaking from your heart, heart on your sleeve and sharing your raw thoughts, so thank you.