british indians were still called Pa7is, it made no difference to those of the far right if u were hindu, muslim, jain, whatever, it was all the same, and still is to a racist.
the major difference between british indians and british pakistanis was that the predominant indian communities in the UK, at least in London were firstly punjabi sikhs, who every body generally likes because they are stereotypically extroverted, happy go lucky, and hard working (in my experience one of the most physically hard working ethnic groups in the UK), and secondly gujis, who i have always found have been insular and cliquey, but have leveraged generations of business and wealth building acumen and applied the same in the UK and become wealthy.
the largest group of british pakistanis were kashmiris who came over in the 60s and 70s, and moved to the mill towns of the north. they found work in factories, and were fed the political class rhetoric of the time, which looked to ingrain the class system into the psyche of workers in the name of socialism. when those factories closed and those towns died, the local communities had no where to go other than to turn to themselves for support, creating functioning local economies but also essentially ghettos. it is not a coincidence that the core of the far right that harbours the greatest resentment toward the britpak community is from the exact same communities which were destroyed by deindustrialisation which saw generational employers shut up shop in the span of five or ten years. they lost their communities, but saw that britpaks didnt lose their, even though they were both in the same poverty and depravation.
the british indians were a completely different type of diaspora, and they lived and worked in completely different conditions to the britpak community.
im from london so dont have first hand experience of the north, but im sure
@Markhor could correct me where ive gone wrong, and illucidate the point further.
