In 1972, more than 27,000 Asians were expelled by dictator Idi Amin, from Uganda, and many refugees sought refuge in various parts of the United Kingdom.
Contextually, the backdrop of 1972, when Ugandan Asians arrived from August to October, was met with many of the world’s crises which emerged in 1973.
As reports state, the Yom Kippur War, miners’ strike, the oil crisis, Three-Day Week, petrol crisis and electricity cuts, all proved to be a very difficult and trying time for the newcomers that settled across the UK.
As thousands of South Asians from Uganda settled in Leicester to start a new life, this year in 2022, Ugandan Asians commemorate the 50th anniversary of the expulsion.
To celebrate the landmark anniversary, Leicester City Council is combining a Crowd Funding campaign and contribution from the city council to commission artists’ designs for the public art display, to be shown at the Leicester Museum.
This city-wide project will reflect the arrival of the Ugandan Asians, who started a new life in Leicester, and the vital contribution they have made to the city’s unique identity since then.
According to the Leicester City Council, the exhibition has also received a £10,000 contribution from the Council’s Museums and Galleries Services and is due to open in July 2022.
Leicester deputy city mayor for culture, leisure and sport, Cllr Piara Singh Clair, said: “This 50th anniversary is a real milestone in the story of Leicester’s Ugandan Asian community, who have helped shape the city’s identity to this day.
“We are very keen to hear from people about their ideas and designs for this public artwork and will be working closely with the city’s Ugandan Asian community to ensure the final design both commemorates the events of 1972 and keeps the story alive as part of living history for future generations.
“This is a wonderful opportunity to create a new piece of public art linked to such an important part of Leicester’s recent past, and I very much look forward to seeing people’s designs.”
Asian Sunday spoke to the recently awarded MBE and deputy lieutenant Dr Manoj Joshi, a Ugandan of Indian-Gujarati origin who arrived in England as a refugee.
“The expulsion of Ugandans in 1972, may we pray that this kind of thing never happens, but it continues to happen and remember all those people that came and suffered in 1972 and made lots of sacrifices to make the various parts of the United Kingdom their home.
“To commemorate, there are several events planned in London and in Leicester, and in fact, we are thinking about doing one in Bradford as well, but there aren’t that many Ugandan refugees in Bradford.
“The Ugandan expulsion of Ugandan Asians was the first ethnic cleansing episode, in the second half of the 20th century, so after the holocaust and world wars which followed, this was the first beginning of ethnic cleansing, and then we have had a number of mass murders and cleansing since then,” says Dr Joshi.
“The Ugandan Asians when they came to the UK, the only thing that they did was to graft and get on with businesses, education, professions, they got to work and transformed how some of the retail activities and work ethics were at that time.
As Dr Joshi declares: “The best way of survival is to live in peace and harmony with all the communities.
He says, “The national front at that time, was very rampant, so racism and attacks on a racial basis were rampant, as the atmosphere was very hostile and very brutal, despite that we got on and now the Ugandan Asians are considered to be a huge asset to the UK economy and community”.
In honour of this, a Leicester-based arts organisation, Navrang, has been awarded National Lottery Heritage Funding, to lead a commemoration project which will explore, share, and celebrate the resilience and resourcefulness of this unique community.
Hosting one exhibition curated by their team at Charnwood Museum in October 2022, the project will bring to life the extraordinary experiences of an entire community of people who were given just 90 days to leave Uganda, and the stories of those displaced people who settled in the UK, and in Leicester.
An example is given by Anila Loughborough, a Leicester resident, who shares her heart-wrenching story through Culture Leicestershire, as she volunteers to support this exhibition at Charnwood.
She says “Idi Amin gave us 90 days to leave. We were ‘expelled’. Told to get out of the country we were born in and lived our lives in. we could take one suitcase and that was it”.
The Leicester-based arts organisation was awarded just over £102,000 from the National Lottery Heritage Fund for a programme of regional events including the exhibition.
Curve Theatre is also staging a community production this summer looking at the Ugandan Asians’ exodus, their journeys to Leicester and contributions to the city over the last five decades.
The production entitled Finding Home Leicester’s Ugandan Asian Story at 50, will run from 29 July to 6 August and will feature three short new plays by local writers whose families arrived in the UK from Uganda.