In the context of the partition of British India into India , Pakistan and Bangladesh and the religious conflicts between Hindus , Muslims and Sikhs , many people have left India , Pakistan and Bangladesh and emigrated to the UK. Thus, these immigrants have the right to live and work in the UK without formal restrictions, that is, without the right of British citizenship. So, they live with continuously limited rights (Lente 47-48). In the 1950s – 1960s, South Asian immigrants have the right only to work in the coal, steel and textile industry where British workers are missing.
As a result, the Indian subcontinent immigrants are not considered as equal as citizens although they carry the British passports and the British attitude has often been described as racist as Avtar Brah sums it up pertinently in this passage :In the main these were unskilled jobs involving unsociable hours of work, poor working conditions and low wages. Hence, Asian workers came to occupy some of the lowest rungs of the British employment hierarchy. Additionally, as ex-colonial subjects, they belonged to a group whose country is once ruled by Britain. From the beginning, therefore, the encounter between Asians and the white population is circumscribed by colonial precedents (21).Lente declares that Antipathy and mistrust have not only directed against South Asians, but also against other groups , such as Caribbean, Polish and Chinese immigrants. In addition to ‘individual racism’, institutional racism made the immigrants’ (and later their children’s) lives difficult (49-52).
Lente also (50-54) indicates that since the 1960s, many things have improved . However; racism still exists in many forms and shapes, there are attempts to fight it on various levels, raise the people’s awareness and to prevent it. One of the effective ways that has been used to explore different perspectives and the backgrounds of racism is literature. Many literary texts pick up these unequal relations and the racism towards immigrants.
