Keywords: United Kingdom, Manchester, Punjab, Pakistanis, immigration

  
  
I wander through the Curry Mile like it's Delhi! 
Turbans and shawls, as if it were Delhi!
I can't find the words, I breathe in the scents and tear the rose petals, as if this is Delhi.
And the speech is here: Urdu, Punjabi, like in Delhi.
And the cuisine: kebab there, curry here, like in Delhi.
And even a cockroach sleeps with prunes in pilaf,
And beer "Cobra" here, of course it's Delhi!

Indian Quarter. Curry Mile. 
 
 

Manchester and its suburbs, along with Birmingham, were the cradle of the industrial Revolution in the British Isles. And today, Greater Manchester retains its position as the largest industrial, financial, scientific and educational center in the north of England. In and around it, 80% of workers in the cotton industry and 85% of yarns and fabrics produced are concentrated.

The city's Indo-Pakistani community, one of the oldest in England, is linked to the production and sale of textiles. Already in the 1930s, several dozen Muslim Punjabis arrived to study at the University of Manchester. Here, on Oxford Road, in the area of the university and the Institute of Technology, Punjabis who were engaged in retail trade settled.

The London" slum riot " in August 2011 spread to Manchester. Raging young people robbed shops and set fire to cars. Some members of the Indo-Pakistani community were also injured during the riots. But there is no information about the participation of their youth in the riots.

I. Y. KOTIN

Doctor of Historical Sciences

A group of Muslim peddlers from Jalandhar-a district in the Indian state of Punjab-appeared in Manchester in the 30s of the last century. The English researcher P. Verbner notes that they belong to the Arain ^{1 caste}.

A second wave of immigration from Jalandhar, often transiting through Faisalabad or even Malaysia and Singapore, where they served in the military, occurred in the 1947-1950s.

The third wave of migrants, mainly from the Punjabi city of Gujranwala (Pakistan) and neighboring villages, was mainly represented by members of the Julaha weaver caste, who had previously served in the British troops in Cyprus, and after the island republic was granted independence in 1960, ended up in England.

Currently, Pakistanis and other groups of South Asian Muslims live compactly in the areas of Rusholme, Levesholme, Victoria Park to the south of Manchester city center, as well as in the northern suburbs of Rochdale.

The least affluent Muslim Punjabis settle in areas with the highest concentration of Pakistani immigrants, while their more affluent countrymen move to the prestigious "white" suburbs whenever possible. This practice is also typical for Indians, mainly Hindus, whose numbers in the areas of initial settlement in British cities are decreasing as their economic situation improves and their social status increases, primarily due to their higher education.

Not far from the University of Manchester, representatives of the Ahmadiyya Muslim sect also live around the one-story mosque building.

The concentration areas of Punjabi Muslims and Sikhs in Manchester do not coincide. Sikhs settle to the north of the city center, and not to the south, like Muslims-

* A Muslim sect that broke away from Islam. Denies jihad, rejects the concept of completeness of the revelations of Allah set forth in the Qur'an. The views of Ahmadiyya ideologists, especially Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Qadiani (1835-1908), were most widely spread in Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan and India.

However, most of both live in typical low-cost Victorian homes and contain shops and restaurants. Particularly popular with Manchester residents is the Rusholme area, where more than a hundred Pakistani and Indian restaurants are located, designed for both Asians and native Britons.

In recent years, there has been a trend towards further development of Rusholm as an "Asian enclave": in the daytime, it remains a lively place for dining and walking students and tourists, and in the evening it comes under the "power" of Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, for whom it has become a prestigious area for living.

Since the 1980s, when the government of Margaret Thatcher supported small businesses, while contributing to the "silent death" of a number of large and unprofitable enterprises, many Indians and Pakistanis who were laid off from textile factories decided to try their luck in the restaurant business. They joined industry pioneers and veterans, such as the owners of the half-century-old Taj Mahal restaurant in suburban Wilmslow, which has disappeared and been revived several times, reflecting periods of fascination with "Indian cuisine" and its oblivion.

In the 1950s, the availability of low-cost housing and jobs in the textile industry made the Wilmslow Road area attractive to immigrants, where low-cost Indian and Pakistani cafes appeared.²

According to Abdul Sanam, founder of the now-thriving Sanam Sweet House and Indian Restaurant firm, there were still plenty of traditional English shops and pubs in Rusholme in the 1960s, when "Asians" flooded in. The 1970s were a time of active transformation of Rusholm into an "Asian enclave". The results of Indo-Pakistani immigration here became particularly noticeable in the 1980s, when only a few non-Asian families remained in the area.³ Moreover, the area was populated not only by direct arrivals from South Asia, but also by immigrants from the old British "Asian enclaves" - Bradford, Derby, etc.

Among the most popular Indian restaurants in Rusholm is Lal Haveli (Red Terem). The name reflects its rivalry with the opposite and more famous "Lal Kila"("Red Fort"). Many people call Lal Haveli, which specializes in Indian and Nepalese cuisine, the best in Rusholm. In turn, "Lal Kila" is an institution with a rich history, an interesting menu and branches in the neighboring towns of Bolton and Handforth.

Another favorite of Manchester residents is "Spice Hut", whose very name - "House of Spices" - recalls the national peculiarities of Indian and Pakistani cuisine.

The revival of Rusholm as an "Asian enclave" has its own differences from, for example, the development of London's East End, called "Banglatown" or "little Bangladesh"⁴. In the latter, Bangladeshi restaurateurs are ready to use Hindu symbols to attract "white" customers, while in Rusholm, the emphasis is on products processed in accordance with Muslim norms.

In recent years, Rusholm has been experiencing a process of radicalization of young Muslims of South Asian origin, who are trying to turn the area into a zone with a predominance of "Muslim orders"here. To a certain extent, this contradicts the interests of the older generation who own businesses here, including restaurants and shops.

Young people are demanding a ban on the sale of alcoholic beverages in" Asian " areas, which may threaten their "fathers"with ruin. So far, a kind of compromise can be considered the presence of beer in the assortment of Indian and Pakistani restaurants (as a rule, Indian production - "Kingfisher", "Cobra", etc.) and the refusal to provide customers with stronger drinks. Passions are especially heated during Muslim holidays.

Punjabis living in Rusholm use the traditional Muslim calendar. They date back to the year of the Hijra-the migration of the Prophet Muhammad from Mecca to Medina (622 A.D.). It is common to add local newspapers, journalistic and propaganda publications to the European Muslim date; the dates of Muslim holidays sliding in relation to European numbers are indicated in central newspapers and various reference books.

The lunar Hijri calendar is based on a year consisting of 12 months. The lunar month, limited to two new moons, is 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes, 3.8 seconds. For simplicity, calculate-

some months have 30 days, while others have 29.

Muslims of South Asian origin, like other followers of Islam, traditionally fast in the month of Ramadan, at the end of which they celebrate the holiday of breaking the fast.

The riots in Manchester in the early 2000s led to the fact that during the holidays, the police and the city administration are trying to limit the access of Muslims from other parts of Manchester to Rusholme.⁵ At the same time, in Manchester itself, Labour and the Conservatives are fighting for an "ethnic voice", trying not to lose radical voters, while at the same time, if possible, not allowing deputies from immigrant families to vote.

FIGHT FOR "ETHNIC VOICES"

The Labour Party National Conference in Manchester in 1994 initiated the development of a programme of action for minority voters and candidates, primarily "Asians", which was prompted by the discovery of bribery and other "foul play" in the appointment of Labour candidates in the predominantly Pakistani Manchester Gorton constituency. Gerald Kaufman, a member of Parliament and Foreign Minister in the Labour shadow government, told the leadership that 625 applications to join the party were submitted in his constituency in the autumn of 1992 and winter of 1993. Before that, the party organization consisted of 900 people. 625 new candidates turned out to be Asian. Since each party member had one vote when choosing a parliamentary candidate, new members could immediately turn the situation in favor of their representative. Kaufman described the incident as a fact of lobbying one of the new Pakistani candidates. However, the party commission recognized 492 applications as valid, thereby allowing the emergence of an Asian Muslim lobby.

As it turned out later, people were not so much asked to join the Labour Party as to support a particular candidate by joining it. It was assumed that the lobbying campaign was organized by a large Pakistani businessman Brent Ahmed Shahzad, who intended to run as a candidate from the district in the next parliamentary elections on ⁶. This is what revealed the mechanism of lobbying for Pakistani candidates and the danger of related violations.

During the election campaign, the popular Anglo-Pakistani newspaper Jang published a report about the policy of Pakistani candidates to mobilize the votes of Pakistani voters in England in support of their fellow countrymen. In connection with this publication and the accusation of lobbying, Bradford City Councilman Rangzeb and a number of other potential Pakistani candidates were forced to abandon the election campaign. The former mayor of Bradford, Muhammad Ajib, and a number of other British Muslim politicians saw the actions of Labour as a manifestation of Islamophobia.

The political activation of voters during the election period is replaced by the onset of some apathy in the intervals between them, but the" Asian womb " of Manchester - Rusholm - recalls itself with numerous propaganda ads, and recently with speeches in the city council demanding that Rusholm be given a status comparable to that of London's Banglatown, that is, officially recognize it as an ethnic enclave in the United States. a British city.

^{Werbner P.} 1 The Migration Process. Capital, Gifts and Offerings among British Pakistanis. Oxford, 1996.

^{Goswami N..} 2 The Making of the 'Currv Mile'// BBC News, 06.08.2009.

³ Ibidem.

^{Pich K.} 4, Kotin I. Y. Ethno-confessional groups of South Asian origin in three cities of England // Ethnographic Review, 2009, No. 5, pp. 3-14.

⁵ Rusholm Aid 'not cancelled' // BBC News, January 1, 2002.

⁶ Daily Times. 30.01.1996.

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