Leicester: A Little Gujarat in Britain

Leicester: A Little Gujarat in Britain (September 2009)

In September 2009, I travelled to Leicester in the United Kingdom as Commissioner & Secretary, Cottage & Rural Industries, Gujarat, to attend the three-day ‘Village India & Experience Gujarat’ event at De Montfort Hall. I had travelled abroad earlier, but Leicester offered me a different kind of experience. I was going to Britain, yet in many ways I felt I was entering a little Gujarat.

Leicester had a population of around three lakh, with nearly 80,000 Gujaratis. The moment I encountered the Gujarati community there, I was reminded that migration does not necessarily mean leaving one's roots behind. People may change their country, profession and lifestyle, but food, language, music, festivals and memories often travel with them.

The organizers had created a small Indian village inside the British city. Traditional Gujarati bhungas, huts, village objects and even statues of cattle had been beautifully arranged. There were about a dozen such structures. At one place, Rajendra Bhatt from Gandhinagar sat dressed as Mahatma Gandhi, spinning the charkha. Visitors stopped, looked and photographed the scene. What interested me most was watching young Gujarati children asking their parents and grandparents questions about the things they were seeing. For them, the village was almost an unfamiliar world.

That scene stayed with me. A village recreated in Leicester was teaching children born in Britain something that textbooks alone could not teach them—their own cultural ancestry.

The presence of Gandhi made the experience even more meaningful. Leicester had recently unveiled a statue of Gandhi, one of only a few such public memorials in Britain at that time. I remember reflecting on the irony and beauty of it: Gandhi, who had spoken so passionately about India's villages and self-reliance, had travelled far beyond India and found a place in the heart of a British city.

The performance area presented another interesting picture. The younger generation enjoyed Bhangra and popular music, while older Gujaratis gathered around folk music, devotional songs and traditional performances. Parthiv Gohil, Hemant Chauhan, Ashit Desai, Hema Desai, Aishwarya Majumdar, Saumil Munshi and several other artists kept the atmosphere lively. Sairam Dave's dayro brought laughter, while folk performances of Bhavai, Ras and Bharatanatyam connected the audience with Indian traditions.

And then there was the food court. It was crowded almost continuously. The aroma of Gujarati and Asian food seemed to confirm what I had already understood: food is perhaps one of the strongest passports of culture.

As the officer responsible for cottage and rural industries, however, I naturally looked at the exhibition from another angle—the prospects for our artisans in an international market. The results were mixed. There was considerable curiosity about Gujarati handicrafts, but actual sales were not always encouraging. Patola, for example, was admired but its high price limited purchases. Sankheda furniture eventually found a buyer, while some stalls received useful enquiries about interior decoration and event management. One participating unit from Dahod even suffered a major loss when goods were stolen at night.

These experiences taught me a practical lesson. Taking a craft abroad is not the same as taking a product to a foreign market. An artisan needs much more than an exhibition stall—appropriate pricing, packaging, design, logistics, security and, above all, knowledge of the customer's expectations. Government can open the door, but the product must ultimately walk through it on its own strength.

There was also an unexpected administrative difficulty. Most of the artisans selected for the event could not travel because their visas did not arrive in time. Only one of the nine applicants was able to participate. It was a useful reminder that international programmes require meticulous preparation and contingency planning; even a good idea can falter because of something as mundane as paperwork and timing.

The event also became a platform for Gujarat's economic outreach. Hon'ble Minister Mrs. Anandiben Patel met British and Gujarati business representatives and spoke about Gujarat's infrastructure, investment opportunities and the state's changing economic landscape. Meetings with MPs and other British dignitaries added a diplomatic dimension to what had begun as a cultural festival.

About 15,000 people visited the event over three days. The first day's turnout was disappointing, but the subsequent response was much better. The organizers expressed their intention to make the event an annual feature.

What I remember most from Leicester, however, is not the number of visitors or the official meetings. It is the image of a Gujarati child standing before a village hut in the middle of Britain, asking his elders, “What is this? How did people live like this?”

Perhaps that was the real achievement of the event. It had brought a little piece of Gujarat to Britain—not merely through music, food and handicrafts, but through memory.

I came back with another thought as well. The Gujarati diaspora need not be merely the keeper of our culture; it can also become a bridge between Gujarat and the world. Culture can open the door, and through that door can come friendship, investment, markets and new opportunities for our artisans and rural communities.