During the heyday of the British Empire, it was not uncommon to transfer labor from one colony (mostly India) to another. Thus Indian labor was employed in East Africa (coffee plantations), South Africa (sugar cane), Malaya (rubber), Fiji (sugar), the West Indies (sugar mostly), and there were other places.
They were hired under contract, usually for a period of five years, and were thus known as indentured labor. After their term, most noticed commercial opportunities and settled down sending for wives from back home.
Generations later for those in East Africa, their comfortable lives were disrupted by the advent of Idi Amin, who blamed the low status of Africans in their own country on the Indians who had substantial control over the economy and looked down on the Africans. The incessant targeting by Idi Amin led to riots and looting of Indian businesses, and eventually to the ejection of Indians from East Africa. Unfortunately for Idi Amin, the subsequent disaster for the economy resulted inevitably in his ouster, and he sought refuge in Saudi Arabia where he died some decades later.
Among the Indian multitudes that fled was the family of one Rishi Sunak; they found refuge in Yorkshire. Mr. Sunak himself is somewhat cagey as to family occupation. However, they aimed high and the young Rishi was sent to Winchester College, a renowned private school founded in the 14th century.
Always industrious, he ended up earning a place at Oxford and then graduating from there with a First. His education continued at Stanford where he was a Fulbright scholar and completed an MBA. For his path to riches, he sought out an investment bank landing at Goldman Sachs.
That avenue was short-circuited for at Stanford he also met and later married an Indian heiress, daughter of the billionaire who founded the Indian software firm infosys. A slight man of 5ft. 7inches, what Mr. Rishi lacks in physical presence, he makes up for with his skills in the vicious game of parliamentary politics.
Having watched the downfall of two prime ministers, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss and having lost the party leadership contest to the latter, he bided his time. From the right of the Conservative party, Liz Truss’ economic program did little for most Britons; instead it doled out tax cuts to the rich. Her support dwindled rapidly as her fellow party MP’s visualized havoc at the next election. And ministers sensing her end began to resign and distance themselves from disaster, Rishi Sunak among the first.
He had been installed in No.11 Downing Street, the Chancellor’s residence next door to the prime minister’s abode at No.10, and he returned to his own palatial Kensington mansion, a short London Tube ride away although his means of transport may not have been quite so pedestrian. By the way, he and his wife own four homes, including a Grade-ll listed Georgian manor house in the picturesque village of Kirby Sigston in North Yorkshire.
Indians in India inferred favorable portents in Mr. Rishi’s installation on the same day as Diwali, the festival of lights and India’s biggest public holiday. Yet the BBC interviewing ethnic Indians in Britain about an Indian becoming prime minister found few celebrants. They were told simply: What has that to do with us? Those are the games rich people play. For us nothing has changed.
Of course, Covid has made everything much worse for those with socio-economic disadvantages.