From ‘goodies’ to ‘baddies’: The journey of British Pakistanis

The UK is home for the largest Pakistani community in Europe, with the population of British Pakistanis now exceeding 1.17 million. It is the second-largest minority community in the UK, creating an indelible mark on the UK landscape. Its significance to both Pakistan and the UK cannot be underestimated.

I take the view that a strong, prosperous, healthy, and active British Pakistani community is of enormous importance to the social and economic progress and the stability of both nations. Therefore, the impacting dynamics of the British Pakistanis should intrinsically be of much interest and relevance to the leadership of both countries.

For the first three decades, from the 60’s to the 80’s, the migrants from Pakistan (inclusive of East Pakistan, now Bangladesh) and India that came to settle in the UK were generally regarded as hardworking, law-abiding, and family conscious and caring.

Over the last three decades, whereas these perceptions regarding British Indians (Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims) have either remained the same or improved, the perceptions of the British Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities have taken a drastic nosedive: from hardworking to lazy and benefit reliant, from law abiding to lawlessness, from being community conscious to being tribal and sectarians.

Of course, these are broad generalizations of a community of 1.17 million in the UK and one can readily point to many success stories in areas of commerce, politics, professional excellence and community service.

However, the negative perceptions of the community remain high and widespread thus camouflaging and blighting the gains made by many through hard work and perseverance in a climate infested by racism and Islamophobia.

Of course, the British media has not helped, only too quickly to pounce on and capitalize even a smallest of the incidents.

In order to understand or make sense of this downward spiral of ‘fame to fame’ scenario, we must look no further than the makeup of the prison population in England and Wales.

In England and Wales alone, the Muslim population stands at around 13,000 (16%) the total prison population of England and Wales (80,000) whereas Muslim only makeup 2.3 % of the total UK population.

Most of the Muslim prison population is of Pakistani heritage which stands at around 2% of the general UK population (1.17% in 2011 census). It is projected that at the present rate the Muslim Prison population could hit the 50 % mark of the total prison population in Wales.

Even if the current Muslim percentage only doubles itself, the situation remains alarming and there appear to be no noticeable reversing of this trend.

On another account, the unemployment percentage amongst British Pakistanis is disproportionately high compared to their other counterparts, for example, the Indians.

Writing for the Independent in August of 2018, Alok Sharma, when he was the Minister of Employment at Department of Work and Pensions, noted that the average employment rate for the British Pakistanis and British Bangladeshis was then 54.8 per cent – the lowest within any minority ethnic groups.

He went on to point out that these two communities respectively are found in the three of the worst paid employments. These trends are further exacerbated for young British Pakistanis by inadequate education, sub-standard skills set and the consequential lack of opportunities.

This combined with endemic racism and Islamophobia only go to exacerbate their situation. These scenarios are particularly more pronounced in my city, Bradford, where unemployment is rife amongst young Pakistanis.

It is not a secret that we as a community have grossly been negligent of not investing in the education of our young people. Our priorities and focus in this regard has been entirely misplaced and we are paying a heavy price for it.