The Distinctiveness of British-Asian Bradford?
Seán McLoughlin

Whether for its mela (fair), said to be ‘Europe’s biggest Asian event’, or for the burning of Salman Rushdie’s novel, The Satanic Verses (1988), the story of ‘Brad-istan’, as it is sometimes dubbed locally, has been consistently documented, perhaps more than any other centre of the South Asian diaspora world-wide. However, while Bradford may well be seen by some as a ‘microcosm’ of Asianised post-colonial Britain, uniquely (trans)local dynamics are at work, dynamics which increasingly make ‘Brad-istan’ look like the (often quoted) exception rather than the rule. A number of factors begin to explain its particularity.

First, the size of the ‘British-Asian’ population of Bradford has made its presence especially visible; in 2001 there were 85,465 people of Pakistani, Indian and Bangladeshi heritage living in a city of 467,665 people. Second, the Census also suggests that the overall dominance and concentration of a single minority ‘ethnic’ group in the inner city – that is, the Pakistanis - is especially marked. Bradford is home to Britain’s highest proportion of Pakistanis (67,994) relative to overall population (15%) and other groupings - such as Indians (12,504) and Bangladeshis (4,967) – are relatively small. Third, the ethnic category ‘Pakistani’ is reinforced by religion with the vast majority of Pakistanis being Muslim. In 2001 there were 75,188 Muslims living in Bradford compared to just 4,748 Sikhs and 4,457 Hindus.

Fourth, since the 1970s Bradford has been a city beset by economic problems, in particular the almost terminal decline of its, once world famous, woollen textiles industry. Nearby Leeds, as well as Manchester, and others, have all managed to regenerate in the post-industrial age to a greater or lesser extent. However, for smaller former mill towns in the north of England like Oldham, Burnley and Bradford, this has proven more difficult. Attempts have been made to re‑package Bradford as the home of art, culture and tourism. In the 1980s, the ‘institutional completeness’ of South Asian communities was commodified in the ‘Flavours of Asia’ tourist campaign. More recently Bradford bid unsuccessfully to become European Capital of Culture 2008.

Fifth, against this context, Pakistani Muslim ethnicity is also reinforced by a shared position in terms of social class. While there are plenty of examples of ‘BrAsian’ Muslims in Bradford having achieved ‘success’, both in their own terms and those of wider society, many have not yet accumulated the social and cultural capital necessary for upward mobility in a knowledge-based economy. There are many ‘structural-cultural’ reasons for this including the failure of the education system to tackle ‘underachievement’ and the continuing consequences of the context of migration. For example, the majority of ‘Pakistanis’ that migrated to Bradford post-war were actually unskilled and illiterate farmers, most especially from Mirpur district in Pakistani administered ‘Azad’ (Free) Kashmir.

Finally, the size, concentration and predominance of the now largely ‘working class’, Pakistani and Kashmiri heritage, Muslim population in Bradford has seen this constituency able to exert levels of political pressure, and achieve levels of political mobilisation, rarely seen amongst Asians elsewhere in Britain.