In a recent episode of Padhaku Nitin on Aaj Tak, eminent cultural historian Professor (Dr.) Arup K. Chatterjee joined host Nitin Thakur to discuss his latest book, Indians in London: From the Birth of the East India Company to Independent India (Bloomsbury, 2021). Through a lively Hindi conversation punctuated by historical anecdotes, the two traced nearly four centuries of South Asian presence in the British capital—reframing common assumptions about migration, empire, and diasporic identity.

London as Liminal Space

Chatterjee began by challenging the Romantic ideal of London as merely a site of colonial oppression or elite ambition. Instead, he described it as a “city reborn” after the Great Fire of 1666—rebuilt in part by East India Company revenues—where diverse communities first converged in portside taverns, coffee houses, and the East India House itself . By highlighting early investors like Dwarkanath Tagore, he showed how South Asian merchants and Company officials financed London’s reconstruction, anticipating later waves of Indian entrepreneurs and students.

First Baptisms to Ayahs and Lascars

Drawing on parish records, Chatterjee dated the first recorded Indian in London to Salomon Noor’s 1515 burial and the baptism of Peter Pope in December 1616—coinciding with Shakespeare’s death . These isolated instances presage the more systematic arrival of Lascars (sailors) from Bengal and Madras in the late 18th century, who endured harsh conditions on merchant ships. By the mid-19th century, ayahs, students, lawyers, and political exiles populated Baker Street and Portman Square, forging an “Anglo-Indian” community long before the familiar post-1960s migration.

Thakur and Chatterjee explored London’s catalytic role in South Asian political thought. From Raja Ram Mohan Roy’s 1830 visit—planting the seeds of English-language reform—to Gandhi’s third-class odyssey on the railways, the metropolis served as a “mobile classroom” for future leaders . Chatterjee underscored how the city’s universities, coffee houses, and parliament offered unparalleled access to liberal ideas, enabling figures like Nehru, Jinnah, and Bose to craft their anticolonial strategies on the Thames’s banks.

Cultural Continuities

Recognizing that migration is more than politics, Chatterjee and Thakur turned to Bollywood’s enduring London fantasy. From the “Mere Sapno Ki Rani” sequence on the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway to the 2007 hit Namaste London, Indian cinema has repeatedly remapped South Asian aspirations onto Tube stations and Oxford Street . Fashion, too—whether in the bespoke tailoring of Savile Row or the street-food stalls of Brick Lane—testifies to the hybrid identities that Indians have both shaped and consumed over centuries.

The conversation delved into the vast financial circuits linking Calcutta and the City. Chatterjee cited estimates that between 1660 and 1700, the East India Company repatriated sums equivalent to £100 million in today’s terms—funds that underwrote London’s mercantile expansion . This economic interdependence, he argued, complicates the simple victim-perpetrator narrative: India’s fortunes were inextricably tied to London’s skyline and stock markets, shaping both colonies in reciprocal ways.

Contemporary Reflections

Concluding their dialogue, Chatterjee and Thakur reflected on London’s status today—as both a “global melting pot” of over half-a-million Indians and a site of renewed racial tensions. Chatterjee cautioned that, as political upheavals reshape migration policies, the old networks of East India Company-era merchants and modern students alike may be imperiled. Yet he also affirmed the city’s resilience: London remains a “dream city,” where Indians continue to remake home in new registers of commerce, creativity, and community.

This interview offers a compelling prism on Indians in London, inviting listeners to reconsider familiar histories through Chatterjee’s interdisciplinary lens—one that fuses archival research, cultural critique, and personal narrative. For anyone seeking to understand the long arc of Indo-British encounter, this conversation is an essential primer on the city that both colonized and was colonized by its South Asian inhabitants.