In the latest episode of the Asian Review of Books podcast, the host, the well-known broadcaster and commentator, Nicholas Gordon, sits down with Professor (Dr.) Arup K. Chatterjee, professor at O.P. Jindal Global University and renowned cultural historian, to explore the sweep of South Asian presence in London—from the first baptism of an Indian in 1616 to the city’s pivotal role in the independence movements of the 20th century. Across nearly thirty minutes, they weave together archival discoveries, personal anecdotes, and critical insights, underlining how centuries of travel, exchange, and activism have shaped both London and South Asia.
A Journey Through Four Centuries
Gordon opens the conversation by marveling at the sheer span of Chatterjee’s book, Indians in London: From the Birth of the East India Company to Independent India (Bloomsbury, 2021). He invites Chatterjee to pinpoint the earliest arrivals: Was it trade, education, or empire that first drew South Asians to the Thames?
Chatterjee reframes our assumptions about “India” itself, noting that the term only solidified in the 20th century. Yet parish records tell another story: as early as 1515, a “Salomon Noor” was buried in Westminster, and by 1616, young Peter Pope from Bengal became the first documented Indian baptized in London. This symbolic rebirth coincided with the death of William Shakespeare, prompting Chatterjee to pay homage to Britain’s two literary giants by situating India firmly within that same cultural milieu.
Peter Pope and the Genesis Myth
Rather than begin with the East India Company’s charter in 1600, Chatterjee casts Peter Pope as a proto-Genesis figure. Baptized on December 22, 1616—the winter solstice and the year of Shakespeare’s passing—Pope was handed over by Captain Best of the Company to Reverend Patrick Copland. His public baptism before aldermen and clergy embodied the political and cultural rebirth of “an Indian in London.”
From these sparse records of baptisms and burials, Chatterjee extrapolates a bustling, if often invisible, community: Lascars from Madras, servants and sailors, arriving in the Tudor and Stuart eras, many living—then perishing—in dire conditions. Through this microhistory, he invites readers to imagine hundreds more whose names left no trace.
Food as a Cultural Bridge
Halfway through the discussion, Chatterjee pivoted to an unexpected lens: cuisine. In a reflection on gastromythology—his coined term—he argues that Indian food carries metaphors of politics, authenticity, and social reality. Curry houses became icons of solidarity and commercial enterprise alike.
Gordon recalls hearing tales of “lobster curry” in colonial Boston; Chatterjee counters that London’s curry restaurants shaped perceptions of Indian culture long before modern celebrity chefs. He draws a sobering parallel with Brexit: rhetoric promising easier visas for South Asian restauranteurs galvanised some to vote “Leave,” only to see the community’s lower-end establishments in East Ham, Tooting, and beyond lose patrons and heirs to the trade.
Building a Community: Coffee Houses, Ayahs, and Education
Turning to the 18th and 19th centuries, the conversation shifts to the post-1666 Great Fire reconstruction, bankrolled by the East India Company. In return for colonial monopolies, Company capital gained from India rebuilt London’s streets—an early example of empire’s imprint on urban space.
By the mid-1700s, Armenian merchant Joseph Amin dined with Edmund Burke, while Lascars like Sheikh Deen Muhammad established the Hindustani Coffee House near Baker Street. This gathering spot catered to “Anglo-Indians”—returnees, colonial officials, and students. Ayahs, nurses from India, arrived in increasing numbers; some even married locally, forging lives in Sussex and beyond.
Raja Ram Mohun Roy’s 1830 London visit sowed seeds of Indian spiritual consciousness, later nurtured by Swami Vivekananda (1895) and Mahatma Gandhi (1888–91). With the Civil Service examinations of the 1860s, Indian lawyers and students swelled the diaspora to 5,000–12,000 by century’s end, outnumbering Britons in India on a per-capita basis—yet lacking formal recognition as a cultural force until Vivekananda’s World’s Parliament of Religions in 1893.
London and the Independence Movement
Gordon highlights the iconic roster of independence leaders who honed their ideas in London: Gandhi, Nehru, Jinnah, Subhas Bose, among others. Chatterjee sees Victorian London as a meticulously crafted “global symbol of empire,” its science, technology, and advertising projecting an image of progress and civility that both attracted and provoked colonial subjects.
Indian students and activists formed networks—through coffee houses, social clubs, and print culture—where political debate mingled with spiritual inquiry. London offered a stage and a crucible: the ideals of liberty and self-determination percolated back to Calcutta, Bombay, and Lahore, fueling the movements that ultimately dismantled the Raj.
Concluding Remarks
As the interview draws to a close, Gordon and Chatterjee reflect on how centuries of South Asian presence in London embody both struggle and transformation. From Peter Pope’s lonely baptism to the corridors of Whitehall where Gandhi negotiated India’s future, this history challenges us to rethink identity, migration, and power.
Through his meticulously researched narrative and evocative details—from parish registers to restaurant menus—Arup K. Chatterjee illuminates the rich tapestry of connections that bind London and South Asia. His work underscores the enduring agency of those who traveled, traded, worshipped, and protested in pursuit of new horizons—and reminds us that history, like well-loved receipt books of the past, is best savored one story at a time.
Note from Asian Review of Books
London has always been a galvanizing factor for the South Asian community—whether due to the machinations of empire, the drive for higher education, or the need to make a living. South Asians make up the largest group of foreign-born individuals in London—and South Asian politicians in the UK cross the political divide, from Rishi Sunak and Priti Patel to Sadiq Khan.
Many of India and Pakistan’s most important historical figures also passed through London: Gandhi, Nehru, Jinnah, Bose all lived and worked in London. The head of the British Empire was the location for much of the debate and activism that drove India’s independence movement.
Indians have been a part of London’s community for centuries, a point made clear in Indians in London: From the Birth of the East India Company to Independent India by Arup K Chatterjee. Across almost half a millennium, Chatterjee tells the stories of the South Asians that traveled to London: poor and rich, those who stayed and those who went back to change the region’s politics forever.
In this interview, Arup and I talk about the four centuries worth of South Asians that traveled to London, what brought them there, and how they changed South Asia when they returned.
Arup K Chatterjee is an Associate Professor at OP Jindal Global University. He is the founding chief editor of Coldnoon: International Journal of Travel Writing & Travelling Cultures, which he has run from 2011 to 2018. He has authored The Purveyors of Destiny: A Cultural Biography of the Indian Railways (Bloomsbury India, 2018), and The Great Indian Railways (Bloomsbury India, 2019), as well as over seventy articles and academic papers in national and international publications.
Nicholas Gordon has an MPhil from Oxford in International Relations and a BA from Harvard. He is a writer, editor and occasional radio host based in Hong Kong.
Arup K. Chatterjee 