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Aashish Hindocha

Introduction

In 1972, Aashish Hindocha (Aash) and his family became victims of one of history’s most blatant displays of cultural prejudice on the African continent. Then Ugandan President Idi Amin ordered the expulsion of the country’s Asian population, displacing tens of thousands from the place they called home. Merely a child when they left Uganda, Aash recalls a confused childhood in the UK.

This is his story in his own words:

I was only two years old when we had to leave Uganda. We lived in Jinja, which has a huge Rice, sugar plantation. There was my mum and dad, my older sister, and myself being the youngest and 15 years junior to my sister. To be honest my memories are very vague, and I don’t actually remember much of the place we once called home, but I’ve heard so many wonderful stories. My dad was about 18 years old [when he moved from India to Kenya and then a year or so later to Uganda]. He was the eldest of my grandad’s children and he had two brothers and five sisters back in India with his parents, so he decided to go to Uganda to try and find work to better support his parents and siblings He managed to secure a job with his uncle who was a great industrialist in Kenya and especially in Uganda (one of the richest Asian families in Uganda). He worked in various roles and locations, Kamuli (where my mum was from), Kakira (where my sister was born), Kampala and eventually started a shop in Jinja. By the time we had moved to Jinja (where I was born) my dad had worked 16-hour days and had managed to bring over 4 of his sisters and one of his younger brothers and marry them all off as well as sending money back to India to help my grandad. My dad and his middle brother also sent money back for their youngest brother to study medicine and become a Doctor MBBS. My family were happy in Jinja … They had a community, were settled, they felt like they belonged. Life was good, until the shocking news that the Indian people were told to leave or suffer the consequences.

Expulsion: From Jinja to Leicester

In 1972, Idi Amin announced that all Asians had 90 days to leave the country or suffer the consequences. A lot of people were unaware of the politics and the news had come as quite a big shock to them when Amin came to power. We had no choice but to leave the business, our home and almost all of our property and possessions and move. The UK had set up army camps for Ugandan Asians and that’s where we were for a few weeks before moving in with extended family in Leicester. With thousands of other Asians in Leicester competition for jobs was high and my dad being 46/47 years of age and the only school education my parents had ceasing when they were of junior school age they were obviously at a disadvantage. After around 6 months in Leicester my dad made the decision to accept a job in York working for the famous chocolate factory (Rowntree’s) and another 6 months later being offered a job across the road from his job at Rowntree’s he started working for another famous chocolate factory (Terry’s). It was at this point that my dad and his middle brother were introduced to someone who was trying to encourage Asians to move to Hemel Hempstead and was even offering Council housing as well as jobs, my dad’s brother accepted and moved. He said it was a nice enough town so a few weeks later we moved to Hemel Hempstead. My dad and uncle worked short term at a few companies until my dad settled at John Dickinson’s and my uncle at Kent Brushes as machine operators. My memories growing up were quite confusing, especially in the 70’s and early 80’s as first we lived between Boxmoor, Warners End and Gadebridge and we had absolutely lovely neighbours and Gade Valley School still holds some very happy memories but around 1976 we were offered a council house in Bennetts End and that’s when things really changed, we were one of the first Asian families to move to Bennetts End, lived 5 doors away from the local pub, I attended a local Infants and the juniors school. To describe this time and this experience is difficult to put into words but I will try… I had to walk to school taking a longer route else I was told by older kids id get beaten up for being a ‘Smelly Paki’, I had fights at school most days after being called the same words, I have memories of most of the teachers being OK, and a few being a little racist, but the dinner ladies forcing me to eat things I didn’t like, which they would shove down my throat while I was trying not to gag and be sick (I hate Rhubarb & Custard ever since) as well as giving me Beef Sausages which they knew was against my religion but kept trying (lucky that by this time I had a few friends who would be happy to take the sausages off my hands (secretly) so that I didn’t have to eat them. I also remember walking home once and seeing an Asian kid I had never seen before getting beaten up by about 5 skinhead kids (in the field I walked home through every day and I jumping into the fight to even the odds, (how could I not? It’s how I was brought up, irrelevant of colour or religion etc) 5 against 1 was not right! So, I did the right thing only to find that the other kid once free had run away and left me to it), it still makes me laugh. Our Neighbours in Bennetts End on either side were the most amazing people, there was an Irish family on one side and a traditional English family (Auntie Cath & Uncle Ted) on the other side. I have many many memories of getting bricks thrown through our living room window and auntie Cath running out of her front door 5 seconds later and chasing the perpetrators across the road and out of sight, I will always remember them with love in my heart. The Irish family on the other side noticed my dad used to work 14-16 hours every day from 6am til 8pm or sometimes 10pm so they used to tell their adult children to mow our lawn after doing their own, again another amazing family, I have to a special mention for the pool man, he came round every week as my dad did the football pools with him weekly and I used to play with his kids after school and they used to give me snack etc too. What I remember most growing up as a kid is being quite confused as to what was normal. Living in Hemel Hempstead, I spoke Gujarati at home and English at school, eating with our hands at home and with knives and forks at school or in restaurants. Balancing these things wasn’t easy all I wanted to do was to be accepted and to fit in, to belong. I felt I belonged at home but walking out my house past the pub and to the phone boxes to make phone calls and being verbally and physically abused obviously didn’t. My parents had told me from an early age to ignore all family or cultural pressures and that If I ever dated anyone that they didn’t care about skin colour or religion or anything else as long as I found happiness. But my cousins were mostly older than me and many were leading very traditional lives in towns/city’s with high Asian populations such as Leicester etc so do I do the traditional things like them? Maybe but they have high Asian populations where they live, and I don’t in Hemel Hempstead! Cousins seem to have a prejudice for Caucasians! But I have grown up in Hemel Hempstead and what I have seen is I had fights every day at infants and juniors but by the last year of Juniors all the Racist bullies have had enough of fighting me and are my friends! Good friends!, Our neighbours who had been weary when we moved in were like uncles and aunts to me and I genuinely loved them, and they loved me and my parents. It was all so mind bogglingly confusing! What do I do? How do I act? I didn’t really understand the Asian expulsion from Uganda, I had no real recollections of a lie in Uganda to be honest. If I ever asked about life in India never a bad word was said it was always positive memories being recalled, I understand that it wasn’t a bed of roses as I know that my dad’s cousin was killed, and his wife was beaten so much that she had over one hundred stitches after they returned home from the Cinema early one day to find their servants were ransacking and stealing everything, they could get their hands on.

‘A proud Ugandan Asian’

Life was very different for my parents in Hemel Hempstead. They lost their business, their home and almost all of their possessions had gone missing between Uganda and the UK never to be recovered. Coming to the UK must have been so hard as either of my parents spoke a single word of English, they had no money and two children a daughter aged 17 and a son aged 2 when they arrived. There are people in the Indian community in Hemel Hempstead, who really helped my parents settle in, without their helped my parents lives would have been much harder and it is only because I am shy due to my life experiences that I do not thank them verbally but in my heart there are several families who have truly been there for my parents and who I pray from the bottom of my heart to live long, happy and fulfilling lives and for them to find Moksha/Mukti (Liberation from the cycle of rebirth/reincarnation) at the feet of god when the time comes… Thank you from the whole of my heart!. I think the one thing about Asians or Indians, particularly from Uganda, is that they are resilient. They will do their best to fit in wherever they find themselves, and they always make the best of it. They haven’t sat back on their laurels and said, “What are we going to do?” The majority have really excelled in their lifestyle since coming to this country. I think a lot of Ugandan Asians are very proud of the fact that they lived in Uganda. There is that affection for the country, for the people, and the experiences it gave. There is so much love for it in all those who experienced it. I believe it was a positive experience that gave confidence to those who moved from India to Uganda and prospered. It taught invaluable lessons about integration and it bred a unity in all Ugandan Asians so strong that even after moving to the UK they still helped one another. My parents were some of the first to come to Hemel Hempstead and my memories are filled with different ladies visiting each other’s houses to make various snacks or freshly made popedom’s etc and visiting one another’s houses to have prayer sessions (my mum was active in building these groups) still brings a smile to my face and a warmth to my heart when people recall fond memories of my parents. It is thanks to the community spirit of the Ugandan Indians that I and many like me are extremely proud of their roots. I am one of them, and I left when I was only two, but if somebody asks me: I am a proud Ugandan Asian the answer is one hundred percent yes! I only wish I could be half the person my parents and many in their generation were or are.