RIFCO Theatre’s creative director Pravesh Kumar said his family’s expulsion from Uganda, in 1973, prompted a digital series on south Asians fleeing the dictatorship of Idi Amin.
Titled GenerAsians – The Ugandan Expulsion, the production charts the story of seven families who left Uganda 50 years ago under tumultuous circumstances, with each individual history told through a filmed interview.
Mrs H Jaffer describes her journey from Uganda to the UK in 1972
There are stories of families reaching UK shores and making a success of their life in Britain; some involving a journey back to Uganda after years of living away and others of a stark contrast between a privileged life of the past versus the challenges of a fresh start.
Themes of how displacement, prejudice and new beginnings shaped a generation’s definition of home run through the various stories.
Asian families in Uganda in 1973 were given 90 days to leave, but many didn’t wait that long as the ensuing violence saw some escape overn i g h t , leaving behind everything they had. Among them was Kumar’s grandmother. “She carried a huge handbag wherever she went. One day she left the bag in one of those old telephone boxes across the road and all panic ensued, much more than you would think for a handbag. My grandmother told us all her gold was in the lining of that bag,” Kumar said.
“Then unfolded the story of how people had to leave Uganda overnight. As soon as the announcement had been made, and even before that, things were quite terrible. People from both sides (Ugandans and Asians) were being killed, businesses were being taken over.
A fundraiser for the Rifco Associates Programme that supports south Asian talents
“It was a really dangerous time.” The experience had a profound impact on Kumar’s
grandmother, he said.
“We asked her why she carried her gold in her handbag. She said it was because she didn’t trust anyone. ‘I don’t even trust Britain. They may throw us out overnight’,” Kumar quoted her as saying. “It’s sad, really, having that fear that at any moment you could be asked to leave. For many years, south Asians made Uganda and East Africa their home and many still live there now. But for an entire generation, their memory is of being made homeless overnight.”
It wasn’t just Kumar who has a family history linked to Uganda – Rifco associate director Ameet Chana’s family also left Uganda during the expulsion. “It’s around us, all these stories about families having to flee Uganda and make their homes here with very little,” said Kumar.
“As a British south Asian theatre company, it’s important for us to talk about our history.”
Kumar believes it’s vital the younger generation are made aware of what their ancestors went through.
South Asian history and subjects such as the Ugandan expulsion of south Asians, Partition and colonialism are not taught in British schools. “Until we know where we come from, how can we know where we’re going?” said Kumar.
“If you don’t know your own history, then when there are moments of microaggression or racism, when someone says to you ‘go back to where you came from’, you won’t have an answer if you don’t know about empire. He added:
“As a theatre company, it’s our duty to tell our untold stories, tackle the difficult subjects and to really shine a spotlight on where we’ve come from.” Kumar is also championing upcoming south Asian talent through the Rifco Associates Programme, where candidates get a bursary alongside mentoring support, writer-in-residence days and masterclasses with industry leaders to develop their craft during the year-long course.
Pravesh Kumar
Writers, lyricists, composers, designers, aerial artists and spoken word performers are among those who have been supported under the initiative.
Each of the new associate pieces are filmed, made available online as well as performed in a live showcase event.
“As a national touring organisation, our goal is to continue to connect with audiences all over England and present them with the very best of British south Asian theatre and digital work,” said Kumar.
During the pandemic Rifco began creating digital shows as a way to give work to artists whose livelihoods were hit as a result of the lockdowns.
Though Rifco continues to produce successful plays, its digital productions have grown with regular series such as Leave the Plastic On, The Desi Lockdown and I am a British Asian. “Digital films are consumed at a much higher rate, especially for under 40s,” said Kumar.
“It’s a real space to talk to young people who may be unaware of their history or want to understand cultural issues; it will change their lives when they learn about what how their history is linked to some of the present challenges they face in multicultural Britain.”
Creating GenerAsians – The Ugandan Expulsion was an eyeopener, Kumar said.
“We all discovered there’s so much that’s happened to our parents and our grandparents that we often we just write them off as ‘oh God, they’re a bit grumpy’ or ‘oh God, get over it’. But when you hear the things they had to go through to get us here, to get to safety, to keep a roof over our heads – it changes the way you look at them and look at yourself.”
Kumar said he was considering producing a play based on the GenerAsians stories. “If there is a writer out there who has the skills to tell this incredible story then I’d love to hear from them,” he said.
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A seated Jain enlightened teacherAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Ganesha from JavaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
A Chinese silk painting depicting the BuddhaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
ArdhanarishvaraAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Head of a grimacing yakshaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
NagaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
The Bimaran casketAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Hunia Chawla
A still from rehearsal
Them performing liveNajmuddin Saifuddin Qawwal Group
The cast of Marriage Material in key moments from the play, including Avita Jay, Kiran Landa, Omar Malik, Irfan Shamji and Anoushka Deshmukh
Sathnam Sanghera’s 'Marriage Material' adapted into bold new play on conformity
The play Marriage Material at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre is Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti’s adaptation of Sathnam Sanghera’s novel of the same name, which first came out in 2013.
She is lucky to have Iqbal Khan direct Marriage Material. The play, a co-production with the Birmingham Rep, is set in the late 1960s. Mr and Mrs Bains (played by Jaz Singh Deol and Avita Jay) run a corner shop in Wolverhampton. Their younger daughter, Surinder (Anoushka Deshmukh), is 16, her sister Kamaljit (Kiran Landa) is just a bit older.
They have a neighbour, Patwant Dhanda (Irfan Shamji), who, as we shall soon see, is not a very pleasant man. In fact, he comes across just as racist as Enoch Powell, who represented Wolverhampton South West for the Tories from 1950 to 1974.
It will be recalled this was a time when Sikhs working on the buses were told they couldn’t wear a turban. That was a hard-fought battle that had to be won.
The Bains, meanwhile, simply want to get their girls married off.
Nothing new here, I thought.
What makes the tale different is that the plot twists and turns down the generations. Mr Dhanda, who has the makings of a paedophile, makes a pitch for one of the girls when Mr Bains dies early in the play. “A life with no man in the house is no life,” he informs the newly widowed Mrs Bains.
Mr Dhanda has a wife but she has returned to India so he considers himself to be a free man.
Surinder’s English teacher from school, Miss Flanagan (Celeste Dodwell), who is also head of the fifth form, tells Mrs Bains about her daughter: “I don’t want to embarrass you, but she is bright. Ridiculously bright.”
She adds: “Mrs Bains, I think it would be a pity if Surinder didn’t stay on at school.” The initial response from Mrs Bains is not encouraging: “Too much education makes people’s brains get mixed up, they don’t sleep at night…”
But she is finally persuaded that Surinder should be allowed to stay on for a while longer before being married off.
Mr Bains was very old school. When Surinder confides she would one day like to be “a somebody”, he is amused that “my daughter wants to be a somebody”.
“Like you,” she tells her father.
Mr Bains consoles his daughter: “We will find a somebody for you to marry.”
At the point of a possible marriage, however, Surinder is sweet-talked by chocolate salesman Jim Wilson (Tommy Belshaw) into running away with him. They share a love of literature, and he calls her “Sue Bains”. But the relationship does not end well.
Once she has left, Surinder is written off as “dead” by her family. The story that is circulated is that she was only 16 when she was killed in a car crash. That’s better than to let on that she ran off with a white man.
By the time she is reconciled with her sister towards the end of the play, a great deal has changed. Kamaljit married Tanvir Banga (Omar Malik), a young man who helped out in the Bains’ corner shop. When the two sisters meet again, Tanvir has also died. But he and Kamaljit had a son, Arjan Banga (Jaz Singh Deol doubles up for this role after the death of Mr Bains). He has come home after his father’s death to help his mother who is still running the family corner shop.
Meanwhile, Mr Dhanda’s business has prospered. He now has a son, Ranjit Dhanda (the role is taken by Omar Malik after Tanvir’s death), and he is nearly as unpleasant as his father.
Arjan has an English fiancée, Claire (Celeste Dodwell). In London, Arjan worked as a creative director. But after deciding to stay in Wolverhampton to help his mother, he decides he cannot marry Claire because she is white. In other words, Asians are not free of racism, either. Happily, at the end, the couple are reconciled.
As for Surinder, she parted company with Jim Wilson after realising he was all talk, depended on her for money and had failed to earn a penny from his literary pretensions. She had prospered, though, as a hotel owner and had been transformed in time into a well-groomed businesswoman. After being tracked down by Arjan, she decides to return to her roots in Wolverhampton and help Kamaljit run the family corner shop. Perhaps 50 years had passed during the passage of the play.
Being subjected to racism turned some Asians into racists themselves. The word goreh (white person) is repeatedly spat out with venom. Maybe it is worth remembering the play’s audience isn’t exclusively Asian – white folk are watching as well. And maybe some of the toilet humour ridiculing white people, which always makes me cringe, could be cut out.
In Sanghera’s novel, there is a quote from Enoch Powell’s speech in November 1968: “The West Indian or Asian does not, by being born in England, become an Englishman. In law he becomes a United Kingdom citizen by birth; in fact, he is a west Indian or an Asian still... he will by the very nature of things have lost one country without gaining another, lost one nationality without acquiring a new one. Time is running out against us and them. With the lapse of a generation or so we shall at last have succeeded – to the benefit of nobody – in reproducing ‘in England’s green and pleasant land’ the haunting tragedy of the US.”
In Marriage Material, where the acting is marvellous (apart from Mr Dhanda’s Indian mannerisms and accent being overdone) we do travel across a couple of generations.
There is a scene when Tanvir rejects Mr Dhanda’s vision of creating a little Punjab in Wolverhampton.
Mr Dhanda wants to take over the Bains’ corner shop and is putting pressure on Tanvir to sign the papers. He says: “In this country, money is the path to freedom.”
“Sign, please,” he instructs Tanvir. “We must make sure our children learn to behave nicely, according to our rules.”
He insists: “We maintain our identity so we can be ourselves.”
Tanvir disagrees: “We can be us here. With the goreh.”
Dhanda warns him: “Then we will be inviting chaos.”
Tanvir’s comment is telling: “You sound like Enoch.”
Kamaljit, who is expecting a baby with her husband Tanvir, says: “I would like my child to grow up knowing the history of the Gurus and to read the Granth Sahib. And to love their culture.”
Tanvir tells his wife: “I would like my child to go to the finest schools, to cheer for England in the World Cup and eat Yorkshire pudding on a Sunday.”
Kamaljit sets out a dream that has perhaps come to pass with many third and fourth generation British Asians: “Maybe our child can do both.” Much, much later, in a throwback to the past, we learn of Surinder’s O-level results: “Biology A, Chemistry A, English Language A, English Literature A, French A, History B, Latin A, Mathematics A, Physics A…”
Kamaljit tells her younger sister: “Never mind about the B.”
And that is quintessentially Asian. Their acting is outstanding.
Marriage Material is at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre until June 21, and at the Birmingham Rep from June 25-July 5