‘Hindujas started the tradition of high-profile Diwali parties’

IF THIS were the Sun newspaper, the headline would probably be something like, “It’s the Hindujas WOT started the tradition of giving Diwali parties.”

Today, everyone does it, as reflected in Eastern Eye’s 72-page Diwali special issue last week.

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Not only do the political parties host Diwali parties – there is usually one at 10, Downing Street – but supermarkets, sensing there is extra British Asian spending during the ‘festival of light’, have also got in on the act.

On LBC radio, there are ads encouraging listeners to buy gold gifts for Diwali.

To be sure, Leicester began to be lit up for Diwali after Ugandan Asian refugees arrived in the city in 1972. More recently, Chila Burman’s neon installations depicting the Hindu deities Lakshmi and Ganesh dispelled the darkness in Leicester Square gardens in London.

But the Hindujas claim – with some justification – that they began the tradition of hosting high-profile Diwali parties after arriving in London from their base in Teheran, following Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamic revolution in 1979.

As prime minister, Margaret Thatcher attended a Diwali party at the Hinduja offices in New Zealand House in the Haymarket. Tony Blair with his wife Cherie, dressed in Indian clothes, attended one in Alexandra Palace.

Margaret Thatcher with Srichand Hinduja at the family’s festive event in 1986

Blair was attacked for doing so by Tory newspapers after a contrived controversy over British passports for Srichand Hinduja and his younger brother Gopi. Peter Mandelson resigned from the cabinet for allegedly helping them, after the Hindujas had offered to underwrite the cost of the Millennium Dome.

For a while, some politicians steered clear of the Hindujas, but all that appears to be in the past.

Over the years, John Major, Keith Vaz, Boris Johnson, Sadiq Khan, Nadhim Zahawi, Sir Ed Davey, Priti Patel, Jeremy Hunt, Philip Hammond, Penny Mordaunt, Lord Tariq Ahmad, Gavin Williamson and many others, including Neil Basu from Scotland Yard, have all dined on the sumptuous vegetarian Diwali dinners offered by the Hindujas in silver utensils on flower-decked tables. And there have always been heaps of mithai.

Baroness Sandip Verma, who has often acted as a sort of mistress of ceremonies, said: “Since 1980, the Hinduja family have made sure we celebrate Diwali in the same pomp and style that is celebrated in India. I know that Margaret Thatcher has attended, John Major, Ted Heath … so we had the good and the great…”

One year the Diwali party was held at the Victoria & Albert Museum. In recent years, the venue has been the Hinduja mansion in Carlton House Terrace, where a statue of Lakshmi is placed next to the listed one of Queen Victoria.

Even in a Muslim country like Iran, the Hindujas managed to mark Diwali. Actually, the tradition of celebrating Diwali began a century ago when the founder of the dynasty, Parmanand Deepchand Hinduja, moved to Kuwait. He lived in the same quarters as his staff, believed “economic growth has to be shared”, and gave his employees new clothes for the festival.

Tony and Cherie Blair at Hinduja Diwali party in Alexandra Palace in 1999 flanked by Srichand and Gopichand

Today’s senior politicians tend to be gifted silver statues of Lakshmi, the goddess who symbolises wealth, fortune, prosperity, beauty, fertility, royal power and abundance.

Given such a statue in 2017, Johnson, then foreign secretary, joked: “Lakshmi! Lakshmi! I know a Lakshmi! Where are you, Lakshmi?”

The steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal was not there just then, but his son Aditya dropped in later that evening.

At the time, Johnson was married to Marina Wheeler, daughter of an English father (the BBC journalist Charles Wheeler) and a Sikh mother.

Playing up to his casting as the star of the show, Johnson began: “I wanted you to know that shortly before becoming foreign secretary I took the precaution of stationing my ancestors and my relatives around the world. I have relatives in Russia, Turkey, Germany, America but, in addition, I made sure to have an Indian mother-in-law. Her name is Dip, which means light. And, indeed, Dipawali which means the festival of light. So, we have an opportunity to celebrate my mother-inlaw. Which is very important.”

In 2022, the Hindujas received the royal seal of approval when King Charles’s private secretary, Sir Clive Alderton, strolled down The Mall from Buckingham Palace to Carlton House Terrace.

Thanking Gopi, “dear friend, dear neighbour” for his hospitality, Sir Clive was commendably brief: “All I wanted to do on behalf of His Majesty is to wish everyone in the room a very happy Diwali. It is a community that the King has cared about for many, many years and spent a great deal of time and energy working in this country and around the world to bring communities together.

“And ‘GP’ (as Gopichand Parmanand Hinduja is universally known) has done that so brilliantly this evening, bringing so many different communities into this wonderful house. So again, on behalf of the King, I would simply say a very happy Diwali to all.”

John Major (right) with SP Hinduja and his wife Madhu, Norma Majorand Gopi Hinduja in 1991

Out of the 48 countries in which the Hindujas do business, 22 were represented by their ambassadors or high commissioners. Many of the guests that night had come on from 10, Downing Street, where Rishi Sunak was hosting his first Diwali party after being confirmed as prime minister earlier that day.

The fact that the King was Christian, the prime minister was Hindu and the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, was Muslim reminded Gopi of the most successful Bollywood blockbuster of 1977 – Amar, Akbar, Anthony.

The film’s theme of religious tolerance was stressed by others, with the mayor light-heartedly expressing his wish to make a sequel, Amar, Akbar, Anthony II, with help from Buckingham Palace.

The mayor also appealed for unity across religions.

Khan said: “It sends a powerful message about a wonderful, wonderful country that you can have the prime minister and the King agreed on the importance of shared values, agreed that diversity is a strength, not a weakness.

“That’s why I come to GP and the Hinduja family. Thank you for having the headquarters of the Hinduja Group in London. Thank you for the wealth, the prosperity, that you create.”

The theme of unity among members of different faiths was taken up by Zahawi, who marvelled that “the boy from Baghdad”, as he called himself, was now Conservative party chairman.

London mayor Sadiq Khan with Gopi Hinduja in 2018

“You couldn’t script this, that on the day of Diwali, the festival of lights, we would have Rishi Sunak as prime minister of the United Kingdom,” said Zahawi.

He said that 10, Downing Street, had been flower-decked and lit up for Diwali, “but I have to say, you have beaten us to it with the decoration of this extraordinary mansion. And of course, the lights on the outside have to take the Olympic gold for Diwali this year.”

Sir Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats, spoke for his party: “Wow, what a night. I couldn’t be prouder that we have a fantastic King, who is a Christian. I’m really proud that we have a prime minister who is a Hindu. I’m really proud our great city has a mayor who’s a Muslim. What a fantastic country! What a fantastic city!”

Gopi said: “Diwali is a festival of light, but there is a lot of depth in Diwali. Everyone prays to the goddess Lakshmi for money, but I don’t believe in money. Wealth is nothing. Wealth is something you give away and get blessings from people – that is real wealth.”

Out of respect for Srichand, who passed away last year, the Hindujas are suspending their Diwali parties for three years. They hope to resume in 2026.