Partition of India in 1947
In 1858, the British Empire seized governmental control throughout the Indian subcontinent, sparking an era of direct British Crown rule in India, lasting until 1947, when India was partitioned into two independent nations: a Hindu-majority India, and a Muslim-majority Pakistan. The rapid transfer of governance, along with the territorial division of the Punjab and Bengal provinces, led to mass migration as over fourteen million refugees living along the new borders sought entrance into their “home” country—the country that best protected them from religious persecution, Hindu or Muslim. Tragically, many individuals did not escape persecution, and this period of transition was characterized by violence and loss. It is estimated that between a half million and two million people died during the partition of India.
(In Anita and Me, Meena’s parents and her Aunties and Uncles all lived through the partition of India, and each carries lasting trauma and grief stemming from their firsthand encounters with the period’s violence.)
British Nationality Act of 1948
In 1948, with the adoption of the British Nationality Act, the British government granted full citizenship and free entry to members of the British Commonwealth–– extending citizenship rights to residents of all British colonies and territories. As a result, over the next two decades, Britain saw an increase in immigration, with immigrants arriving from the West Indies to the Indian subcontinent.
(In Anita and Me, it can be assumed such legislation afforded Mr. and Mrs. Kumar the opportunity to emigrate, and to enter England and settle in the West Midlands.)
Skinheads and Anti-Immigration Politics of the 1960s
The rising immigration rates in the 1950s and 60s were met with growing resistance from Britain’s white population. By the mid-1960s, surveys revealed that 4 out of 5 Britons believed “too many immigrants had been let into the country” ("Postwar immigration," National Archives).
The 1960s saw the growth of white nationalist subcultures, like the “skinheads.” Originating in working-class neighborhoods, and initially nonpolitical, skinheads rejected the values of the increasingly popular youth counterculture movement—for example, skinheads opposed the sentiment of “peace and love.” Adopting hyper-masculinized fashion, with shaved heads and heavy-soled boots, the skinheads grew progressively political and nationalistic, and from 1969-70 attained notoriety for a series of violent attacks against immigrants and non-white Britons.
Anti-immigrant sentiments were codified into law with the passing of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act of 1962, which required Commonwealth immigrants to acquire a work visa before immigration, and later the Commonwealth Immigrants act of 1968, which only granted citizenship to Commonwealth residents born in, or with a parent/grandparent living in, Britain. These acts effectively barred most African and Asian Commonwealth residents from emigrating to Britain.
(In Anita and Me, Sam Lowbridge and his gang, with their shaved heads and anti-immigrant violence, are a direct allusion to the the skinhead subculture.)
