British Mirpuris

The British Mirpuri community comprises people in the United Kingdom who originate from the Mirpur District in Azad Kashmir, Pakistan. While no accurate statistics are available, an estimated 60 to 70 per cent of British Pakistanis in England have origins in the Mirpur District.

The community speaks the Mirpuri/Pothohari which are dialects of the Punjabi language and are mainly from the Muslim Jat community of Azad Jammu & Kashmir.^[1] The first generation migrant Mirpuris were not highly educated and they had little or no experience of urban living in Pakistan.^[2] Migration from Mirpur and its adjacent areas started soon after World War II as the majority of the male population of this area and Pothohar region worked in the British armed forces. But the mass migration phenomenon took place after the Mangla Dam project, which was built in the 1960s and eventually flooded the surrounding farmland. Mirpuris in Britain are still in touch with family back home in Azad Kashmir as remittance is sent back to them to help fund farmland and family businesses.

Population

A report produced for the Department for Communities and Local Government in 2009 on the Pakistani Muslim community in England states that: "There are no accurate figures available but it is estimated that 60 per cent of the Pakistani population is from the Mirpur District". However, it also notes that the Mirpuri Development Project has estimated that approximately 70 per cent of British Pakistanis are Mirpuris. Large Mirpuri communities can be found in Birmingham and in Bradford, Oldham and the surrounding northern towns.^[3] Luton and Slough have the largest Mirpuri communities in the south of England.^[4]

Cultural dislocation

The reasons for the large proportion of Mirpuris in the United Kingdom is historical. Mirpur was considered to be a conservative district in 1960s, and life in its rural villages, was dominated by rigid hierarchies. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Government of Pakistan planned the Mangla Dam, which was to be built in the Mirpur area. They asked several thousand locals to leave the land. At that time, the British needed man-power mainly for their textile factories. Up to 5,000 people from Mirpur (five per cent of the displaced)^[5] left for Britain, the displaced Mirpuris being given legal and financial assistance by the British contractor which had built the dam.^[6] Many started working in factories, mostly in the so-called "Black Country" and the area of Bradford, England. In some villages, more than half the village population moved to the United Kingdom to settle in the industrial towns. This rural, impoverished district provided cheap, unskilled labour for Britain in the 1960s and 1970s.

Families tend to be close knit and the guiding influence behind everything from marriage to business.^[7]

These cultural values have clashed with British ones, which tend to be more free thinking and independent. British Pakistanis live in some of the most segregated areas of Britain, and their children attend the most segregated schools.^[8] The British government has made attempts to improve community cohesion by nurturing a sense of shared or collective national identity. One programme designed to encourage greater social mixing includes the busing of students of Pakistani origin to "white schools" in an attempt to bridge the divide between the British Pakistani and white British ethnic groups.^[9]

Remittances

In 1960s, Mirpur was considered to be a rural and conservative area. Due to the Mirpuri diaspora, the region witnessed great economic progress in last three decades and has become one of the most prosperous areas of Pakistan.^[10]

Health and social issues

Endogamy and kinship

Cousin marriages or marriages within the same tribe and caste system are common in some parts of South Asia, including rural areas of Pakistan.^[11] A major motivation is to preserve patrilineal tribal identity.^[12] The tribes to which British Mirpuris belong include Awans and Sudhans. As a result, there are some common genealogical origins within these tribes.^[13] Some Mirpuri British Pakistanis view cousin marriages as a way of preserving this ancient tribal tradition and maintaining a sense of brotherhood.^[14]

A study published in 1988 in the Journal of Medical Genetics, which looked specifically at two hospitals in West Yorkshire, found that the rate of consanguineous marriage was 55 per cent and rising,^[15] compared to a worldwide rate of 29 per cent.^[16] However, representatives of constituencies where there are high Pakistani populations say that consanguineous marriages amongst British Pakistanis are now decreasing in number, partly because of public health initiatives.^[17]

Forced marriage

According to the British Home Office, as of 2000, more than half the cases of forced marriage investigated involve families of Pakistani origin, followed by Bangladeshis and Indians.^[18] The Home Office estimates that 85 per cent of the victims of forced marriages are women aged 15–24, 90 per cent are Muslim, and 90 per cent are of Pakistani or Bangladeshi heritage.^[19] 60 per cent of forced marriages by Pakistani families are linked to the small towns of Bhimber and Kotli and the city of Mirpur.^[20]

Numerous instances,over 300 reported annually, of forced marriage involving British citizens married against their will in Pakistani Kashmir occur each year, especially about the industrial town of Mirpur with a large diaspora in British cities like Bradford, Glasgow and London. Claiming to preserve their culture and traditions, some diaspora families prefer to send their daughters back to Kashmir to be forcefully wedded off. Activists say such unions are "cruel, leading to murders and chaos". One such crime victim Shafilea Ahmed was 17 at the time of her murder nine years ago in the UK, and her parents were brought to trial in the UK.^[21]

Identity

In 2009, a consultation was undertaken into the effects of providing an individual tick-box for "Kashmiri" people in the UK census. The majority of those who took part in the consultation chose to self-identify as Pakistani and a decision was taken not to introduce a Kashmiri tick-box for the ethnic group question in the 2011 census.^[22]

The following ethnic codes are used in UK school ethnicity profiles:^[23]

• AMPK: Mirpuri Pakistani
• AKPA: Kashmiri Pakistani
• AKAO: Kashmiri Other

See also

• Azad Kashmiri diaspora
• British Pakistanis
• British Punjabis

References

The Guardian, June 17, 2002, "British Muslims series – A Map of Muslim Britain":

• Muslim population 1.8 million (3% of total British population)
• The Muslim population of London – 1 million (total 7.2 million); Birmingham – 150,000 (1 million) – this includes the world's biggest expatriate Kashmiri population
• Scotland 60,000 (33,000 in Glasgow); Wales 50,000; Northern Ireland 4000

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