 a ferryboat land of mists and veils, guarded by imposing castles, embodied by the crown. This tiny island, at once ruled the world, has had a complex relationship with India. The Indian diaspora that makes an enormous contribution to Britain. Indians are extremely good business people. Indians has developed a reputation in the UK for being successful, for studying, for being low-abiding. We all came as a shopkeeper, and today we are hoteliers, manufacturers in pharmacies, food. Indian diaspora has done very well. There's 10,000 businesses here in London, run by people from within the Indian community, and many of those businesses are very large businesses. The diaspora that have come from India into the United Kingdom have made a huge difference to this country. Quite literally, they've built cities with their hands, with their money, with their resources, with their talents and with their skills. In sports, in business, in art, you name it, Indians are reaching the very top, and that glass ceiling has been absolutely shattered. It's not the strange thing to see an Indian person interviewing a huge A-list star, or even being the huge A-list star, and we've made our mark, and we are continuing to move forward. Food, fashion, sport, culture, and even language have only blossomed from the ebb and flow. The give and take that has marked this very special bond between India and the United Kingdom. I think the relationship goes back historically, clearly, to the days of the empire, some of which was good and some of which was, of course, less good. So I think the links between India and the UK go back many, many centuries. I think that's why so many people in India speak English, and that's why we have a natural empathy with one another. Keeping these historic relations going are Britain's Indians. The tiny Indian diaspora in UK, just 3% of the population, have long punched much above their weight. Their colours shimmer through the land. Their flavours spice every aspect of life in this country that's become home, these people that have become family. As London sheds slumber asleep and raises its face to an eastern dawn, Billingsgate Market repeats centuries-old rhythms as it bustles to feed the city. They're very much an integral part of the city, and of course, they also provide Londoners with their favourite source of food, which of course is the Indian restaurants, and there's a lot of those in London. And playing his part in what was once the largest fish market in the world, is Atul Kochar, the first Indian chef to receive the coveted Michelin star. Morning, gentlemen. How are you? Good to see you. Welcome to give a few years now, come down to market, tell me what you like, and I'll tell him if we've got it, if it's fresh enough, if it's not good enough, I won't tell it to him. First few years, I spent learning what British life means, what British agriculture means, what British fishery means, and slowly but surely, I've embraced all that into my food. After picking his ingredients, he heads towards his restaurant, Banaras, to prepare a lip-smacking meal. His restaurant functions like a slick machine. Good morning, everyone. We have beautiful jaundori, which we'll be preparing today, so I want you guys to just help me through the process. Let's kick it. Michelin stars, or recognition by different guides, was not even thought of, really speaking. And I set out from that day that I'm going to change the perception. Looking back after good 20 years or so, we are six of us who hold Michelin stars. In my restaurant, you have to book in three weeks in advance, otherwise forget it, you can't get it. Today, he's cooking his version of a legendary British dish, fish and mushy peas. I love mushy peas. I love British mushy peas, and I love mushy peas from India, which is from Banaras, actually. They call it Nimona. I have done the same flavor. And the British has come from by adding a little bit of cream while crushing it, so that it just gives a nice smooth blend. And it goes well with my fish. The tomato looks amazing. It's a very British plate with Indian flavor. As I lived in the United Kingdom and practiced what I loved, I saw it as a very fair country, and I felt very much home here. One of the biggest aspects of India that is a daily part of British life is Indian food. Britain is a nation of curry hollocks. Home of the chicken tikka masala, Britain's love for Indian food speaks for how wholeheartedly it's accepted the diaspora and proved the gateway to wealth for many Indians. Doing more to encourage this craze for Indian curry is noted chef and author, Monisha Bhardwaj. I started my own cooking school about eight years ago. It's called Cooking with Monisha. And this was in response to the fact that more and more people are now wanting to cook Indian food at home. My school specializes in home style, healthy, delicious, easy cooking which I think everyone wants now. Taking a much more personal approach, Monisha invites students into a home that's also the venue for her class, Cooking with Monisha. The people who come to my school are mainly non-Indians but they come from all over the world. So I've had people come from America, from Canada, from all over Europe, from as far as Japan. The camaraderie of home cooking builds bonds and encourages students from every background to come and save the spices they've never seen. Flavors they've only dreamed. I think everyone can cook if they have a passion for it. Do you want a curry that is very spicy? Very spicy. Well, no, we'll have to take average for me. What would you like? Me spicy. Very? On a scale of 1 to 10? No, maybe not. Simple home cooking is Monisha's mantra. Once the right instructions are given, it's time for her students to take centre stage. The table is laid and the ladies relish their result. But when cooking a meal from scratch isn't the answer, another enterprising Indian, Lord Noon, has stepped in with a solution. One of the pioneers in bringing authentic Indian food to the British table is Noon Products, the single largest producer of frozen Indian food. They are not content to rest on their laurels, mining regional cuisines in India and Asia. We work on all different types of recipes from cuisines all over the world. Obviously we focus more on Indian and Oriental but we also have expertise in other areas. The reason for their success lies in fierce quality checks that ensure their customers are never left with a bad taste. Well, I think clearly the UK is a very diverse culture now. The UK population travel a lot, so they are finding new recipes and new dishes that they want to try. I guess they perhaps don't know how to cook it themselves, so they are looking for companies such as ourselves to be able to make it for them. And the mastermind behind this mecca of taste is Lord Noon. We are the major players in particularly in the United Kingdom for supplying chilled Indian or any Chinese type continental all sorts of food. And we manufacture approximately half a million meals per day. Lord Noon I think is a very good example with his food production, which started very small and has become huge. That sort of example is the changing nature of Indian businesses and the growing nature and the growing importance of Indian businesses in London. When I started this company, I got my MBE from the Queen. Therefore, it is important to remember that if you work hard in this country, you are recognised. Another man who has been recognised for his hard work and commitment over the last 50 years is Vita biotics Dr. Kartar Singh Lalvani. I went to search and manufacture my research products, and sell them here and export them. In the early 70s, Kartar Lalvani started his pharmacy company at a time when Indians were considered good traders but not researchers. Never one to let uneven odds stop him, Kartar Lalvani grew Vita biotics into Britain's largest nutritional health supplement company. Beyond building empires, the dear smaller has developed a talent for giving back. Perhaps the best known and most widely appreciated of all British Indian philanthropy efforts is Lord Swaraj Paul's contribution to saving London's iconic zoo. This magnificent gesture is a gift from a loving father to the city and zoo that gave him so much precious time with his beloved daughter. We're very fortunate that Lord Paul has been a supporter of ours for a very long time. It was a good 20 years or so that he made a very large donation for our children's zoo, and he asked for it to be in memory of his daughter, Ambika, and it became the Ambika Paul children's zoo, and that was a great start for that whole area for us. It was an important time because the zoo was having a tough time financially, and Lord Paul's very generous support at that time really helped a large part of the zoo move forward, develop, and become a wonderful feature for London Zoo, for families ever since then. A place where Lord Paul sees the same joy and laughter that he once saw in Ambika, who loved to come here as a respite between grueling bouts of cancer. 1966, my daughter fell ill and we brought her for treatment. We were here for 22 months looking after her, and then unfortunately we lost her. The zoo has become a very sentimental place for my point of view because I do this thing. I have dedicated my business to Ambika. I mean, I think she's just a guiding hand. The Ambika Paul children's zoo has flourished, bringing joy to many families and peace to its benefactors. There is no other entertainment in the world where I have seen, and I have seen lots of parts of the world, where children and parents can interact with each other in that manner. Like Lord Swaraj Paul, Lord Meghnath Desai has contributed hugely, first to intellectual life and then public service in the United Kingdom. Yet this barren, feted at home and abroad, chooses to balance his outsize contribution with a low-key lifestyle. I have multiple identities. I have an Indian identity, but most of the time I have a British identity. I don't lose my Indian identity, but I don't need to display what I'm dealing with most of the time in British culture. And that has been a great advantage. At home, away from worldly debates, Lord Desai spends time with his life's passion. Books and writing, which eventually led him to his other great love, his wife. We brought together because I had written this book on Dilip Kumar. And he was the managing editor of the manuscript. That's how we met. So we met through book writing. Love finds various paths, even if it means migrating. Whether for love, opportunity, education or leisure. I started living here only after meeting my husband, Mehnath Desai. He decided that we were going to get married sometime soon. That was a very pleasant decision that he took. And it ended up with me relocating to the UK. A popular landing place in England is Leicester, a city that boasts the UK's highest ethnic diversity. And representing this multicultural, multiracial, multi-ethnic New Britannia is Keith Vars. This is the centre of the Asian community in Britain. People arrived here 30 years ago and transformed what was a rundown area into one of the most impressive shopping areas in the world. Hello ladies, are you lost? Where are you from? Nottingham. You see, there are people from all over the country. They've even come from Nottingham to Leicester. I'm Keith Vars. I'm the MP for Leicester. The country's longest-serving Asian MP, Keith, is frequently named among Britain's most influential Asian. Like the rest of England, in Leicester too, the diaspora have contributed hugely to the city's growth without losing touch with their roots. I think the Indian community has achieved so much in a very short space of time, because one, this is a culture that is strong and productive. Secondly, because they've been dedicated to hard-working, they've not relied on benefits. And since we recently discovered that Prince William may well have Indian blood in him through a previous ancestor, I think that's going to help enormously. I always thought he was a cousin of mine, and now I know he is. Cousins are not. The Brotherhood goes back to the World Wars, where Indians and Britons fought shoulder to shoulder. So you find some very, very interesting photographs showing Indian soldiers and British soldiers fighting next to each other side by side. A memorial to those brave soldiers was constructed in London close to Buckingham Palace. A memorial which wouldn't have happened without Baroness Flatter. Our men did a very good job. They weren't just cannon fodder. In the Second World War, as I said, they were crucial. So I think London is the place where they should be remembered. Besides particularly of the contingents from countries like India, which exceeded a million, are just breathtaking, really. On top of that, there was the huge support that India as a country gave to the British and other nations who were serving in that part of the world. So it wasn't just the Indian military. It was the Indian civilians who contributed hugely. We did come and stand by them when they most needed our help. And why do you think people have come here? Why do you think the immigration started? It started because of the war. With an economy devastated by war, suffering the loss of a significant proportion of its population, Britain appealed to men and women from across the empire to come rebuild factories, restart industry and reignite the economy. Britain actively encouraged migration to Britain to help rebuild the country after the end of the Second World War. Also to recruit doctors and nurses for the newly founded NHS, which happened in 1948. Their toil reshaped Britain and their success helped build the path to migration for the next wave of Indian immigrants who came here via Africa. The real change took place when the East African Indians came. They went into small businesses and then the children went to professions. Thrown out of one country, determined to prove their worth in a new one, East African Indians worked long and hard, revolutionizing retail and offering much greater convenience to British consumers. What is ignored is the many mom-and-pop entrepreneurial stories which are hidden below the carpet and these are the boys and girls and the men and women who have really reshaped the enterprise mindset of a new country. By going there many came from Africa, many came from India. The sorts of businesses that Indian businesses have been in many cases, traditional businesses, import, export and shops and I think that has grown into something bigger. Economic success helped pave the path to social acceptance, changing the way Indians were viewed by the British. But equally important to the diasporas integration was becoming part of the mosaic of cultures that is modern Britain and celebrating this incredible diversity is the Southbank Centre. This is the most extraordinary place. First of all, the size of it, it's 21 acres, which is enormous. This is probably one of the largest art centres in the world. And after the Second World War, when people really were thinking how can you keep peace and what should peace look like, it was decided that on the south side of the river you would create this amazing festival of Britain which was about not just Britain, but about the whole idea of the creativity of the world. The festival of alchemy was started to encourage dialogue between Britain, its Indian origin citizen and India itself and Britain from the Indian perspective is renowned Kathak dancer Gauri Sharma Tripathi. I spend a lot of time in India and a lot of time in UK as well. So I'm managing my time between two very interesting spaces as I say my Jan Bhumi and my Kan Bhumi. My first dialogue with Jude started. She said, Gauri, if you were to run Southbank Centre, what would you do? And thus the seed of alchemy, which is a festival which is looking at India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal and seeing how do we connect with the diaspora. If alchemy celebrates the public impact of the dialogue between cultures, making it personal are two Liverpoolians, the Singh twins. From the city of the Beatles, artists Amrit and Rabindra's determination to showcase their city has created a unique new art form that celebrates Britain using distinctly Indian vocabulary. What inspires us to combine the two cultures is the experience we had as young art students whereby the fact that we were inspired by the Indian military painting as a personal form of expression was not really accepted because it wasn't seen as something that was valid within Western contemporary art. Our art tutors really told us that the Indian military was backward and outdated and had no place in modern art and I think that really fired us up to prove them otherwise and our life's mission, if you like, as artists has been to prove the point that Indian miniature painting as with all traditional art forms has a real place and a value within contemporary art and contemporary society. On their journey to success, the Singh twins found resistance from every quarter but they kept at their dream eventually carving a niche for themselves in the world of British art and today their vision of Liverpool a British city depicted through eastern eyes is what holds sway. In one of our paintings that we were commissioned to do for the city called Arts Matters there's a detail of three dancing goals actually the poses of the three women are taken from the very famous painting by Raphael called The Three Graces and in our painting the three graces don't represent commerce and shipping as these buildings do they have come to represent the city of Liverpool as it is today which is this great centre of arts and entertainment and culture. There's a lot of cultural identity that has been cross-referenced whether it be through language or fashion or whatever we've got, you know, kind of Bollywood really making an impact on British-like culture and Indian food making such an impact so I think the Western audience actually can relate to the fact that our work is bringing together this multi-cultural eclecticism. Similar conversations between East and West take place in London in the 10th studio of Pure Jewels with a history of travel from India to Africa and then Britain this jewellery house uses British designers to celebrate their stories in symphonies of diamonds and gold. The one real resource that they had to hand which was extremely valuable was the machinery and the tools to make jewellery you know that they brought along with them that was shipped across there was a real opportunity that with relatively little they could produce products they could produce something that was needed at the time and they could produce a loyal customer base and following that really appreciated the workmanship and appreciated the quality and the integrity of the company. While the designs might be lowers the stories remain Jays as does the vision behind all Pure Jewels collections that celebrate the struggles of Jays father and grandfather. Hi Laura, you know that traditional earring that you'd asked for for the reference for the ear chain? I've created this story about a Maharani who lives in a grand palace it's always a nice starting point when you've got some sort of story and combining different references from the traditional to the contemporary. Within the language of jewellery design we want to contribute as a company to a unique language which is which is British but has Asian roots. I think it all started in the 1980s where I saw it unfold in front of my eyes where Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister she created an atmosphere of aspiration she championed entrepreneurship she opened up the city of London for example and I believe Britain became much more meritocratic. Driving in this new meritocratic Britain came easily to Lord Billy Moria who's successful beer brand Cobra was designed around the popularity of Indian food meant to be an accompaniment to spicy curries Cobra was eagerly adopted by Britain's curry matte public. I always see even with my brand Cobra beer I always feel very happy when the Indian community in Britain consume Cobra beer because I see them as ambassadors for the product and of course a lot of Indians will consume Cobra beer with pride as a brand from India that is now household name in the UK and one of the fastest growing beer brands in Britain. Like beer another British pursuit that's become an Indian fashion is cricket. There are a few hotbeds of Indian support for cricket and it's good to see them coming through and playing in the county gang. Indian origin players are a vital part of British cricket with the Chennai born Naseer Hussain even captaining the national team. The Indians we howl and shout and we enjoy the cricket but what have we done for the British cricket? Lord Noon, a cricket enthusiast convinced a host of his fellow businessmen to rally around the creation of an India room at London's famous Sare Cricket Ground. We've got to put some marks there. We've got to put some footprint there and I think it was a very nice for the overall committee in those days to agree to give us a place for India. Photographs of all our contemporary cricketers not to forget Ravi and Sendulkar and I think it has become very popular. The India room was part of the development when we built the OCS stands back in 2005. We were very lucky to have a group of Indian businessmen based in London who helped fund the OCS stands and as such we have an India room which is very important to us. It's one of our prime hospitality areas so for a test match or one day internationals it's always one of the best places to be in the ground. Even as Lord Noon enjoys his afternoon of cricket his vision goes much beyond the ground as he dares to dream of a Britain where everyone has the same opportunities to succeed that he did. Avoid the mistakes he made and so he's endowed the Noon Educational Centre at the University of East London. When you earn in a country like this give it back. I'm not a multi-millionaire but whatever I could I have done it Our student population is made up of students from all over the world so what we wanted to do with the Noon Centre and the contribution that Lord Noon has really made to our business school is by really celebrating diversity in terms of working with employers to help them realize that actually it's great business not just good business to have a diverse workforce. In the land of Oxford and Cambridge education has always been a favourite preoccupation. Shaping the ideas and ideals of Indians from the leaders of the freedom struggle onwards it's little wonder that many of the diasporas philanthropic efforts revolve around increasing access to Britain's world class universities and ensuring that more Indians get a chance to study here in the United Kingdom is Azad Shivdasani who reminisces about student days at Oxford's Trinity College. Trinity undergrads got into Balliol and they went to the top to the toilets and they removed the ball clock, prevents the water from overflowing so all the Balliol staff and graduates and undergrads were waking up at 7 o'clock in the morning and what they were confronted with was a college quite happily being flooded with water pouring down all the staircases. Helping others realize their college dreams is widely satisfying and for those who come here the British educational system opens doors to worlds they never dream possible. The reason I came to England was because of the scholarship that I got from the Inlex Foundation and I came initially to study biology at Cambridge and after I finished my degree things changed and I decided to stay on and pursue a career in music. We focused more on some traditional subjects like law, economics, pure science, philosophy, literature but we then moved into the arts because there was very little funding for the arts and we don't just focus on Oxford we've been sending people to Oxford and Cambridge and Imperial and so as and the London School of Economics. Azad's generosity flows in many directions not only does he enable Indian students to come to Britain through his contributions to teaching fellowships and research, he's assured that Oxford too has the opportunity to learn about India. The centre was founded about 15 years ago and it's for the academic study of Hinduism, Hindu culture it's the only centre of its kind in the world that is has a structured systematic approach to Hindu studies at the academic level and that's interesting because not even in India do we have such an institution. We have students from literally all over the world from every content we have from Tanzania from Israel, from Russia, from Australia from the Americas, from India obviously and it's very interdisciplinary and this kind of intellectual hot house is going to be very important. Education has various forms and here in the beautiful and quaint city of Nottingham education and traditional Indian music has come down from two generations to the very talented singer, Santu. His grandfather started his musical journey as a Gurbani singer in the local Gurdwara. From grandfather to father and father to son the music of the Gurbani morphed into the rhythm of rock. But the songs Santu sings still include the ones his father wrote for him. With the father that sings in a quite popular band in the UK it was absolutely amazing. It's very switched on I must say that he's blessed in such a way that there's not a lot but he's a great follower, he's a great listener and then he just absolutely interprets it exactly the way he wants it to be. Armed and ready for the world Santu now climbs the rungs of success. So hard work and a bit of flair. This is Radio 1458 Dhyakhal Chalai, the beginning of the program and it's already done. Which singer would you like to hear? Do you sleep in the morning or do you sit in India? Do you sit in Punjab or sing a song? Music flows through radio waves and enriches and entertains many in their daily life. I'd like to start today. From radio to music I love music. On Sunrise there's a mix and match in Hindi and Punjabi so that they can remember the soil of Gujarat or Punjab and never forget it. Sunrise was actually the world's first independent commercial radio station. It was very important not just from the cultural and the musical side but this public policy input was far sighted media entrepreneur Dr. Aftar Litt didn't become a voice for justice community but a beacon for Britain's many minorities. There's not the only Sunrise radio facilities before the Afro-Caribbeans for the Turkish community, Greek community so they got their own radio stations. As Sunrise Radio caters to the diaspora audience a band from the vibrant and culturally diverse city of Birmingham called Swami is breaking into a larger audience. We are on Sohar Road in Birmingham which is the closest you can get to inside of England to being back in India. That's why this is the street where most of the early immigrants from India first came. My family owned the Kodak shop that we can see across the road and it was my dad who originally took the photos that we would become the album covers for Mokit Singh and various other artists who made it quite big at those times. The music was actually sold on these very streets. Following in the footsteps of bands like UB40 that fuse musical traditions from Birmingham's different ethnic groups Swami explores issues of identity through their music. We're bringing these ideas of fusion together in a new way, in a pop way, in a way in which it truly represents us growing up as Indian people but being very much British at the same time. One, two... The band Swami is the one line we're featured in one of our songs and that's been prominent throughout the years and it's just that one question, so who am I? So, who am I that one phrase encapsulates the band's name, Swami? It's great about Birmingham it's got that Indian cosmopolitan feel with fantastic production and just a great modern sound I love it. While you're listening to it it's called Hollywood music and what I call metal. I'm mixed race so I'm half Punjabi and I'm half English I grew up very kind of conflicted in a sense about what my identity was and doing the music that we do it allows me to kind of feel complete in that I'm not just focusing on one half of my ethnic heritage or the other, I get to be both. Britain and India are building on bonds of not just culture but through the energy of the diaspora they share they're moving beyond the painful past to forge rock-solid relationships in business and politics. India is having to come up with very, very creative ideas around its economic balance, that creativity is being applied and other places can learn from it including the UK. We're going to see more and more prominent Indians taking on much bigger, much more strategic roles within existing multinational corporations and I think that Indian companies themselves will start to become household name brands, not just within India but throughout the world. I think Indians are comfortable here and I think it works both ways. It's a very easy relationship and I think that's why there is such a large Indian population here. There is so much shared history I didn't have to learn anything when I came here. I almost knew everything about life here. I knew historically where they stand who they are, where they come from what they do, what is the culture. There was a time when we used these words like mixed race and Holocaust where you're half Indian and you're half this or you're half why can't you be fully both? Why can't I be fully English? I'm fully Indian. When Britain is playing I'm with India but if India is playing against any team I will howl and shout for India. I'm very proud to be a Zoroastrian Parsi. I'm very proud to be British. I'm very proud to be an Asian, an Indian in Britain and I think that having that pride in one's roots and being close to your roots is very important but also to integrate in the community in which you're living in. The diasporas contributions to the United Kingdom have been legion. Building lives in a new land they help bring two cultures together two countries closer and make two people one. There is no longer this idea that Britishness is necessarily white British. Britishness is made up of all sorts of cultures including the Asian culture. Within the English language there are so many words that are Indian words that are now incorporated within English that are used every day by British people Jaganort, Bucca, Shampoo, I could just go on. India's vibrancy has changed the UK and that's all to be good. This one music I really love and that's did I sing it? Aapuromiradil Jaaninya Svotha Hai Biyakar Ha Hai Kuch Kuch Hotha Hai