Defiance: how Britain’s South Asian communities went from being brutalised to surviving and thriving
On a grey Monday afternoon 45 years ago this month, a leafy quiet west London suburb exploded into violence. Around 3,000 police officers swooped onto the residential streets, armed with riot shields, batons and horses.
They confronted thousands of largely peaceful protesters ranging from children to pensioners. By the end of the day one man was dead, killed by a member of an elite police unit, another was in a coma fighting for his life and a community was reeling.
April 23, 1979 is a day that should be remembered as a landmark in British history but members were escorted by police into the centre of Southall, west London, to hold an election meeting at the very heart of the area’s large Asian community.
