Adding more of a Goan touch to Swindon

Swindon is a city 130 km southwest of London. Until a couple of decades ago, few in Goa would have heard of this largely industrial city. Today, across Goa there are families who have a relative or know of someone who has settled in that city. So, it is hardly surprising that two Goans should be elected to the Swindon Borough Council. The Goan population in Swindon is large and it is growing – perhaps even by the week – so it was but to be expected that there would be Goans elected to this council at some point of time. The more interesting angle here is that the two Goans are a couple, one who had been elected for a three-year term last year, and the spouse getting elected this year in the annual local elections. Imtiyaz and Adorabelle Shaikh are the new Goan political couple in Swindon, both members of the Labour Party and with a long political career ahead of them, should they choose to stay on in electoral politics.

The migration tendency of Goans has taken them overseas for centuries, and brought some to positions of power in the countries they made home. Goa is quite content to claim various political figures around the world as being of Goan origin, even if the ties are nebulous. In the 1990s it began when Keith Vaz was elected to the British House of Commons on a Labour ticket. After him came his sister Valerie Vaz on the same party ticket and they have now been followed by Suella Fernandes who is a conservative MP. In Portugal there is Antonio Costa who is the Prime Minister and more recently another minister in the Costa cabinet named Nelson de Souza. While the Vaz siblings, Fernandes and Costa are all of Goan origin, their ties to Goa are via their parents, as they never really lived in Goa, and were not even born here. De Souza on the other hand was born in Goa, at that time still under the Portuguese rule, and the family moved to Portugal when he was still a child.

But, even before Vaz came into the political picture in Britain and amplified Goan interest in British politics, there have been other Goans playing crucial roles in the African political scene, even fighting for the independence of those countries. In our Review section with this edition, we recount the daring deeds of Fitz de Souza and Pio Gama Pinto who were involved in the Kenyan freedom movement, and after Independence went to Parliament. While de Souza was Dy Speaker of the Kenyan Assembly, Gama Pinto was assasinated some years after the country gained its freedom. De Souza, now in his 90s, lives in Goa. If that was in Kenya, around the same era, in Mozambique there was Aquino de Braganza, who was an advisor to President Samora Machel, died in the air crash along with the president. He too had earlier played a key role in the Mozambican freedom struggle.

Which brings us back to the Shaikhs, the first Goan couple to be elected to any borough in England. There have been Goans before them elected to boroughs, but never a husband and wife duo. Imtiyaz and Adorabelle are different from the other Goan-origin politicians who have made it big elsewhere. They have lived in Goa, studied in the State and migrated to the United Kingdom only later to seek out a living there. Imtiyaz’s family is still living in Vasco, while Adorabelle’s family migrated to the UK just recently. Adorabelle has been living in UK for just about 15 years. That this family has assimilated into the British community and into the political and social milieu smoothly, shows how the Goan is able to adapt to all cultures. That, however, may have been easy for them in this town, as parts of Swindon have a large Asian population, and as an added benefit to them, as some of the Goan villages empty out, the Goan community in Swindon grows almost proportionately and quickly. 

Swindon Borough has a population of 2,20,000 and though it is still mainly British, migration is changing the complexion of the town. According to available data on the internet, about 85 per cent of the population is ‘White British’, while the rest is from across the world, including a four per cent Asian population. A substantial part of the Asian population comes from Goa. Swindon possibly has the largest Goan community in the UK. In an article writer Selma Carvalho postulated that Swindon could be the city which has the highest concentration of Goans anywhere in the world outside of Goa. Since then it has possibly grown much more. When Imtiaz was elected a year ago, the figure of Goans in the city was estimated at 20,000. Last year at the Goan festival in the city, there were 2,500 Goans who turned up. Interestingly, this festival was supported by the Swindon Borough Council, an indication perhaps of how important the community is to the borough.

Just recently, when Honda announced that it would be closing down its car plant in Swindon, there was immense interest in Goa, with articles on the possibility of thousands of Goans losing their jobs.

In fact, the new councillor Adorabelle talks of raising the profile of the Goan community in the borough and trying to find ways to motivate youth and others from the Goan community to come forward in making a difference. As hundreds of Goans make Swindon their home, this is one British town that is going to resonate for long with the Konkani language, as the Goan population, many holding Portuguese citizenship documents, make it their home. The best part is that, the Goan community is not just living in the town and feeding off it, but is contributing politically and socially too. The election of the Shaikh couple could boost the political fortunes of other Goans who will now realise that a seat on the council is not out of reach. 

This election result is also an assertion that the concept that Goans abroad get into menial jobs is false. A controversy had erupted a while ago, when a senior Congress leader had said that Goans are toilet cleaners abroad. That now appears to be so not true, for a job a person may get based on one’s qualifications and experience, but social and political acceptability comes only when the community acknowledges the person. This is what is happening in Swindon at the moment, as the Goans there get their representatives on the Borough Council. If there is a little of Goa in this English city, there is also now a little of Goa in its political circles, and from here it can only grow.