Cricket, Temples, Film, and Identity: Manchester's Indian and Pakistani Communities in Focus

Greater Manchester's South Asian diaspora — one of the city's oldest and largest, numbering more than 69,000 self-identified Indian or British Indian residents alone — is generating a rich stream of cultural, community, and faith-based news. A summer photo essay by The Manchester Mill documented Indian community anchors from Whalley Range to Old Trafford during the England-India Test match, the BBC mapped Holi celebrations across the north-west, a British-Pakistani crime drama set in Manchester's streets geared up for nationwide release, and religious organizations raised pointed concerns about a Hindu temple's institutional listing.

🤝 Inside Greater Manchester's Indian Communities

The Manchester Mill published a richly detailed photo essay in July 2025 documenting the lived reality of Greater Manchester's Indian community, produced by Delhi-born freelance photographer Murtaza Rizvi alongside staff writer Ophira Gottlieb. The piece was timed to coincide with the England vs. India Test match at Old Trafford, where portions of the crowd were described as a sea of Indian blue. The 2021 Census counted just over 69,000 people in Greater Manchester identifying as Indian or British Indian, representing one of the city's largest communities — the product of migration waves from Gujarat, Punjab, and Bengal that began in the middle of the last century. The essay visited the Gita Bhavan Hare Krishna Centre in Whalley Range, the Indian Association in Withington, and the Old Trafford ground itself on the first day of the Test. Long-time resident Ramnath Aggarwal, a 71-year-old wholesale clothing worker from Punjab who arrived in Fallowfield 53 years ago, reflected on how the community has changed. The interviews — which the Mill acknowledged drew more men than women despite the team's best efforts — revealed a growing and self-conscious unified Indian identity in the city, and a common love of cricket that transcended regional and linguistic sub-group differences. Community leaders noted they have been working to find unifying elements that allow people to identify as Indian rather than by culture or language alone, a task made complex by the internal diversity spanning Gujarati, Tamil, Punjabi, Bengali, and other communities all operating under the broader term. [6]

🎉 Holi Colours Light Up the North-West of England

The BBC published a guide in March 2026 to Holi events planned across the north-west of England, offering a window into how deeply the Hindu festival has embedded itself into the region's public cultural calendar. The piece described Holi as marking the end of winter and, in Hindu tradition, celebrating the triumph of good over evil. Celebrants offer prayers, eat traditional food and sweets, gather outdoors to throw brightly coloured powders and coloured water, and take part in music, dancing, and singing. With the official date falling on a Wednesday, events were spread across ten days to allow working families and community groups across Greater Manchester and surrounding areas to participate in dedicated celebrations rather than being restricted to the weekday itself. The BBC coverage included photographs of participants — faces and clothing vivid with magenta, turquoise, and yellow powder — that conveyed the visual exuberance of the occasion. Manchester's large South Asian population, concentrated across boroughs including Oldham, Rochdale, Bolton, and the city's inner southern suburbs, has long supported some of the UK's most vibrant Holi gatherings, many organized through temples, community associations, and cultural societies. The BBC's decision to publish a guide rather than merely a news item reflected a broader shift in British media toward treating South Asian festivals as events of genuine mainstream public interest rather than curiosities. For organizers and communities across the north-west, the coverage served as both recognition and outreach, helping draw first-time attendees who might not have been aware of events in their own area. [5]

🪔 Hindus for Human Rights Raises Concerns Over Manchester Hindu Temple Listing

Hindus for Human Rights published a press release raising concerns about a listing described as 'Bajrangdal' at the Manchester Hindu Temple. Bajrang Dal is a Hindu nationalist organization affiliated with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Sangh Parivar network, a constellation of right-wing Hindu groups based in India whose political influence has grown significantly in the years since the Bharatiya Janata Party consolidated power in Delhi. The Hindus for Human Rights organization — which describes itself as a progressive Hindu advocacy group committed to pluralism and human dignity — flagged the listing as raising questions about institutional affiliations and the potential reach of Hindu nationalist politics into British Hindu diaspora religious spaces. The Manchester Hindu Temple, like many diaspora religious institutions, serves as a community anchor for people of diverse Indian regional, linguistic, caste, and political backgrounds, and concerns about its institutional listings touch on much wider debates about representation and leadership within British Hindu organizations. The issue is part of a larger and increasingly visible conversation within diaspora Hindu communities about how to distinguish between the practice and expression of Hindu religion and culture on the one hand, and specific political movements with roots in India on the other. Progressive Hindu organizations in the UK and North America have been paying growing attention to such affiliations as interest in Hindu nationalist politics among diaspora communities has become more difficult to ignore. The Manchester situation reflects dynamics playing out in Hindu temples and cultural organizations in cities across Britain. [2]

🎬 British-Pakistani Drama 'Apnas' Eyes Nationwide Release

Eastern Eye reported that 'Apnas,' a British-Pakistani crime drama centered on two cousins drawn into Manchester's criminal underworld, was building momentum toward a nationwide release. The word 'apna' — and its informal plural 'apnas' — carries deep cultural resonance in Urdu and Punjabi, meaning 'one of our own,' a term saturated with the tensions of in-group loyalty and belonging that the drama appears to interrogate. Manchester has long served as a compelling backdrop for British South Asian storytelling, with its large British Pakistani population, its industrial heritage, and its complex inner-city geography providing both narrative stakes and visual authenticity. The show draws on a creative tradition of British South Asian filmmakers exploring the friction between family obligation, community expectation, and the pull of urban crime — a genre that has produced some of British television's most powerful diaspora drama. Eastern Eye, the UK's leading South Asian weekly, was among the media outlets tracking the production's trajectory as it built toward wider theatrical distribution. The British-Pakistani creative community has been particularly generative in recent years, with younger writers, directors, and producers securing commissions from Channel 4, BBC Three, Sky, and streaming platforms hungry for authentic British voices that have historically been underrepresented on mainstream screens. 'Apnas' joins a growing canon of British-Pakistani urban drama that takes seriously both the cultural specificity of its community and the universal themes of family, identity, and consequence that make such stories accessible beyond their immediate diaspora audience. [4]

Sources: [6] manchestermill.co.uk · [5] BBC · [2] Hindus for Human Rights · [4] EasternEye