Holi Colours Light Up the North-West as Manchester's Indian Community Charts 50 Years of Roots
Manchester's South Asian communities are celebrating the Hindu festival of Holi with ten days of events across the north-west of England, as thousands of Indian fans also descend on the city for an England versus India Test match at Old Trafford. A BBC guide to Holi events across the region and a wide-ranging photo essay by The Mill together offer a portrait of how 69,000 Indian-origin Mancunians are navigating their identity, their history and their love of cricket in the same week. Together they reveal a community that has been reshaping Manchester's cultural landscape since the mid-twentieth century, one that is still discovering what it means to be Indian and British at the same time.
🪔 Holi Brings Ten Days of Colour to the North-West
The BBC reported on Holi events planned across the north-west of England as the Hindu festival returned in March 2026. Known as the festival of colours, Holi marks the end of winter and for Hindus also celebrates the triumph of good over evil. Participants offer prayers and eat traditional food and sweets before gathering in the streets to throw brightly coloured powders and coloured water over family members and friends. This year Holi fell on a Wednesday, but BBC coverage confirmed that celebrations — which also include dancing, music and singing — were scheduled to continue across the north-west of England for ten days. The report was accompanied by photographs showing festival-goers covered in vivid magenta, turquoise and yellow pigment, smiling as they took part in the festivities. Greater Manchester and its surrounding boroughs have hosted Holi events at parks, community centres and open spaces for many years, drawing participants from across the region's South Asian communities — Hindu, Sikh and beyond — in a festival that balances religious meaning with open-air joyfulness. The BBC framed the coverage as a practical guide for residents wanting to find events nearby, reflecting the growing prominence of Holi as a marker of South Asian cultural life across the English north-west. [3]
🤝 Photo Essay Charts Greater Manchester's Indian Communities at the Cricket
The Mill published a substantial photo essay by Delhi-born photographer Murtaza Rizvi documenting the lives of Greater Manchester's Indian communities, timed to coincide with the England versus India Test match at Old Trafford. According to the 2021 Census, just over 69,000 people in Greater Manchester identify as Indian or British Indian, making them one of the largest Mancunian demographic groups following waves of migration from Gujarat, Punjab and Bengal during the middle of the twentieth century. The report observed that the famous Curry Mile has gradually shifted towards Middle Eastern dining, and that many restaurants historically described as Indian were in fact Pakistani-run. Rizvi's photo essay visits the Gita Bhavan Hare Krishna Centre in Whalley Range, the Indian Association in Withington, and the opening day of the Test match outside Old Trafford. The team found a growing sense of unified Indian identity in the city that cuts across its many linguistic and regional sub-communities. Among those interviewed was Ramnath Aggarwal, a 71-year-old Punjabi man who has lived in Fallowfield for 53 years and continues to work in wholesale clothing — the trade he entered on arriving from Punjab decades ago. The team noted that men were far more willing to speak on the record than women, despite efforts to include female voices throughout the project. [4]