Manchester Desi Roundup: Holi Colours, Diwali Devotion, and a British-Pakistani Crime Drama

Manchester's South Asian community is living out its cultural richness on multiple fronts this season: vibrant Holi festivities are spreading colour across the north-west of England, BAPS Swaminarayan devotees are gathering for Diwali and Annakut celebrations, and a major new British drama is turning the spotlight on the British-Pakistani community's experience of identity, loyalty, and the criminal underworld. From the devotional to the dramatic, Manchester's Desi scene is making its presence felt.

🎉 Holi Festival of Colours Brings North-West Together

BBC News reported on Holi 'festival of colours' events planned across north-west England, with organisers preparing celebrations that invite the wider public to join South Asian communities in one of the most visually spectacular festivals in the Hindu calendar. Holi marks the arrival of spring and the triumph of good over evil, rooted in the legend of Prahlad and Holika, and is observed with the joyful throwing of coloured powders and water, communal music, dance, and the sharing of traditional sweets and snacks such as gujiya and thandai. The north-west of England — encompassing Greater Manchester, Lancashire, and Cheshire — has one of the UK's most established South Asian populations, with Hindu and wider Desi communities having put down deep roots over more than six decades of settlement. Holi events in the region have grown in scale and public visibility in recent years, moving beyond temple courtyards and private gatherings to public parks, civic squares, and purpose-built festival grounds that attract thousands of participants from all backgrounds. For British-born South Asians, events like these carry a dual significance: they are moments of personal and cultural connection to ancestral traditions, but also opportunities to share that heritage with non-South Asian friends, colleagues, and neighbours in a spirit of openness and celebration. Organisers across the north-west emphasised that their events are designed to be family-friendly and inclusive, welcoming people of all faiths and none to participate in the colour-play and festivities. [1]

🪔 BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha Celebrates Diwali and Annakut in Manchester

The BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha held its annual Diwali and Hindu New Year Annakut celebration in Manchester as part of a globally coordinated series of events spanning hundreds of mandirs across the United Kingdom, Europe, North America, Africa, and the Asia-Pacific region. Annakut — meaning 'mountain of food' in Sanskrit — is a tradition in which devotees present an elaborate arrangement of hundreds of prepared vegetarian dishes before the sacred image of Bhagwan Swaminarayan, in an act of profound gratitude and devotion that has been maintained continuously across generations of the Swaminarayan tradition. The Manchester celebration brought together the city's Gujarati Hindu community and other devotees for aarti, satsang, and communal fellowship in a setting that combines deep spiritual meaning with warm social connection. Manchester has a significant Gujarati population with long-standing ties to the BAPS movement, which has maintained a mandir presence in the city and surrounding areas for many years. Beyond its religious calendar, BAPS in the UK runs a wide range of humanitarian, educational, and cultural programmes throughout the year, but it is the Diwali and Annakut season that most powerfully draws the community together across generational and geographic boundaries. For families who have lived in Manchester for two or three generations, the mandir remains an anchor of cultural identity — a place where the values, language, devotional practices, and culinary traditions of Gujarat are transmitted to children growing up in a predominantly non-South Asian environment. [2]

🎬 'Apnas' Drama to Take British-Pakistani Manchester Story Nationwide

Eastern Eye, the UK's leading South Asian newspaper, featured 'Apnas', a British drama series centred on Pakistani cousins drawn into Manchester's criminal underworld, as it builds momentum ahead of a planned nationwide release. The title draws its name from the term 'apna' — a word of deep cultural resonance across South Asian communities, used to denote 'one of our own' or 'family' in a broad, community-wide sense that encompasses bonds of heritage, loyalty, and shared identity. By placing this word at its centre, the drama immediately signals its exploration of the tension between communal belonging and the moral compromises that criminal entanglement demands. Manchester's British-Pakistani community — one of the largest, most established, and most culturally vibrant South Asian communities in the United Kingdom — provides the backdrop for a story that grapples with questions of loyalty, identity, aspiration, and the pull of easy money in communities that have often been underserved by economic opportunity. The show joins a growing tradition of British South Asian drama that has won critical acclaim and mainstream audiences in recent years, as producers and commissioners increasingly recognise the appetite for stories that reflect the full complexity of multicultural British life. Eastern Eye's coverage noted the strong momentum the production has gathered ahead of its wider release, suggesting that 'Apnas' is positioning itself as a significant cultural moment for both the British-Pakistani community and for British television more broadly. Its nationwide release will give audiences across the country a window into a community and a city whose stories deserve to be heard at scale. [3]

Sources: [1] BBC · [2] BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha · [3] EasternEye