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Journey to Leicester |
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Moving to and working in Britain
In the 1960s, a boom in the British economy created a shortage of labour, and Britain looked to its former colonies to satisfy this need. The system of employment vouchers was devised to enable members of the Commonwealth to travel and work in Britain. My father, Dilip, was working as an academic in Kolkata when his employment voucher arrived in 1966. After attending an interview at the University of Essex, he began to work as a research assistant in the field of economics.
The city of Kolkata
© Courtesy of the Bhattacharyya family |
The employment voucher, introduced after the 1962 Immigration Act, was a permit offered to qualified non-Britons to work in the UK, in areas where there was a shortfall of skilled people amongst the British population. The health and transport sectors, for instance, greatly benefited from this scheme. British universities also employed highly qualified immigrants from various academic disciplines on employment vouchers. The scheme ended a few years after my father’s arrival in 1967.
My father knows that he was fortunate to secure a good job so quickly; he believes that this was due to the high regard with which Indian statisticians were viewed.
“I was one of two Indian students on the MA. Both of us did well on the Masters programme, and after that they hired other Asian people. We opened up opportunities for others, and I really enjoyed my time there."
In 1972, Dilip got a job at Leicester University, and began to endure the more typical immigrant experience. He says he faced discrimination at work. The Race Relations Act was passed in 1976 to counter the racist behaviour many of Britain’s immigrants had to deal with.
“I worked in the department for twenty five years, but was never promoted, despite being appointed as a visiting professor several times in major US universities, and being recommended by internationally famous professors of the Fellows of the Econometric Society, and the Fellows of the International Mathematical Society.”
Words: Sonali Bhattacharyya
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