Pamala Harris is the first person of Indian descent who has been a serious candidate for president.  Former UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak (2022 – 2024) is of Indian descent. There is a highly visible presence of politicians in the UK of Indian descent, much more than in the U.S., due to the long history of British-Indian engagement. Indian-Americans are much more recent in arrival. We can expect a sharp rise in the number of Indian American politicians in the next ten years, with a large share rising in the Republican ranks.

First, some words on terminology. In the United States, we can use the term Indian-American to identify persons who are first, second or perhaps even third generation immigrants from the country of India. The British use the term British Asians, by which they refer to persons of Indian, Pakistani, or Bangladeshi origin. (That is, South Asia and not Southeast or East Asia.)

They include persons of Indian origin who came to the UK from East Africa.  Uganda dictator Idi Amin expelled upwards of 100,000 persons of South Asia. Many migrated to the UK. They comprised much of the economic elite in Uganda, and were relatively well educated and wealthy.

Rishi Sunak, Prime Minister 2022-2024, was born in the UK with parents from East Africa. He took his oath of office in Parliament using the Bhagavad Gita. Priti Patel, who was the UK’s Home Secretary from 2019 to 2022, has parents who were Ugandan Asians.

About 3% of the British population are of Indian descent. The great majority have been in the U.K. since before 2000.  By comparison, 1.35% of persons in the U.S. are Indian-Americans, and the great majority of them have come to in the past two decades.

The first British Asian member of parliament, Dadabhai Naoroji, was elected in 1892.  Currently there are 26 members of Parliament of Indian descent – an increase of 73% since 2015.  The British Asian political community has become more aligned with the Conservative Party than with the Labor Party, and British Asian voters have over the past 10 or so years shifted from strongly Labor to weakly Conservative. This may in part be due how the Conservative Party appears to have courted British Asians since Thatcher’s regime, pitching to the pro-business life-style of recent British Asian immigrants.

In contrast, the Indian-American community in the United States, which rose from 1.9 million in 2000 to 4.6 million in 2022, is much more associated with members of the higher education and information technology industries, which tend to be either sharply liberal or at least non-Republican.

The first person of Indian descent elected to the U.S. Congress was Dalip Singh Saund (1957-63).  Currently there are five members of Congress who are of Indian descent, all Democrats. Ten years ago, there was only one Indian-American in Congress, Ami Bera.