Ganesh Chaturthi Festival: On Sunday 9th October 2005 I got on my bike and rode to Southall to photograph a Hindu festival which was apparently being celebrated for the first time in England. This was one of many community and religious festivals which I photographed in the first ten or so years of this century – the previous day I had photographed the Catholic Rosary Crusade of Reparation in Westminster and there are pictures of this also on the October 2005 page of My London Diary. At the start of the same month I’d gone to Southall before for a guided tour of the splendid Sikh Sri Guru Singh Sabha Gurdwara which opened in 2003.
I was born and grew up in Middlesex, just a few miles from Southall and when young would sometimes cycle there to the footbridge over the Great Western Railway close to the station where steam trains would hurtle past.
In 1950 a local factory owner brought workers from India, and soon others began to follow them, finding jobs at Heathrow Airport, London Transport and other organisations some recruiting in India. Over my growing years the population of the town and of Hounslow where I was living just to the south became increasingly of Indian origin – and I grew to love the smell and taste of curry.
Now in the 2020s around 70% of the population define themselves as Asian, from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and other areas, though many of them have been born here. Over the years I’ve visited it for various events and enjoyed the vibrancy of its streets and Indian food at some of its cheaper cafés with Indian friends.
But some of the events I’ve gone there to photograph have been reminders of the racial tensions there in the 1970s, and in particular of the murders of Sikh teenager Gurdip Singh Chagga by racists in 1976 and anti-racist activist Blair Peach, murdered by police while protesting against the National Front in 1979.
I was made to feel very welcome at the 2004 event and I think I was the only photographer taking pictures, with not even the local newspaper in attendance. I turned down the invitation to travel on the lorry to the Thames at Putney with the group as I needed to cycle home.
Here is what I wrote about the event back in 2004:
“Another celebration the following day was also dedicated to world peace, as the Ganesh Chaturthi Festival was celebrated in this country for the first time. The tradition of this Ganapati festival dates back to 1895 in Maharashtra, India. It aims to raise awareness of Hindu culture in Britain and “to bring people from different faiths and walks of like together in order to promote peace and harmony in a multicultural society.”
“Statues of Lord Ganesh specially brought from India were transported through the centre of Southall, from the Vishwa Hindu Temple to the site of the oldest Hindu temple* in Britain, Ram Mandir in King Street and back.
“Later the statues were to be taken to the Thames and ritually immersed in the water at Putney, close to the starting point of the Boat Race. Unfortunately i had to miss this part of the event.”
* Shree Ram Mandir, Southall began in 1965 but I think the Slough temple may have started a couple of years earlier.
There are many more pictures from the event which was also attended by the local MP, the Mayor and a few people from local churches, beginning here on My London Diary.
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