Consulate of Pakistan Bradford

The Pakistan High Commission (PHC), which oversees the work of Pakistani consulates across the UK, has historically supported networking between the Consulate of Pakistan Bradford and local Pakistani organizations, to keep on top of developments in local towns within the consulate’s region and to streamline the distribution of information to British Pakistani households. In 1967, as part of the PHC’s ambition to have a strong Pakistani organization in every town where Pakistanis settled, the Bradford consulate was tasked by the PHC with creating a model Pakistan Association in the city, for which they drafted a constitution and held an election. However, confusion in leadership and a lack of widely held support led to conflict within the Bradford association.

The Consulate of Pakistan Bradford instead worked as an advisory body to minimize splits within local Pakistani communities. For example, between 1965 and 1969 the Consulate of Pakistan Bradford negotiated the conflict between two associations that claimed to represent the interests of Pakistanis in Huddersfield. According to the Assistant Labour Associate at the Pakistan High Commission named Chaudhury, who was based at the Bradford Consulate, there were significant issues between the Huddersfield Pakistan Welfare Association, headed by Siddique, and the Huddersfield Pakistan Muslim Society, led by Mian Mohammad Rafiq. Chaudhury claimed that the conflict arose because of differing ideas about how a Pakistani association should lead, namely whether it should create relations with the community or whether it should adopt a paternalistic form of leadership. Chaudhury favoured organizations which created wide-reaching networks, given the PHC’s goal of using local organizations to distribute information among British Pakistanis. Central to this was the adoption of local elections and membership cards, strategies which neither the Huddersfield Pakistan Welfare Association nor the Huddersfield Pakistan Muslim Society had regarded as necessary. With his intervention of encouraging elections and membership, Chaudhury saw positive changes. He described the Pakistan Welfare Association as a bridge between Pakistanis and local councils. The Pakistan Muslim Society, however, fell away. In an interview with Huddersfield’s local newspaper, the Huddersfield Examiner, Saddique said the Pakistan High Commission instructed that there could only be one official Pakistani association per town, presumably to minimize conflicts in leadership. Chaudhury’s presence at the Huddersfield Pakistan Welfare Association meetings meant that the organization was legitimized as the official Pakistani association for Huddersfield.

Consulates in places like Bradford attracted high-profile Pakistani diplomats who would lead the organizations. With them came their families, who had to temporarily make a home in their new place of settlement. In the early 1980s Nigar Nazar Abbas, a famed feminist cartoonist from Karachi, Pakistan, migrated to Bradford with her husband, who was a diplomat, and their children. She became a member of the Pakistan Consulate Women’s Group, an exclusive social organization for Pakistanis in Bradford that had links to the consulate. Soon after, she became president of the organization. Nigar renamed it the Pakistan Women’s Group and widened its scope to include any Pakistani women in and around Bradford who wanted to take part in social, cultural and religious events. By 1985 the Pakistan Women’s Group had over eighty members from places such as Leeds, Burnley, Chesterfield, Sheffield and Dewsbury, and had twelve committee members. Their activities included raising money for the Lord Mayor of Bradford's appeal for cancer research and raising funds for victims of the Bradford City football stadium fire, which occurred on 11 May 1985.