Sari Squad

The Sari Squad first came into the spotlight in 1982 following a fifth deportation warrant against Afia Begum. Afia was the 19-year-old wife of Abdul Hamid, a Bangladeshi worker who had lived in the UK for sixteen years. After his death in a slum tenement fire, Afia’s right to British citizenship was erased and her first deportation warrant was issued at Heathrow Airport, as soon as she arrived in the UK. The Sari Squad established the Afia Begum Centre at 114A Brick Lane in August 1983, after Afia received her fifth deportation warrant. They took her story to national newspapers to exemplify the racism and sexism rooted within British immigration laws.

As a group of South Asian women, the Sari Squad defied patriarchal controls that restricted them to the domestic sphere. Their slogans ‘Smash the Silence’ and ‘Rise and Fight’ symbolized a distinct sense of agency. The Sari Squad demanded Afia Begum’s right to stay in Britain and adopted the ethos of civil disobedience used by civil rights leaders Mahatma Gandhi and Dr Martin Luther King Jr. A vigil that they organized on 15 August 1983 was their most notable form of collective resistance. They tied themselves to the house of Conservative Home Secretary Leon Brittain and, consequently, members were arrested and taken to Rochester police station. They went through a series of strip-searches and were taunted by male officers as a way of belittling their cause, reducing the sari to a state of primitivity. However, their arrest and campaign showed that the marginalization of South Asian women amidst a sexist and racist justice system would no longer be tolerated.

The Sari Squad worked alongside Black and anti-racist organizations. The East London Workers against Racism and 200 supporters joined their protests outside Heathrow Airport on the day of Afia Begum’s deportation. On 24 May 1984 thirty members and close associates took Afia Begum’s case to the European Court of Human Rights. They argued Afia Begum’s citizenship was unfairly reduced to her marital status and had her husband not died then deportation would not have been considered. Therefore, the deportation was to be ruled unconstitutional. They achieved huge success as 71 against 58 voted in favour of their cause. The Sari Squad were joined by Labour MPs Jeremy Corbyn and Harry Cohen, who reiterated their argument in the House of Commons. Although Afia Begum remained as a deported migrant, her case and the work of the Sari Squad openly challenged the Home Office as a democratic institution. This was done by a group of South Asian women who battled patriarchal control and British law.