Indian businesses and services in Leicester, United Kingdom

Leicester's Indian story runs through East Africa. Many of the families who settled here in the late 1960s and 1970s came from Kenya, Uganda and elsewhere in East Africa, most of them Gujarati by heritage, and the arrivals after the 1972 expulsion of Asians from Uganda did much to shape the north-east of the city. Belgrave Road, known locally as the Golden Mile, grew out of that: jewellers, sari and fabric shops, sweet centres, grocers and restaurants, with Melton Road and the residential streets of Belgrave and Rushey Mead behind it.

The city is equally known for its places of worship. The Shree Sanatan Mandir on Weymouth Street, near Belgrave Road, has served the city since the early 1970s, and the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir is on Gipsy Lane. The Guru Nanak Gurdwara on Holy Bones, near the city centre, also houses a Sikh museum, and the Jain Centre on Oxford Street occupies a converted chapel. Highfields, Spinney Hills and Evington are home to much of the city's South Asian Muslim community, many of them Gujarati, with mosques throughout.

Diwali is the event that puts Leicester on the map: lights go up along Belgrave Road ahead of the festival, which falls in October or November depending on the Hindu calendar, and on Diwali Day the road is closed to traffic and draws tens of thousands of people. Navratri garba nights fill community halls, and Vaisakhi and Eid are celebrated across the city. If you are visiting the Golden Mile, Saturday is the busiest day, parking is limited, and the weeks before Diwali and the wedding season are busier still.