The India League, a UK-based diaspora group founded in 1916 announced it will be conducting the first-ever British-Indian Census around Britain's estimated 1.5 million Indian-origin population.
The census will be conducted online in collaboration with the University of Oxford and will culminate in a British Indian Report later this year.
"The British Indian community has changed greatly over the years and this survey will provide our community with much-needed data that will help us to understand the key issues of concern and importantly on how best to address them," CB Patel, Chairman of India League, said.
The survey, which will be posted on the Indian League website, intends to explore the diversity of heritage, identity, beliefs and behaviour of the Indian community in the UK, as well as identifying key issues of concern to British-Indians.
"This research can help us to understand the diversity within our community, as a means to develop policy and enrich the lives of British Indians," said Baroness Sandip Verma, a House of Lords peer and advisor to the India League.
The India League said that existing surveys of the British-Indian community by the UK government and academics have been limited by relatively small sample sizes and the new census intends to plug a gap by going directly to Indians in Britain to accurately illustrate their lives and thoughts on issues of the day.
"Due to the relatively small size of the British Indian community being 2.5 per cent of the UK population, official studies recognise that they are not able to generate accurate estimates of datasets disaggregated by ethnicity," Dr Nikita Ved, a Fellow at the University of Oxford who is supporting the research, said.
The British Indian Census is expected to be held every two to three years, with the responses to the first census expected to be ready for collation in August.
The India League, which was an active body during the Indian independence movement in the 1930s and 1940s, has been revived once again as a platform for critical-thought relating to India and British Indians.
