The need for unity: an interview with Vishnu Sharma

Abstract

Vishnu Sharma (1921–1992) came to Southall, West London, in 1957 as a seasoned political organiser in the peasant and trade union movements of the Punjab, who had already, under the Raj, been imprisoned for his political activities. A member of the Communist Party for most of his life, a vice-chair of the 1960s’ Campaign Against Racial Discrimination (CARD) and a founder of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, where he also worked for many years, he was involved in a number of national organisations including the National Council for Commonwealth Immigrants (from which he resigned in protest in 1968), the National Council for Civil Liberties, the Institute of Race Relations (IRR) and the Anti-Nazi League. He talked, in 1982, during the filming of A Town Under Siege – one of a series of films made by IRR’s sister company in the early 1980s for Channel 4 – about his early life in Southall.