What an account of Indian family's murder says about inherent racism in England that boiled over with Brexit

It’s a quicky, racy read, but it says a lot about inherent racism in England, which boiled over with Brexit. Sidin Vadukut writes the account of the murder of the Chohan family in 2003, and how the killers were almost never caught because the investigators thought nothing of an entire family’s disappearance — putting it down to fleeing for India because of adjustment issues, despite the fact that the grandmother had left her Granth Sahib at home.

Amarjit Chohan was a British-Indian entrepreneur with a thriving cargo business, a dodgy tax record and possible past as a drug smuggler (khat, a mild intoxicant, popular in Africa). In his interview, Vadukut, a journalist based in London, says if an ethnic family disappeared now, there would be much more awareness, but also that less economic activity the greater the insularity evident in the UK currently.

Excerpts from an interview with Kaveree Bamzai.

Q. One of the things that struck me most about the book was the inherent racism in the assumption that Chohan could have just disappeared to avoid the law, and how little the British police seem to know immigrants in a multicultural Britain — including the fact that his mother in law left the guru granth sahib behind. No surprise then that Brexit happened, right?

A. There are two issues here I think. The first is about law enforcement in the UK. I think things have changed tremendously in the last decade or so as far as the position of ethnic minorities in the UK are concerned. One crime reporter I spoke to said that if the same thing happened today it would be almost inconceivable that police would have reacted to slowly to the missing family. And this also has been my experience in general. And I have written about this before. This is not a melting pot utopia. And stereotypes abound. But I think British police would react differently today. And there is a much greater institutional awareness of ethnic minorities now.

Brexit was surprising to many people. But perhaps less so to people who see how Britain lives outside the communities that have prospered most in the post-Thatcher finance and services boom. I have travelled a bit in the north and in smaller cities. And it is remarkable to see how little opportunity there is in these place for young people and even older people who made a living making things.

I am not at all an expert. But for a country this small, centralising industries like finance and services creates peripheral jobs that can be quite a step down for locals. And when that happens you start picking on enemies. That the target has fallen on the EU and EU bureaucracy to me felt strange. The UK continues to have a huge influx of non-EU migrants. Perhaps those will become more prominent next. In any case Britain finds itself in a difficult position. It is surrounded by rocks and hard places, so to speak.

Q. Is that your sense of England now too — communities living insular existences?

A. I think the less economic activity there is in a geographic community the greater this kind of insularity is proving to be in the UK. The prime driver for disruption in places like London is just real estate development and gentrification. So I used to live in Lewisham, which was considered very lowbrow. But what has since happened is explosive gentrification, which gives people incentives to sell up old real estate and move somewhere else. This automatically, in one sense, reduces ghettoisation.

But in another sense it breaks up communities and severs very old bonds. And replaces them with much shallower ones. How many young banker couples, for instance, are going to involve in the problems in Lewisham's poorer communities? Then there are areas where people actually live insular lives. This insularity not only arises out of race but also income and religion. But I feel this is inevitable if you have a large immigrant community. People will gravitate to where they feel safest. This is not a complete answer. But I am trying to avoid speaking about things I am not sure about.

Q. How did you decide to write about Chohan?

A. It came up in June 2016. The British police resurrected a very old missing persons case from the 1990s. They said that they now had evidence that Kenneth Regan and William Horncy were suspects in the case of a man called Michael Schallamach. In passing they referred to the Chohan murders. I was intrigued. Why hadn't I heard of this before? And then it was like tumbling down a foxhole. It was an intriguing story. Seemed perfect for the Juggernaut length.

Q. Did you ever meet Nancy’s brother — he was the real hero, right?

A. No. I tried writing to lawyers and reaching out to anyone with his name on Facebook. In general, this was a hard story to put together. I was lucky I was able to pin down a reporter who covered it all these years ago.

Q. What was the most surprising aspect of the case?

A. The folded-up note in the sock. I keep thinking about it all the time. Imagine what that man is going through. Perhaps he already knows his family is going to be annihilated. Imagine the fortitude required to tell yourself: Fine, I am going to die. But not without a fight.

Q. Does the community remember Chohan or has the family just been forgotten?

A. Not that I can see. I am still trying to do this. Especially, reaching out to people who used to work with them. Perhaps once that happens I will be able to update the book somewhat.

Q. A movie in the works on the Chohan case?

A. Not that I am aware of. There have been a couple of TV documentary style re-enactments. A little bit shady.

Q. So of the three kinds of crime writing, which one is this?

A. I think it is closest to being a police procedural. Though to be fair it doesn't really fit into any of those buckets. It is much more of a straightforward long-form print story.

Q. What’s next for you?

A. My greatest challenge is pulling all my fingers out of too many pies. So my next book could be a thriller novel set in Mumbai in the near future, a demonetisation themed crime novel, or a history of the church in Kerala. Though it seems more likely that I will shelve all of this and do a PhD in the economic history of the early Islamic empire. You see? I am the most scatter-brained person you will find. (Though I am quite pleasantly surprised by the reception this book has received so far. So perhaps I might dabble in a bit more of this type and length of writing.)

(The Corpse That Spoke by Sidin Vadukut is available on Juggernaut.)

Also read: Why the killing fields of Kerala only draw collective silence (even from BJP)