Teaching Indian Culture to Kids in the UK: A Practical Guide for British Indian Parents

British Indian families have a long history in the UK. Many arrived in the 1950s and 1960s, many more came from East Africa in the late 1960s and 1970s, and new families keep arriving every year to work in medicine, technology and finance. That means a British Indian child today might be first, second, third or even fourth generation, and the question of how to pass on Indian culture looks different in each case.

For a third-generation family, it may be about recovering something a grandparent had. For a recently arrived family, it is about keeping something the child had in India. Either way, the UK offers more than many parents realise.

What is already around you

The UK has hundreds of Hindu temples, from converted houses and churches to purpose-built mandirs. The BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in Neasden, London, opened in 1995, was one of the first traditional stone temples built in Europe. ISKCON’s Bhaktivedanta Manor near Watford holds very large festival celebrations, and temples in Leicester, Birmingham, Wembley, Harrow, Croydon, Coventry, Wolverhampton, Manchester and many other towns run classes and events for children.

Organisations such as Chinmaya Mission UK, Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh UK and many temple trusts run weekly children’s programmes, often on Saturday or Sunday. Supplementary schools, run by community volunteers, teach Gujarati, Punjabi, Hindi and other languages at weekends. The Bhavan Centre in West Kensington teaches Indian music, dance and languages.

And some community celebrations are famous in their own right. Leicester’s Diwali celebrations, centred on Belgrave Road, are among the biggest held anywhere outside India and draw many thousands of visitors each year.

Indian culture in British schools

British children usually learn something about Hinduism, Sikhism and other faiths through Religious Education at school, which follows a locally agreed syllabus. That can be a lovely opportunity. A child who can explain Diwali or Raksha Bandhan to their class often feels a great deal of pride, and teachers usually welcome a parent who offers to help with a festival assembly.

But RE is, by design, an introduction for all children. It does not teach a child to chant correctly, to understand a Gita verse, or to know the Ramayana in depth. That remains the family’s job.

Fitting classes into the UK school year

Schools in England and Wales typically run three terms, autumn, spring and summer, each split by a week-long half-term, with longer holidays at Christmas, Easter and in the summer. Scotland and Northern Ireland follow slightly different calendars. Weekends are Saturday and Sunday.

Many families find that a single weekday evening class after school works better than adding another weekend commitment, since weekends are often already taken up by sports, a supplementary language school or a temple programme. The autumn term, which leads up to Navratri and Diwali, is a natural time to start.

Why the UK time zone is a gift

The UK is the friendliest major time zone in the West for live classes from India. India Standard Time is UTC+5:30 all year, with no daylight saving. The UK is on Greenwich Mean Time in winter and British Summer Time, an hour ahead, from the last Sunday in March to the last Sunday in October.

That means India is five and a half hours ahead of the UK in winter and four and a half hours ahead in summer. A 5:00 PM class in London is 10:30 PM in India in winter, or 9:30 PM in summer. In practice, weekday after-school slots, roughly 4:30 to 6:30 PM UK time, work well for children in Britain in a way they simply cannot for children on the American West Coast. Saturday mornings in the UK fall in the Indian afternoon, which is also comfortable.

The one thing to watch is the clock change in late March and late October. A good provider keeps your class at the same UK clock time and adjusts on the Indian side, so your child’s routine does not shift.

A British Indian child does not have to choose between being British and being Indian. The richest childhoods hold both, comfortably.

Practical ideas for home

Use the long British evenings in summer for festival preparations and storytelling outdoors. Use the dark winter evenings for a lamp and a shloka before dinner; it is no accident that Diwali, the festival of lights, falls as British evenings draw in.

Mark festivals on the nearest weekend if the date falls on a school day, and tell your child’s teacher in advance. Many British schools now hold Diwali assemblies and welcome families to share sweets, stories and rangoli.

Encourage grandparents, whether in India, East Africa or down the road, to teach. Many British Indian grandparents grew up with shlokas and stories and are delighted to pass them on.

Choosing what is right for your family

There is no single right answer. Some families are well served by a strong local temple programme. Some combine a weekend language school with a weekday online class for shlokas or Gita. Some, in parts of the country with smaller Indian communities, rely mainly on online classes and home. What matters is consistency, and that the child enjoys it.

Our live online classes in shlokas, the Bhagavad Gita, the epics, storytelling and Indian culture run in small batches at UK-friendly times, and many families use them alongside local programmes. If you would like your child to learn with a mentor, enquire about our classes through the Book a Class page. You can read more on our For NRI families page, and fees are listed on our Pricing page.