MIRPUR: A construction boom fuelled by money from Britain is transforming what was once one of Pakistan’s poorest towns into its “Beverly Hills”.
The skyline of Mirpur, in Azad Kashmir, once boasted nothing more than two-storey brick houses and mud huts.
All that has changed since British Pakistanis returned to invest money earned in the UK in their ancestral town. Now soaring doric columns jostle with gilded porticos at the entrances of huge houses.
The result is the region’s most spectacular mix of architectural styles since the British Raj introduced “disappointed gothic” to the subcontinent.
And, in a striking example of reverse cultural influence, returnees are bringing such British institutions as greyhound racing and fish and chips back to Mirpur with them.
“The United Kingdom has greatly helped improve our economy,” said Mohamed Chaudhry Saeed, the British honorary consul in Mirpur and the owner of three car showrooms.
Noor Hussein spent 25 years in Birmingham working as a taxi-driver but is now a Mirpur estate agent.
“The boom has changed the face of the town,” he said. “People are building bigger and more decorous houses. It is a sort of status symbol. Property prices have gone up as in London. But compared to terrace houses over there, the houses here are luxurious.”
Mirpuris form about 70 percent of the British Pakistani population of 800,000.
When David Blunkett, the former home secretary, lifted visa restrictions last year he made the announcement in Mirpur, the hometown of the Labour peer Lord Ahmed.
Migration to Britain from this poverty-stricken area, known as “Little England”, began in the 1880s when Mirpuris worked as stokers on British merchant ships.
Another wave of migrants from the district headed to England when the nearby Mangla dam was constructed in 1969. The project displaced 100,000 people and 5,000 took up a government offer to move to Britain.
In the 1980s remittance wages began to flow into Mirpur, starting an explosion in demand for electric household goods such as televisions and fridges.
Today’s housing boom is accompanied by an increase in Internet cafes, satellite dishes, microwaves, car showrooms and shopping malls.
At a rough-hewn dog-racing track, Mohamed Tabariq, 54, said he moved from the area to Preston when he was 15. He owns a takeaway restaurant and two hotels in Lancashire but has moved back to Pakistan.
“It’s an easy life here, no stress,” he said. “We have built up a farm on 20 acres and I have imported these greyhounds from England to keep me busy”.
On one Mirpur boulevard stands Qureshi Palace, a garish medley of towers, tiles and columns. Its owners seldom visit. Like most of the ostentatious houses, it is used mostly for only three months of the year when British Pakistanis take extended holidays. Nevertheless, according to the World Bank, the remittances from Britain have not filtered down to local farmers and the young will continue to migrate to the UK.
“In the beginning people had the idea that they would earn money in the UK and then retire here,” said Mr Saeed. “However, people are staying there now because of pensions schemes and the health service.
“The next generation, which has less attachment to Mirpur, does not want to come back as their social lives are now different to ours.” courtesy the telegraph