2–4pm
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97–99 Hoxton Street, London N1 6QL
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Shabna Begum, writer and CEO of the Runnymede Trust, shared research from her recent book, From Sylhet to Spitalfields: Bengali Squatters in 1970s East London (Lawrence Wishart, 2023), recovering the radical history of the Bengali squatters’ movement active in Tower Hamlets in the 1970s in the context of Mohammed Z. Rahman’s Peer exhibition.

This book explores the hidden history of the Bengali squatters’ movement. Faced with institutional discrimination in council housing and the existential threat of the National Front, hundreds of Bengali families in 1970s East London decided to squat, taking over entire streets and estates.

With the support of the Race Today collective, squatters formed the Bengali Housing Action Group (BHAG), which organised support and vigilante groups to keep the community safe. Using oral history interviews and archival research, this book looks at the Bengali community’s contribution to this little-known episode of East End history, and how it can inform present-day housing struggles.


Biography:

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Shabna Begum is Head of Research at the Runnymede Trust, the UK’s leading race equality think tank. In her work she has worked on numerous projects including on income inequality, housing and problem debt. She is also Honorary Research Fellow at Queen Mary University London in the School of Geography, where she conducted her doctoral research. Prior to this, Shabna was a teacher for over two decades in London secondary schools.