Representative image of Heathrow Airport.
Credit: Reuters photo
A US traveller's video raising concerns about the absence of native-born British employees at Heathrow airport and his criticism of Indians filling all the roles in the airport's service divisions has created furore in online platform.
A user named "immi.grateful" with nearly two lakh followers has uploaded a recent post in Instagram regarding Indian employees working in security, retail, and service sections of the London's busiest Heathrow Airport.
The Intsagram post has invited mixed reaction from the netizens.
The video goes, "I just landed in London. I'm at the airport. And I keep walking around the centre of the airport, where the restaurants are and everything. I don't see any British people working. Not one. Every single one of them is Indian. Every single one of them," he said.
Identifying himself as an immigrant to the UK he said that, back in America he wanted to be surrounded by Americans and justified his statement saying it is legitimate to question for "a country seen as a symbol of Western freedom, democracy, and free speech, ended up with zero British employees."
The video went viral crossing 30,000 views and 3,000 comments. Some pointed the diversity of UK culture whereas others emphasised on traveller's sentiments about native-born Britons.
One user wrote, "I don't understand how its racist to make observation, to state the observation, and to question the observation"
A user underscored the mix-up in identifying the people's nativity, "How can you assume they are all Indians? They can be Pakistani and Bangladeshi too. There are even many Middle Easterners who appear to be like Indians. There are some South East Asians who appear like Indians. There are even some Latinos who resemble a bit like Indians," where the other user quipped about his hypocrisy, "Why is there no native Americans in America now?"
Another user wrote multiple reasons stating, "Firstly it's a tough job and most of these people you see do 2-3 jobs. Heathrow is a dominant Indian area - but then you can question why is that allowed ? Why are they not spread out, should we have areas that are so heavy on any certain race? Today most hard working British tax payers are thinking of leaving not because they see someone of a single race working at an airport, but because this country is slowly being destroyed by taxing the middle class, soon you won't see 3rd/4th gen Brit's from other countries or Caucasians brits, which is what you are referring too- because they will leave with heavy taxes, lawlessness and a society that does nothing for their own.
The fourth user stressed the Britons to take part in the work force claiming, "Laziness has crept into every British. We are waiting for a day when British will wait tablets, mop floor, do janitor work, man shop fronts, do night shifts. We are with you on this thought process."