ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the impact that Conservative immigration policy under Margaret Thatcher had on people from the Indian subcontinent. At the political level the Conservative party was a strong advocate of strict immigration control. One of the reasons why the Thatcher government was elected in 1979 was the race issue. The Conservative government under Heath may have introduced virginity tests but the Thatcher government continued to pursue it. This was to ensure that women from the Indian sub-continent who said they were coming to the UK for marriage purpose were not lying and this was done by testing to see if they were virgins. In 1986 the Conservative government imposed visas on citizens of India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Ghana and Nigeria. The introduction of DNA testing allowed immigration officials to make sure that people who were trying to bring in their children into the UK were actually their own children as they claimed.
