Not majority. From what my dad tells me. Most desis in the UK back then were students and professionals. (he went to school in UK bck in 1959)
The influx started in the mid 60's for blue collar desi workers. Around the same time the desi small business owners started to take hold and due to the easy immigration had their whole khandaans come over.
The situation is changing in North America as well. Surely anyone who has walked the length of Gerard Street in Toronto or been in Markham area, or seen Devon in Chicago or Jackson Heights in NY or Islin in NJ would not say that an overwhelming majority of professionals still exists.
As far as the indian vs pakistani argument goes. There were, and still are the types of Pakistanis in the UK that are still living in the 1800s and came directly from some far off backwater village with a set of values dictated to them which they hold near and dear to them as religion, which it is not. These are the same type of people that would stick out like sore thumbs in Pakistani cities.
Since the influx of this group was so bad. It was this group that dictated the Paki image. backwards, narrowminded, too alien, bad hygiene, lack of social skills, inherent disliking of the locals etc etc.
Thats when the word Paki "originated" as a racial slur. To avoid being stereotyped as a paki, a number of people just called themselves indian. Also since indians as a group had less reservations about dating, drinking and socializing the stigma would be reduced.
The fact is that Pakistanis in UK are just like Pakistanis in Pakistan. and the social structure and ratio is similar as well.
You will see many very well off, and very prominent pakistanis in business, academia, government etc, but at the same time there are pakistanis on the dole and doing odd jobs etc. Its a more representative population of Pakistan.
If you look at Pakistan, what is the average Pakistani? We always think of the people we deal with and maybe other people that we see in the city. Never thinking about the millions of people that have almost become "non people" to us becuase we dont have any interaction with them on a social basis.
When I think of an average pakistani, I first think of Affluent urbanites...and then say nyah they are a small group and think of more modest areas in the city and set them as a benchmark.
But the fact is even I am unable to factor in the average pakistani...I dont think of conductors and small street peddlers in it, or even the local Kiryana store clerk.
We keep all these factors in mind and we will see that we have a flawed image of who is an average joe (or javed) Pakistani.
Anyways..this is getting too long and I am rambling on, but ya get what I am saying right.