Asian-African heritage

For generations, Indian communities have been shaping commerce, industry and everyday life in many African countries. They are very successful in business, but they also meet with hostility due to their dominant position in many fields.

15.06.2007

[ By Gerlinde Kurzbach ]

“Asian-African Heritage” was the name of an exhibition at the Kenyan National Museum in Nairobi in 2000. It was a hit. Kenyans of Indian descent and black Africans alike came in droves. Since then, there have been discussions about setting up a permanent exhibition in a new wing of the museum to document the history and culture of the “43rd ethnic minority”, as the descendents of South Asians are often referred to in Kenya.

Upon application, the Republic of India grants these “non-resident Indians” citizenship. But although many still maintain intensive contact to their forefathers’ homeland, Africans with roots in India or Pakistan are, first of all, citizens of Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa and so on. Throughout the continent, people from the Indian sub-continent live in enclaves of their own. Sultan Somjee, Akbar Hussein and Rajiv Shah are very different men. However, in their native Kenya, all three are regarded as “Muhindi”, which means “Hindu” and, in the literal sense, is wrong. As their names suggest, Somjee and Hussein are actually Muslims; they belong to the Ismaili group of the Aga Khan. Furthermore, Somjee is a “Bohra”, a nickname derived from bwahir (trader). Bohras came to Kenya very early on; the first contacts can be traced back to 1750. Rajiv Shah, in turn, is not a Hindu either. He belongs to the Jains, a distinct Indian denomination. Their strictly non-violent doctrines had a strong influence on Mahatma Gandhi, among others.

Somjee organised the “Asian-African Heritage” exhibition. He says it is important not to forget one’s roots. “But we are Kenyans,” he stresses. Photographer Akbar Hussein enlarged pictures from family albums, and Rajiv Shah contributed old bookkeeping records from the family business. The exhibition covered the immigrants’ working life, social world and intellectual heritage, making it clear that their descendents have a right to claim a place in African society.

Colonial destinies

At the end of the 19th century, the British brought more than 30 000 Indian labourers to East Africa. Without using any modern machinery, these so-called “coolies” built a 931 kilometre long stretch of railway, with tunnels and bridges, from Mombasa to Kampala. “Four workers died for each mile of train tracks laid,” Sultan Somjee reports. More than once, lions attacked their camps and fed on workers. Several years ago, that situation became the subject of a Hollywood movie. Nevertheless, almost 7000 coolies later decided to remain in Kenya.

Nairobi was founded in course of the construction of the railway. Carpenters, architects and traders of Indian origin played an important role. Migrants never come to work only, they bring their culture along. That is still reflected today in East Africa’s religious diversity. There are Ismailis, Shiite Muslims, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis, Hindus and even Catholics, whose ancestors moved to Africa from Portugual’s colonies in South Asia.

The immigrants’ influence is still evident in day-to-day life. One cannot imagine Kenyan cuisine without Chapati (flatbread), Chai (tea), Samosa (vegetable or meat pies) or Bhajia (spicy fried slices of potato). Even Kenya’s national motto “Harambee!” (pull together!) has Indian roots, its origin lies in the worship of the Hindu goddess Hari Amba.

In economic terms, the Indian minority, which makes up approximately one percent of Kenya’s population, is very influential. Rajiv Shah’s father opened a small shop, implemented frugal business practices, and laid the foundations for the prosperity of his descendents. Today, they do not consider studying at the prestigious London School of Economics anything out of the ordinary. This family history is not an exceptional case; many immigrants’ businesses thrived.

Caste and family systems help Indo-Africans to succeed, but so did their modest lifestyle. When a newcomer from India arrived in a British colony in Africa, his community supported him with an interest-free loan, allowing him to get established. Many Indian families, above all the Shahs and the Patels, became very rich. It is said in Nairobi that 10,000 Shahs equals 10,000 millionaires. Typically, relatives would support each other over great distances and even across borders, using the “Hawala” system for informal money transfers. Hawala is known throughout Asia. Sometimes, Indo-Africans are even called “the Jews of East Africa”.

With the exception of some Muslims, Indo-Africans generally only marry members of their own caste. Although arranging marriages from or to India – or perhaps even London – is the exception, it is not unusual up to today. In the past, all family members had to work in the family business. No money was squandered. Today, this has changed. Many of the younger generation drive expensive cars and dine out in high-class restaurants. In this respect, however, they do not differ from other upwardly mobile sections of African society.

To a large extent, Kenya’s industrialisation came about thanks to families from South Asia. Two important daily papers in Nairobi, The East African Standard and The Daily Nation, owe their existence to start-up assistance from people of Indian origin. As investors, managers and lawyers, this minority plays an important, if not dominant role.

Victims of persecution

The flipside of such success is that influential African politicians, in torrents of hatred, are prone to calling Indian families “exploiters of the nation”. Indo-Kenyans dread election campaigns. In the run-up to polls, they form vigilante groups which go on patrol with policemen. The Indians provide the cars and the cell phones, the police the guns. During every campaign, some business people of Indian descent are murdered. Inevitably, the victims will then be blamed of having been parasites, initiated corruption and exploited the country. While there is no denying that ethnic Indians have been involved in major corruption scandals, the majority of corrupt politicians and middle men are always black.

In Uganda in the 1970s, dictator Idi Amin organised massacres and drove out the Indian population. Yoweri Museveni, the country’s current president, has invited former Indo-Ugandans to return. He knows his country could benefit from their business prowess. However, only 10 % of the so-wooed followed his call. The vast majority had long since put down roots elsewhere, in Britain for example. Moreover, they feared renewed persecution in Africa.

Recent incidents in Kampala have shown that, so far, acceptance of Indians has made little progress. In April, there were rallies against plans of Mehta Group, an Indo-Ugandan sugar company, to extend factory premises into an adjoining forest. Environmental activists protested. Violence erupted. A mob stoned to death an Indo-African who just happened to be riding by on a motorcycle. A Hindu temple, a branch of the Indian-based Bank of Baroda and several businesses owned by Asians were vandalised. Police had to rescue 40 Hindus from the temple.

In view of such hostilities, Indo-Africans like to stress the contribution they have to African history. Mahatma Gandhi was not only the father of independent India; he was among the founders of the African National Congress, the current ruling party in South Africa. Similarly, immigrant Markan Singh was involved in founding the East African Trade Union Congress in Kenya. He spent years of his life in prison because of his commitment to the independence struggle of his new homeland. Kenyans of Indian descent fought on the side of the Mau-Mau against Britain’s colonial rule. In court, Indian lawyers A.R. Kapila, Fitz de Souza and Jaswant Singh defended Africans who were accused – and later convicted – as heads of the Mau-Mau uprising.

There are many examples of Indians and their descendants who dedicated themselves heart and soul to the freedom struggle. Some of them lost their lives, others were incarcerated for long periods of time. Nevertheless, the black majority in all countries mentioned still regards the Indo-African communities as foreigners.

Role change in Kinshasa

In his book “A bend in the river”, V.S. Naipaul, the novelist and Nobel laureate who grew up in Trinidad, describes the life of the ethnically Indian population of what was then Zaire (today’s Democratic Republic of Congo). In the book, a man named Salim loses his shop in Kisangani because of dictator Mobutu Sese Seko’s “Africanisation” policy. Indeed, Mobutu gave away the property of both Europeans and Indians to his cronies. Former shopkeepers were forced to work as assistants in the businesses they had owned, and when all supplies were depleted, Mobutu’s favourites would even demand that they pay for restocking. Such policies reduced Congo’s once rich and flourishing economy to a sad and miserable affair. Today, the Lebanese dominate trade in the country that was torn by civil war and remains quite fragile.

Indians, however, are present in the Congo again. Along with Bangladesh and Pakistan, India has volunteered a majority of the 18,000 blue-helmet soldiers of the UN peacekeeping mission MONUC. With such UN engagement, the government in Delhi is supporting its demand for a say in global affairs. India is not deploying troops for campaigns of conquest, but obviously staking a geo-political claim.

For some time now, Delhi has also been trying to establish contact with commercially influent Indo-African Diasporas. So far, the nature of these people’s relationships to the old homeland is largely one of kinship. Of course, self-assured minorities will not allow anyone to make instrumental use of themselves, and Indo-Africans are well aware of how that would affect their reputation in Africa. On the other hand, no enterprising people will refuse formal cooperation with their ancestors’ homeland if that is to their own advantage.