Thirty-five years ago, today, the first wave of South Asians who were expelled from Uganda by Idi Amin landed in the UK.
At the time Amin gained power, Uganda’s Indian community, numbering approximately 80,000 in total, was comprised of Hindis, Muslims, and Ismalis(sic). [link]
Here’s why they left:
President Amin has denounced the Ugandan Asians as “bloodsuckers”, and warned that any remaining in the country after 8 November risk being imprisoned in military camps. [BBC]
Bloodsuckers, eh? Takes one to know them, or imagine them, I guess. Consider this horrific story:
A 75-year old retired chartered accountant Natubhai Shah, who is living in Ahmedabad, recalled Amin’s reign of terror in an interview with ‘The Times of India’, “Here I was, on an official tour with Idi Amin’s entourage, trying to cross the Nile River when a military van stopped me from going ahead.
One of the army men discreetly handed me a pair of binoculars. It was a chilling sight. Amin was standing beside the river, cutting flesh off an Asian man and feeding it to crocodiles in the river.” [HT]
Also, what exactly were Uganda’s desis threatened with? The BBC article states “imprisonment”, but a case study I found, which focuses on one woman’s personal account of this nightmare, suggests something far more heinous.
Dr. Sunita Sundaram, an ethnically Asian Ismali(sic), was a medical student in Uganda’s capital, Kampala, when Amin announced that all Asians must leave the country within three months time or be killed. [Harvard]
Even as Ugandans followed Amin’s outrageous directions and fled, they were terrorized:
Kassem Osman – who arrived with his wife, two brothers and their families – said they had been robbed by the soldiers.
“On the way to the airport the coach was stopped by troops seven time and we were all held at gun point,” he said. [BBC]
But why did this even happen? Back to Dr. Sundaram, who, in the study I linked to, discussed two significant causes for why Uganda turned on its South Asian community:
Uganda was broken up into three distinct and segregated racial groups in the early seventies. There were the white English colonizers who remained in the country after Uganda gained independence in the 60s, the Asian community who had immigrated to Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya about one hundred years earlier, and finally you had a host of tribes who were native to Uganda.
The second major factor contributing to the hostility towards Asians cited by Dr. Sundaram was economic. In large part the Asian community in both Uganda and Tanzania controlled commerce within those countries. The vast majority of businesses were owned and run by Asians, creating a scenario where a few thousand people controlled a vast portion of the country’s wealth. This economic stratification between the various ethnic groups was a relic of Uganda’s days as an English colony, and native Ugandans were anxious to redistribute economic resources in a more equitable manner. In fact, following independence, several pieces of legislation were passed in an effort to encourage the redistribution of wealth. For example, in both Uganda and Tanzania all new business owners were required to find an ethnically Tanzanian or Ugandan business partner. [Harvard]
Though Amin is dead, desis in Uganda are once again a target for resentment and rage; 35 years after they were cast out of their homes for being too successful, they are once again cast as Uganda’s villains. Earlier this year, in April, a Hindu temple was attacked. Various news reports I read mentioned a lynching and Indian people being stoned to death. We covered it, here.
A lot of mutineers have roots in Uganda/Africa. Today, which must be especially painful, you are in my thoughts.
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The photograph I used is a recent one; it is Devang Rawal’s mother, mourning her murdered son. Rawal was one of the desis killed in the April riots of this year.
Thank you for posting this important story on the news tab, Mutterpaneer.
Interestingly, the set-up for such atrocities is often: 1) poor local enforcement of private law (e.g., contract) –> 2) outsized performance of diasporic communities (e.g., desis in Uganda, ethnic Chinese in Indonesia, Lebanese in West Africa), who can contract (backed up by non-legal sanctions like reputation) with, e.g., their relatives in other countries, unlike most of the indigenous elements –> 3) resentment –> 4) opportunistic politicians whip up a frenzy and try to confiscate the diasporic wealth –> 5) country continues to be hopelessly underdeveloped
and for a twist, the local leader might try to eat a few people from the diasporic community.
sunita sundaram as an ismaili name? very interesting. was there any systemic naming or conversion behavior in uganda that caused this, or is this just an isolated case?
I hope and pray that all this atrocity will end for the families that remain or returned. As a family that emigrated from East Africa, many of the decisions we have made are informed by this period and place in history. Secutity, physically, financially and politically, remain of paramount importance. I wonder, is this true for others who emigrated from that region?
The question that lingers in my mind is what can we as a community do now to never be made to suffer such injustice in other parts of the world where we settle? I believe one of the greatest problems in Uganda was the lack of desi political voices in East Africa. Can we remedy that? I would like to suggest today that it is especially important to encourage political dialogue and leadership in our community. To that end I hope that we can cultivate an environment where we encourage those voices.
Thank you for bringing it up today.
Yeah, that’s one sick twist. In Indonesia, they’re into raping the Chinese women.
sunita sundaram as an ismaili name? very interesting. was there any systemic naming or conversion behavior in uganda that caused this, or is this just an isolated case?
see note 1: In an effort to protect the identity of the interviewee a pseudonym has been used and identifying details have been changed. Moreover, Dr. Sundaram’s comments are presented with her written permission.
…with some fava beans, and a nice chiante
I believe one of the greatest problems in Uganda was the lack of desi political voices in East Africa.
hm. i think that probably wouldn’t have mattered sans something like the NEP in malaysia where the minority buys off the majority with lots of economic subsidies. easier to do in malaysia because the minority:majority ratio is on the order of 1:2. i hear that in kenya the asians do OK because of their close connections with the heads of state (e.g., moi). amin was a force of nature who really had a totally irrational streak (asians weren’t his only victims); so that probably wasn’t an option.
ah, thanks razib. i guess ismaili names are hard to come by, so they had to go with a tam one instead.
bloodsucker is a classic anti-semitic term. a lot of hatred directed against indians, and not just in uganda, parallels anti-semitism. in one word: resentment.
1 rob
Interestingly, the set-up for such atrocities is often: 1) poor local enforcement of private law (e.g., contract)
–> I dont think it applies to Uganda. What Idi Amin said was the law and deviation from it usually meant death.
Idi Amin(Check out a documentary, General Idi Amin Dada, made on him in 1974(http://www.slate.com/id/2087239/)) was as blood thirsty as they come. The documentary devotes only a minute to tell us that asians were asked to leave uganda.
Well, even if Amin’s word “was law,” it didn’t mean you could get your commercial contracts enforced reliably!
resentment again. Malaysia too. they’ve got quotas to keep the Chinese out of universities, not unlike jews in the US.
heres aerosmiths thoughts on the subject…
Puli…enough, my friend. 🙂 Those comments are in poor taste (NO pun intended).
okey dokey.
I heard that they let you take nothing but jewlery with you, so women left wearing a lot of jewlery to preserve what part of their wealth they could.
I heard that, too. I also heard that women were relieved of such a burden, by Amin’s soldiers, even as they rushed out of Uganda. Apparently, some people buried their jewelry near their homes, too. Can’t remember which article had that tidbit– will dig up soon.
Why oh why do we keep going back there???
Chilling black and white photo…looks like it could have been from Amin’s era rather than now.
To think of this happening to anyone is horrible, but happening to a desi person it’s almost unbearable.
dont drug dealers have all sorts of tricked out ways of sneaking stuff on planes? one would think some enterprising uncle-ji would have used such a technique.
its worse if its desi?
Puli, I am sure Amitabh meant that it hits closer to home if its a desi and therefore all the more chilling Yes?
Puli, meet Amitabh.
Amitabh, meet Puli.
Oh, wait. You two know each other. 🙂
Yes, Amitabh might have phrased that better, but I think (I hope?) we know what he meant. Let’s nip this shit in the bud, please. People whose families suffered through this deserve respect and sympathy, not our nitpicking, yes?
too much mountian dew. im logging off.
The Ugandan desis who fled are thriving in the UK/US/Canada, what’s bringing them back to Uganda? Are the desis who are settling in Uganda today former exiles, or people with no prior history in Africa?
I hear that Chinese businessmen are now investing in and settling in Africa in significant numbers….
Runa understood what I meant. It’s like you care more if something happens to your brother than to your 2nd cousin…but like ANNA said, that’s enough of that…it was just a gut reaction, sorry for the distraction.
I always wondered because this happened in Uganda that there is less outrage then there should be over this event. I can’t recall anything this bad happening in any so called western country to desi’s.
Will someone better informed care to answer some questions?
Anyone care to draw any parallels between what’s happening to the chinese in indonesia vs indians in uganda and fiji? Is it similar or are there synergies in their local cultures. How about marriage between the ethnic groups?
Is the response of “mother” countries China and India the same or with China being the juggernaut that it is now, are the atrocities against chinese in Indonesia easing up? Why is Malaysia different from Indonesia? Is it just numbers? Will a stronger India make it easier for the diaspora in Fiji and Uganda? And Malaysia and Singappore?
Why isn’t the same (discrimination against indian diaspora) true in the Caribbean or perhaps not to the same extent? What are the unique sets of circumstances in the case here?
Do ppl in Pakistan/Bangladesh feel for the “Indian” diaspora in these countries since most of the people that left went before partition or feel that they have no connection?
I think what people forget is that many of the desis who fled identified as Ugandans. They had been in the country for several generations — there was a healthy mix of 1st gen along with 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th gen desis. And while many fled, a small number (mostly those who did not hold property) stayed. Also, Uganda is one of many emerging African economies — it is more stable than many of its neighbors, despite the war in the north, and it has a growing telecommunications industry. While it is poorer than its neighbors, it’s also had a more diffuse and consistent growth rate over the last 10 years.
[a quick aside — Idi Amin’s order did not kick out “Asians” (i.e. desis) per se, it kicked out British passport holders. You were allowed to stay if you renounced your citizenship in the British Empire, but many desis justifiably feared that if they gave up their passports they would have no recourse and that he would come for them, anyway].
Idi Amin was, in my opinion, a psychotic despot. There is nothing desis could have done to avoid his lunacy, but what makes it sadder, in my opinion, is how the U.K. compounded the damage by refusing to deal honestly with desi-Ugandan refugees. I think its also important to ask why desis became merchants and commercial brokers in the context of the pre-independence (colonial) government; it wasn’t because that was what they all wanted to do — it was a manifestation of a racialized economic order that was kept in place by the British… an order we see replicated in many other British colonies of the time as well.
At any rate, the eviction was awful, horrible, and absolutely overlooked in history.
I’m not sure if I’m any better-informed, but I do think there are several striking parallels between Indians in Uganda, the Chinese in Indonesia, and Jews in Eastern Europe for that matter:
1 economic success 2.a distinct religious identity–most Chinese Indonesians are Confucian, Buddhist or Christian, for example 3. a relatively homogenous, insular community, that tends not to marry outside the community 4. distinct language
All seem to recipes for fomenting racial/ethnic animosity.
Will someone better informed care to answer some questions?
Only someone of Sir VS Naipaul’s stature can really answer your questions.
I am being serious, he has traveled all the countries you talk about, and written travelogues.
He connects all this to India, when it comes to Indian subcontinent diaspora. Indian diaspora, and his own Indianess haunts him.
PS: He has a new book out (not yet for public consumpution), and yesterday I read exclusive excerpts in India Today. It touched a lot of topics you raised. Very interesting take on Gandhi too.
Not exactly, Camille. Idi Amin first kicked out Asians with British passports, but this was expanded to include all Asians. See this BBC headline from Aug 7, 1972: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/august/7/newsid_2492000/2492333.stm
Anna, very apropos and thought-provoking post, and excellent links. Camille, good points, and Delirium, good questions.
I don’t have time to add much right now, but would encourage people who have time to read through the article by Sonya Sanchez that Anna linked. I skimmed it and found it quite insightful. Might post some salient points from it later.
Maybe I’m wrong but somewhere I once read that the desi from Uganda in the early 70’s left for mostly the US, UK and Canada. The once who were most educated were accepted in the US and the rest of them ended up in Canada and England. I can recall reading that once.
Amitabh, no worries. 🙂
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From what little research I did for this post, it seems like the three segments (white, desi, native Ugandan) did NOT mix…one reason cited on the desi side, was religion. This is a riveting part of the diaspora’s history, I want to emphasize that I in no way even scratched the surface, all I had time to do was skim. I thought that was better than nothing, though, b/c this was too important to be relegated to a blurb on the news tab.
I’ve met so many desis in the US, whose families went through this, who were forever changed by it…it almost reminds me of partition, in the sense that children I know, who were born and raised here, were given just enough information to be scarred by this despite not living through it, but the people telling them stories were too scarred themselves to go in to detail.
Camille is right about the desi community identifying as Ugandan– I think Kenyandesi has spoken about similarly identifying as, obviously, Kenyan more than anything else. Also, Camille, thank you for clarifying that it was people who held a British passport who were ordered out and not specifically desis. I didn’t read that anywhere (prob b/c I was in a rush), it’s important to know.
I was telling my granddad about this post, he was in Burundi at the time, family was in Kenya, just scary and tragic. Well-remembered Anna.
Amy Chua at Yale law school has discussed this general issue in her book World on Fire.
I can’t recall anything this bad happening in any so called western country to desi’s.
No, the western country colonized India, and did shit to them in their own country.
Camille, your last question was the most intriguing one:
Here’s a fascinating article discussing the issue: http://www.guyana.org/features/conflicts_indiansandblacks.html
Kush, I have read an earlier travelogue of Naipaul about Islam in Iran, India and Indonesia in the 70s. I will look fwd to his new book. I find him hard to read even though he makes some good observations because of his condescension and as you rightly pointed out, the ghost of india that haunts him.
EBCD, the circumstances you mentioned also applies to Arabs in Mexico and Central America, Indians/Chinese/Japanese in the US and Europe, Japanese in Brazil etc. And parsis in India (in the earlier days). But none of them face this. Uganda was truly a special case because of Idi Amin, but that is like discounting the culpability of the German nation for one man’s insanity.
Will read the links posted by all. thx.
My Mum’s Mama is one of those who smuggled out his wealth in jewellery. He knew well in advance what was about to happen thanks to the labourers he was working with at the time. So he flew his kids out the UK, bought them a new home and then would send parcels of clothing (with jewellery wrapped up in the middle) to them from Uganda. The rest they wore out when they left the country for the UK (and eventually the US).
They were the lucky ones of course, my friend’s father’s family fled with as much as they could carry or wear and little else.
The situation in Fiji where many Fijian Indians fled to nations like NZ in the late ’80s had some parallels in that the South Asian population are perceived (regardless of truth) to be holding all of the wealth (a more appropriate parallel would be how the Chinese population are perceived in the Solomon Islands last year).
Of course the current situation there with Bainimara is completely different.
I thought the exact same thing and that’s why I chose it. 🙁
Why is Malaysia different from Indonesia? Is it just numbers?
malaysia instituted the New Economic Plan in the early 70s explicitly to reduce income inequality between the malays and chinese after waves of communal riots. it’s pretty much done the trick, though it is a drag on chinese businesses it has prevented the tensions from boiling over. indonesia hasn’t done that, 1) the chinese are a much smaller proportion of the population (1-10%, closer to 1, as opposed to 30-40%) 2) the chinese business elite developed a symbiotic relationship with the javanese elite similar to what you saw in poland between jews and the polish nobility.
EBCD, the circumstances you mentioned also applies to Arabs in Mexico and Central America, Indians/Chinese/Japanese in the US and Europe, Japanese in Brazil etc. And parsis in India (in the earlier days).
arabs in most latin american countries are christian, often maronite catholic. that allows a lot of intermarriage and assimilation. the japanese in brazil have generally become catholic and intermarry a far amount as wel.
2.a distinct religious identity–most Chinese Indonesians are Confucian, Buddhist or Christian, for example 3. a relatively homogenous, insular community, that tends not to marry outside the community 4. distinct language
actually, there are two broad chinese communities. from wiki: Chinese Indonesians whose ancestors immigrated in the first and second waves, and have thus become creolised or huan-na (in Hokkien) by marriage and assimilation, are called Peranakan Chinese. The more recent Chinese immigrants and those who are still culturally Chinese are called Cina Totok.
the totok are “much more chinese.” many of the peranakan don’t know chinese anymore, and the indonesian gov. has been very strict about curbing expressions of chinese culture over the past 50 years resulting in a fair amount of illiteracy in the chinese language in the recent generations.
one reason cited on the desi side, was religion.
to some extent, i think this is a cop out on the part of indians. i believe a disproportionate number of ugandan asians were muslim (when i had access to the ‘world christian database’ i noted that the asians in uganda and zimbabwe were more muslim, those in kenya and tanzania more hindu). irshad manji (whose family is ugandan) talks about the religious difference and how the asians were muslim and the blacks non-muslim in one of her books, but this only speaks to ethno-centrism, a small black muslim minority existed in uganda which likely outnumbered the asian muslims. but i doubt the intermarriage rate was higher between asian muslims and black muslims than between asian hindus and blacks of all religions. manji referred to the blacks as non-muslims in a carte blanche manner, but that speaks to a lot of insularity when idi amin was himself a muslim.
What is unfortunate is nothing has changed even today. Having visited Kenya/Ghana/Tanzania on business trips, it was sad to see desis cocooned in their own world and making no effort to mingle with locals at all. This may be non-PC, but the way desis treat local “kalas” is disgusting. It is as if good ol caste system has been imported in toto from motherland. It is not that communication is an issue – English is widely spoken in these countries – just that there is no effort or need to interact with locals. Just make money out of them (situation)
Forget inter-marriage etc, some desis(women, children) may never interact with locals for years – they live in their own gated communities, attend Indian school, temple/mosque. Their only encounter with local perhaps is with customs/immigration folks while entering or exiting the country. Even maids are imported from desh!
If I were a local, I sure would be upset with the desis cocoon mentality in these countries – not upset enough to eat them or feed them to crocodile though!
Things are changing slowly though – new breed of desi workers in Africa are usually white collar ones – professors, doctors, bank, hotel executives, IT folks – who deal extensively with local governments and local people. Indian government is doing its bit too by providing scholarship to students from these countries, giving medical aid, IT center etc. But I am afraid most of the locals have negative view in general of desis in these countries.
But I am afraid most of the locals have negative view in general of desis in these countries.
i recall noting that during riots in durban in the early 20th century the blacks attacked the indian, as opposed to white, quarter of the city. the reason offered is the same as that for while polish peasants attacked jews as opposed to the nobles who the taxes were going to i the end: you see the instrument of oppression and not the oppressors. as middle-men minorities the black experience with indians would be as capitalists who extract profit off the margins. anyway, as alluded to above, this is a general problem with “market dominant minorities,” not a particular one between indians and blacks (though the racism and contempt on both sides is a pretty clear and specific epiphenomenal aspect).
EBCD, your link reaffirms what I said — that all Asians who were not “Ugandan citizens” (i.e. British passport holders) were given 90 days to leave. The reason I limited it to British passports was because very few, if any, Ugandan desis had any other nationality/affiliation. I’m not sure my description is different from that.
ANNA, no problem, and you shouldn’t fret — it’s a subtle distinction, but I only bring it up because it explains why some desis stayed behind (and how this was sold as an “anti-imperial/anti-foreigners” aspect of Amin’s “Africa for the Africans” campaign). The only reason I knew about the difference was because I was up to my arms in migration data from the UK a few years ago, and the “refugee crisis” is mentioned throughout the UK Home Office’s reports from 1972-1973.
Clueless, many Ugandan (desi) refugees fled to the UK and were diverted to India, despite the fact that a large number did not speak any desi languages and did not identify as desi (and were British passport holders). There are still Ugandan desi refugees waiting in India for asylum in the UK. This is the irresponsibility and callousness I was referring to regarding the complicity of the Brits during the expulsion. There’s more on their official “evacuation plan” if you look at their HoC white papers from 1973.
camille, did more of these people end up in india/us/uk/europe/other african countries/other places?
iFOB, while I’m not disagreeing with you AT ALL, I think this also depends a bit on what subsector of desis you’re interacting with. Kenyandesi could probably offer a more accurate description, but when I was in Kenya it seemed like Nairobi had an element of “white flight” with respect to desis in black communities. That said, among lower-class desis (who are a much smaller % of the desi population) I’ve seen way more neighborhood-level mixing. There was also a bit less housing segregation in Kisumu (although the segregation was that all rich people — mostly whites and desis — live in the same area of town). I’m not really surprised about gated communities though — it’s pretty common for households and neighborhoods all over East Africa to have gates and askaris (guards) if you can afford it.
Also most of these desis (upper and lower class) spoke kiSwahili sanifu, as well as English, a desi language, and usually whatever the prevalent mother tongue was in the area. Maybe this was observer-bias on my part?
Puli, I’m not sure. I think the UK and Canada took the lions’ share of refugees, although a LARGE minority were diverted to India. I’m not sure how many fled to East Africa or other European countries.