GET OUT!
The mid-1960s: A heady time in Africa. Nations were shaking off their ties to colonial powers and were possessed by a quest for political independence. Many European powers, having expended much energy in projecting their power in nation states under their aegis since the previous century, had grown weary of the battle against resistance movements. The writing had been on the wall for them since the end of the Second World War. The winds of change (a la the words of Harold Macmillan) began to blast with much force in the 1960s. In the quest for independence, Uganda was no exception and Britain granted it independence in October 1962.
The Patels, Reddys, Singhs and a host of families of Indian origin had been brought to Uganda by the British during their colonial hegemony, mainly to construct railways for the Imperial British East Africa Company. Alibhai Jeevanjee, originally from Karachi, was contracted to supply labour for the massive engineering project that commenced in 1895. From India, the jewel of the British Empire, the many industries that were spawned by railway construction solicited workers. An influx of indentured labourers, “passenger Indians” and Gujarati traders settled in Uganda and plied their trade – choosing not to return to India at the expiration of their contracts. Many amassed great wealth after their initial contracts had expired and they turned their hand to economic pursuits that had been their stock in trade for centuries in India. Most were simply honest, hard-working, businessmen who brought great skill to the sartorial and banking sectors that popped up in their quarters, mainly in Kampala but also elsewhere in towns and trading posts throughout East Africa.
The Singhs owned a tailoring outfit in the main road of the capital city, Kampala. A long strip of shopfronts along Kampala Road belonged to Indian immigrants whose parents and grandparents had built the Indian commercial district up from scratch. The Indian settlement in Uganda extended into a second, third and fourth generation, many thousands opting for Ugandan citizenship and others maintaining their British colonial passports, but regarding themselves as Ugandans – born and bred. Their commitment was to make the newly independent state an economically viable and prosperous state in East Africa. Their allegiance to India was cultural (and religious), but they were Ugandans first!
Above the tailor shop Mukherjee Singh occupied a small flat with his multi-generational family unit. His widowed mother lived there with him and his wife, Devi, and the six young children. Skills Mukherjee had learnt from his late father would be passed on to the young boys who would, he hoped, take over the business or start their own. The family was not fabulously wealthy, but neither were they eking out a meagre existence. Their moderate income from the business enabled them to pay their taxes, support African workers whose own existence depended upon the success of Mukherjee’s small firm, and just live as decent citizens. He was a generous man and happily shared leftover curry and bread with mendicant beggars who knocked on his door for the odd handout.
Mukherjee Singh wanted nothing more than to see his fellow Indians and the indigenous African people prosper. He looked forward to the day when he could marry off his three daughters to good Hindu men, and for his sons to be hooked up with lovely Hindu ladies that he could welcome into his family and his home above the shop. He would happily assist them to add annexes for families of their own.
As the ‘60s drew to a close, however, the political atmosphere in Uganda began to change. The perceived prosperity of the Indian community became a bone of contention for those seeking a scapegoat on which to pin blame for their own poverty – and an abundance on indolence that prevented them from attaining their own upward social mobility. Rumblings of discontent first appeared during the presidency of Milton Obote. The derogatory term “Dukawallas” began to be bandied about, branding the Indians as crooks who had illegitimately acquired wealth at the expense of Ugandan Africans. Obote introduced the first Indophobic restrictions on Indians in commerce and industry in 1969. The signs of worse to come should have been heeded at that juncture, but the ever optimistic Indian community saw no need for alarm, as they felt that it was mere populist extremism that would not gain traction, because most sensible Ugandans would be aware of the massive economic contribution Indians were making to the economy, and that their presence was beneficial to the entire population.
In 1971 the tide turned suddenly. Whilst Milton Obote was abroad at the Commonwealth Conference in Singapore, his military chief, Idi Amin, ousted him. A former light heavyweight boxing champion of Uganda, a hatchet man for the British army battling the Mau Mau in Kenya and promoted for the brutality with which he did their bidding, this fellow with much brawn and meagre intelligence was about to become the nemesis of all decent Ugandans. Amin was about to be fired as army chief by Obote at that time because he had ostensibly embezzled army funds. A thief on the verge of expulsion, he seized the opportunity presented by Obote’s absence to grab power.
Amin, the Butcher of Uganda, turned his unbridled wrath on the Indian minority population. He announced on 4 August 1972 that Indians in Uganda would have ninety days to leave the country. Over five thousand farms and ranches were confiscated from the Indians – also cars, homes, household goods and businesses. The lives of Mukherjee Singh and his family were upended as turmoil spread through the Ugandan Indian community. Stripped of their possessions, they were now also stripped of their citizenship. Overnight they became dispossessed and destitute. Within three months they would form part of a Ugandan Indian diaspora as more than 80 000 scrambled for refugee status in countries sympathetic to their cause. In Uganda, those who put up any resistance were simply made to “disappear”.
Amin launched his tirade against Indians on the strength of a dream he believed Allah had given him in which he had been ordered to get rid of Uganda’s Indians. He declared that Britain should assume responsibility for the Indian exodus as they had been the colonial power in charge when the Indians were brought to Uganda. On the Indian population he visited extreme violence: theft, physical attacks and sexual abuse of unparalleled proportions. The United Kingdom attempted to stem the tide of refugees by restricting the numbers they would accept, whilst Kenya and Tanzania closed their borders with Uganda – preventing passage by Indians to the safety of other countries. To the credit of the British (and a few other countries like Canada and India itself), refugees were accepted when the extent of the “ethnic cleansing” in Amin’s Uganda became obvious. His unyielding stance was to tell all Indians simply to “Get out!”
Once more, the writing on the wall should have been heeded, this time by Ugandan Africans and the entire Pan-African community. Amin’s action against Ugandan Indians was a flagrant abrogation of human rights. Instead of the Butcher of Uganda being prevented from visiting his brutal insanity on his people, he was mildly rapped over his fat knuckles by the United Nations, whilst the Organisation of African Unity disgracefully entertained his tenure as Chairman of the body and paid little heed to the blood flowing from the presidential palace in Kampala. Whilst the Singhs, Patels, Reddys and many others who found their way to Britain were rebuilding their lives and would contribute handsomely to those nations that accepted them in their hour of despair, Amin turned his ire on his own people.
Africa’s supreme buffoon of the 1970s, Idi Amin’s excesses knew no bounds. It was with much relief that Mukherjee and his family contemplated their relative good fortune of having escaped Uganda spiraling out of control. Amin, rumoured to have eaten one of his wives and complaining at a party in his residence that the flesh had been unduly salty, went on to butcher hundreds of thousands of Ugandans. Having expressed sympathy for Hitler’s Jewish extermination campaign, he received only a mild rebuke from Kurt Waldheim the United Nations Secretary General in a benign telegram.
The Butcher’s rash act of attempting to seize the Kagera region of Tanzania brought to an end Amin’s lunacy in East Africa. In the ensuing Uganda-Tanzania War of October 1978 to June 1979 he finally got his marching orders from Julius Nyerere of Tanzania – he was in his turn told to “Get out!” Sadly Amin failed to have the same brutality meted out to him as he had brought down on others with such alacrity. Much to their shame, Saudi Arabia eventually gave him safe haven and he lived into his eighties.
In Britain many of the Ugandan Indian expatriates went on to prosper. Seemingly, intelligent and hard working folk prosper wherever they find themselves and are able to rise above the most horrendous difficulties. The indolent with begging bowls extended take their communities down a rabbit warren of penury. Children and grandchildren of Indian refugees have risen to the highest tiers of business and politics in their adopted countries, teaching humanity a valuable lesson about gracious acceptance of refugees and immigrants who enter through legal, legitimate means. It is the illegal, mendacious chancers that pose a threat to the prosperity of a society.
©Paul M Haupt
Photo credit: https://www.facebook.com/HIPUganda/photos/a.1280942838648226/1280942885314888/?type=3
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