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Asians of Africa

The Asian population of Africa is a small but distinctly significant minority. Whereas there have been Asians, primarily merchants, who lived on the east coast of Africa for hundreds, if not

thousands, of years, a great influx of Asians came to Africa during the British colonial period.Asians in Africa are primarily from the Indian subcontinent, although there is a small proportion,

perhaps 2 percent, who are from hina.

A combination of famines in India and plentiful opportunities for wor! in Africa promptedthousands of Indians to immigrate to east, central, and southern Africa before the end of thenineteenth century. It was the British colonial interests that provided the opportunities for Indianimmigration, particularly the building of the "ganda #ailway. $ocal African labor wasconsidered unreliable, so the British government brought in about %2,&&& indentured laborersfrom India. The ma'ority either died from diseases such as blac!water fever or returned to India,

but (,&&& settled in )ast Africa. *uring the construction of the railway, some Indians began to

come in as merchants and to establish dukas +shops , which initially catered to fellow Indians.After the end of the railway construction, merchant immigration from India continued until the- 2&s, by which time the entire retail trade of )ast Africa was monopoli/ed by Indians.

*uring the colonial period, Asians +Indians in )ast and entral Africa came to occupy themiddle rung of a three0tiered hierarchial system. )uropeans, particularly the British, occupied thetop level of the social, political, and economic pyramid, and Africans occupied the bottom level.1ocial apartheid in some countries, such as enya, was nearly as rigid as it was in 1outh Africa.Although some Asians were able to compete with )uropeans in the professions, by far thegreatest numbers were retail traders who had shops in small towns, or were artisans, cler!s, or

bureaucrats on limited salaries. They couldn3t compete seriously with )uropeans, but in African

eyes, Indians always seemed to occupy all the positions to which ambitious Africans with a littleeducation might aspire.

The Asians were a very visible minority. Their s!in color, in the mid0range of the colonial scaleof color pre'udice, set them off from both )uropeans and Africans. $i!ewise, their distinctivestyle of dress, the smell of their coo!ing, the sound of their language and music, the architectureof their churches4and, generally spea!ing, their entire culture4were very distinct from bothAfrican and )uropean cultures.

#ural Indian shop!eepers became somewhat Africani/ed and urban Indians became somewhatAnglici/ed, but, for the most part, Indians lived among themselves and felt culturally superior to

Africans. The Indians as a group were fairly homogeneous5 they came mostly from 6u'arat andthe 7un'ab, but they represented a microcosm of the diverse Indian culture, with its multiplereligious, linguistic, and caste divisions. These internal differences, particularly religious andcaste distinctions, tended to divide the Indian minority. The same caste or religious groupmaintained closer ties with their small group in other parts of Africa, or bac! in India, than theydid with their Indian neighbors from different castes or religions.

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