0:00 Intro
0:24 Africans of India – Siddi community
1:23 Indian-African relations
2:00 Indians in Africa – numbers & history
2:33 Indentured labour in British Empire – the ‘Coolies’
3:37 Traders, administrators and businessmen
4:17 New wave of migration from India after 1947
4:36 Indian communities’ struggles in the 1960s
5:05 Indians as target of African nationalism
6:48 Indian community of South Africa
7:39 Indian community of Kenya
8:28 Indian community of Uganda
9:02 Indian community of Mauritius
9:48 Other Countries
Hello friends, after a very long time, I can proudly say ‘welcome back to my channel!’
Unfortunately, due to a long set of personal chores, including moving to a new city, a larger family😃, a new job, and a whole other series of activities, took me away from devoting myself to produce new videos.
Despite all this, however, my passion for original and unusual themes of history and society is too strong. As well as my desire to engage in conversations with you, my friends. Because it ain’t over till the fat lady sings.
So, without wasting any more time on my life and apologies for the procastination, let’s jump into today’s topic!
Africa is commonly known for being the most diverse continent in the world.
So diverse to be unique. This uniqueness is also expressed through the very high number of languages spoken (calculated to be more than 2000, of which 75 have more than one million speakers!), which also leads to a very high cultural diversity.
That sounds even more surprising if we consider that the total population of the whole continent is just over 1.2 billion, spread over 54 countries.
Africa’s rich history and culture are so diverse that it varies not only from one country to another but also within regions and countries.
The historical vicissitudes (not always idyllic) experienced by Africa over the centuries have undoubtedly contributed to this profound diversity, to the point that the current populations are actually highly multicultural societies made up of communities that, although very different from each other, have reached interesting degrees of integration perhaps unimaginable elsewhere.
Among these, a particular community, not very numerous if compared to the total numbers of the inhabitants of the continent described above, but very influential and historically rooted, is the Indian one.
There are currently more than 3 million people of Indian descent in Africa, mainly located in the southern and eastern regions, the largest of which is found in South Africa.
They are the descendants of the multitude of people who arrived or were brought here during the 19th century by the British, who employed them mainly as laborers, the coolies, in a system of particular indentured labor schemes.
Masses of indentured labourers were sent to South Africa and Mauritius to work on sugar cane plantations, Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya to build roads and railways, and to many other territories then part of the British Empire in Africa.
Most of the actual Indo-Africans are the descendants of these souls. However, there is a small but powerful minority descendant of traders’ communities and Indian members of colonial public administration.
Both during and after the colonial experience, coexistence between Indian communities and others (both white and African) has not always been peaceful and without problems.
Following the independence of the African territories part of the British Empire and the orientation of these towards the search for their own nationalism established on a propaganda based on Africanisation concepts, the Indian community found itself in some cases (Uganda and Kenya mostly) marginalized and even expelled.
This video is a brief history of Indian communities in Africa, their creation and their journey through the tortuous years of decolonization to the present state.
As mentioned in the video, if you can relate to what is narrated in the video through direct experience (either yours or of your family), let us know in the comments’ section or contact me, in order to deepen this interesting and in some ways still unknown aspect of history.
Thanks to Sanjana Ranjit (https://www.instagram.com/sanjanaranjit.art) for the stunning thumbnail artwork!
