Ethnicity and Class: the Case of the East African 'Asians'

Ethnicity and Class: the Case of the East African 'Asians'

ETHNICITY AND CLASS: THE CASE OF THE EAST AFRICAN 'ASIANS'

Janet M Bujra, University of Bradford

Writing in 1965, Yash Tandon described the colonial societies of East Africa as systems which "hinged on racial separatism". More precisely, the "three principal races (Europeans, Asians and Africans) were divided not only on a cultural and social plane, but also on an economic and political basis: the Europeans [less than «% of the population] occupied the apex of the triangle; the Africans [98%] formed the base; and the Asians [1«%] occupied the middle" (in Ghai, 1965, p82; proportions p79).

At first sight the story of 'Asians' in East Africa might appear as a convincing illustration of the potency of 'race' or 'ethnicity' as factors in social life. What I want you to consider in this chapter is why such explanations might be problematic, despite appearances and popular understandings to the contrary. In the first place the notion of discrete and highly distinctive 'races' or human 'types' is now discredited in scientific accounts and avoided by most geneticists. The thesis that 'races' could be ranked in a hierarchy, from the most backward and inferior to the most advanced and refined, is similarly discredited, and more convincingly interpreted as legitimisation for the 'civilising mission' which imperialism claimed to pursue. The view that there is a causal link between genetics, racially conceived, and social behaviour, is, however, also reitterated in more academic formulations such as those of sociobiology (see e.g. Van den Berghe, 1986), although it is strongly contested by other sociologists.

The concept of 'ethnicity' is of a different order, since it designates social groups on the basis of a shared cultural, rather than genetic, identity. In usage, however, 'culture' is often presented as if it were fixed and immutable, and in popular consciousness there is often an assumption that culture is given by birth, rather than something learned. Anthropological accounts of 'other cultures' (see Ch 17) have sometimes appeared to confirm such a perception, misrepresenting them as unchanging and homogeneous.

In analysis of both colonial and contemporary Africa, explanations based on 'race' or on 'ethnicity' are very much to the fore, although here, the notions of 'tribe' and 'tribalism' generally stand in for the concept of 'ethnicity'. This is particularly so in popular media accounts, but the same arguments may also be given academic formulation. Journalists commonly seize upon 'tribalism' as an explanation for Africa's ills. It is made to appear as self-evident, for example, that peoples who do not share a common cultural identity will be naturally antagonistic towards each other; in other words that ethnic differences make for social conflict. Violence in South African townships may be presented as a case of Zulu against Xhosa; the Biafran war in Nigeria in the sixties as an 'Ibo affair'; the problems of Zimbabwe understood as Ndebele against Shona; the Mau Mau uprising in colonial Kenya as evidence of 'Kikuyu barbarism', and so on. And if
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'Tribes' and 'tribalism': Africa is no different to other continents in having a population which is ethnically diverse: it contains many peoples, speaking a multiplicity of languages and living a diversity of cultures. These ethnic differences rarely coincide with the boundaries of nation states: the colonial carve-up largely ignored their disposition, and independence has not generally led to a redrawing of national boundaries. Labour migration, forcible resettlements and displacements, the expansion of socially diverse urban areas, the constitution of independent states with the imperative to create new 'national identities', have all conspired to complicate the question of ethnicity, and to throw into question the assumption that 'tribalism', whether defined positively or negatively, offers a definitive understanding of African development.

When colonial officials used the term 'tribes' to distinguish between their African subjects, it generally had a pejorative connotation. To speak of 'tribalism' suggested primordial attachments to primitive and savage ways of life, sharply distinguished from the 'civilised' ways of Europeans. Today it can still be used with this implication by outsiders, which is why it is often avoided in scholarly discussion. However it is commonly used by Africans themselves, both to describe their own ethnic origin and that of others. Africans may also use the term 'tribalism' to denote what they perceive as the undue political or economic prominence of a particular ethnic group. In contemporary Kenya, for example, the distinction between a positive and a negative view of 'tribe' is being argued out from pulpits around the country, with some clerics denouncing 'state tribalism', and urging employers to "offer jobs purely on merit and not according to tribal background", whilst at the same time they insist that it is "God's design that people are born into various tribes" and that "all Kenyans should be proud of their tribes" (Daily Nation, 15-16 April 1991).

There is thus no undisputed or neutral definition of the terms 'tribe' and 'tribalism': these terms are the very stuff of political struggle and intellectual debate. The same point could be applied to the term 'race', as well as to the apparently more academic and less emotionally charged concept of 'ethnicity'. It is wise therefore always to specify and contextualise the meanings you give to these words.

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'tribalism' is employed as an obvious explanation for social conflict amongst Africans, the language of 'racial differences' comes into play as a seemingly even more potent mode of instant understanding of the relations between Africans and others. The most prominent example here is South Africa; this chapter focusses on a similar phenomenon in East Africa. From this perspective, 'races', like 'tribes', are seen as discrete, natural social units, founded in a biological distinctiveness which finds cultural expression. And 'races', like 'tribes' are perceived as naturally opposed.

Although superficial appearances may appear to confirm the 'race'/ethnicity explanation for human behaviour (e.g. the Mau Mau uprising in colonial Kenya was largely carried through by people calling themselves Kikuyu; social divisions in South Africa do set black against white), many sociologists challenge this perception. They argue that both 'race' and 'ethnicity' are social constructions, woven out of claims of assumed inherent and immutable differences. Which cultural differences or aspects of physical appearance are held to be markers of social value or discredit varies very widely.

It is not 'society' in the abstract, or as a whole, which engages in this project. Processes of social classification, which involve the ranking of 'racial'/ethnic groups, are generally a manifestation of power, a means (though not the only means) whereby dominant groups assert their preordained superiority. This is why some theorists deny the salience of 'race' as an explanatory concept, and instead focus on 'racism' (both as ideology and institutionalised practice; established ways of thinking and doing) as the key concept in understanding such situations. Conversely, where individuals and groups identify with 'racial' or ethnic labels, this can be seen as a form of defensive or offensive political mobilisation.

The language in which these power struggles are conducted is one of 'cultural differences', 'origins' or 'blood', but for some authors this is merely a symbolic representation of contention over more material distinctions. Writers influenced by Marxism tend to see social divisions founded in the system of production, and especially class differences, as offering a more grounded explanation for patterns of 'racial' or 'ethnic' conflict.

For those of you who wish to follow up the theoretical debates around 'race'/ethnicity, introductory and further reading is suggested at the end of this chapter. A critical examination of the fate of 'Asians' in East Africa will allow you to see how the contrasting explanations have been operationalised in one particular case. This example will also raise challenging questions about the influence of the colonial past on contemporary issues of development strategy in Africa.

18.1 Asians in East Africa: the colonial period

When we speak of ethnic minorities in Western Europe we automatically assume them to be amongst the most disadvantaged in society (the "lowest of the low", as Wallraff has put it in the German context). It would be invalid, however, to assume that social disadvantage and ethnic minority status always go together, or that one explains the other. In colonial East Africa, ethnic minority 'Asians' occupied the middle level of society. The very concept of 'middle' entails not only that there is a dominant category above the group in question, but also that there is a lower element, relative to which those in the middle enjoy certain privileges and material comforts. How did the Asians come to occupy this position?

The people who are designated as 'Asians' in East Africa either originated in, or are the descendents of people from the Indian sub-continent. Arabs are not counted as Asians here. Within East Africa, Asians would not generally so name themselves (except in relation to other similar social categories: 'Europeans' and 'Africans'), but would rather refer to their religious affiliation or sect: Bohoras, Ismailis, Ithnasherias, Shi'a or Sunni Muslims, Hindus or Sikhs. The significance of this will become clear presently; the point I wish to make initially is that the name 'Asians' is an outsider's rather than an insider's term. It is an indicator of their common position in society rather than a statement about shared culture. The 'naming problem' is not peculiar to this case of purported ethnicity - you will be familiar with a key instance in British society, though of a different order, concerning the term 'black'- the controversy as to who is included and who excluded, whether the term embraces 'Asians' or not, whether it denotes a particular political position rather than physical appearance, the history of previous 'acceptable' terminologies and so on.

What are Asians doing in East Africa? Indians first settled in this area along with Arabs as traders and middlemen in the centuries-old Indian Ocean trading networks. Unlike the Arabs they did not attempt to exert political control in coastal areas of East Africa, nor did they take wives from amongst the local people. By the 19th century they were well-established, especially in Zanzibar, which had by that time become a Sultanate ruled by an Omani dynasty. Their role was to provide financial capital and supplies for trading caravans which were sent into the hinterland as far as Uganda, buying slaves and ivory in excahnge for cloth, chinaware and weaponry (see e.g. Mamdani, 1976, p66-7).

When the British arrived in the closing years of the 19th century they found Indian traders already established and willing to supply their requirements. Not that they gave them much credit for doing this. Already in 1897, 'the Indian' was being stereotyped in racist terms as: "crafty, money-making, cunning, intensely polite, his soul bound to his body by the one laudable and religious anxiety of its helping him to turn his coin to better advantage" (quoted by Mangat, 1969, p22).

The British first annexed the area which was later designated Kenya and Uganda; the Germans appropriated the area which became Tanganyika, only losing it to Britain at the end of the First World War. One of the first actions of the new colonial power was to build a railway up from the Kenya coast to Kampala, the capital of Uganda. The railway was constructed by importing labour from India (at that time under the British Raj and hence within the British Empire). "An alien army" of workers (as it was described in 1899, quoted in Mangat, p38) was contracted to build and service the railway : skilled craftsmen and semi-professionals as well as manual labourers; from "assistant surgeons to water carriers". 32,000 workers were imported, of whom only half returned home unscarred. 2493 died, 6454 were incapacitated by accident or disease. 6724 remained voluntarily (Mangat, p38).

Figure 18.1 Building the East African Railway

Whilst the origins of the East African Asians were quite diverse in socioeconomic terms - from wealthy traders down to humble manual labourers ('coolies', in local parlance of the time), they soon began to converge in their economic position and social role in the new colonial society. The more lowly gravitated upwards, bypassing the African population, whilst those with professional skills or capital were prevented from rising further by the concrete ceiling of colonial racial separatism which reserved the topmost positions and ultimate political power for Europeans. Mangat refers to this as the 'tripartite system' of colonial society. It would be simplistic to assume that such a system was simply imposed by the British as part of a conspiracy of 'divide and rule'. Although, ultimately, the system functioned in this way, it was the outcome of protracted political struggles which, for Asians as well as for the African population, centred on land and political rights, and took a slightly different form in each of the three countries.

Kenya

European settlers in Kenya were granted land alienated from Africans, but when Indians also wished to purchase land in the alienated areas the settlers resisted fiercely. The free market was not left to settle the matter: it was decided by the Colonial Secretary that "as a matter of administrative convenience, grants in the uplands area should not be made to Indians" (Lord Elgin, 1908: quoted Mangat, p102). From restrictions on the purchase of agricultural land, the colonial state also extended its limitations to Asians in the towns. A form of residential and commercial segregation was established, rationalised as "the need to maintain proper sanitary standards - especially in view of the information that the Secretary of State had received, that most of the Indians were of low-caste origin and prone to insanitary habits" (Mangat, p107).

A contemporary observer noted that European settlers had a particular antipathy to Indians, whom they saw as threatening their bid for political dominance in this new territory: they wanted to "keep the Indians, not only out of the [European] uplands, but out of the country altogether" (Sadler, 1908: quoted Mangat, p102). When Indians demanded political rights they were rebuffed, eventually having to settle first for nominated members in the Legislative Council, later for a communal electoral roll, which did not put them on a par with Europeans, but gave them more rights than Africans (who did not get even nominated members until much later). Ironically however, European antagonism to the Indians was generally rationalised in terms of protecting African interests.

Effectively excluded from the agricultural sector, Asians in Kenya began to specialise either in commerce (retailing, wholesale, insurance, banking, financial services, import/export etc) or they shifted upwards from skilled crafts into professional work and public service occupations (especially clerical and lower administrative positions). Here too their contribution was derided on the grounds that Africans might legitimately have taken these positions, and done the work for lower wages (Mangat, p116).

Uganda

Kenya had the most sharply segregated colonial system, but what happened to the Asians in the other two territories differed only in degree. In all three colonies Asians were prepared to set up small shops in remote areas of the country, where they sold Western manufactured goods to peasant farmers, and bought African agricultural products in return. This role - what Dharam Ghai calls "the extension of the monetary economy into the subsistence areas" (1965, p101) - was recognised in Uganda as early as 1920. In Uganda there was no question of European settlement, but Asians were still excluded from owning agricultural land (see Mamdani, 1976, p70); colonial exploitation here consisted in pressing African peasants into producing cotton for the mills of Lancashire (assuring cheap supplies). In this endeavour the Asians began to play a central role as buyers of the crop, later diversifying into processing. Early European attempts to establish cotton ginning factories in the rural areas were undermined by Asian buyers, who then went into processing themselves.

Tanganyika

Tanganyika was formally-speaking not a colony, but a territory mandated to Britain by the League of Nations (forerunner of the UN) as an outcome of the defeat of Germany at the end of the Second World War. Open segregation or discrimination against Indians was more difficult in this context, and as in the case of Uganda there was no sizeable European settler class here either. In Tanganyika, then, Asians were not prohibited from buying land, and along with Germans and other Europeans a few Asians carved out a niche for themselves as owners of sisal plantations. In Tanganyika as in Uganda, however, the main concern of the colonial government was to establish African peasant production of crops which would satisfy the insatiable need of industrial enterprises in Britain for cheap raw materials. As in Uganda the Asians became the commercial intermediaries in this process (Shivji, 1976).

Some general points

Although there were differences in the role and position of the Asians in each territory, it is possible to generalise about Asians in East Africa simply because their socioeconomic position was so distinctively different to that of either Europeans or Africans. Commercial activity was dominated by them in every territory, and roughly half of all Asians were to be found in this occupation by the 1960s (Ghai, 1965, p92). The rest of the Asians were mainly employees in the middle reaches of the economy, especially in the public service (conversely such positions were almost wholly occupied by Asians), whilst a minority had moved from commerce into processing agricultural products, the repair of machinery or small scale manufacturing. The vast majority were urban dwellers.