Remembering the Ugandan Indian Exodus
It was on the 6th August 1972 that the government of Uganda, then headed by the infamous Idi Amin, announced that all of the 80,000 Indian origin people living in the country had 90 days to depart, after which their businesses and homes would be handed over to native Ugandans. If any Indians were seen in Uganda after this period, Idi Amin warned: “I will make you feel as if you are sitting on fire!”
August 21st, 2006 at 12:45 am
THE INFAMOUS IDID AMIN DIED IN ANOTHER COUNTRY HE SUFFERED AND DIED WITHOUT HIS COUNTRY MEN GOD HAS PUNISHED HIS INHUMANE ACTIONS AND BEHAVIOUR. THE WORLD KNOWS OF HIS ILL DOINGS TO THE CHILDREN AS WELL AS TO HIS CITIZEN. IT IS LESSON TO OTHERS ESPECIALLY THIS TYPE OF MUSLIMS.
HARI OM. THIAGARAJA RATNASAMY
August 21st, 2006 at 7:57 pm
i remember uganda well as i was born there grew up and worked until at the age of 20 in 1972 got kicked out .
one does not dissagree that amin was a maglomaniac but some of what he said had a ring of truth in it.
asians in uganda of most considered local africans lower than themselves.
very few asians had real african friends or went out for meal / drinks with fellow black ugandans.
a lot of succsefull asian businesses were sucking money out of uganda by tranferring money to uk / india .i know this to be true because i know quite a few of those people.
i was considered an odd ball because i had few african ugandan friends with whom i could join and eat food or go out to bar for drink . wwhile workin for a construction firm i was told by the bosses not to eat / drink tea / smoke within the same confines of fellow black workers . yet funny enough those workers had more respect for me than other supervisors / bosses.
well !! this is my personal expirience . i have made my life in uk have a succesful business and lovely family so it turn out that bad ……lol
August 22nd, 2006 at 1:22 pm
Let us not forget that Amin was put in power by the British, the British knew that this man was unstable and unfit to run a country but this is nothing new. It is the same old game of divide and rule. When the Indians came over to build the infrastructure of East Africa for the British, we were used as a “buffer” between the indiginous Africans and our masters the British. Therefore, when the British wanted to squeeze the labour force they used Indians as their ‘managment tool’.
When it was time for the British to leave they made sure that they left a legacy which would ensure that the British would be needed later (see Kashmir, Palestine etc). This legacy was Amin and in ‘one fell swoop they brilliantly divided the African and Indian’, some Indians did not (and still do not ) have friends/acquiantencies that are Black or African as they have been succoured by the British to see others as less then them (prejudice), a British tool! and are ready to blame others for the tactics of the British. Remember the British did not want us (particularly in Leicester, see Leicester Mercury of that time), they were forced to have us as ‘commonwealth citizens’. It is now a fact that East African Asians built decling economies and cities, they employ 1 in 6 people and own 1 in 8 businesses in Leicester (probably more now!). It is a testimant to our hard work and religious ethics that will always secure a future for us any where in the world.
August 23rd, 2006 at 6:18 am
Its so strange that a film maker like Mira Nair ridiculed the dilema of a Gujarathi migrant community who had to leave Uganda and settled down in Mississipi. The Indians were used as bufferes for building colonial welath against native Africans. Their struggle in deep jungles of Africa has not been recieved deserving attention . Makhan Singh’s contribution towards the birth of a independent Kenya is a largely forgotten chapter. The Dookans owned by the Gujarathis were the first symbol of modernity for hundreds of thousands of African villages. While many Africans acknowledges this fact how Indians created a caste system to denigrate Africans and subscribed the white man’s racial policy is something needs to be relooked at . It would be very interesting if some of the victims of Idi Amin give her/his personal account of their life in Uganda in pre Amin period and how they suffered during his terror regime
August 23rd, 2006 at 8:04 pm
Hi! Dear Sir
Twenty -four years ago Edi Amin kicked out Asins, it is Blessing for them.Otherwise they will still be there and living in poverty,living in one house big family and no facility like here.
Rich bussiness people did all evil to black people and middle class suffer for awile but they are 100times better off in U.K.
It is bitter truth. RAJESH
August 30th, 2006 at 10:50 pm
^^^ Indians weren’t living in poverty in Uganda, I don’t know where you got that perception from.
August 31st, 2006 at 7:35 pm
Do Gujaratis and Tamils kill each other or take their possesions becuase they don’t drink together or spend time intermingling?
You need an ideology of self righteousness to opress a people. That ideology can be in caste, religion, economics, politically… But it is the same ideology that comes up - I am legitimate and you are not. christianity and islam are major movements that support such an ideology. It does not matter if you are the rich man or the poor, it matters if you feel you have a belief in a God of Karma or a God of tribal allegiance. The real oppressor of Africa is not England, India, or anyone but those that destroyed the indiginous culture and replaced it with christianity and islam - as they are trying to do in India.
hariaum
September 1st, 2006 at 8:17 am
Some years back, I attended a very interesting lecture by a Dr Femi Biko, entitled “Dialogue of the Deaf: The Interaction of Ancestral Africa With Islam and Christianity”. I believe he was planning to publish the ideas he explored in that talk; I don’t know whether he ever did this, but I recall reading an article he wrote in New African in 2001 which touched on some of the themes in his talk.
September 1st, 2006 at 7:31 pm
^ OK, that’s very nice, but what exactly is the point u r tryin to make?
September 1st, 2006 at 8:28 pm
Raju, I was responding to the previous commentator’s view that it was Islam and Christianity that was the true oppressor of Africa, and the link with their potential in India. Femi Biko’s work in this regard makes for interesting reading and expands on this point, so I thought it may be worth referring interested readers in his direction.
September 5th, 2006 at 11:55 am
All people are victims of their history, current circumstances and upbringing. Thus, the Indians in India were not by and large educated. They came from India and were born and brought up with the prejudices and ignorance arising out of history.
It is education, which our children receive in the UK, which turns them into enlightened citizens, with a sense of values, respect for the law & diversity of human beings, the dignity of each person, democratic values with an understanding and belief in what is fair and unfair.
These attributes take a long time and education to practice in life. Many Indians a generation or two ago in Africa did not have that education and upbringing, which our children in this country have.
The method of working of our community institutions, dominated by the older generation, is our traditional “currry politics” where ego dominates. That is what our children have rejected and that is why, by and large, they do not take part in our institutions.
Dhiraj Kataria
September 5th, 2006 at 8:14 pm
The long education of europeans resulted in slavery beyond anything the caste system did, pillaging the other worlds beyond any Asoka, the rise of Nazism, the attack on Iraq… how do curry politics hold up to American expansionism, Japanese imperialism, British colonialism (euphemistically called free market), lenin, mao…
We are too quick to ignore the hatred in the “developed world” when condemning our own.
All people are indeed victims of history but history is made by the interaction of peoples. And of course all people are presonally responsible to decide when to fight a system or join it. In order to do this they need education about ideologies so that they are free enough to chose, as opposed to an ideology where freedom to chose is lost (one god,one book…)
I am happier to be from a backwards society that says all peoples belong on the earth as equals than from a forward society that claims the wealth it has stolen is due to its hard work.
hariaum
September 13th, 2006 at 4:06 pm
I wonder if anyone saw the Channel Five programme The Jesus Effect - an interesting look, from a very Christian perspective, on the spread of Christianity in Africa. The programme emphasised that Christianity was only able to take root and ultimately flourish in Africa when the Christian missionaries began adopting indigenous African culture and tradition to form a distinctively African Christianity - once again, one finds many echoes of the African experience resounding in modern-day India.
November 9th, 2007 at 9:51 am
Thank you for publishing the write up on Indian exodus from Uganda. It is very necessary that from time to time we should remind ourselves of such events, including the Moghul, British and other invaders’ atrocitieis on Indians.
November 30th, 2007 at 12:25 pm
Why is it that time and time again only Hindus are the ones that are exploited?? Why are so weak and unable to protect out community??
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January 19th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
well i like them so much , because they really know how to make money.