The Asian African Heritage

Identity & History

A Photo exhibition organised by:
The National Museums Of Kenya
The Asian African Heritage Trust

Fort Jesus

The Asian African Heritage: Identity and History was co-organized by the
National Museums of Kenya and the Asian African Heritage Trust in year 2000.
The exhibition has been supported by the National Museums of Kenya and by
voluntary participation and contributions.

The exhibition is founded on the concept (1) of Dr. Sultan H. Somjee, till
recently, Head, Division of Ethnography, National Museums of Kenya.

The curator of the exhibition is Dr. Somjee. The photographs have been
researched and supervised by Akbar Hussein, and the text of the exhibition and
his brochure is by Pheroze Nowrojee.
INTRODUCTION
The presence of peoples from the Indian sub-continent in East Africa goes
back well over three thousand years. The presence of peoples from Eastern
Africa in India is also of long duration. (2) This exhibition focuses on the Asian
African presence in Kenya, and relatedly East Africa, in a more recent period-
the last two hundred years.

Many Asian African families have been settled on the Coast, Lamu, Pate,
Malindi, Mombasa, Pemba, Zanaibar, Bagamoyo and Dar-es-Salaam from the
1820s and earlier; but the development of our Asian African minority as we
know it today emerges from the 1880s.

It was the building of the Uganda Railway (now Kenya Railways), from 1896-
1901, and the establishment of the British community in the Kenya. How does
our history record them? As Dr. George Abungu, Director-General, National
Museums of Kenya, has reminded us, “The Asian Africans were a part of the
making of Kenya, and their heritage is representative of this”.

Earlier, Dr. Mohamed Isahakia, then Director-General, in initiating the

organization of this exhibition stated: “Almost 34 years after Independence our
National Museums here has no part of its entire exhibitions focusing on any
aspect of Asian history. This must be corrected.” (3)

The need for us of know more about each other than we do at present is
critical, given the dangers of ethnic-based politics. This knowledge affects how
we address those serious issues. It is equally critical for the future, given the
fact that Kenya is composed not of one or two different minorities, but of 44
different minorities.

It is therefore important for us as Kenyans to examine all our stories, all our
heritages, all our struggles for our freedom, and all our culture, from every part
of our country. And thereby, most importantly, ourselves write, record, sculpt,
dance, paint, and teach our history, the ideas that move us, and our
aspirations.
IDENTITY

After a continuous presence of over 200 years and having

fifth generation Africans in almost all families, our Asian
African minority is taking stock of itself. Is it African; Indian or
South Asian or Kenyan; or all of these? What are its civic,
cultural, political and social identities. After this period of two
centuries it is clear that the community is now not wholly of
the Indian sub-continent. All this has generated interest within
the community and among fellow Kenyans. This exhibition
examines part of the record. For as Dr. Isahakia put it, “The
question of the depth and the breadth of your
accomplishments in the social, economic, educational and
political developments of the past must play an important role
in defining your status in this country”. (4)

This process of defining a community must come from the

My Identities community itself. In respect of the Asian African community
(Mixed media)
Nabila Alibhai – Dr. Sultan Somjee says, “How I define my social identity is
1996 my responsibility. For it is also my human right to
practice and enjoy my bi-continental tradition. I hold the
culture of the Indian Ocean of my Asian ancestors and
their African descendants. That makes my family Asian
African.” (5)
Such a process is necessary for every Kenyan community. It is
a process of self-definition, and not of being define by colonial
or chauvinist apologists or administrators, or merely updating
their ideas, pronouncements or stereotypes.

This involves a fresh look at the past. This can only be done by
the gathering anew and re-examination of memories, images
and the artefacts of daily life. And most of all, by honouring the
dignity of the lives led by parents, grandparents, great-
grandparents and their forebears.

The Asian African presence is neither sufficiently represented

in our history books nor in our schools or universities.
Therefore, education and self-examination by the minority as
by the nation itself, are overdue.
Traditions &
Modernity
THE THREE THEMES OF THE EXHIBITION
THE LABOUR HERITAGE

Labour, not trade, is the foundation of the Asian African heritage in East Africa.
The work of the railway builders, masons, wheelwrights, master craftsmen,
platelayers, artisans, carpenters, tailors, nurses, dhobis, clerks and teachers
was the bedrock on which later endeavours came to be based.

One of the earliest examples of this was the labour of the masons from India
who shared in the building of Fort Jesus between 1593 and 1596. They were
brought in by the Portuguese from their colonies on India’s west coast. (6)

In succeeding centuries and particularly from 1820 onwards, wooden doors,

ornamentation and furniture carved and crafted by artists and master
carpenters from Gujarat in western India crossed the Indian Ocean to adorn
palaces and houses from Pate, Lamu and Mombasa to Kilwa and to Zanzibar,
the mercantile capital than of the entire eastern seaboard of Africa. (7)

In addition, their Customs departments and their merchants used the wooden
chests fashioned by other Gujarati craftsmen. (8)

From 1896 to 1901, labourers were brought on contract from the Punjab in
what are now India and Pakistan, and from Gujarat, by the British to build the
railway from Mombasa to Kisumu (then called the Uganda Railway).

In these six years, these labourers and artisans through difficult terrain laid 582
miles (931 kilometres) of railway. They built the Salisbury Bridge, over 1200
feet long, joining Mombasa Island to the mainland, 35 viaducts in the Rift
Valley, and 1280 smaller bridges and culverts. All this was done by hand. No
machines were available to them in these massive and technical tasks.

31983 workers came from India during these years on these contracts. 2493
died in the construction. That is, 4 workers died for each mile of line laid; more
than 38 dying every month during the entire six years. A further 6454 workers
became invalid. (9)

Moving camp, Uganda

Railway Construction
Workers (1899)
 Gujjar Sutar Community

In May 1898, railhead reached ‘Nyrobi’, then only a plain

of tents. Over the next thirty years Asian African
masons, stone dressers, carpenters, artisans, and
construction workers built the new town of Nairobi. (10)

They also built the subsequent railway towns of Nakuru

and Kisumu, as they had each of the 43 railway stations
on the line, such as Mackinnon Road, voi, Mtito Andei,
Kijabe, Njoro and Lumbwa.

The railway itself was then manned for the next several
decades by Asian African drivers, foremen,
stationmasters, linesmen, telegraphists, mechanics,
gangers, repairmen, upholsterers, carpenters and other
workers.
Vishkarma giver of work
and skills
As material was being gathered for this exhibition, a
record of the survey for the building of the Nairobi-
Mombasa road was also found. These are the drawings
and notes of Mohamed Sadiq Cockar, also being
exhibited. As a young assistant, he was not only a
worker on it, but also marvelled at, and later drew
pictures and Gujarati Lohars wheel wrights kept wagons
moving long before and after motor vehicles became
common.

In addition to the work that kept the arteries of transport flowing, Asian African
workers served in the civil service as clerks, accountants, bookkeepers, health
workers and particularly, teachers.
It was thus no accident that one of the founders of the trade union movement in
our country was Makhan Singh. In 1935, he formed the Labour Trade Union of
Kenya, and in 1949, he and Fred Kubai formed the East African Trade Union
Congress, the first central organization of trade unions in Kenya.

It is our of this long heritage of labour that our present Asian African community
of multiple character has emerged.

THE SOCIAL HERITAGE

The exhibition brings together for the first time hundreds of photographs of
Asian African families over the past century, many never seen publicly before.
These reflect not the official records of the railway or government
administrations but the community’s views of itself. Here are private views of
the community in clothes, jewellery, prayers, festivals, weddings, betrothals and
setting that the community had itself chosen. These are the keepsakes of
numerous households, saved over the past hundred years and retrieved by the
exhibition from family albums, old trunks, and neglected heaps of files, old
service records from government or employers, letters and yellowed
newspaper clipping, speaking now for those who have long remained
inarticulate. These are records of pride, rejecting humiliation and domination.
They portray lives of dignity, resilience and resistance under adverse
conditions.

One defence to such conditions was the tenacity of the community in holding
on to its cultural practices. Another was the establishment of voluntary
organizations that served the basic needs that discrimination and governmental
neglect would not provide either adequately or at all. Voluntary welfare
organization such as schools, clinics, hospitals and first aid units made
provision for indigents. In time, these created an extensive and countrywide
civil society sector in Kenya long before the recent growth of non-governmental
organizations (NGOs). Nor were these social services dependent on funding
from outside the community. These institutions were funded by the community
itself even when not affluent. Voluntary professional services were given over
long periods by doctors, teachers and others.

Many of these services became

public, and there are today many
such public foundations and
programs supporting
scholarships, grants to schools
and public health.

Sikh Pre-independence Cricket

Team

In the arena of sports the community over many years has been active in the
Kenya

Olympic Hockey team, the Kenya National Shooting Squad, the Kenya National
Cricket team, and in other sports, including bodybuilding and wrestling. In
motor rallying, Joginder Singh (The Flying Sikh) and Shekher Metha, both of
Safari Rally fame, are international figures as Sarafino Antao in athletics.

THE INTELLECTUAL HERITAGE

A. M. Jeevanjee M. A. Desai Makhan Singh

The Asian African community has been involved in dissent and political activity
against oppression for as long as it has been involved in commerce and finance. As
the exhibition examines Kenyan history, one finds figures such as A.M. Jeevanjee
(of Jeevanjee Grandens renown) and M.A. Desai, who continuously and
successfully challenged and controlled settler ambitions for their self-rule in Kenya
on the apartheid model of Southern Rhodesia and South Africa. Makhan Singh and
Pio Gama Pinto spent years in detention in the struggle for Kenya’s freedom. Pio
Pinto, over the 35 years since his assassination, remains a major influence and
national role model for all Kenyans. Joseph Murumbi was the voice in exile of a
silenced Kenya during the Emergency, and later Foreign Minister and our second
Vice-President. Amir Jamal is one of the founding fathers of the Tanzanian nation.
Fitz De Souza was Deputy speaker of Parliament from 1964-1969, and Chanan
Singh was Parliamentary Secretary to President Kenyatta from1963-1964. But as
important was the unheralded support that the community gave to the struggle for
independence. Examples of this are people like Mrs. Lila patel and her husband
Ambu Patel, who led the movement for the release of Jomo Kenyatta; and Mrs.
Desai and J.M. Desai, whose home served as a base of nationalist politics during
the same period. Habib Kheshavjee represented many other who were the quiet
workers for the independence movement.
 Pio Pinto Joseph Murumbi

In law, advocates such as A.R. Kapila, Fitz de Souza, and Jaswant Singh defended
Bildad Kaggia, Jomo Kenyatta, Paul Ngei, Fred Kubai, Achieng Oneko and Kungu
Karumba at their trial at Kapenguria (1952-53). They and others such as Chanan
Singh defended in hundreds of Mau Mau Causes and appeals. C.B. Madan was a
memorable Chief Justice, 1986-88.

In the struggle for the freedom of the Press, Asian African journalists and publishers
have played a long and critical part over the whole century. These include Haroun
Ahamed, Editor, The Colonial Times, D.K. Sharda, Sitaram Achariar (The
Democrat). N.S. Thakur, and four generations of the Vidyarthi family. The Vidyarthis,
in publishing since 1935, are still today discharging their professional duties as
journalists and publishers in difficult circumstances. Achariar also printed the Gikuyu
newspaper Muigwithania, (1928) the Kikuyu Central Association (KCA) paper edited
by Achieng Oneko. Among others that the Vidyarthis published were Sauti ya
Mwafrika, the Kenya African Union (KAU) newspaper, Henry Githigira’s Habari za
Dunia, Henry Mworia’s Musmengerere, and Francis Khamisi’s Mwalimu. The
printing of all these papers for the forty years between 1920 and 1963 were direct
challenges to the colonial government which sought to suppress the African voice
against colonialism and for freedom.

Between 1962 and 1972, TRANSITION, edited and published by Rajat Neogy from
Kampala, was the leading intellectual magazine from the African continent and
reached a global audience.

In the field photojournalism, names such as Mohamed Amin, Mohinder Singh

Dhillon, Priya Ramrakha, Sayyid Azim (who won a 1998 Pulitzer) and Jiterdra Arya
are internationally known.

While much has been written about the community, Asian African writers have over
the decades themselves written much, on a wide range of subjects, both creative
and academic. Among them are internationally admired scholars such as Professor
Yash Ghai, Professor Dharam Ghai, Professor Mahmood Mamdani, Professor Issa
Shivji and Professor Abdul Sherrif; and renowned novelists such as G.V. Desani (All
About Hatter, 1948, Penguin Modern Classics 1972) and M.G. Vassanji (The Gunny
Sack). The exhibition has published a selected bibliography of such writhing.
Films, entertainment and show business have been contributed to by, among others,
Sharad Patel (The Rise and Fall of Idi Amin), Sachin and Avni Dave (supporting
UNICEF and numerous other causes) and Freddie Mercury of the pop group Queen
(born Farokh Bulsara in Zanzibar).

THE CONTEXT This exhibition thus provides an essential opportunity to see

FOR THE the context of the Asian African presence in our history. The
FUTURE examination and self-examination needs to continue,
defining, changing, reassessing, and redefining, as society
itself changes. Much yet remains to be explored, including
the commercial heritage of the Asian African community.

The preparation for the exhibition also revealed that there

were no places, much less a central place, where access to
social records of any of the communities in Kenya were
located. This is a purpose wider than the function that the
National Archives serves. What is emerging worldwide is
that the responsibility and effort for the preservation,
Zanzibar postage
stamp, (1991) protection and display of such records have devolved from
painting and the central governments and central museum and archives
design by John D'
Silva networks to the respective communities themselves. There is
need, therefore, in Kenya to gather documents, photographs
and oral histories on a local basis in a systematic manner.
Such efforts can then be assisted by the National Archives
and the nationals Museums. We would thus enlarge and
preserve our image banks; our resources for a proper
remembrances of the past and understanding of the present;
and thus our national heritage. This needs to be done before
much is irretrievably in time.
END NOTES
1. Sultan H. Somjee THE ASIAN AFRICAN MUSEUM-A concept paper.(Nairobi, The A
Heritage Trust,2000).
2. See Joseph Harris THE AFRICAN PRESENCE IN ASIA(Evanston, North-Western
Joseph Harris ABOLITION &REPATRIATION IN KENYA Historical association
Pamphlet No.1 (Nairobi, East African Literature Bureau, 1977); Ochie
THE SIDDIS OF INDIA(Nairobi, Asian African Heritage Trust, 2000).
3. Dr. Mohamed Isahakia THE ASIAN AFRICAN MUSEUM PROJECT (Nairobi, 2000).
4. Ibid.
5. Sultan H. Somjee speech made at THE ASIAN AFRICAN HERITAGE TRUS
(November, 1998) (Nairobi, The Asian African Heritage Trust,2000).
6. Justus Strandes THE PORTUGUESE PERIOD IN EAST AFRICA (Hamburg
Jean F. Wallwork: Nairobi, East African Literature Bureau 1961).
7. Judith Aldrick THE 19th CENTURY CARVED WOODEN DOORS OF THE EAS
COAST
(Nairobi, Kenya Museum Society, 1999/Azania No.XXV, British Institute in Eastern A
Uwe Rau & Mwalim A. Mwalim DOORS OF ZANZIBAR (Zanzibar, HSP, 1998)
8. J.J. Adie ZANZIBAR CHESTS in A GUIDE TO ZANZIBAR Appendix IV, 104
Government Printer, 1949); Sheila Unwin DHOW TRADE CHESTS Kenya Past and Pr
(Nairobi, Kenya Museum Society, 1987).
9. Robert Hardy THE IRON SNAKE (London, Collins, 1974), 315. See als
PERMANENT WAY (Nairobi, K.U.R. 1947).
10. Katie Martin (Paintings and Richard Martin (Text) HISTORIC NAIROBI (Nairobi, S
1992).

1. Cynthia Salvadori & Others WE CAME IN DHOWS (Nairobi, Kulgraphics,

2. Zarina Patel CHALLENGE TO COLONIALISM (Nairobi, 1999).
3. Ambu Patel STRUGGLE TO RELEASE JOMO (Nairobi, 1962).
4. Makhan Singh A HISTORY OF THE TRADE UNIONS IN KENYA (Nairobi, EAPH,
5. Oginga Odinga & Others PIO PINTO, Kenya’s First Political Martyr (N
Africa Press, 1966).
6. Rasna Warah TRIPLE HERITAGE (Nairobi, 1999).
7. Cynthia Salvadori THROUGH OPEN DOORS (Nairobi, Kenway, 1983 (Revise
1989).
8. J.S. Mangat A HISTORY OF THE ASIAN IN KENYA (Oxford, Clarendon Pres
9. Dana Seidenberg THE MERCANTILE ADVENTURERS 1750-1985 (New Delhi, Ne
Publishers, 1996).
10. Robert Gregory THE QUEST FOR EQUALITY (New Delhi, Vikas, 1983