Kersi's Opus

Introduction

Kenya Asians and the Parsis


Indian merchant mariners, Arab seafarers, Chinese and Persian sailors, among other seafarers have all visited the East African coastline stretching from the Horn of Africa to the port of Sofala in the south.


From the times of the Egyptian Pharaohs who hired Phoenician mariners to the pre-biblical era and after, these visitors came to trade on the African coast.


Although historians have not widely highlighted these visitors and the flourishing trade, its extensive evidence found on the East African Coast, known as Zeng or Zenj as well as Azania, deep inland, and as far south as the ruins in Zimbabwe, is highly indicative of commerce long time before its colonial occupation.


The presence of Indians in East Africa is well documented in the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea or Guidebook of Red Sea by an ancient Greek author written in 60 AD. The ancient Indian work the Puranas also mention the East African coast as well interior of Kenya as far as Lake Victoria, which was known as ’ Nil (Nile?) Sarover,’ Lake Nil, and knew the source the of ‘Nil’ Nile.


The Indian sea merchants from the Gulf of Kutch and further south on the west coast of India sailed their seagoing dhows, large wooden ships with a huge lateen sails, aided by the alternating monsoon winds. The North East monsoon winds brought these merchant sailors across the Indian Ocean to the African east coast from December to March. After trading and bartering, they returned using the reversed South West winds from June to September.


They sailed regularly to the Zenj Coast where they traded in cloth, metal implements, iron nails, copper wire, glassware, wheat, rice, sesame oil, raw sugar, and salt.


On their return trip, they carried incense, palm oil, myrrh, gold, copper, spices, ivory, rhino horn, wild animal skins and ‘boriti’, mangrove poles. As time went by, some Indians settled on the East African coast and set up their shops to trade in the merchandise from the dhows. These were the pioneer Indian traders on the East African coast. They were exclusively traders, and not indentured workers.


The Indians have had ancient connections not just with the East African coastline but also its hinterland. The more intrepid Indian ‘nakhoda,’ skippers, undertook caravans on foot safaris to the interior. They knew of places as far inland as Uganda. They also knew the Ruwenzori Mountains as ‘Chandragiri Shekhar,’ Moon Mountain or Mountains of the Moon.


They had knowledge of the great inland lake, the ‘Neel Sarover’ Neel (Nile?) Lake, named much later as Victoria Nyanza, and even of its outlet the source of the Nile.


Much later European explorers encountered Indians settled in the interior married to the indigenous women.


Relics of Chinese pottery found in the ruins along the Kenya coast at Gedi and Bulawayo in Tanganyika, now Tanzania, indicates that the Indian merchant sailors who traded with China, in turn traded with the Gulf Arabs who then transshipped this cargo to the East African coast. These relics found in the great ruins of Zimbabwe, also indicates that the Indian trade connection was an old thread in the history of the region.


From the second to the eighth century, no major changes took place on the coast. However, with the rise of Islam, the Omani Arab rulers who came to the East African Coast, turned the coastal settlements into city-states with the most important one being Zanzibar followed by Mombasa, Pate, Malindi, Manda, Tanga, and Kilifi. Using local stone and coral, they built palaces, houses, and mosques to give Islamic atmosphere and culture to the coast, which endures to this day. The Indians traded along with the Arab traders in these city-states that flourished undisturbed until the arrival of the Portuguese seafarer Vasco da Gama.


In search for sea route to India, da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope and sailed into Mombasa harbour where he encountered a hostile Arab ruler. He then sailed north to Malindi where he was welcomed by the local sultan. The Sultan introduced da Gama to Kahna, an Indian sailor. Kahna guided da Gama across the Indian Ocean to Cochin to ‘discover’ the much sought after sea route to India in 1498.
It did not take long for the Portuguese to defeat the Arab rulers and establish their stronghold on the East African coast. In 1505, less than ten years after the first Portuguese arrived, Portugal decided to install itself as the ruler of the coast. They sacked Mombasa, built a fort, Fort Jesus, at the mouth to the entrance of the Old Port and ruled for almost three centuries.


With the ‘scramble for Africa’ and the arrival of various European powers in Africa, the British took control of the East African coast from the Portuguese. The British at first supported the Omani regime in Zanzibar, and then, in a bid to stop the slave trade, bombarded Zanzibar and established their hold on the Sultanate.


The British then rented the Kenyan coastal strip from the then nominal Sultanate of Zanzibar. With the arrival of the British at the Kenyan coast, European exploration of the hinterland commenced to find the source of the River Nile. Speke undertook this with the aid of Colonel Rigby, who provided Speke a map of the region from the ancient the ancient Indian works, the ‘Puranas.’The Hindus had named the area around the source of the Nile, at the north-east corner of the Victoria Nyanza, Amar.


Speke having ‘discovered’ the source of the Nile included the ancient map from the Indian work in the first edition of his journals showing how close it was to the real terrain. However, he retracted it later when his and the White man’s contribution to exploration seemed diminished by the Indians having pre-empted their attempts.


This clearly indicates the knowledge of the ancient Hindus and their intimate knowledge of these East African regions.

'...the African Continent unlike others has remained for centuries, by and large, an isolated land, having practically little or no contact with the outside world. That is why it continued to be dubbed until recently as a Dark Continent.


This fact not withstanding, the Indians had developed contact with this Continent, more specifically with its eastern part since the Mahabharata times and perhaps earlier than that even. At that time the route that they followed passed through Iran (Pakistan did not exist then), Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Sudan. Their quest for some rare varieties of medicinal herbs appears to have made them undertake frequent expeditions to (what is called Uganda and Kenya. In the course of those expeditions, they had gone as far as the southern shores of the Zanzibar and Mombassa. They had named this part of the Continent as Chanderlok, perhaps for the reason that there existed at that time an African kingdom, called Country of the Moon (U-N-YA-MUFZI) (Speke, J. H. Journal of the Discovery of the Source of Nile. Quoted by Salvadori, Cynthia. We came in Dhows. Nairobi. Paperchase Kenya, 1996. Vol. II.) They had even discovered (what the British had later on christened as) the Lake Victoria and called it, interchangeably as Chander Taal, Amar Sarovar and Kshir Sagar. (Pandit, Shanti. Asians in Eastern and Central Africa. Panco Publications.1963. p.5). 1


After collecting those herbs, they would return home, to come back again. However, evidence is also available to show that some of them had even settled down on the slopes of the Mountain of the Moon, (Chandergiri, as they then called it and what the Europeans had later on rechristened as the Ruwenzori Mountain.) It is interesting to learn that Henry Stanley while on his expedition to find out David Livingstone had came across around the Mountain of the Moon a tribe, called Wahuma that had non-Negroid features. Stunned to find them unusual from their folk, he described them as the Greeks of Africa. However, he remarks, “Take any person randomly from any one of these tribes and plant him near a West African, or a Congolese or Gabonese type and place a Hindu between them . . . you will at once perceive that the features of the Kaffir (this man) are a subtle amalgam of the Hindu and the West African types, but if we take a Wahuma of mature age, the relation to the Hindu will still more readily appear.” (Stanley, Henry. In Darkest Africa. Sampson Law, Marstein Seale and Rivington. London. 1890. p.356) Facts like these amply attest to the fact that the Indians had not only discovered these lands but had also been living there for centuries.*

The major Indian influx in Kenya began in the late the1800s when the British Colonial government decided to build a railway from Mombasa to Kisumu on Lake Victoria in Kenya. The construction of the railway required a labour force, as well skilled stonemasons, carpenters, builders, blacksmiths and various artisans not available in Africa. The British colonial government therefore sought the required work force from its Raj in India.


The British shipped a large force of indentured Indian labour of artisans and other skilled tradesmen to Mombasa to carry out the construction of the railway. The initial works for construction of the building of the railways began in Mombasa in 1895 and the laying of the line commenced in 1896.


The Indian involvement in the growth and development of Kenya commenced with the laying of the first sleepers and rails at Mombasa to carry the rolling stocks of material and personnel from the port of Mombasa.


The loss of 2493 lives, one for every mile of line laid is a documented fact. Nor did it stop there. Illnesses, malnutrition, unsanitary conditions, inhospitable climate and terrain, and rampaging wild life and lions, local endemic illnesses like malaria and sleeping sickness also contributed to the increasing toll on the indentured labour force and the trading pioneers that followed.


Indian traders swiftly followed the advancing rail lines. These traders established the ‘dukan’ trading shops from which Swahili language acquired the word ‘duka.’ They as settled as Indian merchants, sustained and aided the indentured labourers as well. Their tiny shops became outlets of food supply and sundry goods and articles not only for the new settlers but also for the local people of the area. The goods ranged from, dried maize seeds and maize meal, ground maize ‘unga,’ flour, basis of local meal called ‘ugali’ or ‘sima,’ variety of dried beans and lentils, rice, sugar, jagery, salt, spices, tea and coffee, cooking oil, kerosene, matches, candles, and lanterns. Materials like ‘marikani,’ cotton cloth, and ‘shukas,’ lengths of printed cotton materials worn as wraps, variety of tools like hammers, nails, saws, axes, hoes, and ‘panga,’ machetes, knives, needles and thread, buttons and multi-coloured glass beads, aluminium and enamelled utensils, including mugs, cups, and drinking glasses. They also stocked patent medicines, washing and toilet soaps and toiletries, razors and razor blades, and even occasional sunglasses, for the local indigenous tribes and people in the area. Later the white settlers too came wholly to depend on these traders for their domestic as well as farming needs.


These small ‘dukas’ constructed with a wood frame and corrugated iron sheets accommodated a shop in the front and living quarters at the rear. Such shopkeepers settled in Mombasa and followed the rail line out of Mombasa, to Kwa Jomvu, Mazeras, Miritini, Mariakani, and as far as Voi.


From Voi , some of these intrepid traders branched off into the Taita-Taveta hills while others proceeded along the line to Kibwezi, Sultan Hamud, Makindu, Athi River, and finally to Nairobi.


More and more traders continued to follow the railway line into the interior to the stations in the highlands, like Kikuyu, Limuru, Uplands, Timboroa and down to Londiani, and other Rift Valley stations, and into Nakuru. From here, they went up the escarpment to other smaller towns along the newly snaking rail line, all the way into Kisumu on the eastern shores of Lake Victoria.


In the years that followed the completion of railway dubbed the ‘Lunatic Line’ by one British MP, the Indian traders established themselves in places as remote as Fort Todanyong in the harsh and desolate Turkana region and as far as Wajir and Isiolo in the Northern Frontier District, not far from the border with Sudan.


These very intrepid early Indian pioneers who thrust themselves into the harsh hinterland and opened up the country to a newer world, suffered considerable hardships and privations, separated from family, friends, their culture, and their close knit communities.


The first Parsis recruited to Kenya came with the indentured Indians for the building of the railway. With the Indians that followed later came the other Parsis. They came from the west coast of India, mostly from Mumbai, Surat, Navsari, and Udvada, and established themselves in the then three East African colonies, Tanganyika, Uganda and Kenya.


As Kenya and its demand for governance and administration grew, it required a newer class of educated and trained Indians. The Parsis together with other members of the Kenya Asian community were to establish themselves in a variety of civil and commercial services, as well in other specialised professional fields. These Indians and Parsis worked in all the administrative and civil agencies, the judiciary, the postal services, the administration and the running of the railway, port, customs, excise, and tax offices, under governance of the British officers who staffed the higher echelons of all these departments. Parsi doctors, lawyers, teachers, and other professionals also made their contribution to Kenya.


Apart from the white station masters at Mombasa, Nairobi and Kisumu, all other Kenya rail stations had Indian station masters. The Indian staff worked the entire railway system from its headquarters administration based in Nairobi, and as loco engineers and loco maintenance and repair staff, ticket inspectors, guards, cooks, goods booking and movement staff, and supervised the permanent way maintenance crew. Indians also worked on the lake steamers services in various capacities under the White officers and the lake customs departments were operated by Indian custom officers.


After the completion of the railway in 1901, many of these Indian rail workers settled in Kenya and established their own independent small businesses, and ‘karkhana,’ a variety of workshops.


These enterprises ranged from wood and iron shops, foundries, machine and repair workshops, garages for auto and farm machinery repairs and the highly skilled building and construction businesses. Some engaged in agriculture and dairy farming on a smaller scale as they were , by law , not allowed to farm in the more fertile areas of Kenya reserved exclusively for the White settlers.


Highly skilled medical personnel, bankers, administrative officers, skilled artisans, and goldsmiths, tailors, iron mongers, and a variety of traders and business enterprisers followed the settling of Indians, and enriched the new East African and Kenya community immensely, whilst the White colonial bosses ruled from their government offices and administrative departments, which too were largely operated by Indian staff.


Indian shops and homes, administration buildings, hospitals and schools and community centres, places of worship, and cultural centres, built exclusively by the settled Indians contractors and builders, made up the core towns in East Africa, and Kenya, in the first half of the 20th Century.


Small factories, workshops, auto repair garages, iron and woodwork shops, market gardening, dairies, and industries to manufacture a variety of goods, later expanded into heavier industries and other manufacturing complexes.


As early as 1920, a Parsi lawyer represented the native tribal groups and sought justice for the lands usurped from them for settlement by the White colonials. He also demanded representation for Indians on the legislative body in the early 1900s.


Later Indians established their newspapers and started to campaign for ‘One Man One Vote’ among other basic human rights. The Indian owned their own printing presses, and elected Indian community and political leaders. They continued significantly to contribute in all other fields of enterprise, and assisted the country in economic and political growth as well in contributing to the social services in the required fields.

The Parsis established themselves in various areas of the public and private sectors and played an important and a significant role in the economic development of the trade, industry, and especially in the service sectors.


Politically, Asians, and the Parsis, persisted in demanding equal rights for all, in particular for a ‘one-man one-vote’ agenda, and assisted in the African freedom struggle through the media, and the political influence they had established and tenaciously maintained.


Their Indian leaders aided by the Parsis, advocated and pressed for independence in the elected legislative assembly until Kenya won its freedom from the British in 1962.


Since independence, the Asians continue to contribute in a large measure to the development of Kenya’s commerce and industry, its legal and constitutional matters, its medical and educational fields, and its humanitarian agencies. It is in this wider context of Asian contribution to Kenya’s progress that this brief account presents the contribution of the Asian-African Parsis of Kenya from the late 1800s to the 21st Century.


‘…Despite society’s ability to capture the past through the electronic revolution we are all experiencing today, human intervention provides the vital link of the lived experience, the wisdom of yesterday and the reality of today…’
Mohammed M. Keshavjee member of the Steering Committee, World Mediation Forum.*

I am not a historian and this is not an attempt to write a historical account of the Parsi in Kenya. I have only tried in a small way to prevent ‘the future of the past stands in woeful danger of being lost’.


This is a ‘human intervention’ on a small scale to fill in a gap about a member of the Kenya Asian community, that I perceived when I visited the Asian Africans Heritage Trust exhibition in the National Museum Nairobi, in 2003. I hope this work gives a broader picture of the role various African Asian communities played in the growth and development of Kenya as an independent nation and continue to do so.


Without the recognition of the efforts and contribution of the Kenya Asians in the growth, from the laying of the railway line to the pre and post independence development of the country, history of Kenya would be incomplete.


*INDIAN CONNECTIOIN WITH KENYA AND INDIA'S CONTRIBUTION TOWARDS KENYA'S MODERNISATION. Prof. S.Bhanagar. Punjab University.

**Thanks to Shariffa Keshavjee of Nairobi Kenya for permission to quote Mohammed M. Keshavjee and Speke, from her work, ‘Bwana Mzuri.’

*** From Asian African Heritage Trust, Exhibition, National Museum, Nairobi, Kenya.


To Dara Patel in Canada thanks for his suggestions and material he provided. To Kul Bhuhsan, New Delhi, thanks for reading and guidance through the intricacies and technicalities of writing of which I had very little knowledge and towards which he gave considerable time.


To Burjor Avari, in England for reading and his guidance.
 To Sister Cecilia Commissariat, nee Nargis Commissariat, my aunt, who provided the bulk of information during long sessions and from all the letters, documents, and papers, she dug out from her old ‘sanduku,’ trunk, ‘asante sana’ many thanks.


Thanks also to Kalwant Ajimal for his consent and efforts to help with placing this work on blog.

Kersi Rustomji Australia August 2008


kersiru@gmail.com