The Punjabi British Indian African Diaspora

Rishi Sunak’s paternal grandfather was a British Indian African from Kenya.

His grandparents from mother’s side were British Indian African from Tanzania. Both of these grandparents had to leave Africa to UK in the 1970s so that Yashvir a doctor of Punjabi British Indian African Citizen originally migrated from Kenya met Usha a qualified pharmacist of Punjabi British indian African Citizen migrant from Tanzania at South Hampton of UK. These migrations are intimately related to a dream of a military dictator of Uganda.

East Africa: 1890

In those days East Africa included all the three states: Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania

The story of Indians ( Punjabi and Gujaratis) in East Africa is completely different from those in South Africa for whom Mahatma Gandhi had travelled to South Africa to practice Law. By 1890s the indian presence in Natal British colony outnumbered the White present.

In 1890, the Anti Slavery act was passed at the Brussels Conference. Britain was an important signatory in it.

Construction Of Ugandan Railway was outsourced to an Indian agent.

In August 1895, Britain started the construction of of the 1000 kms long Uganda-Kenya Rail line starting from the Great Lake of Victoria in Uganda ( Famous for the Origin of river Nile) to the port city of Mombasa in Kenya.

As they could no longer catch slaves from Africa, the work was outsourced to an agent, M/s A M Jeevanjee of Karachi. The agency outsourced all his work force from the Punjab. When the Construction of the rail line was over in 1903, many settled in the region thus creating an Indian diaspora in East Africa. Soon they would control 90% of wealth of these African nations. This enraged the native africans especially their Military Dictator Idi Amin.

Uganda :1972

Idi Amin the military dictator of Uganda wanted to usurp the assets of rich Asians. One fine morning, he expelled all asians with only a notice of 90 days, promptly confiscated their property and distributed it among his cronies. He would explain that this order had come to him in a dream on the previous night.

This led to an exodus of most of the Indians of East Africa to UK as many of them already had UK work permits and British Passport.

While the expulsion was initially popular among natives of Uganda, but the Ugandan natives were found to be incompetent. Soon mismanagement of these resources by inexperienced Ugandans resulted in economic catastrophe. This had led to the fall of Idi Amin in 1979.

By that time only 50 Asians remained in Uganda. At least 30,000 African Indians have relocated to UK.

To make a long story short…

Yashvir and Usha married and ran the Sunak Pharmacy, where Rishi Sunak would assist her mother in keeping accounts.

Truth be told, the British African Indian Community in UK is always smarter than the Indian diaspora from other Asian nations.

Why ?

I thought how can the Punjabis of East Africa be so different from Punjabis migrating from Asian nations.

It depends how big the Shark inside you.

How did the Japanese fish company made sure that the fish caught at the deep sea remains fresh in the tanks on board of their fishing ships till they reach shore?To keep the fish tasting fresh, the Japanese fishing companies added a small shark to the tanks that the fish were kept in. The shark of course eats a few fish, but it helps the rest of the fish stay kicking fresh.