Sikh Heritage in East Africa - Five Parts

Nick,

Great read. I picked up a few words in Swahili while in Tanzinia on safari. I've used them a few times with Indians in London with amazing results. After independance it seems that many British indians moved to England. My PH, a British South African tipped me to that...

Thanks again for your excellent postings.

Best regards;
Brett

Nickudu,

It was two wars in the Punjab and in Nepal that convinced the British that it would be better to have two communities on their side than to fight them, one being the Sikhs from the Punjab and the Hindu Gorkhas from Nepal. As a matter of fact, in 1857, it was a combined British-SIkh army that wiped out a huge army led by three Hindu chieftains who wanted to make the Mughal Bahadur Shah Zafar emperor of undivided India.

Not only did the Sikhs fight in the British army in different parts of the world, they also worked on projects like the rail projects in Africa. They were accompanied by Gujaratis, Goans and Telugu Indians, all of whom added to the huge Indian diaspora at the time. Many of them stayed back after the British Empire fell apart and we even have Harpreet and Mohanjeet Brar who post here and are Sikhs and PHs.

Thank you very much for this very informative post as always. My wife is a Sikh and it has been especially interesting for her to read it as she is only now beginning to shoot and hunt.

Good hunting!

Glad you enjoyed it Brett!

Mehul - Thank you for the insights, my friend.

India - Surely there is too much there for one mind to know.

Many Indians left Kenya and other East African countries and emigrated to England when they were kicked out in the 50's and 60's.
Peter.

Nick,

One of the jokes about the university system in India is that there are always very few if any applicants for the history courses because Indian history is as complicated as it is. The country's culture with 13 major languages, 800 minor ones and more than 1000 dialects based on these makes it even worse.

Peter,

Indians were expelled from Uganda by the Idi Amin regime, not from Kenya or other parts of East Africa. Recently the Ugandan government restored their properties with interest for the years they were forced to live outside. I have cousins in Kenya, Tanzania and Sudan, and they were born there as were their parents. There are many Indians in other African countries as well.

Cheers!