South Asians in East Africa, 1800-2000: An entrepreneurial minority caught in a 'Catch-22'

Abstract

This paper focuses on the ambivalent relationships between entrepreneurial minorities and the state and its representatives. On the one hand, the (colonial) state encouraged entrepreneurial minorities to settle in its territories in return for tax exemptions, religious freedom and security. In turn, the minorities would provide the rulers with credit, financial services and pay tax. On the other hand, the minorities realized that their personal security and properties would always be at stake; rulers could change their minds and favour other communities or the rulers could themselves be displaced. The case of the South Asians in East Africa presents an illuminating example of continuity and discontinuity in the process of the inclusion and exclusion of entrepreneurial minorities in wider society.