The Indian or 'Muhindi' Contribution to Kenya

Indians are called 'Muhindis' throughout East Africa. This Swahili word means people of 'Hind' as the Arabs called India in ancient times. The Muhindis have visited and lived on the East African Coast even before the time of ancient Greece. These Cutchi sailors and Gujarati traders came to trade and some of them settled and opened shops. This meant they built their shops and homes and contributed to developing these ancient city states on this coast.

Since the British could not tempt Africans to work for money to build a railway line from Mombasa to Kisumu on Lake Victoria in the 1980s, they imported Indian labourers from Punjab. When the railway was finished, some decided to stay on and work for the railways or engage in crafts like carpentry, metalworking and masonry. The Gujaratis mostly set up shops in the new towns and the Punjabis worked as craftsmen. As top class masons, the Cutchis are the great builders of Kenya. The Goans were trusted clerks and cooks.

In all towns of Kenya one can still see the early urban development by these Indian pioneers who built their tin roofed shops and homes and gradually made them more permanent. As they flourished, they sent their children to school and later overseas, for higher education to lay the foundation of Indian professionals in medicine, law, accountancy, engineering, architecture and other professions.

After the first wave of Africanisation to give opportunities to Africans, the Muhindi shopkeepers emerged as small scale industrialists after mid-1960s when they were denied Trade Licenses to operate their shops. Hence they assisted in the industrialisation of Kenya with small industries that create more jobs than large overseas manufacturing units. So their contribution goes on..but let us start at the beginning.

Indian merchant mariners, Arab seafarers, Chinese sailors, among other ancient seafarers, 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 this coast.

Although historians have not widely highlighted these visitors and the flourishing trade, its evidence has been extensively found on the Coast known as Zeng or Zenj and deep inland as far as the ruins in Zimbabwe. The presence of Indians in East Africa is documented in the 'Periplus of the Erythrean Sea' or Guidebook of the Red Sea by an ancient Greek author written in 60 AD.

The Indian sea merchants from the west coast of India from the Gulf of Kutch, in their very seaworthy dhows (large wooden sea going ships, with a huge lateen sail) used the alternating monsoon winds. The North East monsoon winds brought these merchant sailors across the Indian Ocean 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, as it was called in those times to obtain incense, palm oil, myrrh, gold, copper, spices, ivory, rhino horn and wild animal skins. They sold cloth, metal implements, foodstuffs like wheat, rice, sesame oil, jaggery, porcelain and glassware, to name the main goods.

As time went by, some Indians settled on the East African Coast and set up their shops to buy and sell the cargoes of the dhows. The Indians have had very ancient connections not just with the East African coast line but also its interior. The more intrepid Indian 'nakhoda' or skippers, undertook caravan type foot safaris to the interior. Places as far inland as Uganda were known to them. They knew the Ruwenzories as Chandragiri Shekhar, Mountains of the Moon. They had knowledge of the great inland lake, Neel Sarover, Neel (Nile?) Lake, Lake Victoria, and even of the outlet that is the source of the Nile. Later, European explorers also encountered Indians settled in the interior and married to the local women.

Relics of Chinese pottery found in the ruins along Kenya and Tanganyika, now Tanzania coast, indicate that these were transhipped by the Indian merchant sailors who traded with China. These relics are also found in the great ruins of Zimbabwe. The Indians sold their wares to the Arab seafarers who also brought these to the East African coast. Thus the Indian connections are a long and an old thread in the history of the region. 

From the second to until the Eighth Century, no major changes took place at the Coast. With the rise of Islam, came the Arab rulers to this Coast who turned the coastal settlements into city states with the most important one being Zanzibar follwed by Mombasa, Pate, Malindi, Manda, Tanga and Kilifi. Using stone and coral, they built palaces and mosques to give an Islamic atmosphere to the Coast that endures to this day. The Indian traders were joined by some Arab traders in these city states that flourished undisturbed until the arrival of the Portuguese sailors, the most famous of them being Vasco da Gama.

It was an Indian sailor, Kahna, who guided Vasco da Gama to Cochin 'discover' India in 1498. da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope and sailed into Mombasa Harbour where he was met with a hostile Arab ruler and so he sailed up north to Malindi where he was welcomed by the local sultan and given Kahna who guided him across the Indian Ocean to Cochin.

It did not take long for the Portuguese to defeat the Arab rulers and establish their stronghold on the East African Coast as they did on India's west coast at Goa. In 1505, less than ten years after the first Portuguese first arrived on the Coast, Portugal decided to instal itself as the ruler of the Coast by sacking Mombasa and ruled for almost three centuries.

With the arrival of the various European powers in Africa, the British took control of the East African Coast from the Portuguese. The British first supported the Mazrui Governor who took over from the Portuguese and then tightened their hold on the Coast with various alliances with the Arab rulers. The establishment of the British along the East African Coast in Zanzibar, the old Tanganyika, and Kenya, the dhow trade from the Gulf and India flourished for a long time. Mombasa was a major trading port as well a point of entry for the long inland caravan type foot safaris to the hinterland. Many expeditions from India preceeded the 'scramble for Africa' by the  European powers, even before the Seventeenth Century.

John Hanning Speke, credited with 'the discovery' of the source of the River Nile, found a map in the Hindu epic 'Puranas' in Kolkata and he followed it to make his 'discovery' He published this map in the first edition of his journals showing how close it was to the real terrain but retracted it later when his contribution to exploration seemed to diminish in this light!

The major Indian influx in Kenya began when, in late the 1800s 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 manpower from its Raj in India. As a result, a large force of indentured Indian labour, artisans and other craftsmen were shipped to Mombasa to carry out the construction of the line. Early work for this construction began in Mombasa in 1895 and laying of the line commenced in 1896.

The Indians arrived in the dhows and then in the steamship services that commenced later. Upon the completion of the line in 1901, many Indian labourers and artisans settled in Kenya and Uganda. Here they established various trades and businesses in the field of their expertise. They also laid the foundation of trade and commerce by commencing to open small and large 'dukan,' general trading stores and shops, from which the Swahili language acquired the word 'duka,' a shop. The craftsmen among them started to provide the services of carpenters, masons, blacksmiths, among others. The Indian shops and homes with administration buildings, hospitals and schools made up the first towns in East Africa in the first half of the 20th Century. Gradually, their workshops evolved into small and light factories and industries to manufacture a variety of goods.

Before India gained its independence, Indians had also established their newspapers and started to campaign for 'One Man, One Vote' among other basic human rights. The Indian owned press and elected Indian leaders made a major contribution in ending the colonial rule in East Africa after the First World War.

As the government and civil services in these colonies expanded, another group of Indians arrived to fill in the many 'non-officer' posts in this field. This saw the arrival of Indians with higher qualifications and skills needed to fill posts in the civil service, immigration, education, and other public and private sectors such, medical, legal, judicial, banking, insurance, transport, construction, and other commercial enterprises.

Indians, labelled 'Asians' by the colonial government in Kenya to include Pakistanis after the partition of India, established themselves in various areas of the public and private sectors and played an important and a significant role in the economic development in trade, industry and services sectors. Politically, Asians demanded equal rights for all, especially 'One-man, one-vote' and thus assisted in the freedom struggle through the media they established and their leaders who advocated for independence in elected legislative assembly until Kenya became a free nation in 1962.

In 1968, over 60,000 Indians left Kenya to arrive in Britain in what has been named as 'The Asian Exodus' that occurred after the non-citizen Indians were denied Trade Licences and Work Permits to provide opportunities for Africans. But others - mostly Kenya Citizens - stayed and prospered. The Asians have contributed in a large measure to the development of Kenya's industry and services sectors. The Muhindis are an integral part of Kenya.

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