Abstract
Aiyar’s book is a thorough trip through the history of Indians in Kenya, and it emphasizes, above all, the contradictory position of Indians in the country from the 1890s until the 1960s. From the colonial until the early post-independence period, Indians were largely caught between rulers and subjects/citizens in ways that produced contradictory and unique politics. The basis of the contradictory politics of Indians in Kenya ultimately came from a combination of race and class: Indians came to Kenya in large numbers during British colonialism, both as indentured servants and as administrative and economic middle classes. But because many Indians worked as part of the British colonial administration, they came to be identified with colonialism itself. Aiyar argues that many Indians reinforced their distinction from Africans and fought hard against being classified into a racial category with Africans under the British authority. In this sense, it mirrors Gandhi’s struggle in South Africa, where he too struggled to separate Indians from being classified with Africans. By the 20th century, many more Europeans had come to Kenya as well, and by World War I the racialized hierarchy was entrenched to give direct electoral representation and economic benefits (access to Kenya’s fertile agricultural highlands) to Europeans alone. Indians were given limited political representation and economic rights, while being excluded from Kenya’s most fertile land. This relatively privileged position was fought for by Indians, who continued to see themselves as distinct from Africans who had severely limited political rights, and whose economic possibilities were limited to working in export farms or developing their land to encourage the growth of the money economy. The repeated circular migration and travel to India from Kenya was crucial in maintaining a feeling of separateness from Africans, Aiyar argues. Additionally, the evoking of discourses that tied Indian Kenyans to Kenya territorially, but civilizationally to India, further entrenched the middle ground position Indians held between British colonialism and Africans.
The contradiction here was, of course, that Indians too were colonized people. This came to a head in the post-World War II period; India achieved independence in 1947, and this put Indians in Kenya in an awkward position. Some began to support immediate independence for Kenya, while other Indians argued for a gradual approach. In any case, the long-established contradictory politics did produce racial solidarity rather than just a push toward distinction, especially after Indian independence. The high point of solidarity between Africans and Indians, Aiyar writes, was the mass meeting of 20,000 people in Nairobi in April of 1950, which demanded immediate independence from the British Empire and was attended by Africans and Indians alike. This moment of solidarity, though, quickly unraveled with the outbreak of the Mau Mau rebellion in 1952. The radical nature and violence of the rebellion made many Indians wary, especially those who hoped to replicate the Indian independence movement in Kenya.
When Kenya did finally achieve independence in 1963, Indians continued to experience and project a contradictory politics, Aiyar argues. Because Indians in Kenya were associated with the British administration and also with middle class wealth as shopkeepers and professionals, they came under attack from and fought against the attempts of independent Kenya to deracialize businesses and to reduce inequality. When it became clear that independence was not going to immediately and easily lead to the rapid bettering of life for the average Kenyan, the state began to turn toward a heavily racialized nationalist discourse that made clear Indians would be subordinated to the ‘true’ Kenyans. This in turn resulted in a voluntary exodus of many Indians from Kenya in the post-independence period as the state began to focus on building a Black African middle class.
From the beginnings of colonialism and the association with sub-imperialist colonization through the post-independence period, both the politics impacting and being articulated by Indians in Kenya were contradictory. According to Aiyar’s account, the paradoxical and contradictory politics of these Indians were rooted not only in the colonial history of the British Empire but also in the civilizational attachment to India and the territorial attachment to Kenya. The politics of Black Africans and Indians in Kenya, while joining together at certain periods, also served to consistently reinforce difference across the period Aiyar examines.
Aiyar begins her book with the attack on the Westgate Mall in Kenya in 2013, noting that one-third of the stores in the mall were owned by Indians, the security forces were Indian, and that the hospitals the victims were brought too were named after prominent Indians. Aiyar’s book starts with this, but it really comes alive after reading her historical account. The legacies of British colonialism and the politics articulated by the different racialized groups in Kenya since then root the conflicts of the present in the contradictory politics of the past. For this reason, the book will be of interest not only to those studying colonialism and independence but also the historical foundations of modern African politics and, most importantly, race.