What were the main reasons for the Asian community not returning to India after the completion of constructing the Uganda Railway?
Plan Of Investigation
The essay “What were the main reasons for the Asian community not returning to India after the completion of constructing the Uganda Railway?” Analyzes the main reasons for the Asian community not returning to India after the completion of constructing the Uganda Railway.
After this analysis we will come to know why some Asians did not go back to their homeland but chose to stay in Uganda after building the railway. It will also help us know how they have lived and what has been their impact on Uganda.
The railway started being constructed in 1896 and was completed by 1901. It stretched from Mombasa crossing Kisumu on the Eastern shore of Lake Victoria then from there it reached port bell and finally Kampala.
For this essay research from different historical books were used as the main source and oral interviews from witnesses who were assumed to have knowledge about the Asian history in East Africa but particularly in Uganda.
Summary Of Evidence.
The idea to construct the railway was started by the Imperial British East African Company under Captain J.R.L MacDonald and Engineer Sir George White house. The purpose of the construction of the railway was to link Uganda to the coast in order to mainly; Ease the transportation of colonial administrators and troops through the British colonies and to protect the British colonial interests in Egypt, Uganda and Kenya.
When the construction was completed, out of the 31,983 Indian workers who had come to east Africa to work on the railway, 2,493 died while 6,454 were invalided back home, notes J.S Mangat in ‘A History of the Asians in ...
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... ‘settled strangers’. They now belong to a jet set of business class who have lived in East Africa for three generations or more, belonging to the “higher middle class up to the national elite”. And while the different branches of a family may now be locally embedded wherever they are, their primary loyalty is to the family and the company.
Indians such as Kalidas Mehta and the Madhvani family are well known Asians who have contributed immensely to the economy. For example one company alone, the Madhvani Group, accounted for 12% of Uganda’s national output, and many others have excelled. The number of the Ugandan Asians on the rich list is sizeable; Sudhir Ruperelia for example is the wealthiest Asian industrialist in Uganda today. Their settlement should then be considered a positive rather than a negative impact on East Africa and Uganda in particular.
Purpose: The railroad was originally made to make to the traveling of goods and people faster and more efficient. In that respect, it has easily fulfilled the goals originally set for it.
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. No. 3 (1965): 524-540. http://www.jstor.org/stable/612097 (accessed December 1, 2013).
Mazrui, Ali A. "The Re-Invention of Africa: Edward Said, V. Y. Mudimbe, and Beyond." Research in African Literatures 36, no. 3 (Autumn 2005): 68-82.
The growth of the railroads would then lead to the improvement of the transportation networks. Moreover, it was obvious that the railroad system would be a large structural, engineering and financial feat and given Canada was not in the best position to afford such a system, “the promoters [of the railway, therefore] turned to Britain” and the United States for help in funding the railway system (including the Grand Trunk Railway and the Victoria Bridge). Given Canada’s economy was not strong enough to fund the entire railway system, they scrambled for capital to finance it and politicians also passed laws that guaranteed companies who invested in them would be funded.
Railroads were America’s first big business and contributed a great deal towards advancing industrialization. Beginning in the early 1870's, railroad construction in the United States expanded substantially. Before the year 1871, approximately fourty-five thousand miles of track had been laid. Up until the 1900's another one-hundred and seventy thousand miles were added to the nation's growing railroad system. This growth came about due to the erection of transcontinental railroads. Railroads supplied cities and towns with food, fuel, materials, and access to markets. The railroad system made way for an economic prosperity. The railroad system helped to build the physical growth of cities and towns. It even became another means of communication. Most importantly, it helped to produce a second
The Transcontinental Railroad was the largest project the United States had ever seen. Due to lack of technology, the enormous size of the project, and the environmental conditions, the railroad seemed to be an impossible task. This construction project posed a huge challenge to those working on it. The railroad’s route would span nearly seven hundred miles into desert and unexplored country. People had never traveled so far west before and there were no established cities there. Workers had to set up camps that were often disorganized and filled with crime. The railroad would pass through mountain ranges at extremely high elevations. Workers would blast through the granite of the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountain ranges, making only inches of progress everyday. Hunters used railroad lines to hunt buffalo, which was the main source of Native American food at the time. Between 1875 and 1885, northern and southern buffalo herds had been wiped out. Native Americans became upset when railroad companies seized their land. This resulted in many attacks on construction crews and the deaths of many engineers. When the workers weren't at work or asleep, they were at war with local tribes. Many workers kept loaded rifles at hand in the case of an Indian attack. The crews kept on working though, and by 1869 were laying track at an impressive rate How...
Railroads first appeared around the 1830’s, and helped the ideas of Manifest Destiny and Westward expansion; however, these were weak and didn’t connect as far as people needed, thus causing them to be forced to take more dangerous routes. On January 17th, 1848, a proposal was sent to Congress by Asa Whitney to approve and provide federal funding...
Raffaele, Paul. "Uganda: The Horror." Smithsonian (Vol. 35, No. 11). Feb. 2005: 90-99. SIRS Issues
New African Vol. 1.492 (2010): 14. History Reference Center -. 2010 - EBSCO Industries, Inc. Web.
Having said that, many Ugandans would today accept that their country had at some stage to be brought into contact with the modern world, and even that they were comparatively lucky in being colonised by the British rather than by, for instance, the Belgians whose brutal rule in the Congo was far crueller than that of the British Protectorate in Uganda. Moreover, the fact that the arrival of the British in Uganda was not accompanied by the theft of African land for white farmers - as it was in Zimbabwe or Kenya - meant that some of the bitterness and resentment felt about European rule in some African countries was not a feature in Uganda. So race relations, even today, are more relaxed in Uganda than in many parts of the Continent.
Europeans arrived to Africa and started the colonization in the late 19th century. Along with Christianity, the Europeans left a major impact on the social and cultural life of Africa. Chinua Achebe’s Arrow of God, James Ngugi’s A Grain of Wheat, and Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions help readers understand the life of Africans pre-colonial and post-colonial.
Khapoya, Vincent B. The African Experience: An Introduction. 4th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1998. Print.
In conclusion, the book was mostly about the struggle of the Senegal people and how they were being treated unfairly by the railroad companies. People have gone through series of unfortunate events to get to the freedom necessary for life. In this book the people’s need for change conflicted with the management’s desire for unequal rights to continue. Greed had led them to think like this, but the people prevail against all odd so they find independence from oppression.
BOSE, Sugata and JALAL Ayesha. Modern South Asia: history, culture, political economy. London, Routledge, 2011
There is no doubt that European colonialism has left a grave impact on Africa. Many of Africa’s current and recent issues can trace their roots back to the poor decisions made during the European colonial era. Some good has resulted however, like modern medicine, education, and infrastructure. Africa’s history and culture have also been transformed. It will take many years for the scars left by colonization to fade, but some things may never truly disappear. The fate of the continent may be unclear, but its past provides us with information on why the present is the way it is.