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From Kings Cross to Kew: Following the History of Zambia's Indian Community through British Imperial Archives

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 May 2014

Joan M. Haig
Joan M. Haig*
Affiliation:
Centre of African Studies, University of Edinburgh
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Extract

In the summer months of 2005 I traveled to London for the purpose of carrying out archival research in the Oriental and India Office Collection (OIOC) of the British Library at Kings Cross. My aim was to document the history of Indian immigration to the former British protectorate of Northern Rhodesia (present-day Zambia), about which very little has been published. The OIOC contains a vast amount of material relating to Asia and Africa—reportedly some 14 kilometers of shelving—including the India Office Records (IOR) and its key manuscripts detailing Indians' migration to British Central Africa.

Indians' arrival into Northern Rhodesian territory can be traced in these archives to 1905, and I was interested in the period from then until the independence of the country in 1964. The information held in the IOR is partic ularly rich: because the India Office acted as an intermediary among the Colonial Office in London, the Governor's Office in Northern Rhodesia, and the Government of India in New Delhi, the records bring together and represent the concerns of all the official actors. However, when India achieved sovereignty in 1947 the doors of the India Office closed and matters relating to the Indian diaspora were transferred to the Commonwealth Relations Office and the Dominion and Colonial Offices, whose interests were empire-wide. These sets of files are presently held in the National Archives at Kew.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 34 , 2007 , pp. 55 - 66
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2007

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References

1 I would like to thank Marion Wallace at the British Library, and Paul Nugent, Jimmy Kennedy, and Lawrence Dritsas at the University of Edinburgh for their comments.

2 The OIOC resulted from the union in 1991 of two British Library departments—the Oriental Collections and the India Office Library and Records. Geber, J., “Southern African Sources in the Oriental and India Office Collections of the British Library,” African Research and Documentation 10(1996), 2, and India Office Records, www.bl.uk/collections/orientaloffice.htmlGoogle Scholar

3 British Central Africa refers to the territories of Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia, and Nyasaland. Up until 1911 Northern Rhodesia was governed by the British South Africa Company and divided into two administrations: Northeastern Rhodesia (governed from Fort Jameson) and Northwestern Rhodesia (from Livingstone). In 1924 it became a British protectorate and it was not until 1934 that Lusaka was made the capital city.

4 India Office Records: History and Scope, www.bl.uk/collections/iorgenrl.html

5 Geber, , “Southern African Sources,” 11Google Scholar.

6 Files on indentured labor in the IOR include those situated in: B, L/P&J/2, and E/2. See also Thomas, Timothy, Indians Overseas: a Guide to the Source Materials in the India Office Records for the Study of Indian Emigration, 1830-1950 (London, 1985)Google Scholar.

7 This objection is recorded even those cases when the Passengers had been summoned by colonials to fill a niche in certain trades. See Gann, Lewis, The Birth of a Plural Society: the development of Northern Rhodesia under the British South Africa Company 1894-1914 (Manchester, 1958), 154Google Scholar.

8 Thomas, , Indians Overseas, 6Google Scholar; also West, Michael, “Indians, India, and Race and Nationalism in British Central Africa” South Asia Bulletin 14(1985), 86Google Scholar.

9 This assumption can be seen in Geber, , “Southern African Sources,” 11Google Scholar; Gann, Birth, 179; and Phiri, B., A History of Indians in Eastern Province of Zambia (Lusaka, 2000), 4Google Scholar.

10 In 1911 there were only 39 Indians in Northern Rhodesia. Gann, , Birth, 155Google Scholar. The rate of increase was slow; by 1925 there were 60 Indians in the territory. Compare this to Kenya, whose Indian population in 1921 was 30,000, outnumbering whites by 3:1. See 20/07/1921: Third Report of the Standing Joint Committee of Indian Affairs, IOR Archives, L/E/7/1227 File 1469/1921.

11 West, , “Indians,” 86Google Scholar.

12 Thomas's 30-page index does not include Northern Rhodesia, Southern Rhodesia, Nyasaland, or Central Africa. To some extent this reflects the material contained in the archives (and is a measure of its importance to Britain at the time): for example, there are 13 pages listing “Official Publications (Parliamentary Papers, 1801-1943)” and “Reports of Indians Overseas and Emigration”, none of which pertain directly to Northern Rhodesia. Thomas, , Indians Overseas, 301–31, 73–86Google Scholar. Geber's list of countries relevant to Indian emigration excludes central Africa altogether, “Southern African Sources,” 2.

13 IOR files documenting this include L/E/8 and L/P&J/8.

14 Thomas, , Indians Overseas, 33Google Scholar.

15 Geber, , “Southern African Sources,” 10Google Scholar.

16 30/11/38, Legislative Assembly, Question No. 1649 by Seth Govind Das. IOR Archives, L/P&J/8/334 Collection 108/40B.

17 22/05/45, Letter to India Office from R.N. Banerjee, Secretary to Government of India Department of Commonwealth Relations, L/P&J/8/334 Collection 108/40B.

18 Ibid.

19 14/07/45, Letter from Colonial Office (Turnbull) to India Office (Gilchrist), L/P&J/8/334 Collection 108/40B.

20 26/07/45, Handwritten letter from India Office to Colonial Office, and 01/08/45, Letter from Mr. Turnbull, Colonial Office, circulated around India Office, L/P&J/8/334 Collection 108/40B.

21 04/10/45, Letter to India Office (Gibson) from Colonial Office (Cohen), L/P&J/8/334 Collection 108/40B

22 Dotson, Floyd and Dotson, Lillian, The Indian Minority of Zambia, Rhodesia and Nyasaland (London, 1968), 49Google Scholar.

23 McCracken, John, “Economics and Ethnicity: the Italian Community in Malawi,” JAH 32(1991), 313–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 This has been suggested by Swanson, Maynard, “Review of B. Pachai, The South African Indian Question,” IJAHS 6(1973), 141Google Scholar, and Dotson/Dotson, Indian Minority.

25 Geber, “Southern African Sources”

26 The National Archives was opened in April 2003, bringing together the Public Record Office (which had previously held the Colonial Office files) and the Historical Manuscripts Commission. Many of these files were “closed” under government sanction until the 1990s.

27 Geber, , “Southern African Sources,” 10Google Scholar.

28 Moir, M., “A General Guide to the IOR,” (IOR Lists 1a), (London, 1988), 60Google Scholar.

29 However, the drafts and annotations of internal and external memos of the Colonial Office fill in and so augment the narratives of the India Office years.

30 “Seminar on Indians Abroad: Asia and Africa,” Africa Quarterly 9(1970), 4–14Google Scholar.

31 Brief for Minister of State at Discussion with Mr. Krishna Menon, National Archives, CO1015/501.

32 16/08/1948, Letter from High Commissioner for India, London, to Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, IOR Archives, L/P&J/8/335 Collection 108/40C.

33 Phiri, , History, 28Google Scholar.

34 Central African Territories: Geographical, Historical and Economic Survey, Parliamentary Report, 06 1951, London; Dotson/Dotson, Indian Minority, 51Google Scholar. In Nyasaland the Indians outnumbered whites by 4:5. Note also that this figure includes Pakistanis, who continued to be referred to as Indians after Partition in 1947. The National Archives had no available files on Pakistanis in Northern Rhodesia at this time.

35 12/07/53, Extract from letter to Commonwealth Relations Office, National Archives, CO1015/501. For other explanations, see Barber, William J., “The Political Economy of Central Africa's Experiment with Inter-Racial Partnership,” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science 24(1959), 326Google Scholar

36 21/08/53, Inward Telegram to Commonwealth Relations Office from British High Commissioner in India (Acting), National Archives, CO1015/505

37 Heimsath, Charles and Mansingh, Surjit, A Diplomatic History of Modern India (Bombay, 1971), 302Google Scholar.

38 West, , “Indians,” 92Google Scholar.

39 Inter-Territorial Movement of Persons (Control) Ordinance, Northern Rhodesia, National Archives, CO1015/1256

40 07/11/57, Extract from Northern Rhodesian Hansard, National Archives, CO1015/1256

41 Quoted in Thomas, , Indians Overseas, 1Google Scholar.

42 Personal correspondence with the office of the Director General of Archives, National Archives of India, Janpath, New Delhi, Ref: F.No.11-20/2005 R-III, 22/08/05. Further, the OIOC contains the first of three volumes on African sources in the National Archives of India. See Tirmizi, S.A., Indian Sources for African History (Delhi, 1988)Google Scholar

43 For example, see Papers of the Rt. Hon. Sir Roy Welensky KCMG 1907-1991 in Rhodes House Library, Oxford.

44 Robinson, Ronald, Gallagher, John, and Denny, Alice, Africa and the Victorians: the Official Mind of Imperialism (2d ed.: London, 1981), 19–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

45 Ibid., 21.

46 L/E/7/1332, File 763/1924, “Indians in Northern Rhodesia”.