Uganda - a lesson for the East Africans and the Asians?

The British brought families of Indians, many Gujaratis, to Uganda in the 1870s. Under the Empire, they were British subjects and the first generation would build the railway. Further generations would go on to become the backbone of East Africa's trade and industry. In the early 1970s, forming just 1% of the total population of Uganda, the British Asians were responsible for 66% of the country's economy.

But, the events of January 1972 would go on to change their lives. On one morning during the 1972 coup overthrowing Milton Obote's government, a then unidentified voice purporting to be the leader of the Ugandan army announced on the national radio that the country was now under military control. At first, General Idi Amin and his troops were welcomed. But soon the new leader made his intentions clear. He announced his decision to expel all Asians of British nationality living in Uganda, who, according to him, were "sabotaging the economy of Uganda". He required all Asians to leave the country within 90 days, leaving all their possessions and wealth in Uganda. General Amin's intention was to prove to the indigenous people that he could balance the country's books, leading to the nationalisation of huge local industries. By ordering the expulsion of the economically dominant Asians, this became easy for him. A century of wealth and establishment was eradicated in a few months. Generations of an intelligent and industrious community became refugees in those 90 days.

Many British Asians remember those harrowing days of 1972. They were the most frightening days of many Asians' lives. Everybody had guns, anyone could turn up at your step to demand jewellery, money and other assets. Army soldiers threatened to rape Asian girls and shoot on sight Asian boys. There was no question of getting a good night's sleep. Army trucks would relentlessly patrol the streets enforcing curfews against the Asians. In fact, there are some families that have literally vanished, no one having heard anything of them since those days. To the locals, fuelled by Amin's propaganda at the time that the Asians had an agenda to convert Kampala and Entebbe into the "Bombays" of East Africa, the Asian exodus could only benefit land which had always been their's. The Imperialists and their agents (the Asians) were finally being kicked out.

But against the odds, almost 40 years later, British Asians seem to be re-asserting themselves in Uganda. Case in point - the Madhvani family. Back in the 1970s, the Madhvanis employed over 10,000 locals in their industries ranging from sugar to steel. Within 7 years of their expulsion, the Madhvanis began returning from Britain to rebuild their businesses, and today, are stronger than ever. Today the Madhvani empire is vast, including tourism, construction, hospitality and sugar. Even in 1972, the Madhvanis were formidable industrialists. At the time, they contributed about 15% of Uganda's GDP.

Kakira Sugar, part of the Madhvani's immense business interests, is a popular brand in Uganda. In a recent interview with BBC reporter Vishwa Samani, Ronnie Madhvani, one of the family's younger generation, explains his belief that the benefits of the Madhvani's business model are far reaching, as they give back to local farmers and producers. He claims that they (the Madhvanis) play major roles in sustaining local communities where they run their sugar plantations. Ronnie's attitude to Uganda is complicated - on the one hand it seems to be the country where he can have the quality of life he wants, with a stunning mansion on a scenic Kampalan hill top, removed from the reality of life in Kampala's slums; and on the other, the opportunities for integrating with local Ugandans appear rare.

Many local Ugandans are, nowadays, candid about the re-emerging Asian community. Have you heard about the running joke amongst locals - the one where the reason why Indians cannot play soccer is because if they are about to score a goal, they look at the goal post and decide to set up shop there! So, is there a growing sense of resentment amongst today's generation of local indigenous Ugandans against the Asians?

Vishwa Samani's interview is illuminating. In her report, she describes how some Ugandans are actually respectful of the Asians' drive but sometimes frustrated with the lack of ambition in their fellow people. But, as part of her report, Samani also speaks to Mayur Madhvani, one of the older members of the industrial family, about his thoughts on the role of Asians in Uganda's economy today. When Samani visits the Kakira Sugar factory in Jinja to meet Mayur, she lands upon a factory worker's strike, policed by heavily armed officers, and driven by demands for higher pay. The anger from the workers and the forecful response by Kakira's management (police officers, tear gas etc.), explains Samani, seems very much at odds with Ronnie Madhvani's description of the collaborative working relationship between British Asians and Ugandans.

Leaving the strike aside, when asked of his connection with Uganda, Mayur Madhvani articulates what, I think, many East Africans feel. Mayur is very open about his identity - Uganda is his home, he was born in Kakira. For him, he is a foreigner in India, and even though he studied in Britain, it was just that for him - the country where he studied. Like many young members of large, successful East African Asian families, Mayur returned to Uganda to join the thriving business. But what is really key is Mayur's thoughts on the prospect of another expulsion. His thoughts on this, as described to Samani, are that the world has matured, and that nationalisation, certainly in East Africa will probably not happen to the scale seen in the Amin days. He claims that the East Africans have learnt their lessons from the aftermath that followed Amin's brash decisions; after all - it was they who suffered even more under the hands of tyrants such as Amin. Mayur's responses are indicative of how many East African Asians feel connected to the region. Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania are "home" for these families - India is just as foreign as Timbuktu!

But is there a case for arguing that the presence and dominance of the East African Asians benefits the locals? Most indigenous East Africans have realised that their problems (rising fuel prices, crippling infrastructure and underlying poverty) cannot be attributed to the Asians. The problem, in reality, lies with the administration of the region, namely widespread and deep-rooted graft and apathy.

As with all things, it depends on who you speak to. In Samani's report, she speaks to Andrew Rugasira, the founder of Good African Coffee, a company that takes fair trade coffee from the Western Ugandan town of Kasese to Ugandan, British and American retailers. Rugasira is clearly one of the foremost indigenous Ugandan businessmen operating in the country today. His take on Amin's expulsion of the Asians is somewhat different and measured. His analysis of the situation is deeper. Yes, at the time, there was a direct loss of commercial networks and trade, but the Amin regime negatively impacted any opportunities for the indigenous classes. The fact that the commercial space was cleared as a result of the expulsion meant that there was then room for a small group of indigenous businessmen to take over. Asked whether he thinks that Asian businessmen in Uganda hold back indigenous Ugandans from making some headway in commerce, his thoughts are qualified. Whereas Rugasira does not believe that the Asians hold back the Ugandans in a conscious way, he does note that their sheer size and dominance in business can indeed hold back local people from growing. He explains that Asians are able to share experiences, technology and suppliers through their community, thereby giving them a competitive edge. This means that an indigenous aspirant might not have that capacity and therefore finds himself in difficulty. Rugasira does not feel that there is resentment from the locals but that there is perhaps some concern in respect of the unfair advantage.

At the end of the day, if anything, both the East Africans and the Asians will have learnt (one hopes!) from the harrowing days of the Amin regime, and will develop a socio-economic consciousness that will genuinely include the interests of each other. Time only can tell whether lessons have indeed been learnt...or not.

The etiquette of email

In these days of email, texts and instant messaging, I am not alone, I feel sure, in mourning the demise of the old fashioned hand written letter. Exchanges of letters capture nuances of shared thoughts and feelings to which their electronic replacements simply cannot do justice.  Here is an example I recently came across in recently discovered old school notes from back when I was a boarder at Sevenoaks School in Kent:

In July 1940, with Britain at war, the English writer Virginia Woolf published a biography of the artist Roger Fry, champion of post-impressionism and a leading member of the Bloomsbury Group (a group of writers, intellectuals and philosophers who held informal discussions in Bloomsbury in the 20th century). The timing could hardly have been any worse. Fry's reputation was that of an ivory tower liberal, who believed that art inhabited a self contained, formal space, remote from the hostile world.  As France fell to Hitler's troops, and German planes pounded the south coast of England with increasingly powerful air raids, such artistic idealism seemed at best out of touch, and at worst, completely irrelevant. 

Most of Woolf's friends were politely positive about the book.  But in early August 1940 she received a letter from Ben Nicholson, the 26 year old art critic son of her close friend, Vita Sackville-West.  Nicholson was, at the time, serving in the British army in Kent, defending the country in the World War II from the German bombers. Nicholson attacked the adulatory tone of Woolf's biography and accused Fry of failing to engage with the realities of the war time years:

I am so struck by the fool's paradise in which he (Fry) and his friends lived. He shut himself out from all disagreeable actualities and allowed the spirit of Nazism to grow without taking any steps to check it.

Woolf's answering letter did not mince words:

Lord! Roger? Shut himself out from disagreeable activities, did he? What can you mean? Didn't he spend half his life travelling around England with masses of people who'd never looked at a picture and making them see what he saw, and wasn't that the best of way of checking Nazism?!

Stunned by Woolf's condescending tone, and unpersuaded by her argument, Nicholson wrote again, criticising Fry and the Bloomsbury Group in yet stronger terms.  This time, Woolf took his comments personally and drafted a lengthy reply in which she turned Nicholson's attack on Fry and herself back on him - Nicholson's own chosen career of art critic was hardly more engaged:

I suppose I'm being obtuse, but I cannot find your answer in your letter - how it is that you are going to change the attitudes of the masses by remaining an art critic!

Reading over her letter, Woolf thought better of her stern tone, and did not send the letter. Instead she re-wrote it in more measured terms, moderating her sharp remarks with an opening apology:

I think it's extraordinarily nice of you to write to me. I hope I didn't annoy you by what I said. It's very difficult when one writes letters in a hurry (as I always do) not to make them sound abrupt.

It is this second version of the letter that Woolf despatched, and which evidently satisfied its recipient, who called a truce on their differing views of Fry's influence and reputation.

Two things strike me from this exchange. The first is the simple good manners that both correspondents exercise in the way they address one another, in spite of the real, keenly felt differences of opinion. The second is the strikingly different outcome arrived at because Virginia Woolf restrained herself from despatching her first draft reply and carefully modified it so as not to hurt the feelings of the young man, a family friend, very much younger and less experienced than herself.

I have presented this exchange for a purpose.  In it, Woolf, using established letter writing conventions, takes advantage of the time lapses between exchanges, to recuperate, clarify and recast the argument. In doing so, she manages to take control of the argument. 

How unlike the rapid firing off and counter-fire of email messages today, in which many of us find ourselves engaged nowadays! In my profession (the law), the written word is paramount.  I have not had a client who writes to me with "Dear Paras" or "Yours sincerely".  In fact, there is just one client (who himself is old enough to remember the Second World War) who sticks to traditional letter writing conventions in his emails to me.  

Yet, if I try to answer a brashly written email from my client, the reply that follows will be couched in very different terms. It will be prefixed by the kind of placatory remark Woolf used in responding to Nicholson: "I did not mean to imply criticism" or "I hope you did not think me rude".  It is as if between the first and second response, I have become a person, a natural recipient of the communication, rather than an impersonal postbox - so, the courtesy and simple good manners of more old-fashioned letter form are restored to our correspondence.

The most dramatic feature of electronic communication is surely its propensity to tempt us into dashing off a response in haste, that we repent later at leisure.  As the emails ping in to our inbox, we answer them helter-skelter and breathlessly, without understanding the nuances in our tone.  As a consequence, misunderstandings often arise.

Today's electronic forms of communication may lack emotional depth, but they do allow us to connect more speedily and efficiently than "snail mail".  Still when we take advantage of them, we ought to always heed Woolf's warning - never to write carelessly, and if we can at least count to 10 and read over what we have written before we press "Send".

So...you think you're a vegetarian?

After a hiatus of a few months, this blog is back in action - partly due to the encouragement received from some of you readers out there who have sent me several messages to get writing again! A warm "thank you" to you - you know who you are!

A very close friend recently sent me an excerpt from Rujuta Diwekar's book "Don't lose your mind, lose your weight". For the uninitiated, Diwekar describes herself as India's pre-eminent fitness professional. And perhaps she might just be right - after all she boasts a clientele comprising Anil Ambani, Kareena Kapoor, Saif Ali Khan, Konkona Sen Sharma and Preity Zinta.  So her advice must be worth the £s and $s!

Reading Diwekar's excerpt got me thinking about why being a vegetarian is so important to me.

Now, I should clarify at this stage that my choice to be a vegetarian is purely personal.  I have no problems with eating my vegetarian meal at a restaurant table with other diners consuming non-vegetarian delicacies.  My vegetarianism extends to me and my home only. 

Why am I a vegetarian, you might ask?

The simple answer is that for me it feels right. I grew up in a vegetarian household where meat (eggs are an exception!) is generally barred. However, that has not precluded anyone from enjoying the delicious seafood or nyama choma offerings of Mombasa.  Case in point - my father has always enjoyed and continues to enjoy seafood and other non-vegetarian food, but of course, outside the home.  That is his choice, which we all respect, just as I would respect anyone else's desire to enjoy non-vegetarian food at a place other than my home.  

As for me, it has, throughout my teenage years and beyond, always remained open for me to enjoy non-vegetarian delicacies.  But I have chosen not to. Why? It is due to my predisposed inclination to attempt the practice of reduced himsa (note the use of the word "attempt" - it will take a lifetime to convert that attempt into an achievement!) so as to progress towards ahimsa.  

Ahimsa, as some of you will know, is the concept of non violence, popularised by Mahatma Gandhi in the early 20th century. Of course, ahimsa has been known to originate from pre-historic sources and is a key tenet of Jainism.  But, ahimsa, if it is to be relevant today needs to be redefined, I think.  My point is this - you cannot proclaim yourself to be a practitioner of ahimsa in its totality - one can only be an aspiring student of reduced himsa.  Note the difference.

I was brought up in a moderately Jain family, but let it be clear that my desire to remain vegetarian is far from anything to do with Jainism.  Nor is it related to my East African Gujarati identity. You see, it is more to do with Gandhi's impressions on me at what I can only call the formative years of my adulthood.  At age 14, I read Gandhi's autobiography (The Story of My Experiments with Truth), the encouragement for which I have only one person to thank - Jyotiben Master.  Although I do not believe that all of Gandhi's principles are relevant in today's socio-political forum, I do think that, for me, ahimsa (as defined above - reduced himsa) through vegetarianism can be relevant and is achievable. 

So there you have them- my reasons for being vegetarian.  If they appear to be incomprehensible or irrational, then I urge you to read Gandhi's autobiography.  It best encapsulates the subtleties and emotions of being a vegetarian and you will hopefully then begin to understand why being vegetarian can, to another person, "feel right". (Just for the record in case you are wondering - I'm not a PETA activitist - they have their own mainstream agenda, which I cannot and do not subscribe to, in its entirety.) (Oh - and also please spare me the argument of why I continue to eat plants if I'm so concerned about being "compassionate to all living beings!" Let's be real here - plants are at the bottom of the food chain and being vegetarian is an attempt to, as I describe above, achieve reduced himsa. So, by cutting out everything above plants in the food chain, one makes progressive steps towards reducing one's "himsa footprint" - enough said.)

So, going back to the original point - having linked my being a vegetarian to reduced himsa, I couldn't believe that I had overlooked an important aspect of being vegetarian, which Rujuta Diwekar so easily explains in her book. She says:

"A lot of people take immense pride in being vegetarians. The idea behind vegetarianism is that of ahimsa, non violence or compassion towards all. So when you order your veggie Mac with Coke, veggie delight pizza with Pepsi, puri, bhaji, shrikhand, chhole bhatura, jalebi, churma, rasgulla etc., is there no himsa there? You are killing your own stomach.  Too much food is a form of cruelty too; you are being cruel to your own stomach."

Diwekar reminds us vegetarians that if being vegetarian is about practising compassion and non violence towards all, it includes yourself! Ahimsa is not as superficial as ordering eggless pastry, or forcing your neighbourhood to turn into a "pyoor vegetarian" one. If we continue to load our stomachs then all benefits from vegetarianism are lost. A stuffed stomach is a much more pitiful condition than the chicken in the stuffy carriers going over the speed breakers.

Think twice before you over-indulge in these - you're not being "vegetarian"!

So, veg or non-veg - it doesn't matter what you are. What really matters is whether you are being kind to yourself and your stomach.  Of course, for those of you who have eaten out with me, you will know that I now have a lot to implement - thanks to Kareena Kapoor's nutritionist. Smaller food portions - here I come!