1

Colour, Class and Caste in Rhodesia / Zimbabwe:

My Family and Other Indians1
Narendhra Moar

“My motto is equal rights for every civilised man South of the Zambesi. What is a civilised man? A man whether
white or black who has sufficient education to write his name, has some property or works, in fact is not a
loafer.”
- Cecil Rhodes2
“They [Indians] do not support local European stores, spend little on their diets which consists of fowls, rice
and oil or fat; he spends little on dress, and nothing else, but he hoards up his money which he eventually
takes out of the country.”
- Native Commissioner, Fort Victoria, 19053

Whenever Rhodesia is discussed, it is almost always in binary terms of black and white. There is seldom any
discussion of other visible minorities such as Asians. They are an absent minority.4 The aim of this presentation
is to reinsert Asians, and more specifically Indians, into the history of Zimbabwe. I try to tell the story through
rare photographs and a few official and revenue documents. Indians are a community from which I myself
come, so this is my story too.

1 This paper concentrates largely on the Hindu community of Bulawayo as an illustrative example of the Indian experience
in colonial Zimbabwe. Apart from the sources cited, it is based on the author’s lived experience and intimate knowledge of
the Asian community of Zimbabwe and his research into the Asian community of Kenya.
2 Quoted in Lewis Michell, The Life and Times of the Right Honourable Cecil John Rhodes, 1853-1902, London (E. Arnold),

1910, p.355, cited in Robin Brown, The Secret Society, Century City, S. Africa (Penguin), 2015, p.202
3 Native Commissioner, Fort Victoria to BSAC, 1905, NAR, T2/2/18 cited in Narendhra Morar, Class, Caste and Race: The

Indians of Rhodesia, 1890-1924, MA Dissertation, SOAS (University of London), 1978, p.1

4 The first doctoral thesis devoted entirely to Indians in Zimbabwe was completed in 2021: Trishula Patel, Becoming

Zimbabwean: A History of Indians in Rhodesia, 1890 – 1980, PhD Thesis, Georgetown University, 2021
 2

My grandfather, Morar Jivan, was born in Baroda in Gujarat in 1894.  He was the eldest son of Jivan Raga, and
was one of three siblings. He migrated to Rhodesia in 1907 at the tender age of 13. The key motivating factors
for migrating was a desire to better himself and his family and a sense of adventure. He sailed from Bombay to
Beira in Mozambique. From there, in the company of several other Indians, he literally walked and worked his
way along the railway line connecting Beira to Umtali. Many tales of adventure were told of this journey,
including the terror felt at night and making large fires and having to sleep in trees for fear of being attacked
by wild animals.5

He eventually made his way to Selukwe where he plied his trade repairing shoes and all manner of leather
goods for the developing mining industry. He finally settled permanently in Bulawayo. 6 His brother Bhana

 The family home, however, was Khambia, in Alipore district, Gujarat.

5 See T.K. Doolabh, op. cit.
6 Personal family history. See also, T. K. Doolabh, op. cit., p.76; & Dhanee Bramdaw, op. cit., p.276.
 3

Jivan, meanwhile, settled in Broken Hill, Northern Rhodesia where he established his family, eventually setting
up a garment factory.

Morar Jivan was from the mochi or shoemaker caste and, like many first generation Hindu migrants, followed
his caste profession. As with most early migrants he arrived on his own without immediate family and only in
the company of similar adventurous young men – mostly fellow caste-mates - seeking to make a better life for
themselves and their families back in India.

Empires, as David Atkinson notes, ‘thrive on mobility… [T]he circulation of people, goods, money, and ideas
connected imperial cores to distant colonial outposts, compelling diffuse communities into new and existing
networks of trade, labour, and capital.’7 Thus, the nineteenth century saw a great wave of migration across
the globe. Some 50 million whites, an equal number of Chinese and 30 million Indians migrated in search of
the same thing: a better life.8 Britain alone saw the emigration of nearly 10 million whites between 1853 and
1920, with more than 5% of the population leaving the country permanently between 1900 and 1914 alone.9

There were two types of Asian migrants, indentured workers on fixed-term contracts and ‘free’ or so-called
‘passenger’ Indians because they paid for their own passages. The latter usually followed in the wake of
indentured workers to service their needs and consisted of artisans, traders and farmers.

One of the earliest instances of indenture into Africa was the importation of Indian workers into Natal to work
on the sugar cane plantations from 1860 onwards. Very quickly, white opposition to the Indian presence began
manifesting itself.10 Ostensibly non-racial, Natal’s Act 14 of 1897 had the singular aim of curtailing Indian
immigration. The Act introduced qualifications for entry based on property and a reading and writing test for
all immigrants over the age of 16 – in any European language. The “Natal Formula”, as it became known,
became the basis of racist and restrictive immigration policies throughout the British Empire for it allowed the
colonies concerned ‘to bar the stranger from the gates…’.11

7 David C Atkinson, The Burden of White Supremacy: Containing Asian Migration in the British Empire and the United
States, Chapel Hill (Univ of North Carolina Press), 2017, p.1
8 Rachel Bright, ‘Asian Migration and the British World’, in Kent Fedorowich & Andre S Thompson, Empire, Migration and

Identity in the British World, Manchester (Manchester University Press), 2013, p.129.
I define the term ‘Asian’ in this context to mean primarily the peoples of South Asia - which in the colonial era was
considered British India and adjacent territories such as Portuguese Goa.
9 Anver Offer, ‘The British Empire, 1870-1914: a waste of money?’, Economic History Review, 1993, 46:21, p.223 cited in

Sathnam Sanghera, Empireland: How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain, London (Penguin), 2021, p.90
10 See R. Bright, op. cit., p.136; see also Duncan du Bois, ‘The “coolie curse”: The evolution of white colonial attitudes

towards the Indian question, 1860-1900’, Historia, 57.2, November 2012, pp.31-67
11 Robert A. Huttenback, ‘No strangers within the gates: Attitudes and policies towards the non-white residents of the

British empire of settlement’, Journal of Imperial & Commonwealth History, 1:3, 1973, p. 272
 4

Asian migration into Rhodesia itself, followed two distinct routes: those coming from the south across the
Limpopo and, a little later, those from the east across the Mozambique border from the port of Beira, via
Umtali – modern-day Mutare.

My grandfather was by no means the first Indian to come to Rhodesia. The earliest documented Indian
migrant was a member of the Pioneer Column but his name is unrecorded. Rhodes’s chef, Tony de la Cruz,
entered the country in 1894. 12 Another very early example of Indian migration was in 1891, when Indians who
had arrived from Beira obtained plots south of the Makabusi River just outside Salisbury.

12“Sadza with Curry: An Exploration of the Hindoo Community in Zimbabwe”, film produced by Lata Murugan & Heeten
Bhagat (2001), cited in Francis Musoni, ‘Contested Foreignness: Indian Migrants and the Politics of Exclusion in Early
Colonial Zimbabwe, 1890 to 1923,’ African and Asian Studies, 2017, p.7
 5

And just as early, there was opposition to their presence: at a meeting of the Board of Management for
Salisbury on 11 November 1891, it was ‘decided that this invasion by so-called ‘coolies’ must be resisted and,
despite the need for vegetables, asked the Company to impose licences.’13

Indians were also some of the first victims of the first Chimurenga or Risings of 1896-1897. F.C. Selous cites a
Matabele Times report of 2 May 1896 when the Mounted Police found a number of terrified Indians awaiting
them, “who informed them that they had been attacked by a large body of Matabele at their vegetable
gardens…and that eight of their number had been murdered.’ 14 On 14 June 1896, ‘some Indian traders living
south of the drift across the Umtali river, next to Mashayamambe’s stronghold, were killed by local Guzho
people. One, however, escaped to announce the first killings of the 1896 rising in the Shona country.’15

In the very early years of colonisation, the majority of Asians who entered Rhodesia came via South Africa.
Most were market gardeners on small plots with none listed as traders.16 Similarly, the Bulawayo Chronicle
reported in 1895 that several Indians there had built huts on their garden plots and estimated that about
twenty huts had been built in the so-called “Coolie Location”. This was just two years after the conquest of the
Ndebele state.17 Others plied their trade as market gardeners near large mines or engaged in traditional caste
trades such as launderers, cobblers, and tailors.18

However, settler opposition to the Asian presence meant exclusion from the civil service and skilled artisan
jobs. Settlers feared that government controls would prove insufficient to prevent Asian occupational and
geographical mobility once inside the country.19 In the first instance the charge was led by white commercial
interests. In 1895 both Salisbury and Bulawayo Chambers of Commerce made known their hostility to Asian
traders. The latter passed a resolution calling for the government to oppose any application for trading
licences by “Banyans and Arabs” as they “trafficked in the lower classes of the trade and sent all the money
out of the country.” It demanded that every effort should be made to prohibit Indian immigration and
settlement.20

13 G. H. Tanser, A Scantling of Time: The Story of Salisbury, Rhodesia – 1890-1900, Salisbury (Pioneer Head), 1974, p.82
14 F.C. Selous, Sunshine and Storm in Rhodesia, Facsimile Reprint, Bulawayo (Books of Rhodesia), 1968, pp.177-178
15 D. N. Beach, The Rising in South-Western Mashonaland, 1896-7, Unpublished PhD, University College of Rhodesia, 1971,

p.346
16 Ibid., Table II, Occupational Analysis of Salisbury Asians, 1897, p.6
17 Ibid., Bulawayo Chronicle, 15 Feb. 1895, Report of the Sanitary Board Meeting, p.5
18 B.A. Kosmin, ‘’Freedom, Justice and Commerce’: Some factors affecting Asian trading patterns in Southern Rhodesia,

1987-1942’, Rhodesian History, Vol.6, 1975, p.17

19 Ibid.
20 Ali M. H. Kalshekar, op. cit., Bulawayo Chronicle, 8 February 1895, Report on Chamber of Commerce meeting, p.4
 6

With the completion of the railway from Mafeking to Bulawayo in 1897, the threat of increased economic
competition from passenger Indians arriving from South Africa who were British subjects took on an added
significance for white settlers.

With the enunciation of a new agricultural policy by the BSAC in 1908 and subsequent rise of settler
agriculture, the viability of small-scale Indian agriculture on typical one- or two-acre Commonage plots in
Bulawayo, for example, was threatened.21 However, service trades such as laundering, tailoring, shoe making
and waiting and valeting, which many white settlers thought were beneath them or that did not compete with
their interests, were left to Asians to fill.

Asians, like blacks, were subjected to a variety of discriminatory and restrictive measures such as the Sale of
Liquor to Natives and Indians Act, 1898/9 and Possession of Arms and Ammunition (Natives and Asiatics)
Act, 1897. 22

In the early years, both the Company and white settlers faced a constant shortage of labour. Given these
circumstances, various plans were hatched to import labour. To begin with, the need for labour was felt most
keenly by the mining industry and for capital projects such as railway construction.

In 1897 Pauling and Company, by exploiting loopholes in the Indian Emigration Act, imported 500 indentured
workers from India to construct the railway from the Mozambican port of Beira to the Rhodesian border town
of Umtali.23. The image shown here is of Indian workers on the Kenya-Uganda railway, as I have been unable to
find a single image of Indian workers on the Beira-Umtali line, which hints at what happened to them.
G. W. Rudland, one of the subcontractors, described their fate:

“What conditions of life were promised them I do not know, but there was trouble from the start. Each
contractor was given a number of these men, who were of different castes and religions, and I got 50 of them.
They were so dissatisfied with conditions that the great majority tried to escape either to their compatriots in
Mombasa or back home to India ...
I doubt if out of the whole 500, 30 of them managed to return to their native land.”24

21 Rhodesia Herald, 19 March 1921

22 See, Trishula Patel, ‘Played Out on the Edges of the Cricket Boundary: The History of an Indian Cricket Team in
Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, 1934-1995’, Journal of Southern African Studies, Vol.45, No.3, 2019, p.469
*I have been unable to find any images of Indian indentured workers on the Beira-Umtali railway.
23 NAZ S1428/13/14, High Commissioner, South Africa, Correspondence, Administrator, Southern Rhodesia, to High

Commissioner, 26 November 1896; Governor, Cape Town to Earl Grey, 18 December 1896 cited in Jon Lunn, Capital and
Labour on the Rhodesian Railway System, 1888-1947, Basingstoke (Macmillan), 1977, p. 112. See also, J. C. Barnes, ‘The
Beira-Mashonaland Railway’, RHODESIANA, Vol.37, Sep.1977, p.5
24 Ibid, NAZ Hist. Ms uncatalogued 1879, G. W. Rudland, p.9, p.112
 7

According to one of Rudland’s contemporaries, of ten Indians who remained on construction work, nine died.
Gandhi, who was in South Africa at the time, took up their case, but the Government of India claimed that due
to the ‘unofficial’ nature of the workers’ recruitment, it could not intervene. 25 It would appear that the vast
majority perished.Subsequently, Indian indentured workers would never be imported into the country.

The great majority of passenger Indians came from Gujarat and then from only a small area within the state as
this map shows. This meant that the Asian community in the country would be a relatively homogenous group
with a common language and two main faiths: Hinduism and Islam. A smaller group were Catholics from the
Portuguese Indian colony of Goa.

By the turn of the twentieth century there were just over one thousand Asians in Rhodesia. It was this growing
Asian presence and the example of agitation against Asians in Natal, that fuelled a sustained anti-Asian
campaign by white settlers, personified by the case of businessman Bhimjee R. Naik.

25 Ibid.
 8

Born in 1879, a Gujarati, Bhimjee R. Naik arrived in Beira in 1896. Here he worked for two months for the
Beira-Mashonaland Railway, and later joined an Indian firm in Beira. He became the first Indian to obtain a
trading licence in Umtali.26 In April 1898, the granting of such licences to Indians in the eastern border town,
caused outrage among white settlers. They demanded a stop to the issuing of such licences to Indians and
formed the ‘Anti-Banyan Society’ whose sole aim was ‘boycotting the Indian and those who assisted him.’ 27
Having failed to change the administration’s policy, a gang of settlers took matters into their own hands.

On the night of 3 January 1899, the gang broke into Bhimjee Naik’s shop demanding he leave immediately and
take his goods and staff with him to Portuguese East Africa. The authorities wired William Milton, the
Administrator, in Salisbury who replied that the action was illegal. Subsequently the ring-leaders were bound
over to keep the peace. Nevertheless, Bhimjee Naik won an important victory for Indian traders, ensuring that,
as a matter of principle, Indians could have trading licences. He would go on to open businesses in Gwelo,
Selukwe and Salisbury. He also became politically active in the struggle for Indian rights within the colony and
was President of the British Indian Association from 1908 to 1912. In 1912 he returned to India, leaving his
businesses to be run by his managers.

The 1903 Immigration Restriction Ordinance was the first major piece of legislation that was modelled on its
Natal counterpart and designed to achieve the same ends, viz. restricting Indian immigration. Indians were
considered “undesirable immigrants” not just because of their race but also because, in the words of William
Milton, the Indian trader was “year by year, obtaining a further foothold in the country and by cutting
prices…his presence tends to the possibility of the eventual exclusion of the European” from the market. 28 The
Ordinance provided for stringent entry requirements including a refusal to recognize literacy in an Indian
language as a valid qualification for entry. In contrast, illiterate white agricultural labourers and skilled artisans
were exempted from the language test. This not only created great bitterness and resentment in the
community but fostered – as it was undoubtedly meant to – a hostile environment policy towards Asians.

26 Dhanee Bramdaw, The South African Indian Who’s Who and Commercial Directory Incorporating Southern and Northern
Rhodesia, Nyasaland and Portuguese East Africa, Natal Witness (Pietermaritzburg), 1939, p.281
27 Cape Argus, 18 April 1898, cited in E.P. Makambe, op. cit., p.262
28 Quoted in R.G.S. Douglas, ‘The Development of the Department of immigration to 1953’, Cyclostyled paper, n.d. NAZ, p.6

cited in A.S. Mlambo, White Immigration into Rhodesia: From Occupation to Federation, Harare (University of Zimbabwe
Publications), 2002, p.13
 9

This was perhaps best summed up by this editorial in The Herald’.29 The Indian population decreased from 793
in 1901 to 703 by 1904.

By early 1908 the hostile environment policy against Asians was being intensified, particularly from the
commercial sector. Future premier Charles Coghlan, on the campaign trail, weighed in by arguing that “drastic
legislation was necessary to restrict Asiatic immigration.”30 The commercial lobby, was led by William H.
Haddon, a member of the Legislative Council, who together with J.W. Sly had established Haddon & Sly in
Bulawayo in 1894 as a general dealer. Haddon had recently been re-elected President of Bulawayo Chamber
of Commerce in April 1908. He, argued that it was vital to restrict the Asian influx and to regulate the trading
of those already in the country so as to control “the presence of the undesirable alien.”31

The purpose of the next piece of immigration legislation is clear by its full title: ‘An Ordinance to restrict the
Immigration of Asiatics into this Territory, and to provide for the Registration of such Asiatics as are already
resident therein.’32 All Asians over 16 would be required to carry at all times a Registration Certificate with

29 Rhodesia Herald, Editorial, 9 May 1903

30 Ali M. H. Kalshekar, op. cit., Bulawayo Chronicle, 2 April 1908, Report on Election Meeting at Grand Hotel on 31 March
1908), p.17
31 Ibid., Bulawayo Chronicle, 11 April 1908, Report of the Chamber of Commerce Meeting of 9 April, 1908; Southern

Rhodesia: Debates in the Legislative Council, 9 May 1907, Col.45, p.18

32 Ibid., Colonial Office to India Office, 19 August 1908, Annex 1: Text of ASIATICS ORDINANCE, 1908
 10

stiff fines or long terms of imprisonment for defaulters and the ultimate threat of expulsion or deportation.
The Ordinance was passed by Legco on 22 June 1908, just a week after its first reading.33

This attack on Asians in the country had a galvanizing effect on the community. In June 1908, Bhimjee R. Naik
– the self-same man who had been attacked by the white settlers of Umtali – as President of the British Indian
Association (BIA), Salisbury, together with 55 others, presented a petition to Legco. The petition argued that
the 1908 Asiatics Ordinance together with the proposed Dealers’ Licenses Ordinance, were ‘calculated to
provoke intense bitterness…among the Indian community resident in this Territory…’, while ‘the licensing and
police restrictions are calculated to promote a feeling of contempt for the community…on the part of their
fellow colonists, who are not subject to the provisions of this measure…’, Indians, the petition went on,
objected to being described as “coolies”.’34

Given the blatantly racist nature of the proposed legislation, it was disallowed by the imperial authorities in
December 1908. However, the hostile environment policy also meant that the Indian population actually
declined again from 807 in 1907 to 701 in 1911.35

For those Asians already resident in the country, life would be made more difficult thanks to the abuse of
legislation governing commercial licences. In theory, General Dealers’ Licences could only be refused on the
same grounds as those on which Europeans might be refused, such as an applicant being ‘a person of bad
character or repute’. 36 However, as Francis D. Chaplin, the Administrator (1914-1923), noted, that Licensing
Boards “frequently refuse applications by Asiatics on inadequate grounds with the result that the
Administrator in Council is obliged to order the issue of the licence in terms of section 10 of the Ordinance.’37

Despite the hostility and handicaps, Asians were still able to enter and settle in the country - for the moment
at least. Here we see some of the earliest Indian settlers in Bulawayo, many of whom I had the privilege to
know as a child.

33 Ali M.H. Kalshekar, op.cit., p.26

34 NAI, PR_000004000494, December-1908-pro-Nos-2: Southern Rhodesia, Dealers’ Licenses Ordinance, 1908, and Asiatics
Ordinance, 1908, Petition by Bhimjee R. Naik, Chairman, British Indian Association (BIA), Salisbury; P.J. Alfred, Secretary,
BIA, and 55 others to the President and Members of the Legislative Council of Southern Rhodesia, 15 June 1908
35 1911 Census, cited in Ali M. Kalshekar, op. cit., p.12
36 NAI, DCI/EB, PR_000004000456, August-1914-Pro-Nos-4-6: Memorandum on the Position of Indians in Southern

Rhodesia / Southern Rhodesia Dealers’ and Other Licenses Amendment Ordinance, No.6 of 1910, Memorandum, 5
February 1917, Section 8 of General Dealers and Other Licences Amendment Ordinance 1910
37 Ibid., Memorandum, 5 February 1917, F.D. Chaplin, Administrator to Secretary, BSAC, London, 2 February, 1917
 11

By 1911, Asians had begun to diversify in terms of occupation as Table 2 shows. While the majority were in
domestic service, Asians were now increasingly gravitating towards commerce, while a significant number
were still in agriculture.

However, unrelenting settler pressure finally led to the Immigrants Regulation Ordinance, 1914, published in
October of that year. Unlike the disallowed 1908 ordinance, the new law avoided the use of racial terminology
but the target was obvious. Under Section 2, a “Prohibited Immigrant” could be ‘any person or class of persons
declared by the Administrator with the sanction of the High Commissioner on economic grounds, or on
account of standard or habits of life, to be undesirable inhabitants;’ or who could not read or write any
European language. There would be no appeal from the Administrator’s decision. The Ordinance also made
provision for the issue of certificates of identity.

With the passage of the 1914 Ordinance the death knell was being sounded for primary Asian immigration.38
With the attainment of self-government in 1923, all Asian primary immigration would be permanently
halted. In the future, only wives and children under 16 would be admitted (with exceptions such as a few
priests, imams and Gujarati language teachers). White settlers had succeeded in forestalling what they
perceived as both a potential economic and demographic and, hence, a political threat. The imagined ‘Asiatic
threat’ was thus vanquished, but this did not mean Asians did not have to be kept in their place.39

By the mid-1930s, the Asian community was becoming established, as shown in the following Table (No. 3). In
1936, nearly half of the Asian population was born in the country and 36% was female, indicating it was in the
process of becoming a settled community.

By the beginning of the third decade of colonisation, Asians were to be found in four main occupational
groups: while agriculture and domestic service remained important, commerce and industrial trades such as
laundering, tailoring and shoemaking were now the dominant economic activities. However, attempts at
economic mobility and expansion would nearly always be contested and hampered. (Table No. 4)

38 J.R.T. Wood, ‘The Reaction to Asian Migration on the Eve of Federation in British Central Africa: Gleanings from the
Welensky Papers’, Journal of Contemporary African Studies, Vol.1, No.2, April 1982, p.329
39 See correspondence in NAI, DCI/EB, PR_000004003653, September-1917-Pro-Nos-2: Arrangements made between the

Southern Rhodesia Administration and the Portuguese authorities at Beira regarding the entry of Asiatics in South Africa
through that port.
 12

In 1905, two cobblers, Doolabh Bhoola and Rama Chhiba formed one of the most renowned and enduring
business partnerships in the Bulawayo Indian community called Dullabh Rama & Co. or DRC. In 1911 Bhaga
Bhoola, Doolabh Bhoola’s brother, arrived in the country and joined him in the business. Over the next few
years DRC would be expanded further with my grandfather Morar Jivan, brothers Mithal Kara and Bhagu
Kalidas, Vithal Jina and Vanmali Parbhoo all joining the business as partners. The business was located at 57
Rhodes Street which was originally owned by a south Indian. As with most entrepreneurs in the early years, be
they white or Asian, their living quarters were at the back of the shop.

The DRC partnership enabled partners to pool their capital and thus consolidate and expand the business over
time. Also, younger and less experienced cobblers could learn the craft and art of business from more
experienced partners by serving as informal apprentices. In October 1918, Govind Chhiba’s father, Chhiba
Naran, died as a result of the great flu epidemic that swept the globe. Being only ten, Govind was adopted by
his uncle Bhaga Bhoola – one of the DRC partners - who enabled him to continue his schooling until 1922. He
was then employed by DRC at 57 Rhodes Street: he spent the first year as a learner, the second without a
 13

salary and began earning a wage in his third year. Every month he gave most of his salary to my grandfather
for safekeeping until he needed it, for example when he made a trip to India in 1927. 40

DRC also enabled individual partners to visit India and stay with their families for extended periods without
the business having to be closed thus ensuring business continuity. And once they had accumulated sufficient
capital and felt more settled, they could bring back their wives and children to settle permanently.

DRC was a remarkable partnership insofar as it was not a legally constituted entity but operated entirely on
trust. Net profit was shared equally between active partners. The first property purchased was that at 57
Rhodes Street in 1912 which was effectively the hub of the whole enterprise with living quarters at the back.
The business appears to have overextended itself by the mid-1930s when it faced financial difficulties and this
led to the eventual winding up of the famous DRC partnership.

My grandfather left DRC in 1935 to start out on his own with my father. He began a shoe repair business at 55
Rhodes Street, literally just a few doors away from the original DRC hub and styled his new venture M. Jivan &
Son.

40 Ibid., p.104
 14

In 1936, my grandfather planned a trip to India. Here we see the document granting Power of Attorney to
Vithal Jina, one of the DRC partners, to act on his behalf. My grandfather left in late January 1936, spent nearly
a year and a half in India and returned in June 1937.41 My father would have been aged 19 when he was left in
charge of the family business and, no doubt, a watchful eye kept on him by fellow cobblers.

I believe this was the most likely journey when my grandfather bought my grandmother, Ratan, back with him
to settle in Rhodesia. She was born in Bansda, Gujarat in 1900 and was petite at 5’1” and illiterate but a tough,
resilient and determined woman.

41Morar Jivan – Power of Attorney in Favour of Vithal Jina, 18 January 1936 & visas in Morar Jivan, British Passport,
Southern Rhodesia, No.21943.
 15

The location of the business in Rhodes Street meant it was on the periphery of the white central business
district (CBD). This key fact of spatial location meant that the main customer base consisted largely of white
settlers and other Asians and not blacks. This little Asian enclave was able to exist in part because it was not in
the prime CBD area, blocked off as it was at one end of Rhodes Street by Queens Sports Club and the City Hall
at the other.

Like all Asians, my grandfather was subject to the discriminatory policies of the government of the day. Two
examples are sufficient to illustrate this. My grandfather liked a tipple and his drink of choice was brandy.
However, no person of colour was allowed to purchase spirits without a special permit (just as they could not
buy firearms). As a result, he was forced to apply to none other than the Colonial Secretary for exemption
from the workings of the Liquor Act of 1930 simply to be able to buy alcohol.
 16

Similarly, Asians found it prudent to apply for Asiatic Residential Certificates or ARCs – proto-passports -
despite their utterly discriminatory nature. Ostensibly, this document ensured that they would face no
difficulty proving their right to residency in the country especially after a trip to India and it also served as a
means of identification. It was, in effect, the equivalent of the notorious situpa or pass that Africans were
forced to carry. ARCs had to be produced on demand to an immigration officer. My grandfather’s ARC was
issued in 1921 and is franked with a 5/- Admiral while my father’s, issued in 1938, is embossed with a 5/-
stamp. Needless to say, no whites were required to apply for alcohol permits or residential certificates. The
ignorance of officials is amply demonstrated by the fact that my grandfather’s race is described as ‘Hindoo’
while my father is designated ‘British Indian’.

My father, Lalloo Morar, was born in 1917 in Surat.

Like many in his peer group, he was brought out to
Rhodesia as a teenager. He went to the only school
open to Asians and Coloureds in Bulawayo,
McKeurtan Primary School which was founded in
1917 and located on Lobengula Street. Having
completed primary school to Standard IV, he was
unable to further his education as other government
schools offering further education at the time were
only open to whites. This meant that my father had
little option but to join my grandfather in the DRC
partnership.

Dissatisfied with the fact that McKeurtan Primary School only offered their children education up to Standard
IV, Indians began campaigning for a school of their own. In part this was because they wanted their children to
progress higher up the academic ladder knowing full well that this was one of the few avenues through which
Indians could achieve success. There was also an element of prejudice against having to learn with and being
placed in the same category as Coloureds.42 Finally, some Indians also objected to Indo-Africans – children of
Indian men and African women – being admitted to the proposed Indian school. 43

42 The 1926 Census noted that Indians did not wish to send their children to Coloured schools, preferring to send them to
India instead – those who could afford it, that is. See T.K. Doolabh, op. cit., p.17
43 James Muzondidya, Race, ethnicity and the politics of positioning: the making of coloured identity in colonial Zimbabwe,

1890 – 1980,’ in Mohammed Adhikari (ed.), Burdened By Race: Coloured Identity in Southern Africa, Cape Town (University
of Cape Town Press), 2013, pp.167-168
 17

In 1933, Indians established the Bulawayo Indian Primary School from their own resources. The 57 Indian
children attending McKeurtan were transferred to new school in that year. In the following year, the
formidable Jung Bahadur Ramphal from Durban was appointed to the teaching staff of the school and by 1938
he had become Headmaster of what became the Government Indian School. Mr. Ramphal, or ‘Sir’, as he was
known by young and old alike, commanded respect and ran a disciplined school with extremely high standards
which all of us who attended it can attest to.

It was only in 1942 that the government finally relented to Indian demands and took over the Indian Primary
School. However, the school was not allowed to enroll more than 195 pupils which meant parents were forced
to withdraw older children to make way for younger ones, while those who could afford it, had to send their
children away to India to study. The name of the school was then changed to that of the famous Indian, Robert
 18

Tredgold! The formidable Mr. Ramphal would go on to serve as principal of the school for over three
decades.44

Over time my grandfather was able to bring over his entire family. Apart from my father, he had three
daughters. Two daughters were married and settled in Cape Town and Port Elizabeth respectively, while my
third aunt Shanti, married Choonilal Mithal Kara, one of the four sons of one of the DRC partners, Mithal Kara,
and settled in Bulawayo.

44Rhodesia, Report on Education for Year Ended 31 December 1970, Salisbury (Government Printer), p.37, cited in Marion
O’Callaghan, Southern Rhodesia: The Effects of a Conquest Society on education, Culture and Information, Paris (UNESCO),
1977, p.87
 19

It was during the Second World War that my mother, Lalita, finally arrived in Rhodesia to join the family. Born
in Cape Town in 1920, she had returned to India as a baby and was betrothed to my father in an arranged
marriage. Her family were from Surat. After a few false starts, in July 1945 she finally sailed from Bombay and
unusually disembarked at Dar es Salaam on 25 July. She travelled overland in the back of a lorry, leaving
Tanganyika on 5 August at Mbeya and arriving at Broken Hill. From there she took a train to Bulawayo via
Victoria Falls. I remember well her stories of how scared she was travelling during the war, fearing enemy
action while sailing and the trepidation she felt on the road journey through Tanganyika into Northern
Rhodesia.

The family business, M. Jivan & Son, continued in the same premises at 55 Rhodes Street throughout the war.
In 1945, the building, which consisted of two shops in the front and accommodation in the rear, was
purchased by my grandfather in partnership with Jamnadas Damodar Kalan and Khusal Givan Rajput. What
made this partnership unusual for the time was the fact that it was between members of different castes. The
 20

family business was well-established by the end of the 1940s. The family lived behind the shop at 55 Rhodes
Street. My two elder sisters and I were all born there, as up to that point no maternity facilities had been
provided for Asians in government hospitals. In 1958 my grandfather and Jamnadas Kalan bought out Khusal
Rajput’s share of the property. In order to do so, given the refusal of banks to advance loans to Asians, they
were obliged to borrow money from two wealthy Jewish women with the property put up as surety. A
Mortgage Bond, which we see here, was issued to secure the loan and finally redeemed in 1969. The property
remained in their possession until it was finally sold in 1981-2.

Shortly after my birth in 1953, the family moved house to 19 Jameson Street. This was in the heart of what
became one of the two main Asian residential cum commercial areas of Bulawayo and formed part of the
‘frontline’. As with many Asian families, this was a multi-generational extended family household with,
eventually, my grandparents, my parents and us five siblings living under one roof. Here we see our family tree
drawn up by my uncle Jagoobhai Jivan and goes back several centuries. This graphic shows my immediate
family tree, with my paternal grandparents, parents, siblings and their partners. My grandfather died in 1966.
The business of M. Jivan & Son would continue at 55 Rhodes Street until 1970.

In 1970, my father finally managed to acquire a property to rent in the CBD in 8th Avenue / Rhodes Street
opposite the Small City Hall and, ironically, just a few doors away from Haddon & Sly. With the death of my
grandfather the business was rebranded Jivan’s Shoes and was one of the few Asian concerns to be
established in the CBD in the UDI era. A handful of other Asian businesses, such as Hassamals, renowned as a
school uniform supplier, had already been established in this prime commercial area from the early years of
settlement and could therefore not be moved by the powers that be. 45

45 For a biography of Rijhumal Hassamal see D. Bramdaw, op. cit., p. 265

 21

Restrictive clauses in title deeds were a key mechanism to ensure the segregation of Asians which prevented
them from buying or renting property in central business districts or houses in white suburbs. This meant their
being confined largely to the fringes of towns and cities.

In commercial terms, this perforce meant that their main client base was black. Despite such restrictions, some
Asians were able over time to expand their businesses horizontally by opening more than one branch.
K.R. Vashee personified this. Originally from Surat district in India, he arrived just before the First World War
and joined Bhimjee R. Naik’s firm in Salisbury. In 1916 he came to Bulawayo and started a retail business in
partnership with K.M. Naik, subsequently adding a wholesale department. By 1931 he was able to strike out on
his own as sole proprietor of K.R. Vashee retail and wholesale merchant and would go on to open branches in
Luanshya (Zambia), Fort Victoria (Masvingo) and Umvuma (Mvuma). He also established buying offices in
London, Bombay and Kobe. 46

Other businesses would also expand vertically by moving into manufacturing and exporting their products.
Kara Sons became the largest shoe repairing concern in Bulawayo. By 1952 it had begun manufacturing shoes
and leather goods and held many contracts with the army, police, hospitals and other government
departments. In the early 1960s, the company began manufacturing travel goods and in the 1970s opened a
shoe and sandal factory.47

Asians, separated from both blacks and whites by economic, social, spatial, and legislative segregation, had
little choice but to evolve their own ‘communal ecology’ in order to cohere and survive as a visible minority
in a society dominated politically by a white minority and demographically by a disenfranchised black
majority. This communal ecology was both self-contained and self-sustaining and evolved into a small but
distinctive Indian diaspora.

In Rhodesia, the Indian population was far too small to matter either in terms of its size, or, for that matter,
economically or politically. Consequently, there could be little development in the way of caste-based or similar
organisations. One of the rare exceptions were the mochis or shoemakers who from very early on had
established their own caste associations. In September 1918, the Mochi Gnyati Sudharak Mandal, Rhodesia or
Shoemaker Caste Improvement Association was launched by Jagubhai Govindji Parmar in Mutare. In December
1920, a meeting in Bulawayo, under the chairmanship of Rama Chhiba (of DRC fame), led to the establishment

46 Dhanee Bramdaw, op. cit., p.308. K.R. Vashee was a prominent member of the community being active in the Bulawayo
British Indian Association, the School Advisory Committee and the building of the community centre, the K.R. Vashee
Hindoo Hall.
47 T. K. Doolabh, Bulawayo Kshatriya Mandal, 75 th Anniversary Commemorative Magazine, 1919-1994, Bulawayo, pp.91-93
 22

of a similar association, with my grandfather appointed as one of two joint secretaries. As a caste, cobblers were
perceived as being at the lower end of the caste hierarchy and in India were subject to various forms of
discrimination from so-called ‘higher’ castes. As a result, they established such organisations as a form of
solidarity, mutual assistance, and financial help. The cobblers were greatly influenced by the Arya Samaj, a Hindu
reformist movement founded by Dayanand Saraswati in 1875, which campaigned against caste discrimination
and for widow remarriage and women’s education.

The local branches of shoemaker associations were called Kshatirya Mandals. In 1969, a Rhodesia Education
Fund was established to provide bursaries for students. In 1971, Bulawayo Kshatriya Mandal celebrated its
Golden Jubilee. The Mandal continues to this day.

In Bulawayo, the K.R. Vashee Hindoo

Hall was built in 1933 with funds raised
by the Hindu community and located at
Lobengula Street adjacent to Robert
Tredgold Primary School. This became
the hub and central focus for Hindus. It
was the fulcrum around which the
community revolved as a place for
holding religious functions and festivals,
as a vernacular / religious school, and a
place for key social functions such as
weddings and concerts. It was the locale
(apart from the family) where Indian
identity was both produced and
consolidated.

Regular weekly prayers, social functions and weddings were held there.

Gujarati classes were held there where children were taught the language, Indian history and aspects of
Hinduism as well as celebrating Indian culture through concerts and plays.
 23

Hindu parents, anxious that their children did not lose their culture and identity, ensured that children
attended these classes and imbibed what they considered authentic Indian culture and values. This was an
attempt to reproduce an India or at least a version of India and its culture, norms and mores adapted to the
circumstances of a racialized and segregated colonial society. Hindu festivals which were celebrated
communally every year at K.R. Vashee Hall included Diwali, Holi and Navratri.

From the mid-1960s, third generation Indians began westernizing these traditions. Each Diwali eve, for
example, a Diwali dance began to be held at Bulawayo Sports Club with music provided by a local Indian band
called the Anandonettes. Every year we had to start a campaign, weeks in advance of Diwali to get my father’s
permission to be allowed to attend the Diwali dance.

The Diwali dance caused much consternation among many elders in the community who saw it as a
denigration of Indian culture made worse by the unsupervised mixing of young boys and girls. Even more
outrage was caused when a Diwali Queen competition was launched – one year my eldest sister Jasoo was the
winner and in other years her husband’s two sisters Shaku and Pam also won the coveted crown!

Despite its small size, the Hindu community also had a number of social organisations, most of which were
gendered. The main overarching one was the Bulawayo Hindu Society, established in May 1939, which acted
 24

as the umbrella association. It was responsible

for overseeing all the major community
functions and festivities and oversaw the
running of the Gujarati school. In addition,
there were a number of other organisations
with different aims and functions. Mahila
Mandal was the main women’s organisation
which provided catering for social functions
such as weddings as well as holding religious
functions, while Seva Shivir, which catered to
younger women, held weekly bhajan sessions,
talks on Indian culture and yoga lessons. 1966
saw the launch of Ramakrishna Youth League
for boys and young men. helped at social and
religious events, raised funds for good causes,
such as weekly distribution of fresh fruit to the
local African TB hospital, and organized social
functions for young people including talks and
debates on subjects ranging from caste to
music, and staged social events such as plays
and even discos.

After the establishment of Robert Tredgold

Primary School, Indian parents began
campaigning for a secondary school. There
were already a number of secondary schools in
or near the centre of Bulawayo, such as Milton and Gifford for boys and Eveline and Townsend for girls but
Indians, Coloureds (and, of course, blacks) were barred from them all.

It was only after sustained pressure that the first secondary government school – Founders High School -
which admitted Indians and Coloureds was built in 1952. It was located in the Coloured suburb of Barham
Green, adjacent to the industrial hub of Bulawayo. It also meant that half of us had to be bussed daily from
town to Barham Green to attend high school.

Until 1952, if Indians wished to train as teachers, they were forced to go to South Africa with a government
grant as up to that point the Teacher Training College in Heany, Bulawayo would only admit whites. It was
only after 1960 that they were admitted to the College in controlled numbers.
 25

The only place of higher education that was (to a degree) multi-racial from its inception was University College
of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in Salisbury.48

Despite all the disadvantages, Indians still managed to obtain education for their children up to university level
if necessary as it was always seen as a prized asset and a way to secure a better future. The third generation
and those that followed took this to heart and many of their number went on to higher education, obtaining
degrees in professions ranging from teaching to medicine, accountancy to pharmacy, and history, politics and
media studies. However, having professional qualifications in colonial Rhodesia was no guarantor of a job of
equivalent status.

The public sector was by far the most discriminatory and racist in terms of employment practices. Sometimes
discrimination was overt and official, at other times the colour bar was informal but just as real.

48 Marion O’Callaghan, op. cit., Chap 9: ‘University Education’.

 26

The Rhodesian Security Forces (RSF) are a case in point. During the Second World War, 271 Indians and
Coloureds volunteered for service and were sent to East Africa in 1940, but only in support roles. 49
After the war, the army barred Indians or Coloureds from enlisting as regulars.50 Certain units such as the
Rhodesian Light Infantry and SAS insisted on maintaining a racist provision that they should be all-white.
However, Indians and Coloureds, like their white counterparts, had to undergo compulsory national service.
With the escalation of the Liberation War and the opening of the eastern front after 1972, the demand for
manpower in the RSF increased significantly. This forced a rethink into how to utilize Indian and Coloured
manpower for the war effort.

The Rhodesia Defence Regiment (RDR) was formed on 1 January 1978 by merging Reinforcement Holding
Units and Protection Companies under the command of a white officer, Lt. Col. A.K. Boyd-Sutherland. By 1979,
the RDR comprised Asian and Coloured national servicemen, territorials aged 25 to 38, whites aged 38 to 50,
and so-called ‘continuously embedded volunteers’. Its duties included guarding installations, escorting army
convoys, and transporting army supplies to operational areas. 51

Whatever their status in the army, Indians and Coloureds suffered from outright discrimination when it came
to pay, conditions and facilities. Worse still, Indian and Coloured soldiers when off duty were often turned
away from the very places they were protecting, such as restaurants and hotels in Kariba and Karoi.

Until 1979, no Indians or Coloureds were appointed as commissioned officers. In that year, for the first time,
one Indian was appointed an officer in the Army Corps of Chaplains and another in the Medical Corps.

The story was not much different in the British South Africa Police (BSAP). It was only in 1979 that the first
Coloureds – two women and one man – were admitted to the ranks of the BSAP and were undergoing training
as police officers. Much the same story can be told for most of the public sector.

It is little wonder then that some Indians became politically active in direct opposition to the government. In
the British South Africa period this opposition manifested itself primarily in terms of fighting for their rights as

49 See J.F. MacDonald, The War History of Southern Rhodesia, 1939-1945, Vol.1, Bulawayo (Books of Rhodesia), 1947
50 NAZ MS 308/54, Racial Minorities 1972-1980 (newspaper Cuttings), cited in Evans B. Tsigo & Enock Ndawana, ‘Unsung
Heroes? The Rhodesia Defence Regiment and Counterinsurgency, 1973-80’, International Journal of Military History and
Historiography, 39, 2019, p.96
51 Anti-Apartheid Movement, Fire Force Exposed: The Rhodesian Security Forces and Their Role in Defending White

Supremacy, London (AAM), Nov. 1979, p.17

 27

British subjects. It was a fight to ensure the very existence of the Indian community in Rhodesia. If the triple
class alliance of local white commercial interests, the white working class and, later, white farmers had had
their way, the Indian population would have been removed from the country in the quest to turn it into a
‘white man’s country’.

In the period following the Great War, with all primary Indian immigration ended, Indians were busy
establishing themselves in the country. Wives and children were being brought from India to settle
permanently and a real community was being created. Small in number, economically marginalized and
politically castrated, Indians sought to create enclaves where they could at least practice their faiths,
reproduce their culture and create a better life for themselves and the next generation. Segregated from
both white and black, they were yet to make common cause with either.

UDI in 1965 was, at its heart, a refusal by white settlers to share meaningful power with the black majority.
With the ensuing armed struggle, Indians faced a choice. To support what they perceived to be a racist regime
that discriminated against them in almost every facet of life or back what RF propaganda ceaselessly portrayed
as communist terrorists who represented an existential threat. Perhaps a majority of Indians were apolitical or
did not wish to be involved in politics. They simply wanted to get on with their lives and were wary as a small
group, of being caught in the firing line literally and figuratively between two forces, neither of which they felt
they were part of. There were also some Indians who, despite its racist policies, supported the Smith regime,
fearing what might happen to them in the event of a black government and who also held racist views towards
blacks. Nonetheless, other Asians threw their support behind the nationalist cause either overtly or covertly.

Most support was covert and was in the form of financial support from Indian businessmen. Of the few who
became overtly involved, the most famous was Kantibhai Patel. Born in Gujarat, he had originally settled in
Northern Rhodesia. In 1961 he moved to Southern Rhodesia and was soon involved with NDP and ZAPU. He
later became a ZANU-PF stalwart. At independence he became the vice-chairman of the ZANU-PF Tongogara
Ridgeview (Harare) Branch. He would go on to be appointed a Senator and, later, a Non-Constituency MP by
Robert Mugabe. In 1994 he was elected to ZANU-PF’s Central Committee and by 2004 he had been appointed
to its Politburo as Deputy Secretary for Finance. Kantibhai Patel died in 2011. He was subsequently declared a
national hero and was buried at Heroes Acre.

Two other prominent Indians in the independence era are the historian and former Zimbabwean Ambassador,
Professor Hasu Patel and Justice Bharat Patel, former Acting Attorney General and current Constitutional
Court judge.
 28

I have tried to present the story of a small minority that established itself in a British colony against the odds.
The Indians of Zimbabwe had arrived uninvited, unwelcomed and unwanted by white settlers. From the
outset of colonisation, much of settler opinion was in opposition to any group that might represent an
economic and, therefore, political threat to its status and grip on power – all the more so if the group was of a
different colour. The spirited opposition put up by Indians for their right to settle and the right to earn a living
saw them launch campaign after campaign to ensure that they were not extinguished as a community. The
perseverance and resilience of the first generation, such as my grandfather, secured a sound foundation for
those who followed. Their achievements and their stories in the face of such odds deserve to be told and
preserved.

Today, there are relatively few Indians left in Zimbabwe with many of the younger generation settled in many
countries around the world. My own extended family is itself scattered to the four corners of the globe.

And I end on a note to amuse you all with someone

you might just recognise!