exercising military power and assuming administrative functions till the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and the Government of India Act 1858 led to the direct rule of India in the form of British Raj .
The brief history of the above voyages
British East Africa
During the British Raj , many Indians were brought to the then East African colonies for various reasons
• To work as unskilled / semi-skilled labour for construction or farm
• To perform clerical work in Imperial service
• In the 1890s , 32,000 labourers from British India were brought under indentured labour contracts to work on the construction of the Uganda Railway that started in the Kenyan port city of Mombasa and ended in Kisumu on the Kenyan side of Lake Victoria
• After 1896 , immigrants from India came to as money lenders , traders , and artisans
South Africa
• The Indians arrived in South Africa from 1860 onwards
• They were transported as indentured labourers to work on the sugarcane plantations of Natal Colony - approximately
Oman
• Oman , at the mouth of the Persian Gulf , has been the primary focus of trade and commerce for medieval Gujarati merchants and Gujaratis , along with various other ethnic groups ,
Great Britain
• No one knows the earliest settlement of Indians in Great Britain for certain
• In 1932 , the Indian National Congress survey of ‘ all Indians outside India ’ estimated that there were 7,128 Indians in the United Kingdom
• During the 19th century , the and colonisation of India forms a background and reasons for the migration of Indian people to various parts of the world . By the 1820s , many Indians were voluntarily enlisting to go abroad for work , in the hope of a better life . A system of agents was used to
• By 1919 the Indians rapidly grew to outnumber the Europeans by more than two to one
• A number of people worked for the British run banks . They also worked in skilled labour occupations , as managers , teachers and administrators
The migration of Asians from the East African countries of Kenya , Uganda and Tanzania ( formerly Tanganyika and the islands of Pemba and Zanzibar ) occurred due to political scenarios :
• The countries of East Africa gained independence from Britain in the early 1960s
• At that time most Gujaratis and other Asians opted to remain as British Subjects
150,000 Indians arrived over a period of 5 decades
• Later they were brought as indentured coal miners and railway workers
• The vast majority of immigrant pioneer Gujaratis who came contributed to the founding and settlement of its capital port city , Muscat
• Some of the earliest Indian immigrants to settle in Oman were the Bhatias of Kutch , with powerful presence in Oman
East India Company brought thousands of Indian seamen and workers to Britain largely to work on ships and in ports
• It is estimated 8,000 Indians lived in Britain permanently prior to the 1950s
• Following the Second World War and the breakup of the British Empire , Indian migration to the UK increased through the 1950s infiltrate the rural villages of India and recruit labourers . They would often deceive the credulous workers about the great opportunities that awaited them for their own material betterment abroad . Some examples of the migration are provided herein .
• The African politicians at that time introduced “ Africanisation ”
• During the middle of the 1960s many Asians saw the writing on the wall and started moving either to UK or India
• Restrictive British immigration policies stopped a mass exodus of East African Asians
• A system of work permits and trade licenses was introduced in 1969 to restrict the role of Indians in economic and professional activities
• Idi Amin , coming to power in Uganda in 1971 , campaigned for de-Indianisation , eventually resulting in the expulsion and ethnic cleansing of Uganda ’ s Indian minority
in the latter half of the 19th century were passenger Indians who paid for their own travel fare and means of transport in pursuit of fresh trade and career opportunities and as such were treated as British Subjects
dating back to the 16th century
• At the turn of the 19th century , Gujaratis had immense political clout , persuading Oman ’ s Sultan Syed Said ( 1791-1856 ) to shift his capital from Muscat to Zanzibar
and 1960s
Several distinct phases of migration can be identified :
• Workers ( including Anglo- Indians ) were recruited to fulfil the labour shortage that resulted from World War II
• Workers , mainly from the Punjab and Gujarat regions , arrived from India in late 1950s and 1960s .
vol . 41 | Prajapati Sandesh 2016 57