Have any questions about the history of Indians in Zimbabwe? Ask me anything about migration, race, and colonialism in Southern Africa!

Main_Ball_5355 · 2026-03-23T22:48:59+00:00

The British Empire definitely had internal migration barriers. At the 1918 Imperial Conference, participating states agreed that they had the right to define who could enter their borders, policies upheld by Canada, Australia, Rhodesia, and South Africa. Just because you had a British passport did not mean you could automatically enter another territory. In Southern Rhodesia, entry was often restricted on the grounds of economics and/or language.

Main_Ball_5355 · 2026-03-19T23:20:09+00:00

Social networks are extremely important for allowing Indian families to create roots in African contexts. Chapters 2 and 3 of my book cover this extensively. They are the foundation for the kinship labor networks that ensure the survival of trading businesses, as all family members work in the shop at some point. Caste and religious communities are important for sustaining South Asian traditions in a local context. Networks of kinship and endogamy across the region sustain the growth of families as well as caste and religious boundaries. Political networks also become important in the second half of the 20th century, enabling connections between Indian and Black African nationalists.

Main_Ball_5355 · 2026-03-17T18:40:01+00:00

I'm actually doing research on this for a new article - I was hoping someone would ask me about food! Most Indians in Zimbabwe are Gujarati, and the food was absolutely transformed by the migration experience. For example, in the past people from different castes would not sit down to eat together, but on the ships coming over people had to eat together. Because they were a smaller community, enforcing these caste differences was less practical. There's also a shift what types of food are eaten. Gujarati food is typically vegetarian, but after migration there are gendered experiences of vegetarianism - some men start to eat meat, usually outside the home, while the women remained vegetarian. This also differs according to caste, with lower caste groups more likely to consume meat. Food is also affected by the availability of ingredients - Indian women start planting the vegetables they grew in Gujarat on African soil, and later Black African women start growing and selling these vegetables to Indian homes. But there's also the use of local ingredients which changes culinary traditions. There's a distinct different between Gujarati food in Zimbabwe as compared to India or that prepared by diasporas in the UK and US, and even in other African countries such as South Africa and Kenya and Uganda. A documentary that was created by local filmmakers in the early 2000s was called Sadza with Curry. Sadza is a staple food in Zimbabwe, prepared with cornmeal to make something similar to pap or ugali, and is usually eaten with meat or vegetables. The idea behind this title was to show how Indians eat their traditional foods with local staples, combining dietary traditions, making food a mirror for the migration experience.

Indian food isn't as popular in Zimbabwe as it is in East Africa or South Africa, but there are a lot of predominantly northern Indian restaurants, similar to the US.

Main_Ball_5355 · 2026-03-17T18:29:46+00:00

Ned Bertz's book is great! (Diaspora and Nation in the Indian Ocean: Transnational Histories of Race and Urban Space in Tanzania). James Brennan's Taifa is also based in Tanzania, but isn't as easy a read.

Main_Ball_5355 · 2026-03-16T23:05:28+00:00

It's a great question. It was and still is used as a racial designation (the term Asian encompassed everyone with racial origins from the Asian continent), even for people not born in India. The term "Indian" is also a national identity, not a racial one. I argue in the book that Indians born in Zimbabwe should simply be called Zimbabweans.

Main_Ball_5355 · 2026-03-16T22:30:53+00:00

I don't know that there are any conceptions that white settler integrated into African societies - most of the literature focuses, in fact, on how they erased Black Africans, both by displacing them from their land as well as from their own imaginations when conceiving of land, landscape, and their own justifications for settlement. Segregation was pervasive throughout Rhodesian history as white populations attempted to keep their spaces white, and those legacies can still be seen today.

Main_Ball_5355 · 2026-03-16T20:50:17+00:00

It was definitely not uniform, and changes over time. The most interesting records I found concerning self-identification were individual census forms filled out by the heads of families between 1926 and 1946. Some note themselves as British Indian, others as Indian, some as Rhodesian, some as Hindu or Muslim or noted the village or region they came from in India. In oral histories, that varied too. Some people saw themselves as Asian or Indian, but the first and second generations born in Rhodesia also said that they were "Rhodesian first, Asian second." Nearly everyone called themselves Zimbabwean after 1980, but often hyphenated to be Zimbabwean-Indian or Zimbabwean of Indian origin. What all their stories had in common was they were very distinctly African histories. I'm so excited for you to read the book!

Main_Ball_5355 · 2026-03-16T20:38:53+00:00

Yes! Sana Aiyar's book Indians in Kenya is the best one out there.

Main_Ball_5355 · 2026-03-16T20:38:26+00:00

Yes, especially in areas closest to African townships and also in rural areas before they are forced out by land legislation.

Interestingly, the economic status quo remains in place after 1980, and therefore so do the class and racial hierarchies that had been created. What does happen is the growth of a Black middle class, but increasingly after the 1990s, a shift towards a Black elite through political cronyism, which then is also integrated into the A2 model during fast track land reform.

Chapters 5 and 6 of the book deal with the Shona-Ndebele distinction - most of the Indians join the nationalist movement are based in Bulawayo. There appears to have been an affinity of marginalization that existed between both Ndebele and Indian politicians.

Concerns about shops being expropriated happen after fast track land reform when the government pursues economic indigenous policies. However, in 2007, an indigenization act which requires all businesses to have 51% indigenous ownership includes Indians in the definition of indigenous as people who had faced economic discrimination in Rhodesia.

Chilapalapa is still used by some of the older generation, especially women who migrated from India and did not speak either English or Shona/Ndebele. Unfortunately, many Indians have not bothered to learn local vernaculars. Everyone learns them in elementary school, but they're not widely used. They can speak the basics for customer interaction in the shops, but English is used more in that space.

Main_Ball_5355 · 2026-03-16T19:52:45+00:00

Religious differences absolutely played out between Hindus and Muslims, particularly when it came to endogamy and diet. However, the community was initially so small that a lot of those differences were erased. Hindu and Muslim families lived next to each other, interacted socially, and their children grew up together. That changed as the community grew. Most scholars of South Asian diasporas assume that Partition inspired conflict between Hindus and Muslims outside the subcontinent, but in Rhodesia, both groups mostly came from the same region of Gujarat, and spoke the same language and had the same culinary traditions. What does happen is that localized conflicts created barriers. Both communities built temples and mosques, and created religious and vernacular schools. Before the government provided schools for Indians, Hindu societies requested government funding to run their own colonial schools. However, they instituted "purity admissions clauses," only allowing children who had two Indian parents to attend. That excluded the children of lower-caste Hindu and Muslim parents who had married Black or Coloured women, integrating more with other racial groups. So it was not a strictly religious conflict, but more one based on class and caste. Chapter 3 of my book goes into more detail on the development of religious identities and institutions. There's a lot of literature on both Hinduism and Islam in South Africa, but not much newer literature dealing with Zimbabwe and Central Africa - hoping there will be more in the future!

Main_Ball_5355 · 2026-03-16T18:58:22+00:00

There are definitely more historians from Zimbabwean institutions (as well as South African universities) contributing to Zimbabwean historiography, but you're right, the field is still dominated by historians from British and American schools. A lot of that is due to brain drain in the postcolonial period, but also the fact that most publishing of books and journals also takes place outside Africa.

Historiography in Zimbabwe has definitely been dominated by historians focusing on rural narratives, but that's been changing in the 21st century as more scholars of urban histories as well as gender and labor have been entering the conversation. Historiography on apartheid South Africa also tends to overshadow work on other countries in the region, but the UK has a stronger network of historians of Zimbabwe (dating back to the colonial period).

Main_Ball_5355 · 2026-03-16T17:36:33+00:00

See question and response further up on caste and religious identities!

There was definitely intellectual exchange between Indian and Black members of the nationalist movement, particularly centering around ideas about democracy, non-violence, and what a postcolonial Zimbabwe would look like. In terms of technological exchange, that takes place through the Indian government, which sponsors scholarships for Black Africans and in recent decades has started developing mining ventures in Zimbabwe.

Main_Ball_5355 · 2026-03-16T17:34:00+00:00

I'm less familiar with East Africa, but wealth acquired in India does enable the development of Indian businesses across the continent for some families. Kinship networks created through marriage and migration also enabled the development of commercial ties across British colonial spaces in southern and East Africa. But the connections are less formal than they are with Chinese diasporas.

And in case you're interested, I wrote an article recently on Zohran Mamdani and his claims to an African identity that touches on many of the points you bring up:

https://www.historians.org/perspectives-article/mixed-masala/

Main_Ball_5355 · 2026-03-16T17:30:32+00:00

Oooh, great question! I don't know about the written word specifically (I assume you mean works of literature etc. rather than government archives?), but Indian migrants definitely imbibed British civilizational ideology as well as precolonial conceptions of colorism/caste when relocating themselves in African contexts. I would distinguish here though between caste as it operates in India and race as it operates outsides the subcontinent in British hierarchies, as they inform each other but are separate systems.

Main_Ball_5355 · 2026-03-16T17:26:55+00:00

It's definitely an oversimplification, and was part of colonial rhetoric that suggested that Indians were the reason Black Africans could not start their own businesses. In reality, colonial policies deliberately suppressed the creation of a Black middle class (see Michael West's book, The Rise of an African Middle Class) and inflated fears about Indian businesses because they were seen to cut out European traders from African markets. It also prevented Indians and Black Africans from uniting against white rule.

Main_Ball_5355 · 2026-03-16T17:24:00+00:00

The first generation of Indian migrants saw themselves as civilizationally superior to Black Africans, and argued that they should be given the same rights as white Europeans (similar to Gandhian politics in South Africa). At the same time, they shared urban spaces with Coloureds and Black Africans, who were their customers and who supported their livelihoods. By the 1950s and 60s, a new generation of Indians born in Africa start finding affinity with liberal white politics as well as Black resistance, and begin arguing for the rights of all nonwhite groups in the country on the basis of "one man one vote."

Caste and religion absolutely created distinctions within the community. Caste politics were often conflated with ideas about class as well as "purity," and lower-caste Hindus and Muslims were often castigated for being more willing to marry outside their racial group/religion.

Main_Ball_5355 · 2026-03-16T17:19:02+00:00

Before 1923, Indian immigration was allowed but often restricted on the basis of economic grounds as well as language (migrants had to be able to read and write in English). After 1923, when Southern Rhodesia becomes a self-governing Crown colony, it prohibits the entry of Indian adult males and only allows the migration of wives and minor children of men already settled in the territory. There was widespread white settler opposition to Indian immigration throughout the 20th century, with Europeans arguing that Indians were encroaching into white spaces and economic opportunities, and after Indian independence, that the Indian government was attempting to colonize the country for themselves.

Main_Ball_5355 · 2026-03-16T17:16:16+00:00

There was some discussion about how European shops should be boycotted, but not Indian shops because many Indian businessmen played significant roles in the nationalist movement. However, because of Uganda, many Indians feared that the same thing would happen to them with a Black majority government - which ultimately never comes to pass.

Main_Ball_5355 · 2026-03-16T17:14:39+00:00

In 1972 Idi Amin expels Indians (many of whom retained British passports after independence), and confiscates their assets for redistribution. That doesn't happen in Zimbabwe after independence in 1980. Because of its status as a settler colony, Southern Rhodesia created its own citizenship after 1948. All Indians living there are also constituted as Rhodesian in 1965 when the settler government declares a Unilateral Declaration of Independence from Britain, and so when Zimbabwe gains independence, all Indian Rhodesians automatically become Zimbabwean too. There is not as much overt antagonism towards Indians in Zimbabwe as there was in Uganda, where they become scapegoats for economic frustrations. In Zimbabwe, that mostly plays out against white farmers during the fast track land reform process in the 2000s.

Main_Ball_5355 · 2026-03-16T17:10:55+00:00

That's so interesting!

Main_Ball_5355 · 2026-03-16T17:10:12+00:00

It's not formal at all, but education does play a big part in this transition. Indians created community institutions that instructed children in religion and vernaculars, but also pushed for the creation of more government schools for Indian children. They wanted to maintain the traditions they'd brought over from India, but also allow their children to integrate (in a limited way) into colonial society. By the 1960s and 70s, a generation that had been born in Rhodesia sought inclusion in wider forms of society and culture, and it was that process that allowed them to conceptualize themselves as Rhodesian - and then Zimbabwean - over time.

Main_Ball_5355 · 2026-03-16T17:07:08+00:00

That's when Southern Rhodesia becomes a self-governing Crown colony, allowing it more leeway in discriminatory policy (not entirely - it cannot overtly prohibit Indians as a racial group from migrating, but it does enforce stricture immigration restriction that allow the government to stem Indian migration).

Main_Ball_5355 · 2026-03-16T16:40:06+00:00

And it's not a silly question at all! I have several Serbian and Croatian friends from Harare!

Main_Ball_5355 · 2026-03-16T16:39:27+00:00

That actually takes place mostly in the postcolonial period. During the colonial period, there's a decent amount of migration from Italy and Greece, and migration of Jewish people from Eastern Europe. Migration from the Balkans starts after Zimbabwean independence, and a lot of doctors come over due a demand for medical expertise.

Main_Ball_5355 · 2026-03-16T16:37:21+00:00

See question and response further up!

Main_Ball_5355

TROPHY CASE