Diaspora and Nation in the Indian Ocean : Transnational Histories of Race and Urban Space in Tanzania [1 ed.] 9780824857394, 9780824851552

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DI A S P OR A and NAT I O N in the I NDI A N OCE A N

Published with the support of the School of Pacific and Asian Studies, University of Hawai‘i

DIASPORA and NATION in the INDIAN OCEAN

c Transnational Histories of Race and Urban Space in Tanzania

Ned Bertz

University of Hawai‘i Press Honolulu

© 2015 University of Hawai‘i Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of Ame­r ica 20 ​19 ​18 ​17 ​16 ​15  

6 ​5 ​4 ​3 ​2 ​1

Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-­P ublication Data Bertz, Ned, author.   Diaspora and nation in the Indian Ocean : transnational histories of race and urban space in Tanzania / Ned Bertz.    pages cm   Includes bibliographical references and index.   ISBN 978-0-8248-5155-2 (cloth : alk. paper)   1.  East Indians—­Tanzania—­Dar es Salaam—­History—20th century.  2.  Dar es Salaam (Tanzania)—­R ace relations—­History—20th century.  3.  Indian Ocean Region—­Emigration and immigration—­History—20th century.  I.  Title.   DT443.3.E38B47 2015   305.8914'0678—­dc23 2015015819 University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-­f ree paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Council on Library Resources. Printed by Maple Press

Contents

Ac­know­ledg­ments

vii

Introduction 1 Chapter One Diaspora and Nation in the Indian Ocean

28

Chapter Two Building Colonial Schools and Constructing Race

61

Chapter Three Indian Ocean World Cinema

90

Chapter Four Educating the Nation

124

Chapter Five Transnational Films in National Cinema Halls

164

Conclusion 197 Notes Bibliography Index

203 251 267

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Ac­know­ledg­ments

m ultisited fi el dw o r k h a s i t s challenges but brings the reward of collaboration with many dynamic academic, institutional, and social networks. Those who have assisted me as I worked on this pro­ject over the years are legion, and it is with joy that I look forward to repaying debts to colleagues and friends who have enriched me in inimitable ways. I offer an apology that I cannot list everybody, as I must avoid repeating the sprawling, maudlin nostalgia that inhabited my previous written ac­know­ledg­ ments. If you are reading this I am hopeful that you realize how much I value your support. With deep humility, I say asanteni, shukriya, mahalo, and thank you. This manuscript’s anonymous readers are much appreciated, and warm thanks go to everyone at University of Hawai‘i Press who has contributed to creating this book, especially my editor Pamela Kelley. Thanks are also due to the production editor, Carolyn Ferrick, the copy editor, Susan Campbell, and to Richard Forster for taking on the task of indexing. I salute my helpful colleagues in the UH Department of History and those affiliated with the Center for South Asian Studies for their encouragement and intellectual inspiration. The University of Hawai‘i, with its idyllic setting in the Pacific, is a wonderful home from which to contemplate the shores of the Indian Ocean. Transnational research comes at a steep cost, and for sponsoring and facilitating many years of fieldwork I would like to acknowledge my gratitude to Fulbright-­IIE, the American Institute of Indian Studies, the Council of American Overseas Research Centers, the University of Iowa, and the University of Hawai‘i. The education I received at Iowa had a profound vii

A c­k n o w­l e d g­m e n t s

impact on my life. The influence, ideas, and inspiration of two mentors, Jim Giblin and Paul Greenough, are written into every page that follows. Vibrant interactions with many professors, staff, and fellow gradu­ate students enlightened me every day in Iowa City. A special thank-­you is owed to Becky Pulju for her intelligence and care, both of which ­were necessary to complete this work. Innumerable ­people advanced my research in Tanzania and India, notably those working at the Tanzania National Archives, National Library of Tanzania, University of Dar es Salaam Library’s East Africana Collection, National Archives of India, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, Maharashtra State Archives, and Gujarat State Archives. Much assistance was given by faculty at the University of Dar es Salaam, University of Mumbai, and Ambedkar University Delhi (AUD), where I taught for a year while revising the manuscript. Cohorts of fellow researchers in Tanzania contributed significantly to my knowledge and happiness, including (among many o ­ thers) Joy Baumgartner, Felicitas Becker, Jim Brennan, Gary Burgess, Andrew Burton, Amy Cooke, Steve Corradini, Monique Groot, Linda Helgesson, Christina Higgins, Heather Hoag, Andy Ivaska, Tim Kelsall, Stacey Langwick, Kate Luongo, Dodie McDow, Claire Mercer, Charlotte Miller, Eileen Moyer, Esther Obdam, Gijsbert Oonk, Alex Perullo, Megan Plyler, Jeremy Prestholdt, Dorcas Robinson, Musa Sadock, Abdul Sheriff, Tom Smucker, Kiki Thorpe, and Fran Vavrus. And to all those p ­ eople and families who helped me or opened their homes to me, this meant more than I can ever express, with special thanks to Fatma Alloo, the Amijee-­Hussein ­family, Manju Buhecha,  K.  L. and Urmila Jhaveri, Harinder Karwal, Thomas Mathew, Darshan and Nutan Mehta, Fatma Rashid Mohammed, Reverend Pannasekara, and B. K. Tanna. I am fortunate to have generous academic and social networks on the other side of the Indian Ocean as well, and would like to thank scholars of and/or friends in India, including (another hopelessly incomplete list) Sana Aiyar, Aparna Balachandran, Ishita Banerjee-­Dube, Durba Chattaraj, Shahana Chattaraj, Saurabh Dube, Namrata Ganneri, Heather Goodall, Chhaya Goswami, John Hungu, Sadan Jha, Aparna Kapadia, PK Keshavmurthy, Samia Khatun, R. C. Kikwabha, Ashok Mathew, Reni Modi, Goldie Osuri, Karthika Sasikumar, Rashmi Sawhney, Anita Sharma, Veena Sharma, Edward Simpson, Vandana Sinha, Debs Sutton, Nishpriha Thakur, Arafaat Valiani, the entire history faculty and members of the Centre for Community Knowledge at AUD, and everyone at the Centre for African Studies, University of Mumbai. I also owe academic debts to viii

A c­k n o w­l e d g­m e n t s

many scholars for commenting on versions of my work, far beyond the few named h ­ ere: Ned Alpers, Joel Barkan, Helene Basu, Sugata Bose, Tom Cadogan, Jeff Cox, Gaurav Desai, Sara Rich Dorman, Rachel Dwyer, Laura Fair, Douglas Haynes, Isabel Hofmeyr, Preben Kaarsholm, Philip Lutgendorf, Edward Miner, Richa Nagar, Scott Reese, Sajjad Rizvi, Allen Roberts, Leslie Schwalm, Jael Silliman, and Stephen Vlastos. Finally, I cannot overemphasize my gratitude for the support I’ve received from my ­family and friends, even when I’ve failed to explain why I needed to be so far away. To my brother Neil and his f­ amily, thanks for making this eccentric u ­ ncle an integral part of your lives. My f­ ather and late mo­ther sustained me, with love, as I wandered uncertain paths in the world. I dedicate this book to Dad—­look out; I’m catching up to you!

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c INTRODUCTION

i n 1964, a let t er t o t h e edi t o r appeared in a Dar es Salaam newspaper remarking on a deceptively ­simple question that possessed a complicated history and would face a contested ­f uture: “Of all the ambiguous words in this universe, the word ‘African’ is surely the top one. Hence I would be very grateful if a learned African would tell us exactly ‘Who is an African?’ ”1 The British colonial government grappled often with comprehending and managing racial identities in Tanganyika, and even in twenty-­first-­century Tanzania the issue still arises at official levels: for example, in 2001, a cabinet minister lamented, “We have not yet reached a stage as to define who is an indigenous Tanzanian. If you are ­going to be ambiguous, then you will let us down.”2 What made (and makes) this issue so dizzyingly elusive—­for government bureaucrats and ordinary ­people alike—is East Africa’s location as a historical crossroads for Indian Ocean circulations of diverse ­people who possessed varying ideas about how to reconcile ­human difference, social belonging, and place of origin. The vibrant Swahili coast port city of Dar es Salaam—­ literally, the Haven of Peace—­has hosted, since its foundation in the mid-­ nineteenth ­century, a population that reflects a legacy of long relations with the Arabian Peninsula and the arrival of a diaspora emanating in waves from the Indian subcontinent. A ­ fter de­cades of Eu­ro­pean imperial intrusions, Tanzanian nationalist forces had peacefully dismantled colonial structures of racial segregation by the 1960s. Nonetheless, despite the official pronouncement of a philosophy of nonracial nationalism ­after in­de­ pen­dence, a central question remains: Why do contested public discussions about race remain prominent on the streets of Dar es Salaam t­ oday? 1

Introduction

Answers to this question can be found by examining the changing relationship between the categories of nation and diaspora in East Africa, manifested in everyday urban spaces and embedded within exchanges across the wider Indian Ocean region. Based on a range of archival, oral, and newspaper sources from locations in Tanzania and India, this book explores the history of cross-­cultural encounters that ­shaped regional ideas of diaspora and nationhood from the earliest days of colonial Tanganyika—­when Indian settlement began to expand dramatically—to pre­sent-­day Tanzania. It centers discourses about race within two interconnected analytical frames: urban Tanzania and the Indian Ocean world. In contrast to scholarship (discussed below) that asserts the disintegration of preexisting regional networks in the colonial or even early modern period, this book argues that the deployment of an Indian Ocean scale across twentieth-­century history enables an examination of the transnational production of ideas about race as well as the changing relationship among movement, place, and claims of belonging as new notions of nationhood and diaspora emerged. It is im­por­tant to note that this transoceanic spatial scale never remained static, e­ ither in terms of its geography or the cosmopolitan culture of its interactions, buffeted and altered over time as it was by colonialist and nationalist forces. This pro­ject requires a consideration of how a historian can craft an academic frame that can track and trace the ordinary but mobile lives of ­people resident throughout the Indian Ocean world. The writing of history brings quotidian consequences, most notably by locating individuals inside or outside power­f ul national or community narratives. Amitav Ghosh’s lyrical In an Antique Land illustrates this poignantly. Ghosh, an anthropologist and novelist, concretely realizes the historian’s limited power over embedded narratives and established structures of knowledge during a return visit to Egypt, the country of his doctoral fieldwork. Sparking his epiphany was a strug­gle to explain to an Egyptian government official why he, nominally a Hindu Indian, wanted to visit the tomb of Sidi Abu-­Hasira, a nineteenth-­century Moroccan rabbi and mystic who came to be venerated as a saint by Jews and Muslims alike. Ghosh muses, “But then it struck me, suddenly, that there was nothing I could point to within his world that might give credence to my story—­the remains of those small, indistinguishable, intertwined histories, Indian and Egyptian, Muslim and Jewish, Hindu and Muslim, had been partitioned long ago. . . . ​I had been caught straddling a border, unaware that the writing of History had predicated its own self-­fulfillment.”3 Following Ghosh, 2

Introduction

one could argue that scholars have divided the histories of Africans and Indians into separate academic worlds, despite the deep and longstanding connections between places like East Africa and western South Asia. The use of an Indian Ocean frame—­even when simply capturing and contextualizing the movement of peoples, products, and ideas through fixed social spaces—­can reveal overlapping historical pro­cesses and under­lying historical structures in the lives of p ­ eople who collectively created and grappled with competing and changing ideas about identity and belonging. This approach addresses commonly voiced explanations for the ­lingering salience of race in East African socie­ties that invoke the construction of public racial identities by institutions of colonial governance; economic exploitation of the African majority by immigrant Indian communities; policies of Africanization imposed by postcolonial in­de­pen­ dent governments; or innate differences and natu­ral rivalries between racial communities. In the following pages I analyze how vari­ous groups of Africans, Indians, Eu­ro­pe­ans, and, to a lesser degree, Arabs contested specific urban spaces in Tanzanian and Indian Ocean history from the 1920s to the first de­cade ­after the turn of the ­century. By focusing primarily on two consistently prominent city locations—­schools and cinema halls—­the chapters show how local and transregional pro­cesses and interactions affected both public and privately owned institutions. During the British colonial period, emerging and evolving conceptions about race penetrated schools and cinemas in Tanganyika, structuring the urban spaces of daily life inside of which restricted interracial encounters reinforced the pervasiveness of race. While colonial state policies in cities like Dar es Salaam used par­tic­u­lar languages of and assumptions about race, a range of diverse communities appropriated and challenged official terminologies while creating and contesting racialized community boundaries. Indirectly ruled through tribal groupings elsewhere in Tanganyika Territory, Africans ­were homogenized into the single category of “native” for the purpose of direct colonial governance in the city, even though the reality on the ground was far more complex. Similarly, the Indian “diaspora” was never a natu­ral or united entity, and multisided conversations forged it into a po­liti­cal and racial category in spite of visible fissures. In all of Dar es Salaam’s many communities, class in par­tic­u­lar formed a significant economic and social internal divide, shaping how encounters across the city played out. These observations challenge the conventional diasporist position (discussed below) that 3

Introduction

describes Indians’ historical experiences in East Africa in isolation, thereby bridging an extant divide between nation and diaspora in the writing of history. A broader regional view assists this move: framing the racialization of urban space in Tanzania against an Indian Ocean backdrop avoids projecting ­later national concerns of community integration and assimilation onto the colonial past. The most im­por­tant ­factor driving change in the history of race and urban spaces in the Indian Ocean region, beginning as early as the 1920s, was the rise and development of mass nationalism. This is unsurprising given prevailing scholarship, which argues that modern nationalism frequently forms its base from ethnic communities and that nationalism and racialism emerged side by side in the decolonizing world.4 In Tanzania, nationalist challenges to the racialization of city space gave greater importance to institutions like schools and places of leisure like cinema halls, but in the end failed to eradicate inequalities, including unequal access to education and film. In the postin­de­pen­dence period, national discussions of social mobility often w ­ ere cast in terms of race by invoking the era of colonial segregation and discrimination.5 As a result, schools and cinemas remained deeply racialized locations despite gradual educational and social integration and the ascendance of the ruling Tanganyika African National Union’s (TANU) nonracialist politics. ­A fter all, the postcolonial state needed to address existing racial inequalities in order to rearrange urban public spaces and achieve its goal of offering equal opportunities to all. Beginning in the 1980s, liberalization weakened the government’s ability to enact its vision, although it did not reduce nationalism’s stake in urban space, at least at first. By the turn of the twenty-­first ­century, economic reforms significantly contributed to the privatization of schools and the decline of large theater halls as public gathering locales, ushering in a new phase in the history of the relationship between race and urban space in the city of Dar es Salaam, and in the encounter between diaspora and nation in the western Indian Ocean. This introductory chapter contextualizes the book’s central themes of race, urban space, nationalism, and diaspora, and locates their intersection within Tanzanian and Indian Ocean history and historiography. Before proceeding, the pre­sen­ta­tion of a few brief sketches of individual actors’ lives will help illuminate wider historical trends at play across the region, eventually affecting the local urban spaces of Dar es Salaam. It is im­por­tant to note that the oral interviews that produced these accounts (as well as o ­ thers in this text) are not to be considered purely objective 4

Introduction

histories, but ones inflected by personal and ideological worldviews, social forces beyond the immediate view, and quirks of memory, nostalgia, and longing. This, of course, is what makes them poignant and interest­ ing. These recollections also highlight transnational experiences in twentieth-­century East African and South Asian history and represent locations around the Indian Ocean region where research was collected for this book. A first example rests in the life of Tulsidas N. Swali, who, significantly, resides ­today not in urban Tanzania but in a relatively small settlement in India. Mundra is a dusty and quiet port town t­ oday. There was a time in the nineteenth ­century when some of the world’s grandest transoceanic sailing vessels called into its harbor, loading up goods and ­people while awaiting the monsoon winds for the return journey to East Africa or another destination in the Indian Ocean world. Mundra is located in Kutch, which is now a district within Gujarat state that rests on the Indian border with Pakistan. Mundra is not far from Mandvi,6 another pop­u­lar disembarkation point prior to the colonial rise of Bombay and Karachi—­events that led to the decline of the older Kutchi ports, their demise sealed by the eventual partition of India. If you wander the narrow lanes of Mundra and Mandvi t­ oday, especially the denser old stone sections of town or the slightly outlying areas populated by families that grew wealthy from generations of transoceanic trade, you might mistake yourself as lost in Zanzibar. Lying in one such neighborhood of Mundra is Swali Street, where the decay of time belies the grandeur of the homes of once-­rich merchants. Tulsidas N. Swali, whose ancestors gave their name to the street, explains that he has never seen Zanzibar in his life, even though he knows its trading wealth built the thirty-­five-­room haveli that he and his ­family occupy.7 Several generations before Tulsidas was born, Jairam Shivji set sail for Zanzibar in the mid-­nineteenth ­century, launching a trading firm on the island that employed a worldwide army of ten thousand employees, or so the ­family legend goes. His name changed as his reputation grew as a man comfortable in other parts of the world, and the Kutchi pronunciation of “Swahili” eventually refashioned Tulsidas’ ancestor as Jairam Shivji Swali.8 Mundra’s Swali Street—­“Swahili Street”—­was fused directly to East Africa, in good economic times and bad. The latter began to predominate with the decline of Zanzibari prominence, beginning during the final de­cades of the nineteenth ­century.9 Mundra ­today possesses a modern port, recently built to recapture some of the vast oceanic trade lost over time. That new enterprise, dominated 5

Introduction

by huge container shipping liners, will never bring Tulsidas Swali to ­Zanzibar.10 As it is, he and his immediate ­family are as of a place as can be without ever actually having been there—­from his passed-­down memories, and his understanding of the transnationally interlocked histories that s­ haped his life, right down to his h ­ ouse, street, and, most intimately, his name. The life of Ali, once an African university student in India, is in many ways a mirror of Tulsidas Swali’s. Ali was born in the village of Makunduchi, Zanzibar, but in 2002 he spent his eve­nings peddling drugs11 to tourists near the landmark Gateway of India in Bombay, a large stone memorial arch built by the British Raj that symbolically opens the arms of this teeming city to the waves of the Arabian Sea.12 ­Under an old program of cooperation between the Tanzanian and Indian governments, in 1995 Ali followed the path established by earlier East Africans in pursuit of higher education in India, in his case at the University of Pune, a five-­ hour train journey inland into the hills beyond Bombay.13 While a university student, Ali was arrested for possession of drugs, although he claims that he was innocent of this charge. In the same incident, his Tanzanian companion evaded the police. Ali refused to divulge his friend’s name to the authorities, so, by his account, he received fourteen years in prison for his loyalty. Ali was acquitted on a technicality a­ fter a l­awyer took up the case, but not ­until he had spent five years of his life ­behind bars. Twenty-­eight years old upon release, Ali fell into selling drugs in Bombay, tossing his fate to the winds of a peculiar transnational commodity trade. He lived with several fellow East Africans in a diverse Muslim neighborhood called Bhindi Bazaar and frequented a Sudanese-­r un restaurant that served a variation of ugali, a staple Tanzanian food. Anxious and uncertain ­whether he would ever see Zanzibar again, Ali took a risk and moved to New Delhi in 2003, where a big-­time drug lord entrusted him with the distribution of larger shipments. Ali is a more mobile merchant t­oday than Tulsidas Swali, and, although his past is less glamorously cosmopolitan, both of their life histories have been ­shaped by similar historical Indian Ocean networks of exchange. Fatma Rashid Mohammed’s story of movement, like Ali’s, was driven by educational opportunities.14 She was born in 1972 on Pemba, the northern island of the Zanzibar archipelago. She attended a succession of local schools, completing forms five and six at Fidel Castro Secondary School near the port town of Chake Chake. Fatma learned how to shoot a gun and defend her country performing her obligatory national ser­v ice 6

Introduction

in Zanzibar in 1993, and then she was drawn into the economic orbit of the Tanzanian mainland, settling with her extended f­ amily in Dar es Salaam. A ­ fter a few years of work, she followed the same opportunity as Ali, heading off to study at the University of Mysore, in the southern Indian state of Karnataka. There her life diverged from the path taken by her fellow Zanzibari, Ali. Fatma kept com­pany with a cousin of hers at university, who ended up marrying an Indian, and lived among other Tanzanians who cooked together and went to Indian movies in a group. She recalls having mixed interactions with Indians, with prevalent racism giving way to surprisingly intimate friendships. ­A fter successfully completing her degree in business, Fatma returned home to Dar es Salaam and began working for a Belgian bank. She delighted in watching Hindi films on video and tele­vi­sion with her ­family every Sunday ­after­noon, narrating the plot (gleaned with her limited Hindi) and elaborating with gossipy stories about the main stars widely available through glossy magazines. Her academic success at the University of Mysore was celebrated by two governments honoring their close links over the years. At a party hosted by the Indian high commissioner at his mansion in Dar es Salaam in 2000, former Tanzanian president Ali Hassan Mwinyi feted his country’s graduates from Indian universities. Yet, at least for now, Fatma has deci­ded to turn her back on this region of the world, with its scarce economic opportunities, instead accepting an offer of funding from a wealthy aunt in Switzerland to study for advanced accounting degrees in Wales and, subsequently, London. She currently works in an assisted living fac­ ility for el­derly ­people and is taking the exams to qualify as a chartered accountant, while residing in Reading, E ­ ngland—­a long way from her origins in tiny Pemba. K. L. Jhaveri’s life also contains an im­por­tant link to Pemba through his marriage in the 1950s to his wife, Urmila.15 Without an understanding of the canvas of the interconnected Indian Ocean world, the trajectory of Jhaveri’s life, starting from ­humble beginnings in Rajkot, Gujarat, would have been impossible to predict. Born into a Hindu jewelers’ caste in the 1920s, he shunned the ­family business in ­favor of higher education, obtaining a bachelor’s and subsequently a law degree in Gujarat and Bombay, respectively. Seeking his life’s work, he gambled by heading overseas to take advantage of a deficit of lawyers in the British territory of Tanganyika, where he formed a successful law practice. Instead of looking to India to seek a bride, as was customary among many newly arrived diasporic Indians in Dar es Salaam, Jhaveri instead fell in love with and 7

Introduction

married Urmila. She was a Hindu girl ten years his ju­nior who was born on Pemba. When Jhaveri met her, Urmila lived in Dar es Salaam where her ­father ran a modest medical supplies store near the town’s railway station. In a way, Jhaveri also married his f­ uture to Tanzania, as his wife was fluent in Swahili and adored her native land. Furthermore, Urmila had spent scarcely any time in India: her first brief glimpse of her supposed “homeland” came only ­after a long and treacherous dhow journey in 1943. A ­ fter Urmila’s safe return from that trip, the Jhaveris later w ­ ere swept into the nationalist fervor that seized Dar es Salaam in the ­1950s. Mr. Jhaveri’s big break as a l­awyer came when he joined the l­egal defense team of f­ uture Tanganyikan president Julius Nyerere, whom the British charged with libel in 1958.16 Nyerere and other nationalists remained close to the Jhaveris, often meeting to plot strategy at their h ­ ouse in Sea View in Dar es Salaam. TANU—­t he party led by Nyerere at the forefront of the nationalist movement—­rewarded Mr.  Jhaveri with a nomination to run for office in the first multiracial elections held in 1958. He won handily and served as a minister of the Legislative Assembly into the early years of in­de­pen­dence. Mrs. Jhaveri, as well, played a significant role in the in­de­pen­dence movement and nation-­building efforts as an active and influential member of TANU’s w ­ omen’s wing. She crisscrossed the country visiting remote areas, together with Bibi Titi Mohamed and other leaders, helping build the party and nation.17 When many Indians left Tanzania a­fter the government nationalized rental properties in 1971, the Jhaveris remained and continued to live in the same ­house ­until finally retiring in 2009 to India for f­ amily reasons. In sum, the Jhaveris’ lives have much in common with those of Fatma Rashid Mohammed, Ali and his fellow Tanzanians in India, and Tulsidas N. Swali. Their life stories stretch conceptual historical geographies beyond conventional nation-­state or area studies borders and illustrate many themes in the history of the twentieth-­century Indian Ocean world.18 NAVIGATING NARRATIVES AND NEGOTIATING SPACE: THE PUBLIC DISCOURSE OF RACE

On the canvas of the Indian Ocean world one can locate the urban spaces of Dar es Salaam, where historical encounters between “Indians” and “Africans” occurred and ­were formative in the creation of ideas about race in colonial Tanganyika.19 Against a scholarly lit­erature (discussed

8

Introduction

below) dominated by paradigms of segregation versus integration (or assimilation)—­each position informed by a diasporic or national frame, respectively—­this book demonstrates instead that an interaction of public discourses created the ideas about race that, historically, affected (often transnational) social and community locations such as schools and cinema halls in urban Tanzania. In turn, these exchanges over prominent city spaces played an im­por­tant role in major historical pro­cesses in ­colonial and postcolonial Tanzania, contributing to the shaping of ­colonialism, nationalism, socialism, liberalization, and globalization. Yet even localized, rooted histories cannot be confined within states, ­whether national or colonial. The construction of Tanganyikan and Tanzanian society was a pro­cess that always flowed over borders and thus should be located within a long history of connections across the Indian Ocean. Public discussions about race frequently mediated the construction and meeting of nation and diaspora in East Africa, and surrounded prominent urban locations. Fields of racial discourse themselves operated almost like public spaces, accommodating and negotiating contested ideas held by p ­ eople from d ­ ifferent (and often segregated) communities. It is likely that debates over urban space inevitably failed to reproduce the precise way that ­people experienced race on an everyday basis. Regardless, crossing the city forced individual actors to confront pervasive narratives of race, as discourses both reflected and ­shaped reality. Locations such as schools and cinemas ­were racialized not only by contestations over educational or film policies, but also by the geo­g raph­i­cal segregation of urban space across Dar es Salaam. While urban space and ideas about race intertwined at a wide variety of city locations in East Africa, schools and cinemas are exemplary sites for critical analy­sis. There ­were, of course, substantial historical differences between (mostly) publicly run schools and (mostly) privately owned cinemas: one was a site of education and the other a site of leisure, the former typically a programmatic entity of government, the latter usually a bastion of commercial enterprise. Nonetheless, the forces shaping the public discourses of race that permeated schools and cinemas as they developed into busy crossroads of urban social interaction w ­ ere surprisingly similar: the state (colonial and postcolonial), individual community organizations, nationalist movements, economic change (most notably liberalization), and the transnational winds of Indian Ocean culture and

9

Introduction

capital. In both the colonial and postcolonial periods, the state sought to enforce ideologies of colonial or national rule through educational policy. At the same time, colonial subjects and national citizens alike viewed access to schools, with considerable reason, as critical to realizing goals of economic and po­liti­cal advancement. These multivalent objectives led to significant public contestations over education across Tanganyikan and Tanzanian history, in which contrasting ideas about race provided a significant point of departure. Cinemas, for their part, ­were a prominent form of public entertainment in urban East Africa from their inception in the late 1920s. Cinema­going was an im­por­tant social event, one in which repre­sen­ta­tions of social status, community identity, and national culture ­were all negotiated. Like schools, cinemas also received extensive attention from government administrators wary of film’s potential to subvert state projects, w ­ hether po­liti­cal or cultural, and again, race often provided the language of argumentation among and between bureaucrats and community members. Urban schools and cinemas in Indian Ocean cities like Dar es Salaam also functioned as specific and fixed social spaces that historically hosted local and transnational interactions of a physical and conceptual nature. Institutional apparatuses such as colonial educational committees and international film industries deeply influenced these sites, making them subject to actions and ideas from near and far. Individuals experienced the elements that structured social spaces in d ­ ifferent ways, and their encounters and the discourses they produced about them also contributed to public and personal understandings of im­por­tant urban places. This work thus draws on critical ideas of scholars of urban geography such as Henri Lefebvre, whose insights are commonplace knowledge ­today: social space, produced through social relations, is not neutral, and, while social spaces interpenetrate one another, global ones never eradicate the local.20 “Space” will be used ­here in conjunction with other geo­graph­i­cal vocabulary to refer to urban locations that attracted discourses of race stemming from social interactions. To be sure, race existed in these encounters as an imagination of discourse and not as a manifestation of innate biology. Therefore, ideas about race w ­ ere always contingent on specific historical circumstances. Furthermore, it would be incorrect to assume, as Jonathan Glassman points out in his study of racial thought in Zanzibar’s history, that racial thinking was imported from the West and did not exist prior to Eu­ro­ pean penetration—­although looking for the “origins” of race is as be10

Introduction

yond the scope of this work as it is futile.21 Prevailing notions about race ­were as fluid as the changing social pro­cesses that constituted the context in which they w ­ ere formed. While race is often understood, or at least represented, as a static category by the state, it would be more accurate to view it, in Laura Tabili’s paraphrase of E. P. Thompson, as “a relationship, and not a thing.”22 Following this approach for Indian Ocean history, race can be interpreted as a product of the relationships between ­people from ­different communities—­including, it should be added, not just communities bounded by race, but also ethnic, linguistic, religious, and national communities. This study shows how racial thought was built and modified in discussions about im­por­tant urban spaces, oftentimes mediated by the state. In other words, colonial and national governments participated in the pro­cess of filling racial labels with meaning by circumscribing and defining social spaces, although the real work of investing race with social meaning occurred in discussions involving public intellectuals as well as ordinary p ­ eople. Individual actors and community organizations often contested state policies that invoked race by advocating for changes to public arrangements of urban space, in the pro­cess creating locations that perpetuated the importance of race in Tanzanian society.23 It is critical not to lose sight of how ­people experienced racial thought through their encounters in urban spaces. In a location profoundly influenced by the sea, it is fitting to invoke a maritime meta­phor such as “navigating narratives” to gain insight into the historical relationship between public discourse and space in Dar es Salaam. Individual ­people use personal narratives to navigate through daily life, actively crafting an individual identity amid a variety of structures and larger metanarratives.24 Historically, a common strategy in building identities was to refer to conceptions of inside and outside,25 drawn from comparisons between group members and “­others,” thereby entangling individual actors within an array of social contexts.26 In East Africa, this pro­cess often entailed balancing diasporic and national narratives, invocations that si­mul­ta­ neously placed and displaced individual ­people and groups inside or outside certain cultural, po­liti­cal, or historical expectations.27 At the same time, national or other metanarratives—­each given authority by its subscribers and their proximity to sources of power—­inevitably influenced personal and community narratives28 and often collided in  everyday city spaces in Tanzania, fusing the language of race to these locations. 11

Introduction

A brief look at Dar es Salaam’s landscape of narratives will illustrate the model of interacting public discourses and also reflect how racial categories have solidified across time through historical encounters. Here is one nationalistic narratival fragment, a blaring headline and first paragraph of a story in Mfanyakazi, a daily Swahili newspaper: “Indians Throw Nyerere in the Trash! In a situation which shows increasing contempt, insolence, arrogance, and hooliganism, Indian businessmen who had entered into partnership with the African Aluminium Com­pany took down all the pictures of the F ­ ather of the Country, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, from their offices.”29 And h ­ ere is a fragment of a Dar es Salaam community narrative, uttered by a leader of one of the local Hindu temples: “Fortunately because of the country’s policy of secularism, we are not being interfered with at all by the government. We perform our rites with full religious freedom. . . . ​Only last year the government declared these temples as national heritage structures. We have been strictly instructed not to touch these temples ourselves, if there are any expansions to be made we have to get permission.”30 Bill Freund, in his study of Indians in South Africa, writes, “[Indians] look out at South African society from a unique position, experiencing it both as outsiders and insiders. Their own vigor, the plasticity and ingenuity of their cultural and material response to circumstance, has been applied to the peculiar institutions of South Africa to shape the rooms in which they dwell and the windows through which they look out on the broader world.”31 Similarly, Indians living in Tanzania could exist outside the nationalist metanarrative, shaping inner, community-­based narratives constructed in reference to the African “other.”32 However, the two quotes above also represent how narratives interlock with and inflect one another, both invoking the insider-­outsider, nation-­diaspora dichotomy. Mfanyakazi slanders Indians as antinational in rejecting Nyerere, the embodiment of Tanzanian nationalism, while portraying itself as the protector of the nation. The Hindu ­temple representative, meanwhile, asserts that the ­temple is a space in which Tanzanian Hindus can live and reproduce their religion and culture, crucial to their identity, ­free from meddling—if not oversight—by the government. Critically, community narratives frequently intersected with those of the state, especially a­ fter in­de­pen­dence in 1961, when the nationalist narrative manifested itself in government policy. This imposed constraints on Indians (as “outsiders”), evident in the admission above that the government controlled building alterations even in Hindu temples, an inner12

Introduction

most community space. Freund suggests that ­under such circumstances, Indians fell back on their cultural and material resources to respond to the situation. Correspondingly, the Hindu ­temple representative indicated Indians’ need to adapt to changes in nationalist demands by relying on the community’s financial resources: “There are business ­people who have spent millions and millions of dollars and pounds of their own money to care for the temples. . . . ​We are basically harmless, and we have to adapt to the situation that we are in. This is how you enjoy the harmony. Indians are well able to adapt to what is happening, and that is helping Indians to survive h ­ ere.”33 Despite their position as po­liti­cal outsiders, Indians’ wealth allowed them to protect community spaces, identities, and even narratives, to some extent. However, the nationalist narrative eventually surrounded urban spaces with its discourse, forcing some of its terms (although not necessarily its message) on Indians’ vari­ous community narratives. This is apparent in the ­temple representative’s rhe­toric when he says, “What­ever government is in power, it d ­ oesn’t ­matter to us, we will always perform our duties for the country, for the community, and for the p ­ eople at large. . . . ​A nd the [larger] Tanzanian community is being well looked ­a fter [by Indians’ financial largesse].” The following chapters examine the historical encounter between a diaspora and a nation and the corresponding relationship between narratives of race and urban space generated in the colonial and postcolonial periods. This introduction ­later reviews relevant Tanzanian and Indian Ocean historiography and, at the end previews each chapter. First, however, a sketch of the basic historical background contextualizes the book’s larger arguments. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND: THE INDIAN DIASPORA OF DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA

The United Republic of Tanzania is an East African nation through which runs part of the storied Swahili coast, a littoral area with a deep history of encounters with the wider world. However, Tanzania has not received as much attention on the topic of race as has Uganda, where the tyranny of Idi Amin attracted much commentary, or ­Kenya, whose general historical experience often stands in for the entirety of East Africa. Major differences in colonial and postcolonial circumstances have made the history of the Indian diaspora in Tanzania unique. 13

Introduction

The United Republic of Tanzania t­ oday consists of two parts: a large equatorial mainland stretching westward to the Great Lakes region of Central Africa, and the Zanzibar archipelago, scenically located in the Indian Ocean a c­ ouple of dozen miles off the continent. Zanzibar and Dar es Salaam, the functional (though not official) capital of Tanzania, both rest along the Swahili coast, a narrow strip of towns and villages ­r unning from southern Somalia to the area south of the Tanzania-­Mozambique border. Islam first began to be accepted by the p ­ eople of this coast as 34 early as the ninth c­ entury. While the Swahili coast has a long history of dynamic interactions with the wider Indian Ocean world, most notably involving Arabia and India, its connections to the African hinterland also added to the region’s social complexity and diversity.35 The Portuguese first disrupted the centuries-­old African, Arab, and Indian trading networks in the western Indian Ocean in the sixteenth ­century.36 They remained po­liti­cally and eco­nom­ically dominant along a large stretch of the Swahili coast ­until the second half of the seventeenth ­century, when an Omani dynasty from Arabia challenged them. Although the Omanis captured Mombasa from the Portuguese in 1698, a long civil war prevented further Arab consolidation of power in East Africa ­until the mid-­eighteenth ­century. By 1840, the interests of the now more unified Omani Empire w ­ ere so established in East Africa that it had moved its capital from the Arabian Peninsula to Zanzibar. In the 1880s, Germany began the colonization of the area that t­ oday comprises mainland Tanzania, Rwanda, and Burundi, claiming it as German East Africa, located south of the British East African Protectorate.37 During the First World War, fighting raged in the region between the British and Germans, their armies largely comprised of African and ­Indian troops, and in defeat Germany was forced to relinquish po­liti­cal control of its African colonies. The portions of land that are now Rwanda and Burundi w ­ ere split off into separate territories, and Britain established an administration that was l­ater recognized by a League of Nations mandate—­officially granted in 1922—to govern the remainder of former German East Africa, naming the latest addition to its empire Tanganyika Territory.38 Prior to the twentieth c­ entury, trade links between the Swahili coast and western India, especially Gujarat,39 ­were vigorous, leading Michael Pearson to suggest that the Arabian Sea should be renamed the “Afrasian Sea.” 40 The history of the Indian cloth industry of urban Gujarat, supplied by cotton grown in the black soil belts of the Gujarati heartland, 14

Introduction

epitomizes this exchange.41 Pearson writes that “the vast bulk of the inhabitants of the Indian Ocean area [in the early modern period between 1500 and  1800] wore Indian cottons.” 42 This trade continued into the British colonial period, even ­after the forces of the East India Com­pany violently replaced Maratha power in Gujarat in 1820.43 In the second half of the nineteenth ­century, East Africa was a growing export market for Gujarati textiles produced in the cities of Ahmedabad, Baroda, Bharuch, and Surat. In exchange for cloth, India imported primarily ivory and slaves from East Africa. The close economic relationship extended beyond these key commodities, for in 1856–1857 India received 23 ­percent of all East African exports, while goods from India made up 17 ­percent of total East African imports.44 Even before Eu­ro­pe­ans colonized Africa, India’s share in the East African trade ­rose to 44 ­percent of total exports and 40 ­percent of total imports by 1886–1887, with the merchandise still dominated by Gujarati cloth, and, in addition, ivory and cloves from East Africa.45 At the turn of the twentieth ­century, aided by the development of railroads and industrial machinery, Gujaratis shipped finished textiles to the trading ports of the Swahili coast, building on the activities of their ancestors who had produced the hand-­spun cloth so pop­u­lar across the Indian Ocean world in the early modern period.46 While there are scattered reports of Indians living in East Africa for the better part of the Common Era, larger communities did not form in colonial Tanganyika ­until the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.47 The specific reasons for the dramatic increase in emigrants moving from western India to eastern Africa are not well documented in the historiography of East Africa or India. Most accounts suggest that trade opportunities in East Africa—­created by favorable economic and po­liti­ cal circumstances—­pulled Indian migrants, and pay less attention to factors that pushed them to emigrate, such as economic depressions in Gujarat caused by drought, epidemics, or famine.48 Indian Muslims first began to gain greater influence in Zanzibar in par­tic­u­lar, aided by privileges extended to them u ­ nder Omani rule. Gujarati traders’ prosperity continued ­after the British secured dominance in Zanzibar in the late nineteenth ­century. Very few Indians settled on the mainland ­until the Germans began to develop their colony in East Africa, building railways and encouraging commerce in the first de­cade and a half of the twentieth ­century. The early migrants to the African mainland ­were also mostly Muslim, following the path of many Gujarati merchants before them who had sealed economic relationships with the bond of Islam, which 15

Introduction

the majority of the residents of the Swahili coast had embraced by the twelfth ­century. ­A fter Tanganyika became a League of Nations mandate administered by the British, colonial linkages created further economic opportunities in the region, encouraging migration, if but for a short period. Gujarati traders and other Indian migrants to East Africa ­later brought their wives and families, including extended kin—­although the 1948 census found that over half of the Indians in Tanganyika had been born in the territory.49 Despite the implementation of some immigration restrictions, South Asians continued to migrate to Tanganyika and Zanzibar throughout the first half of the twentieth c­ entury, numbering about 112,000 between the two regions at in­de­pen­dence in 1961.50 Unlike in the other territories in East Africa, Muslims remained the majority Indian religious community in Tanganyika and especially Zanzibar, although they ­were by no means without internal divisions, confessional or other­w ise.51 The pull factors explaining Indian emigration to East Africa are overdrawn in scholarship, as the push factors from western India also w ­ ere strong. Most emigrants ­were likely farmers, although some had small businesses to augment meager returns from the fields.52 This supposition is borne out by the economic predominance of agriculture in Gujarat in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.53 Many rural Gujaratis first migrated to the urban centers of their home region, and, if they failed to succeed there, subsequently tried their luck in East Africa. It is clear that most p ­ eople who left Gujarat did so u ­ nder relatively impoverished conditions. Despite the infrastructural development brought by the British, the overall prosperity of peasants declined in Gujarat during the colonial period.54 Factors contributing to the economic downturn included a series of recurring epidemics (notably influenza and plague), infestations of locusts and rats, and famines caused by drought, especially prevalent in late nineteenth-­century Gujarat. The devastating famine of 1899, for example, reduced the population of the entire Bombay Presidency (which included Gujarat) by almost 8 ­percent across the de­cade of the 1890s, ­after it had risen over 14  ­percent in the previous de­cade,55 prompting “an exodus of p ­ eople to South Africa and East Africa.”56 Following the devastation of this period, the population ­rose dramatically in western India, growing almost 70  ­percent in Bombay Province (including its princely states) between 1901 and 1951, and close to 82 ­percent in Saurashtra (peninsular Gujarat) during the same time span.57 Severe droughts and subsequent widespread famines continued to occur in late 16

Introduction

colonial India when the monsoon rains failed, typically every two or three years. The combination of extensive poverty, frequent crop failures, and a growing population set the scene in Gujarat, as elsewhere in India, for emigration. In the first half of the twentieth c­ entury, some of the surplus population poured out of the subcontinent. From Gujarat, one logical destination was East Africa, not only because of its burgeoning economic opportunities, but also because of trade ties that stretched back many centuries at the least. As a result, Gujaratis have always made up the overwhelming majority of the total Indian population in Tanzania and East Africa as a ­whole.58 In Dar es Salaam, the administrative and commercial colonial capital, British officials created three racial zones across the city in 1924, drawing on patterns of segregation first devised by the Germans when they started to build up the town.59 The colonial planners rooted the division of urban space in their understandings of the civilizational capacity and achievement of three ­different groups of ­people: Eu­ro­pean, Indian, and African.60 The Eu­ro­pean area (Zone I) of Dar es Salaam hosted government offices and comfortable residences. Zone II consisted of the busy commercial center, the location of the majority of Indian homes and businesses. Beyond a “sanitation” buffer area of one hundred yards, the clearing of which caused the only sizable dislocation of residents in the establishment of British zoning, Africans’ Zone III sprawled westward through the dense planned neighborhood of Kariakoo.61 The interpenetration of ideas of race and urban space formed a critical moment in the city’s history, and its impact lingered beyond in­de­pen­dence, giving visceral meaning to experiences of race and place in the daily lives of residents of Dar es Salaam.62 The Indian population grew rapidly in Dar es Salaam, rising from 2,600 at the end of German rule to almost 9,000 by 1937.63 By 1952, Dar es Salaam Township hosted almost 21,000 South Asians out of a bustling population nearing one hundred thousand.64 The writings of two observers in the 1930s and  1940s illustrate the aesthetic differences between the three racial zones of the colonial township.65 In 1931, E. C. Baker, “an administrative officer with training in anthropological research,” completed a social survey of Dar es Salaam, which l­ ater officials summarized as follows: In Zone I “residential buildings of Eu­ro­pean type only ­were allowed”; Zone II contained “residential and trading buildings” and also practically 17

Introduction

the w ­ hole of the Asian population and a number of Eu­ro­pe­ans. Zone III consisted of a native quarter [that] was becoming very mixed. . . . ​ [T]here is undoubtedly a tendency on the part of the Asian Government employees and ­others to reside in this area. . . . ​The standard of accommodation in Zone II varied considerably, well-­planned two storey buildings standing beside small, squalid h ­ ouses overlooking insanitary [sic] compounds and broken down sheds. Often “the aspect of the tenements” was “dismal in the extreme.” A number of Asiatics had already migrated to Zone III “where they can obtain greater privacy and more attractive surroundings at a lower rent.” . . . ​A frican ­houses contained 4–6 rooms, all except one or two being let out, a ­house in  the town being the investment corresponding to c­ attle in the country.66

Adding to Baker’s description, in 1945 A. C. Gillman wrote a history of Dar es Salaam that distinguishes between the “City” and the “Asian Town.” The former is . . . ​where the commercial life of the town, both Eu­ro­pean and Indian, takes place, with its direct lateral approach to the wharf, customs shed and ware­houses. The “Asian Town” lies to the west of the “City” and extends towards the open b ­ elt, containing a combination of shops and residential h ­ ouses, with several mosques, temples, libraries and recreation halls. It was in this area that the greatest change in the last de­cade had occurred; the population had grown, further capital had been invested in ­house property, and, with lack of space, the area had perforce grown upward. Serious congestion was threatened, but the Land Reserve to the west of the residential quarters . . . ​was well suited to relieve this. The large Native Town, to the west of the Asian Town, contained well laid out, broad, right-­angled streets, but mainly mud and wattle ­houses.67

In addition to segregating city space, colonial officials offered unequal economic opportunities to ­people of ­different communities. The resultant Indian economic advantage, assisted by colonial privileges, caused friction with the African population, especially in the years immediately preceding and following independence—­a time that witnessed an acrimonious debate over citizenship.68 African nationalism contained many shades, including some aspects permeated from inception by pop­u­lar ra18

Introduction

cialism. And although the TANU leadership hewed to an official line of nonracialism, it also implemented a policy of “Africanization” in the civil ser­v ice ­after in­de­pen­dence.69 The bloody revolution in Zanzibar in 1964, led by African nationalists who overthrew the Arab sultan, also saw some vio­lence directed at Indians, prompting many to leave for the sanctuary of Dar es Salaam.70 Three years ­after the postrevolution ­union between Zanzibar and Tanganyika, which created the United Republic of Tanzania, President Julius Nyerere announced the Arusha Declaration of 1967, formalizing the country’s socialist orientation. At that time, there ­were fewer than thirty thousand Indian residents in Dar es Salaam out of a total city population of over 270,000.71 Soon thereafter, the government nationalized select industries and assets, including urban rental properties with the Acquisition of Buildings Act of 1971. ­A fter losing significant amounts of wealth, and uneasy about the prospect of their country ­going the way of Idi Amin’s Uganda, an estimated forty thousand Indians made a massive exodus from Tanzania.72 By the late 1970s, only about 25,000 Indians still lived in Dar es Salaam, a small portion of an exploding city population of 750,000.73 Many of those who remained in Tanzania flourished through u ­ nder-­t he-­table “unsocialist” transactions such as smuggling illicit goods, facilitated by the bribery of government officials. By the m ­ iddle of the 1980s, Tanzania, like many African countries, was in an economic ­free fall, ending the socialist experiment and prompting the liberalization of its economy in exchange for desperately needed foreign loans. Still relatively eco­nom­ically prosperous, Indians in Tanzania w ­ ere in excellent position to take advantage of liberalization by putting their capital t­ oward international trade. The economic climate now encouraged Indian entrepreneurs, once seen as saboteurs of the socialist nation, who grew wealthier as the African poor bore the brunt of liberalization reforms. As a result, once the one-­party state gave way to multiparty politics in the mid-1990s, rhe­toric by oppositional African politicians contained a strong anti-­Indian sentiment, a situation that continues occasionally ­today.74 Indians formed a tiny minority in Dar es Salaam by the turn of the new ­century, likely numbering between forty and fifty thousand out of a city total of that has surged past four million.75

19

Introduction

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF NATION AND DIASPORA IN THE INDIAN OCEAN WORLD

­ ntil recently, nationalist historiography dominated studies of twentieth-­ U century East Africa, producing few analyses of transnational linkages or textured local accounts of cities.76 Over the last de­cade, Dar es Salaam’s history has received considerably more attention from scholars,77 and this book intends to expand understandings of the city’s development and its role as a nodal Indian Ocean port city.78 Beyond the local frame of Dar es Salaam, academic treatments of the Indian diaspora in East Africa traditionally follow e­ ither a nationalist or a diasporist approach. Nationalist histories often reproduced a Tanzanian nationalist metanarrative, featuring an elite-­centered focus to the po­liti­cal history of decolonization and nation-­building.79 ­Until the period of liberalization in the m ­ iddle of the 1980s, Tanzanian scholars contributed to building socialism by producing histories that highlighted materialism and class strug­gle.80 Nationalist and materialist works became standard fare in schools and influenced the way citizens thought about African history, especially as this scholarship e­ ither excluded Indians from imaginations of the national community81 or disparaged them as a “middleman” minority.82 These works also eliminated distinctions between individuals and communities, presenting an undifferentiated ­whole comprised of suspect “Asians.” Moreover, interactions between Africans and Indians still are rarely studied, and their relationships are assumed to be antagonistic. This ignores a rich history of im­por­tant cross-­cultural encounters in urban public spaces like schools, markets, movie halls, hospitals, and places of worship. A second body of lit­erature on the modern history of East African Indians draws from scholarship on diaspora. R ­ unning parallel to nationalist histories that discussed claims of belonging in terms of geographic origin or adherence to socialist ideologies, early diasporist accounts portrayed Tanzanians of Indian descent as a displaced minority living as exiles in a condition of segregation from the African majority population.83 These depictions solidified the image of a racially divided society in Tanzania and tended to highlight Indians’ achievements and contributions in the face of a putatively hostile nationalist or socialist atmosphere.84 Richa Nagar’s more recent incisive ethnographic studies of the Indian diaspora in Dar es Salaam explore the issue of community spaces in the city, although they focus more on communal boundaries than on 20

Introduction

the role of South Asian encounters with Africans in creating complex socie­ties.85 Similarly, Gijsbert Oonk’s significant corpus of publications on Asians in East Africa adds considerably to understandings of the Gujarati diaspora in Tanzania, but without probing its changing relationship with the region’s African residents.86 In sum, the lenses of diasporist scholarship on East Africa focused on Indian communities isolated from the African majority, while nationalist histories imposed par­tic­u­lar requirements of belonging that often excluded Indians. It is easy to see why such approaches—­which both view nation and diaspora as mutually exclusive categories—­stress themes of segregation or integration/assimilation, and distinguish insiders from outsiders. In contrast, the following chapters consider nation and diaspora in a dialectical relationship in order to study how interactions between groups gave rise to racialized public discourses that s­ haped the nature of urban space in Dar es Salaam. This approach is also followed by James R. Brennan in Taifa, which contains a wide-­ranging history of the city of Dar es Salaam with a focus on economic relations between Indians and Africans and the development of po­liti­cal ideas employing intertwined conceptions of nation and race. The following chapters seek to add to this topic by focusing narrowly on two social spaces, by extending the story into the period of liberalization, and by interrogating the relationship between the categories of nation and diaspora in an Indian Ocean regional setting.87 One way to consider the experiences of Tanzanian Indians and Africans in the same frame, and to merge histories of South Asia and Africa, is to look beyond nationalist and diasporist assumptions and acknowledge the historically shared and coproduced transnational western Indian Ocean arena, especially in the twentieth c­ entury.88 This requires new chronologies of Indian Ocean historiography, as a brief survey of this expanding field makes clear.89 The first systematic attempt at a history of the Indian Ocean region was published in the early 1960s by the Mauritian historian Auguste Toussaint. Toussaint derived his approach from Fernand Braudel’s Mediterranean model, creating a “unified” regional history for the Indian Ocean that he called “geohistory,” defined as “true retrospective ­human geography.”90 Thus, from its earliest origins, Indian Ocean studies have offered an alternative to the area studies model, which has been criticized as complicit in continental and national historical determinism.91 However, there is a historiographical debate over what held the Indian Ocean world together at ­different chronological 21

Introduction

junctures. Michael Pearson presses for a clear distinction to be made between meaningful unity and mere connections across the sea and suggests that at times such unity might have been possi­ble.92 Four de­cades ago James de Vere Allen proposed more specific layers of unity through common transoceanic features of race, culture, and religion.93 More recently, Sugata Bose expanded on this idea by again invoking Braudel, arguing that “[i]n exploring Indian Ocean history in all its richness, we have to imagine a hundred horizons . . . ​of many hues and colors.”94 Following Bose, a theoretical counterpoint against imposing unity on the Indian Ocean can be found in the contested term “cosmopolitanism.” At its broadest, cosmopolitanism refers to the idea that all h ­ uman beings are fellow citizens of the same social and moral world, thereby undermining national, religious, or ethnic affiliations.95 However, the term is often used in a reduced sense to describe the cross-­cultural experiences of elites, offsetting local culture as a less sophisticated social existence.96 Another tendency in using cosmopolitanism, prevalent in Indian Ocean studies, conflates the presence of social diversity with ideological projects of tolerance.97 Kenneth McPherson sharpens the meaning of cosmopolitanism in the Indian Ocean when he writes, “But in the port cities of the Indian Ocean, cosmopolitanism affected only certain sectors of society in a limited number of ways. If, however, the word is used simply to denote the presence of a variety of confessional, cultural, and racial groups within a single urban setting, then it can readily be applied to the major ports of the Indian Ocean region.”98 ­Going further, Edward Simpson and Kai Kresse’s discussion of Indian Ocean cosmopolitanism stresses a familiarity borne from a history of interactions rather than a salutary embrace of egalitarianism: “Highly significant social differences define the characters of port towns, despite centuries of inter-­mingling populations. Therefore, the impression of unity in the Indian Ocean . . . ​ is derived from par­tic­u­lar kinds of social diversity which are recognisable to ­people within the region as they move through space and time.”99 It follows from this that Indian Ocean studies (especially those treating the colonial period100) now need more careful explorations of “local views and experiences of travel and the daily grind of life,”101 in order to demonstrate how vari­ous individuals, communities, towns, and cities differently experienced cosmopolitan diversity as part of their horizon of a shared regional world.102 An Indian Ocean cosmopolitan culture as described by Simpson and Kresse facilitated encounters between Africans, Arabs, and Indians in the port city of Dar es Salaam, offering the aware22

Introduction

ness of a deeply interconnected history as a resource for ­people navigating the changing relationship and, eventually, growing gap between ideas about difference and belonging. In deploying the concept of cosmopolitanism, it is useful to acknowledge the role of imagination in its construction. Pearson quotes an eighteenth-­century Persian traveler who hints at the importance of imagination in perceiving the Indian Ocean world, if his words are read meta­phor­ical­ly: “It is not possi­ble to mea­sure the full extent of that sea except with the eye of fantasy. No one will ever delve to the bottom of that sea except by plunging into the waves of his wildest dreams.”103 Arjun Appadurai, theorizing the use of the term “imagination” in the new global cultural economy, provides an approach that allows for the simultaneous visibility of multiple horizons in the historical Indian Ocean. He discusses numerous “imagined worlds,” “constituted by the historically situated imaginations of persons and groups spread around the globe.”104 Fused with Appadurai’s concept of “ethnoscapes” (“the landscape of persons who constitute the shifting world in which we live”105), invoking imagination helps describe the cosmopolitan layers of connections that ­people, w ­ hether ordinary or elite, historically experienced in Indian Ocean port cities such as Dar es Salaam—­even if they themselves never physically moved around the region. Gaurav Desai’s new book suggests that if Africanists are pushed to look eastward, and Indian Ocean studies scholars better included Africa, a shared “Afrasian imagination” could be constructed across the twentieth ­century.106 Critical questions remain about dating the construction and, arguably, dismantling of Indian Ocean connections. There is an emphasis in the lit­erature on the precolonial period, which shows how long-­distance trade—­shaped by the seasonal rhythms of the monsoons—­began more than two millennia B.C.E. and r­ ose and fell over time based on variables of technology, trade, and inspiration, among many ­others. The spread of Islam and Eu­ro­pean exploration both enhanced the region’s integration, which, according to prevailing scholarship, peaked during the period between 1500 and 1800.107 The arrival of Eu­ro­pe­ans ­after 1500 did not necessarily disrupt existing practices in the Indian Ocean. The scholarly consensus is that the impact of Eu­ro­pe­ans in the early modern period was limited because the newcomers mostly accommodated themselves within the continuing structures of oceanic networks of which they had a shallow understanding.108 However, ­after 1800, when the overwhelming po­liti­cal and military power of colonialism was introduced, especially 23

Introduction

by the British, some scholars tell the story of the disintegration of the Indian Ocean as a highway of regional connection; for example, Mc­ Pherson argues, “Age-­old patterns of communication and interaction across the Indian Ocean w ­ ere disrupted and destroyed. . . . ​In addition to dominating and reshaping indigenous economic activity, Eu­ ro­ pe­ ans usurped indigenous po­liti­cal authority . . . ​and they imposed their own civilization as the model for behaviour and progress, destroying ancient pro­cesses of cultural interaction.”109 This argument for disruption in the Indian Ocean world loses sight of ­people’s resiliency and local agency ­u nder the onslaught of colonialism. Instead of helplessly watching traditional patterns of life be “destroyed,” residents of the Indian Ocean region adapted to new po­liti­cal structures and continued to travel, trade, and interact across the sea in altered relationships mediated—­but not dominated—by Eu­ro­pe­ans. In fact, in many ways, British colonialism—­and, in response, vari­ous strains of anticolonial nationalism—­intensified some transnational linkages across the Indian Ocean, including ones between East Africa and South Asia.110 Recognizing this, an ongoing wave of scholarship has made a critical intervention by moving beyond the early modern period to try to understand the early de­cades of the twentieth ­century from an Indian Ocean historical perspective.111 Michael Pearson urges caution in this pro­ject and settles on writing “history in the sea” for the Indian Ocean ­after the eigh­teenth ­century, as opposed to a more totalizing “history of the sea.”112 Nonetheless, Indian Ocean studies on focused topics rarely stretch into the second half of the twentieth c­ entury, invoking the rise of nationalism a­ fter the First World War, the economic impact of the global depression, or the withdrawal of the British Empire from its subimperial base in India as factors leading to the dismemberment of Indian Ocean networks.113 As the ­later chapters of this book attempt to show, an Indian Ocean historical frame can have utility across the duration of the twentieth ­century, as some long-­standing connections—or at least their legacies—­survived colonial rule and the subsequent erection of national borders, while ­others ­were retained in historical memory.114 This point is starting to be taken up in scholarship, as in Edward Alpers’ recent book on the full sweep of Indian Ocean history, which asks near its conclusion, “Considering the millennia of Indian Ocean history, how do its p ­ eople and their governments remember their connected pasts?”115 One such connection was manifest in the presence of older Indian Ocean diasporas that found themselves residing in new nation-­states. 24

Introduction

While nationalism was a formidable force in building boundaries and shaping p ­ eople’s identities, transoceanic networks continued u ­ nder in­ de­pen­dent state structures, if but in altered form. Furthermore, tracking migrants’ diverse and cosmopolitan connections across the Indian Ocean—in other words, examining diasporic experiences as part of the hundred horizons of the region—­opens up the study of the region in ­later periods. As the chapters that follow demonstrate, looking beyond the purely economic and po­liti­cal forces in the Indian Ocean reveals a richer world in the past, one that continues deep into the twentieth c­ entury. OR­G A­N I­Z A­T ION OF THE BOOK

Chapter one treats in a theoretical way the two central frames of diaspora and nation within the Indian Ocean arena, while also drawing on research into the creation and sustenance of the Indian diaspora in East Africa. The chapter examines the historical relationship between concepts of nationhood and nationalism and the constitution of a modern diaspora, illuminating their inseparability. This is critical to acknowledge given that, prior to the rise of colonies and nations around the Indian Ocean littoral, difference was perceived without reference to national identity, making the establishment of nations and diasporas in the twentieth c­ entury historically constitutive and intertwined—­a point typically elided in theoretical scholarship on the formation of both diasporas and nations. Chapters two through five focus on the Indian Ocean port city of Dar es Salaam, offering an analy­sis of urban spaces at a local level, although these places frequently w ­ ere influenced by diasporic networks and transnational cultural flows. Chapters two and three discuss the colonial-­era racialization of urban space in Tanzania before the rise of African mass nationalism, establishing how ideas of race penetrated and rearranged schools and cinemas, respectively. Chapter two examines the effect of the colonial government’s creation of a tripartite, segregated educational system based on categories of race. Both Indian and African groups contested aspects of this system, making city schools racialized locations, but in the pro­cess quietly consented to debate using the extant racial categories. Chapter three looks at the early history of cinema in Tanganyika Territory, during which time public discourses about race permeated Dar es Salaam’s movie halls, packed with diverse audiences enjoying films from India, Hollywood, and Eu­rope. The British colonial government 25

Introduction

attempted to control the unruly growth of cinema through film regulations that revealed official understandings—­based on empire-­w ide comparative experiences—of race, culture, and everyday life and leisure in Tanganyika. Indian and African organizations responded with entreaties to expand access to theaters, although not always for everyone. Chapters four and five consider the continuities and ruptures that nationalism—­both South Asian and African—­brought to the relationship between ideas of race and conceptions of urban space in late colonial and postcolonial Dar es Salaam. Simply put, ideas about the Indian diaspora ­were constitutive to African nationalists’ conceptual foundation of a new nation, and would remain so for de­cades ­after in­de­pen­dence. Chapter four returns to education, examining nationalist imaginings of freedom from colonial rule as visualized in the goal of integrating schools. Despite TANU’s eventual success in the 1960s and  1970s of unifying the separate school systems and expanding access to education, overall the national socialist plan to build an egalitarian society failed. From the mid-1980s onward, economic liberalization and the concomitant bud­get cuts slowed the government’s nation-­building projects, intensifying an educational separation that citizens related to early patterns of racial and diasporic segregation in colonial Dar es Salaam. Chapter five describes how the struggles of Indian and African nationalists redefined the connection between race and urban cinemas in late colonial Tanganyika and in­de­pen­dent Tanzania. In par­tic­u­lar, some African nationalists offered their conceptions of “proper” national entertainment, registering a protest against much of what appeared in local movie theaters. Nevertheless, cinemagoers’ unshakeable enthusiasm for foreign films (especially from India) persisted into the period of socialism despite politics of national self-­reliance. ­A fter trends in globalization re­ oriented East Africa away from long-­standing Indian Ocean networks, the grand old cinema halls slowly but inevitably declined in popularity, shuttering landmark city theaters that had seen de­cades of exchange as crossroads between diverse communities and the state. Rather than a constant confrontation between the interests of diaspora and nation in Tanganyikan and Tanzanian history, African, Indian, and Eu­ro­pean groups possessed multiple shades, and all of them vigorously interacted in debates over race and the proper use of nationally im­por­tant and transnationally inflected urban spaces. Framing these exchanges within the Indian Ocean also moves the historical understanding of race

26

Introduction

and urban space in Tanzanian society beyond a paradigm that simply mea­sures Indian segregation or assimilation. By examining these encounters from the 1920s u ­ ntil about a de­cade into the twenty-­first ­century, this book maps the changing relationship between the categories of diaspora and nation as the Indian Ocean scale swelled or receded over the course of almost a c­ entury of change.

27

c CHAPTER ONE

DIA SPORA and NATION in the INDIAN OCEAN

as discus s ed i n t h e i nt r o du c t i o n , the scholarly division separating nation-­centered and diasporist approaches inhibits the construction of an Indian Ocean framework. Historical pre­ce­dents indicate that when diasporas encountered nations, the resulting collisions lingered and haunted memory. So it might seem in pre­sent-­day Tanzania, where politicians’ cries for “indigenization”—­the re­distribution of economic resources to Africans from Tanzanians of Indian descent—­echo those for “Africanization” heard in the high nationalist period of the 1950s and 1960s. However, the historical context that created this ongoing racial tension was more complex than being simply the result of clashes between the intrinsically opposed interests of Eu­ro­pean colonialists, African nationalists, and immigrants of the Indian diaspora. Instead of a timeless antagonism between naturally allied groups, diverse African, Indian, and Eu­ro­pean voices all contributed to the creation of racial categories that came to impact city spaces as well as race relations. Repeatedly throughout this historical encounter, the Indian diaspora proved to be a loose category that failed to contain variant opinions on the links between race, urban space, and nationalism. Similar to the theoretical limitations of diaspora to define identity, in this case the nation—­despite the enormous impact of nationalism on p ­ eople’s lives—­equally fails to provide an academic frame that explains the historical relationship between ideas of race and place in Tanzania. In order to examine how the racialization of urban spaces contributed to the per­sis­tence of public discourses about race in East Africa, it is critical to move beyond national histories and diasporist analyses to contextualize the transnational his28

Diaspora and Nation

torical encounters between immigrant communities and nations in the Indian Ocean world. It is unsurprising that scholars fixated on the themes of nation and diaspora in studying the arrival of diverse ­people on vari­ous shores of the Indian Ocean, especially in the writing of modern history. As this chapter shows, during the colonial and postcolonial era nation-­states (or nations-­in-­the-­making) attempted to play a constitutive role in shaping the contours of diasporic networks and cultural belonging. Imperialism facilitated transoceanic connections between d ­ ifferent British colonies, allowing for the movement of ­people essential to the formation of diaspora,1 and as time wore on, both nearby and distant nationalist manifestations influenced what it meant to reside in diaspora. However, in contrast to the swell of publications on global Indian or South Asian diasporas, which often highlight longings for and contacts with the “homeland” (as subsequent chapters show), much of the creative production of diasporic Indian identities formed in East Africa as a result of local (albeit cosmopolitan) encounters across urban spaces in cities like Dar es Salaam.2 Nevertheless, to understand why a nation/diaspora divide arose in the lit­erature on Indians in East Africa, it is critical to consider how nation-­ states—­following from anticolonial nationalist movements struggling for independence—­attempted to influence the consolidation and orientation of resident or overseas diasporic populations. For example, this pro­ cess offered a national, Indian identity to diasporas in East Africa, which ­were originally stitched from threads of ethnolinguistic (Gujarati, Kutchi, or Punjabi, e.g.), religious, or caste-­and kin-­based diversity.3 And, in turn, the presence of older Indian Ocean diasporas residing in the emerging nation states of East Africa formed an im­por­tant touchstone in the fashioning of new national identities and state structures, similar to the way diasporas ­were instrumental in the construction of mechanisms of colonial rule. As a result, for the modern period, a diasporic identity often came to be defined in alignment and/or opposition to national identities, for the condition of living in diaspora necessitated crafting a local identity framed against a nation of “­others” and cast in terms of a nation of “origin”—an idea frequently lost in the slippage between academic categories like diaspora and transnationalism.4 Diasporic identities ­were further complicated by vari­ous conceptions of the nation as well, especially when embedded in the contest between territorial and extraterritorial nationalism.5 This chapter draws on three sets of underutilized sources to relate new aspects of exchanges that s­ haped the shifting and emerging claims 29

Chapter One

of belonging and citizenship in the twentieth-­century history of the western Indian Ocean region.6 These sources w ­ ere selected not for the purpose of relating the full history of Indian migration to or diasporic politics in East Africa, but rather to illustrate examples of the cosmopolitan culture that animated the Indian Ocean world. The three sections below show how the resources of this transoceanic culture offered opportunities to facilitate mobility, economic advancement, cultural integration, and po­liti­cal alliances, but also had limits based on class and gender, and could be further reduced at times when the Indian Ocean scale gave way to territorial nationalist concerns. The first section examines passport registers held in the Gujarat State Archives, offering fresh evidence of emigration patterns and some traces of the origins of ­people who joined streams of migrants leaving western India to voyage to East Africa and other far-­flung destinations, where some of them eventually built diasporic communities. Next, the chapter pre­sents the voices of ­people left ­behind in or who returned to Gujarat, narrating their memories of f­ amily experiences of migratory circulations around the Indian Ocean, substantially involving the translation and mediation of meanings of “India” between disparate national and diasporic identities. Finally, the chapter considers letters written by individuals and organizations in East Africa and the responses sent by the (colonial and postcolonial) All India Congress Committee from the other side of the sea. This highlights linkages and fractures in transoceanic relationships forged between nationalist and diasporic activists in the age of nationalism, before shifting the frame, in the following chapters, to a local context for this encounter, a cosmopolitan history played out largely in the port city of Dar es Salaam. ENTERING THE DIASPORA: GUJARATI EMIGRANTS’ PASSPORT APPLICATIONS IN THE 1930S AND 1940S

In February 1934, Nurbai Rehmtalla, a forty-­four-­year-­old ­woman from Porbandar, Gujarat, listed “house­hold” as her occupation when she applied for a passport to travel to Dar es Salaam, Tanganyika.7 At that time Rehmtalla would have had to make a long journey of more than two hundred kilometers from her village—­incidentally, Gandhi’s hometown on the Arabian Sea shores of the Gujarat peninsula—to visit the residency of the British po­liti­cal agent for all of Saurashtra, based in the princely state of Rajkot. While most of Saurashtra remained ­under the nominal rule of numerous princes ­until Indian in­de­pen­dence in 1947, by the end 30

Diaspora and Nation

of the first quarter of the nineteenth c­ entury the British East India Com­ pany had established firm control over Gujarat. The scattered princely states ­were eventually arranged into several ­different conglomerations for the purpose of indirect imperial governance, and when Captain  R. Barnewall reported for duty in 1820, Rajkot town became the seat of the colonial po­liti­cal agent responsible for the civil administration of all the western states in Gujarat.8 This agent, therefore, received many applications for travel passports such as the one submitted by Nurbai Rehmtalla. In fact, in February 1934 alone, in addition to fifteen renewal ­requests, the agency received seventy-­five applications for new passports, indicating that these travellers w ­ ere aspiring to make their first voyages across the sea—at least since the British began monitoring Indian Ocean trans-­empire travel. In the passport register, Nurbai’s name sits next to that of a fellow Porbandar resident also employed in the “house­hold,” seventy-­year-­old Amarbai Hajibhai. A few lines down is listed a third Gujarati hailing from Porbandar and destined for Dar es Salaam, sixty-­four-­year-­old Rehmtalla Ladha. From their names it seems that all three ­were Shia Muslims, and that Nurbai Rehmtalla and Rehmtalla Ladha shared a relation. Given naming traditions, it is likely that Rehmtalla Ladha was Nurbai’s ­father, and accompanying them was ­another ­family member or friend, Amarbai, sent to join kin in Dar es ­Salaam. It is unlikely that their full stories will ever be known, since the detailed passport applications of all three travellers have long been destroyed, leaving ­behind only a handwritten notebook filled with names and brief biographical data. The two passport registers from the Rajkot residency that have survived cover the periods from February 1934 to March 1937 and July 31, 1944, to December 31, 1947. Looking at the passport applications collectively offers new information that might alter understandings about the history of Indian diasporas in East Africa. They also are a reminder that, at least by this time, colonial administrators w ­ ere surveilling Indian Ocean travel, inscribing a colony (and, thus, a nation-­in-­the-­making) as a place of origin and destination in the rec­ords of all diasporic migrants.9 Where colonial networks facilitated the regional transoceanic travel that had been ongoing for centuries, colonial states stamped new norms of belonging inside each traveller’s passport, beginning a pro­cess that eventually stretched members of a diaspora between two nations. Yet perhaps the most striking observation derives from a study of the earlier passport register, which covers a time period that supposedly saw virtually no 31

Chapter One

additional immigration into Tanganyika Territory from India. According to the eminent historian Robert G. Gregory, the 1930s a­ fter the worldwide depression w ­ ere a period in East Africa when South Asian “immigration almost ceased, and the population apparently grew only by natu­ ral increase.”10 The census numbers from Tanganyika certainly support this logical conclusion, and in fact they register a drop in the Indian population in the territory from 25,144 in 1931 to 25,000 in 1939, a stagnation that was more or less consistent across all four British dependencies in East Africa (­Kenya, Tanganyika, Uganda, and Zanzibar).11 These numbers, taking away natu­ral growth through new births, appear to indicate that, if anything, there was a small outflow of Indians leaving Tanganyika during the 1930s. However, it is possi­ble that something more c­ omplicated might have been ­going on, for the po­liti­cal agent in Rajkot—­hardly the only passport-­granting administrator in India, let alone Gujarat—­remained a relatively busy man during the 1930s. Across 1934 as a w ­ hole (excluding January, missing from the register), the agent issued 1,445 passports (including 1,217 new ones) to residents of western Gujarat alone, of whom a whopping 1,160 first-­time applicants (over 95 ­percent) w ­ ere destined for Africa. Tanganyika was far from the most pop­u­lar destination, but 104 Gujaratis (almost 9 ­percent of the Africa-­bound) intended to set sail for Dar es Salaam or other towns in the territory. The month of August 1934 was fairly average for that year, with ten ­people receiving permission from the agent at Rajkot to travel to Tanganyika, nine of them headed to Dar es Salaam, with the remaining one bound for the central city of Tabora: a nineteen-­year-­old wife (whose unrecorded name apparently was not im­por­tant to the authorities) from Gondal, a princely state close to Rajkot, who was heading to East Africa to join her husband, Vijay Valabhji. This unnamed traveller was not the only wife heading across the ocean to a new land with her husband. Joining her ­were Ujam Rughnally, a thirty-­three-­year-­old from Rajkot; Shanta Vasta, seventeen, also of Rajkot; Manglabai Lalji, fifteen, from Porbandar; Vali Vagha, eigh­teen, of Bhandaria village (between Jamnagar and Okha, in the northwestern part of the Kathiawar Peninsula); and the similarly unnamed wife of Bhaijibhai Ismailji, who travelled with her husband, a forty-­year-­old general merchant from Morvi, a princely state not too far from Rajkot. In addition to the bridal parade westward across the Indian Ocean—­certainly an addition to the many narratives celebrating the pioneering male mercantile adventurers striking out from India12—­the po­liti­cal agent in the same month also approved new pass32

Diaspora and Nation

ports for Gokal Kala Khawao, a seventeen-­year-­old agriculturist from Memana (a village in the influential Jamnagar princely state); Govind Pitambar, a thirty-­year-­old carpenter from Rajkot; and Nathalal Dahyabhai, fourteen, of Jamnagar. None of these last three seem to be the kind of wealthy entrepreneurs often associated with the South Asian presence in East Africa, supporting Gregory’s claim that most emigrants w ­ ere relatively impoverished at the time of their departure from India (see introduction). While class and gender certainly ­shaped Indian Ocean stories of migration, they ­were not yet the bar they would become a­ fter the age of sail and steam gave way to expensive jet planes as the only method of transoceanic transport. In fact, the numbers of Gujaratis moving across the Indian Ocean only increased during the other years covered by the older extant passport register. In 1935, 1,793 passports ­were issued at Rajkot (compared with 1,445 in 1934), and the number of travellers destined for Tanganyika accordingly r­ ose from 104 to two hundred ­people (almost 14 ­percent of the total applicants). In 1936, of the 2,303 passports issued, 297 ­were stamped for Tanganyika (almost 13 ­percent). For the first three months of 1937 alone, a­ fter which the register ran out of pages, the rec­ords list 871 applicants who desired a passport for travel, with 114 of them intending to head for Tanganyika (13 ­percent). Looking at the numbers of travellers as a w ­ hole over the years contained in the register, for the thirty-­eight months between 1934 and 1937, 715 p ­ eople left western Gujarat to go to Tanganyika. If those numbers are crudely extrapolated for the entire de­ cade of the 1930s, the total easily would run into the multiple thousands of immigrants, and this excludes travellers with origins in other regions of Gujarat or India, such as the Punjab. What, then, to make of the conventional claim that immigration to East Africa was flat for this de­cade? Obviously, one conclusion that could be drawn from this material is that many of these travellers did not stay in Tanganyika, but only sojourned there. A second related possibility is that, rather than settling in a diaspora, these Gujaratis instead joined a pattern of continuous movement in the western Indian Ocean that had existed for several de­cades at the very least, with many ­people also leaving East Africa during the 1930s.13 There are implications of these ideas for theoretical considerations of the category of diaspora. Instead of a cohesive group of Indians rooted in places like Dar es Salaam, longing for a distant homeland, there existed a circulation of ­people in movement, with each wave negotiating its arrival to Africa in novel ways. In other 33

Chapter One

words, residing in diaspora meant living in flux, with group identities continually (re)in­ven­ted and (re)imagined in response to both local circumstances and transnational connections. In contrast, when scholarship labels a diaspora by nation of residence and territory of origin (“Indians in Tanganyika”), this obscures not only older cultures of Indian Ocean crossings but also the individualized experiences of ­people like Nurbai Rehmtalla, the forty-­four-­year-­old ­house­holder who left Porbandar for Dar es Salaam in 1934, only to disappear afterward from the historical rec­ord. To address this last point and reveal a bit more detail about these travellers, it is useful to examine one more typical month of passport applications from the earlier register before moving on to the 1940s. In ­December 1935, of the 163 petitioners to the po­liti­cal agent at Rajkot, twenty-­one (just ­under 13  ­percent) requested permission to travel to Tanganyika Territory. Judging by their names, most of them ­were Hindu, and the majority comprised w ­ omen. Ten listed their occupation as “married ­woman” (ages in parentheses): Ramkunver Premji (18), Amritbai Kala (52), Gangabai Hirji (18), Premkunver Vithaldas (28), Mukta Harjiwan (21), Sanklibai Monji (17), Narmda Dhaneswarpuri (29), Divalibai Dossa (14), Labhubai Vithaldas (20), and Rambhabai Karsandas (27). Of the two other female applicants, one was apparently unmarried and, perhaps, on her way to East Africa to change this status (Harakhbai Devji, 16), and the other likely was heading to join her ­future husband (Gomtiben Premjibhai Raja, age not listed). Of the nine men heading to Tanganyika in this month, three listed “ser­v ice” as their occupation (Chhotalal Manishanker Rawal, 23; Ratilal Manekchand Mehta, 23; and Savji Jivan, 11); two ­were tailors and almost certainly bro­th­ers or cousins (Narsi Jivraj, 15; and Hansraj Jivraj, 13); one was a trader (Meghji Manji, 40); one a carpenter (Raiya Ramji, 20); another a cloth merchant (Vallabhdas Hirabal Ashar, 19); and one did not have an occupation or age listed because his was a passport renewal request (Ramji Samji). In terms of geo­graph­i­cal origins, the travellers hailed from places across Gujarat: eight came from vari­ous villages in Jamnagar princely state; four from Rajkot; three from Porbandar; two from Babra village (between Rajkot and Bhavnagar); one from Jetpur (between Rajkot and Junagadh); and one from Wakaner (a princely state close to Rajkot), with the final two applicants not listing a place of origin. Each of these individuals, given their unique circumstances, would have negotiated their own entry into the diaspora in Tanganyika, mediated by their ­family’s situation on both sides of the Indian Ocean. 34

Diaspora and Nation

Moving on to the 1940s, Gregory describes the post–­Second World War era as a boom time for migration from India to East Africa, and the ­later extant passport register certainly bears out this claim.14 Before the surge in emigration, the late war­time years witnessed a sharp drop in the numbers of Indian emigrants compared with the 1930s; from August through November 1944, only 215 passport applications w ­ ere pro­cessed at Rajkot (versus 864 during the same time period in 1936, for example), with twenty-­ one persons—­almost 10 ­percent—­headed for Tanganyika Territory.15 A huge spike in travellers then occurred from December through February 1945, with 866 applications to travel received by the po­liti­cal agent (with 109 bound for Tanganyika, over 12 ­percent). This surge can be credited in part to the clear turning of the tide in the global war. Also, perhaps more than coincidentally, these months represented the best time to ­ride the easterly monsoon winds driven by the power of sail. Given this opportunity, folks who wanted to leave western India at this time, but feared that being on a steamer (if they w ­ ere even r­ unning16) would make them a target for a submarine, could choose to replicate the voyages of their forebears who had made their way across the Indian Ocean in dhows.17 Urmila Jhaveri, introduced last chapter, beautifully describes such a war­time dhow journey but in the opposite direction, from Tanganyika to Gujarat.18 For weeks on end in 1943, her ­family witnessed convoy loads of traumatized Eu­ro­pe­ans being herded as German prisoners to Dar es Salaam’s railway station. Jhaveri writes of the scene, All this while, my parents w ­ ere getting more and more worried about our f­ uture. If Hitler, a Eu­ro­pean, was being so sadistic with Eu­ro­pe­ans, what would he do to ­people of other races if he did indeed manage to reach Tanganyika? Bapuji finally deci­ded it was best if for the duration of the war we returned to Jamnagar to live with our grandmother . . . ​ in the ­family home. . . . ​But by the time Bapuji deci­ded on our move, steamships between East Africa and India had been withdrawn because recently, one of these ships had been torpedoed by a Japa­nese submarine and went down with all passengers on board. The only alternative was to travel by dhow.19

Fortunately, the ­family found a dhow owner and captain, Kassim Chacha, who was preparing to sail to Jamnagar on the westerly monsoon winds with a cargo of stocks of grain. Carrying Urmila’s ­family and a few other passengers, and manned with a crew of six, the dhow Bijli departed 35

Chapter One

Dar es Salaam with a traditional offering of a coconut and rock sugar to “Dariya Dev, the Lord of the seven seas.”20 Jhaveri describes the tense first part of the journey: In order to avoid the German and Japa­nese warships [Kassim Chacha] deci­ded to sail nearer the coastline, bypass the ports of Mogadishu and Aden and headed towards Socotra Island. ­Until now the sailing had been comparatively smooth. Kassim Chacha was constantly at the helm, following the stars and navigating Bijli ­toward Socotra Island. He knew the skies and stars like the palm of his hand. At night he pointed the constellations out to us, and quietly narrated fascinating stories about his wanderings around the world to distant lands. No one was allowed to light a candle or even smoke a bidi for fear of being spotted by Japa­nese or German ships and submarines. We ­were forbidden to listen to the radio or make any kind of loud noise during the day or night. The news from All India Radio every morning at a very low volume was the only concession granted. This added to our general sense of danger and mystery.21

Navigating past Socotra Island, Bijli and its passengers encountered terrifying storms, but also a lull in the winds, which caused even more anxiety, stranding the dhow on open waters: Bijli was becalmed and unmoving. It was a perfect target for any passing German or Japa­nese submarine. Our drinking ­water was rationed, and everyone started to pray fervently. . . . ​There ­were ­enemy submarines lurking around, the sun was mercilessly hot, and we ­were thirsting for ­water in the ­middle of the ocean! Thankfully the wind lifted ­after a nerve-­w racking ten days, and we set off again. When we finally sighted land, a great cheer went up and heartfelt prayers poured from every voice on Bijli. . . . ​We had reached the Gulf of Kutch. . . . ​Kassim Chacha had brought us all safely “home” across the mighty Indian Ocean.22

While Urmila Jhaveri was excited to view the land of her ancestors for the first time, the coming de­cades would see her become an active member and leader in the w ­ omen’s wing of the Tanzanian in­de­pen­dence movement (see introduction). Diasporic ties might have contributed to her identity, but in the end she was firmly forced to negotiate it between multiple nations. 36

Diaspora and Nation

As Jhaveri’s war­time dhow voyage might indicate, once the fighting ended, migration out of western India surged once again, with the po­liti­ cal agent at Rajkot approving 823 passports in the final three months of 1945 (­after only 514 in the previous seven months), with a stable 12 ­percent of travellers bound for Tanganyika. And if 1946 is any indication, the postwar months w ­ ere indeed a period characterized by migration out of a subcontinent increasingly seen as headed for partition, with almost three thousand passport applications received in that year at Rajkot (with almost 15  ­percent of passengers heading for Tanganyika). This trend continued in 1947, when the last extant passport register was filled, as over 3,400 Indians requested permission to travel, including about 13 ­percent destined for Tanganyika. Unsurprisingly, the monthly totals of emigrants w ­ ere a bit turbulent in this year of Indian in­de­pen­dence, with no passports issued at all between August 13 and August 27, spanning the dates of in­de­pen­dence in Pakistan (August 14) and India (August 15) and some of the worst horrors of partition. One wonders what this time might have been like for perhaps the most intriguing c­ ouple of travellers listed in the register: Noor Mohamid Habib Patel, of Veraval village in Junagadh princely state, and his wife Mrs. Lucy Hubertina Patel, who left India together in June of 1947 bound for the United Kingdom. Or for those who joined the large exodus that occurred, ­after partition, from Kutch, resting alongside Sindh province on the new India-­Pakistan border, such as the four ­women (all recorded as “wives”) leaving Tulsidas N. Swali’s (whose story was in the last chapter) hometown of Mundra: Sikinabai Bandai, Kusumbbai Mukhtarali Hashim, Kulsumbai Karmali Ismail, and Javerbai Ratansi. It is clear from these passport registers that—­despite the global depression, the two world wars, and the imminent end of colonialism on the subcontinent—­for many residents of the region, older (if altered) patterns of movement and exchange across the Indian Ocean scale continued to be relevant even as colonial and national states increasingly began to shape the experience of belonging to a diaspora. CONNECTING THE DIASPORA: MEMORY AND CIRCULATION ACROSS THE INDIAN OCEAN

Urmila Jhaveri’s triumphant arrival in Saurashtra in 1945 was made possi­ble only by the extension of Indian Ocean ties deep into the twentieth ­century, in this case through diasporic relationships between 37

Chapter One

far-­flung ­family members. Those who ­were left ­behind in or returned to Gujarat played an active but overlooked role in the perpetuation of these networks—­sometimes through kin relations, other times through trade or travel—­although over time boundaries thrown up by nation-­states grew into obstacles that sometimes severed such connections. In other words, over time the Indian Ocean scale periodically r­ ose and fell in importance as mea­sured against national or imperial frames, but it was never completely submerged. Thus, the circulation of ­people to and from Gujarat, in addition to the preservation of the memory of their emigration by those who remained b ­ ehind or returned, facilitated the construction of an Indian identity in East Africa. While operating in the interstices of the British imperial system and navigating colonial categories of race amid the rise of nationalism, Gujarati Indians—in conjunction with Tanganyikan Africans, as l­ater chapters demonstrate—­developed their own ideas about race and community belonging, inflected by the per­sis­tence of networks connecting places across the Indian Ocean. As suggested ­toward the end of the previous section, it is im­por­tant to highlight ­people’s lives to illustrate some of these ideas in order to make abstract models more real; therefore what follows in this section are the stories of Gujaratis, residing in western India, recollecting the history of their families’ contact with East Africa. The trajectory of the ­family of Dr.  Harshad  L. Udeshi—­interviewed outside a blue haveli in Mandvi, Kutch, which resembles similar ones pop­ u­lar in Zanzibar—is emblematic of the rising and falling scale of Indian Ocean circulations.23 Harshad himself was born in 1952 in Mandvi, but in 1959 he joined his ­family in Zanzibar, where they had had generations of experience. The ­family members are Kutchi Bhatias by caste, trading Hindus who settled early and in sizable numbers in East Africa. The ­family business there at vari­ous times exported cloves, coconuts, and ivory, and even sold automobiles. Udeshi’s grand­father had married twice while residing in East Africa, and although Harshad’s f­ ather was born in Mandvi, two of his bro­th­ers ­were born in Zanzibar. In a common strategy, the f­amily positioned itself within kin and commercial networks linking integral parts of the Indian Ocean region, travelling between India and East Africa frequently and also keeping h ­ ouses in both Mandvi and Stone Town, Zanzibar. Harshad Udeshi went to Sir Euan Smith Madressa in Zanzibar for his education in the early 1960s, a pan-­communal but largely Indian urban school. He holds unsurprisingly fond memories of his childhood, embed38

Diaspora and Nation

ded in an African atmosphere, ruefully noting that he thought his ­family would never leave. Part of the plea­sure of living in Zanzibar was its familiarity to life in India, with many of the communities from western South Asia also resident there; in fact, he even boasts of the memory of meeting Indira Gandhi on one of her East Africa visits. Udeshi notes that ­different Indian communities kept their distinct identities (often maintained through transoceanic marriage alliances), but in ways that still negotiated belonging to Africa: “We considered ourselves Indians first. Of course we knew we ­were from outside, but we never thought we didn’t belong in Zanzibar.” This sentiment, representative of the stuff of Indian Ocean cosmopolitan culture, manifests in his exceedingly nostalgic memories, from longings for spiced roasted cassava to weekly outings to the cinema, from ocean-­side picnics and dhow rides to his everyday relations with Africans and Arabs. Regarding the latter, Udeshi romantically recalls his ­family’s employees “like part of the ­family” and as ste­reo­ typically loyal. For one, there was Mohammed, the el­derly Arab worker in the ­family store who professed a desire to die on the steps of the shop. And then there was Musa, the African employee in the store’s godown who defended Udeshi’s ­uncle when an Afro-­Shirazi Party (ASP) nationalist bigwig demanded his watch: “Don’t touch him, he is my boss!” Udeshi recounts Musa exclaiming, adding that the f­amily servant also brought clothes and food to his u ­ ncle when he spent three days in jail for disobedience in this incident. While Udeshi does distinguish between individual Zanzibaris in his memory of living on the island, the lens he employs is based on degrees of loyalty to his f­ amily. Nonetheless, his ongoing imagination of belonging to a larger Indian Ocean world—­despite the fact that his physical travel within it has ceased—is a power­f ul bridge that spans diasporas and nations, if but an attenuated one from the vantage point of the early twenty-­first ­century. The nostalgia resonating in Harshad Udeshi’s stories might stem partly from sadness concerning the dwindling of earlier cultures of interaction and belonging that previously prevailed around the Indian Ocean. The unpleasant encounter with the Afro-­Shirazi Party official clearly acts as a marker in Udeshi’s memory of how times w ­ ere changing, with the coming of in­de­pen­dence to Tanganyika in 1961, and then the dramatic revolution led by the ASP in Zanzibar in 1964, which eventually scattered Udeshi’s ­family to the oceanic winds. Unresentful, blaming Tanganyikan po­liti­cal meddling from the mainland more than the actions of local African Zanzibaris, Udeshi narrates that ­after the revolution he 39

Chapter One

returned to Mandvi and has not seen East Africa since 1964. His f­ather and ­uncle stayed ­until 1966, wrapping up as much of the business as possi­ble before the revolutionary government eventually seized it. According to Udeshi, however, most Zanzibar-­based Bhatias stayed in East Africa ­a fter the revolution, with many shifting to Dar es Salaam and continuing to visit Kutch periodically for commercial or familial purposes. In fact, he notes that the revolution might have been a blessing in disguise for Indians, as riches ­were to be made in Dar and elsewhere on the mainland while opportunities dried up for them in the Zanzibari economy a­ fter the ­union with Tanganyika. In very ­different ways, but within the same circulation of p ­ eople, commodities, and memories, Harshad Udeshi—­a member of the Indian diaspora only briefly, and subsequently left b ­ ehind in Gujarat—­and the Kutchi Bhatias who stayed on all participated in creating what it meant to be part of the Indian diaspora in East Africa, although they increasingly had to navigate the languages of national citizenship as the twentieth c­ entury wore on. The history of the large ­family of Naresh Doshi, a Gujarati Jain born in 1942  in Chake Chake, Pemba, expands on the Indian Ocean historical and cultural themes exhibited in the movements of the Udeshi clan.24 Doshi’s f­ ather left his ancestral village of Kalavad, Saurashtra, in 1928 at the age of fourteen, and first no doubt made the fifty-­kilometer trek eastward to Rajkot to acquire his passport. Travelling alone, he arrived in East Africa a­ fter a one-­month journey by dhow. For income, he joined a ready-­made clothes shop in Chake Chake, returning to India in 1940 to Gondal, a princely state near Rajkot, only to marry. The Doshi f­ amily expanded quickly, with four sisters and two other bro­th­ers joining the eldest Naresh, all born in Africa. Life was pleasant in Chake Chake for the Doshis, with eve­ning social gatherings and occasional community festivals at the local Hindu Mandal (organization), and enough business at the ­family shop to send some money back to Gondal, where the ­family kept property. As with the Zanzibar-­based Udeshis, the changing politics of the early 1960s put the Doshi f­amily into motion. Po­liti­cal tensions ­rose noticeably, and often the Doshis w ­ ere forced to close their shop and head to the local fields to listen to nationalist speeches. ­A fter the Zanzibar Revolution, Naresh moved to Dar es Salaam where he worked u ­ ntil 1966 at the Bank of India, residing on a small lane in Kariakoo with his ­uncle. From there, he shifted for a time to Mombasa, K ­ enya, to escape the growing nationalist and socialist (“communist,” in Naresh’s mind) atmosphere in Tanzania, and then eventually headed to Rajkot via a steamer to join his 40

Diaspora and Nation

extended relations in 1966. The Indian government offered an immigration scheme to p ­ eople of South Asian descent fleeing the Zanzibar Revolution, and Doshi remembers being allowed to carry sixteen thousand Tanzanian shillings in cash and a hundred pounds of clothes out of East Africa, which he sold to buy a h ­ ouse.25 Six years a­ fter migrating to Gujarat—­reversing his ­father’s emigration route almost four de­cades earlier—­Naresh received an Indian passport. Referring to his ­family’s hasty departure from Chake Chake, Doshi says, “They looted us there.” Like Harshad Udeshi’s memory of harassment at the hands of the Afro-­Shirazi Party official, Naresh marks the revolution in his mind as a time of im­mense turmoil, intensifying the politicization of race and religion and hardening social divisions. However, despite these changes, not all his immediate ­family followed Naresh back to Gujarat, leaving remnants of an Indian Ocean diaspora in East African society. Two of his sisters, both of whom had married locally, remained in Tanganyika, although neither for long: one subsequently moved to Mombasa and then on to Nairobi, and the other migrated to Los Angeles. One of Naresh’s bro­th­ers, Dilip, went to Bombay ­after two final years of study in Rajkot. The other brother, Madhusudan, also ­after completing schooling in Rajkot, crossed the ocean once again before landing in Arusha, northern Tanzania, to work in a shoe factory owned by a friend of his Nairobi-­based brother-­in-­law. Madhusudan l­ater established a flour mill and grain pro­cessing factory in Arusha and married a girl from Mombasa. With his f­ amily effectively spread across the Indian Ocean arena, and now possessing links to the West, Naresh had options. In 1979, ­after more than a de­cade away from East Africa, he chose to transplant his ­whole f­ amily back to Tanzania to join his brother in Arusha. The commercial challenges of starting from scratch in Rajkot had led to the failure of two businesses, prompting Naresh’s return to a place where trade was “easy, more familiar” and credit was readily available, he claims. This was a time of economic downturn and terrible deprivation in Tanzania, so Naresh went into business on the side of the Doshi’s grain mill, selling cosmetics, garments, textiles—­basically, he says, “because of the shortages, we sold what­ever we could get.” The early 1980s w ­ ere also a time of strain on the education system in Tanzania (see chapter four), so ­after his son and dau­gh­ter failed to gain satisfactory school admissions, Doshi sent his children back to Rajkot to study, continuing the ­family tradition of opportunistically using Gujarat and East Africa as extensions of each other. 41

Chapter One

Unfortunately for Naresh and Madhusudan, economic prospects continued to grow worse in Tanzania throughout the 1980s. In 1983, the Doshi factory was robbed at gunpoint. Madhusudan was cut on the head by a knife, and the f­ amily lost a car, cash, and goods—­the worst of three times that the business was “looted,” according to Naresh. Beyond these dramatic events, expenses in general w ­ ere high, and the bro­th­ers ­were having a hard time saving money. They deci­ded to slowly close the factory and transition into a ­wholesale business, but before that happened Naresh left Tanzania once again in 1986 to shift back to Rajkot to take care of his ­father, aging alone ­after his wife had died in 1983. However, even these setbacks could not dim Naresh’s fondness for East Africa or hopes for the f­ uture of his f­ amily there. Thus, another Doshi rejoined the f­ amily circulation around the Indian Ocean in 1992 when Naresh accepted a marriage proposal for his dau­gh­ter from a childhood friend, a Jain who was also originally from Pemba. The Doshi dau­gh­ter’s new in-­laws had left the islands a­ fter the revolution to s­ ettle in Tanga, a large town located on the northern Tanzanian stretch of the Swahili coast, where they operated a w ­ holesale garment business. As Naresh says, the two families’ shared transoceanic experiences of cosmopolitan Indian Ocean history meant that they “could easily talk,” especially because what he calls “African Gujarati” represents a cultural dialect unto itself.26 In 1997, Naresh deci­ded to bring his wife to Chake Chake to show her his origins for the first time, and was pleased to be warmly remembered and received by the elders there. And while Naresh’s days of crisscrossing the sea now have ceased, his f­ amily’s power­f ul diasporic memories continue to bind kin members tightly together across national borders. Every year, he relates, the extended Doshi ­family travels from Los Angeles, ­Kenya, Tanzania, and Bombay to gather together for a reunion in Rajkot—­appropriately, the location where Naresh’s ­father received his first passport to sail across the Indian Ocean more than eight de­cades earlier. Not all those who returned to Gujarat and remained there have fond memories of their time in East Africa, nor do they always feel included in ongoing ocean-­spanning connections—no ­matter the extent to which their experiences and memories tie them to their kin still overseas. Interviews conducted with Pramod P. Mawadia in Ranavav (a village outside Porbandar) and Ashrafbai M. M. Alloo in Mundra (Kutch) illustrate an oft-­overlooked condition in which longing is directed ­toward those who emigrated, creating power­f ul imaginations of belonging to a historical Indian Ocean world even ­after travel in it is no longer feasible. Their 42

Diaspora and Nation

two stories below also reflect the power­f ul influence of class and gender on diasporic experiences and trajectories in the region. P. P. Mawadia’s ­father was born in Porbandar and his mo­ther in Rana­ ere twenty and fifteen years of age, respectively, and vav.27 When they w already married, they set sail for Dar es Salaam so that Mawadia’s ­father could assume a position as a carpenter in the colonial-­r un harbor corporation, another example of a transoceanic imperial connection spurring movement across the Indian Ocean. In 1948, Pramod was born into the ­family, joining an older brother, Gidhu (Premji). However, the bro­th­ers’ lives soon took radically ­different directions. At age five Pramod developed polio, leaving him with lifelong mobility issues. In 1962, ­after Tanganyikan in­de­pen­dence, his ­family sent him back to India to be educated. He went on to pursue a ­career teaching at a higher secondary school in Ranavav, and married and had two children, but still resented the success of his brother Premji, who became wealthy ­r unning a garage in Dar es Salaam. Perhaps projecting his bitterness over his ­family’s choices onto memories of the changing nationalist politics of the early 1960s, like other interviewees above, Pramod relates a dramatic story from this time period as a clear temporal marker of his changing fortunes in life. He vividly recalls the in­de­pen­dence celebrations in Dar es Salaam in late 1961, during which one African suddenly ran up to him, smearing blood on his arm and scratching it in the pro­cess. ­A fter Pramod’s departure at age fourteen—­shortly ­after this incident—he never again returned to East Africa, although his heart was still there in many ways; as he says with deep lament, “no one in Tanzania, in my f­ amily, cares about me.” The sense of isolation and neglect stemming from remaining alienated from the overseas diaspora described by  P.  P. Mawadia was even more deeply expressed by Ashrafbai M. M. Alloo. She was born in Mundra at some point in the early 1940s, although she cannot remember the exact year.28 Her f­ ather, Musa Mohammed Alloo, worked at a shop in the Belgian Congo with her grand­father, who had six sisters residing in locations within the Indian Ocean region: three in Lindi, in southern Tanzania along the Swahili coast; two in Mombasa; and one in Zanzibar—­one of whom eventually settled in Karachi.  M.  M. Alloo returned to Kutch from Africa for an arranged marriage and stayed there for two years, during which Ashrafbai (an only child) was born. Subsequently there was a long period of separation—­“a very difficult time” for her mo­ther—­after her ­father returned alone to Congo. Tragically, however, he drowned when a ship he was on sank before Ashrafbai ever saw him again. Nonetheless, 43

Chapter One

she, her mo­ther (Shirinbai M. M. Alloo), and grandmother (Fatmabai M. Alloo) shifted to the Congo when Ashrafbai was about seven years old, joining her grand­father there. She recalls helping her mo­ther at work, where she operated a machine at night. A ­ fter two years in Congo, the ­family left their store in the hands of Africans and relocated to Zanzibar briefly, where relatives ­were located, before uniting with other ­family in Lindi. Ashrafbai went to school there for about nine years, and recollects that Lindi resembled Mundra to her at that time, with similar cultures ­shaped by transoceanic influences. She remembers travelling extensively along the Swahili coast for ­family visits, typically spending a ­couple of weeks in Zanzibar, another in Dar es Salaam, followed by a week in Mombasa. However, when she was about seventeen, Ashrafbai’s mo­ther took a terrible fall, thrusting her dau­gh­ter into a lifetime of caring for her. Between the accident and the changing politics of the early 1960s (in Ashrafbai’s words, “Idi Amin’s time”), the three generations of Alloo ­women deci­ded that it was time to head back to Kutch, so they moved to Mundra together. Forlornly relaying this story to me in late 2002, Ashrafbai noted the de­cades of care she provided her mo­ther before she passed away, a life story that was a far cry from the experiences of wealthy members of her f­amily unburdened by gendered obligations and low class standing. In contrast, she was abundantly aware of the great success of many of her kin in East Africa, a wealthy Ithna’sheri f­ amily spread across the region and beyond. Ashrafbai M. M. Alloo was also cognizant of her small role—­performed stoically and selflessly all those years left b ­ ehind in Kutch—in sustaining the diaspora flourishing on other sides of the Indian Ocean, giving further voice to those who have returned to Gujarat to maintain diasporic connections through communication and imagination instead of continued travel. A look at the long history of movement within the Indian Ocean world by the f­amily of  H.  D. Shah—­including noting the changing routes of possibility for new generations of migrants in the l­ ater twentieth c­ entury—­w ill conclude this section. Shah’s grand­father in the late nineteenth c­ entury was a rice merchant in the eastern Indian Ocean region, based in Rangoon, who returned annually to his ancestral village of Mahuva, in Bhavnagar princely state, southeastern Saurashtra.29 However, a­ fter his business partner squandered their capital, Shah’s grand­father sent from Mahuva his thirteen-­year-­old son, Dwarkadas Morarji Shah, in the opposite direction across the Indian Ocean, to

44

Diaspora and Nation

Zanzibar, with a mission to augment the f­amily income. He began working as a supervisor of laborers on Ocean Road before starting a job in a foodstuffs store for an annual salary of seventy-­five rupees. The Khoja merchants who ran the shop liked the young Shah’s good nature and extended him credit to launch his own business. Thus, in 1917, shortly ­a fter returning from India with a sixteen-­year-­old bride from a village near Mahuva, arranged by his mo­t her, D. M. Shah set up his store on Hurumzi Street ­behind the House of Wonders in Stone Town.30 Out of one side of the building, Shah ran a ration shop and sold rice from Burma, sugar and tea from Java, wheat, flour, and tinned milk from Eu­rope, and Indian foodstuffs brought in from Bombay. In an office on the other side of the building, Shah established a shipping logistics and insurance firm. Harkisan Das Shah was born in 1919, one of six children raised by D. M. Shah and his wife. He studied at Sir Euan Smith Madressa to the seventh standard, and then his parents hired private tutors to help him prepare for the se­nior Cambridge examinations, which he passed in 1935. The next year, H. D. Shah and his elder brother joined the f­amily business. While the profit margin was small, it was clear that the Shahs w ­ ere on the road to prosperity and, as a result, ­were moving into a position of social and po­liti­cal importance. ­A fter his 1940 arranged marriage in Bombay to a girl from Mahuva named Hiralaxmi, H. D. Shah deepened his involvement in vari­ous prominent circles in Zanzibar. He was active in the Hindu Sports Club, and at one time was the trea­surer of the Zanzibar Voluntary Welfare Society, which helped poorer ­people build ­houses and initiate small-­scale industries. And in addition to g­ oing to the movies monthly to watch Hindi films, he also served a term on the cinema censorship board in Zanzibar. Thanks to their many local connections, which undoubtedly facilitated landing government contracts, the Shahs attained a social and economic standing that allowed them to navigate the shifting politics of the era of nationalism in East Africa better than some of the Gujaratis interviewed above. The f­ amily served as the agent for Indian shipping lines in Zanzibar and for vari­ous multinational insurance companies as well. According to H. D. Shah, his ­father also had a close personal relationship with Abeid Karume, the first president of Zanzibar a­ fter the revolution, and had occasionally loaned him money in earlier years. Given his stature in the mid-1960s, the new in­de­pen­dent government asked D. M. Shah

45

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to join the import and price control central committee. H. D. Shah relates that this po­liti­cal influence allowed his ­father to lobby Karume concerning the interests of the Zanzibari Indian community, and that he was given a chit to enter the State House whenever he wanted. Shah offered a story illustrating his point: One time Karume’s secretary stonewalled D. M. Shah’s attempts to see the president for three full months. When Shah was finally granted admission, Karume was upset, saying, “Since you are now a big man you no longer have time to visit me?” ­A fter hearing of Shah’s ordeals trying to meet with him, the Zanzibari president bawled out his secretary for intransigence. Despite the Shahs’ entrenched position in Zanzibari society during the apogee of nationalism, the f­ amily still made several calculated choices by utilizing its mobility around the Indian Ocean to mitigate the risk of losing property and commercial assets. As H. D. Shah put it, the f­ amily was worried about being “thrown out of Africa,” so they developed the strategy of spreading sons and property across vari­ous regional locations. This plan sent H. D. Shah to Dar es Salaam in 1956, where he joined the ­family office there, originally founded in 1946. A second mainland branch opened in 1962 in Mtwara, in southern coastal Tanzania, which exported cashew nuts to India. In 1963, one of Shah’s bro­th­ers relocated to Bombay and started up a ­couple of businesses there. Finally, in 1968, Shah’s youn­gest brother joined him in Dar es Salaam a­fter their f­ather’s business—­Dwarkadas Morarji Shah & Sons, Ltd.—­was nationalized by the revolutionary government in Zanzibar, ending over a half ­century of its transnational enterprises. Once in Dar es Salaam, H. D. Shah followed his f­ ather’s blueprint for securing success: integrate locally while sending the next generation of the f­amily to scattered but advantageous locations. Therefore, at in­de­ pen­dence, Shah and his wife took Tanzanian citizenship. He was active in a wide range of religious, social, po­liti­cal, commercial, and educational institutions, including the Hindu Council of Tanzania (including a term as chair), the Hindu Mandal of Dar es Salaam (president), the Indian Merchants’ Chamber (vice president), the Dar es Salaam Chamber of Commerce, and the Dar es Salaam Produce Exchange (president). He also served as chair of the National Times Ltd., which oversaw three newspapers (one each in Swahili, En­glish, and Gujarati), sitting on the committee with first Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere and cabinet ministers Clement Kahama and Amir Jamal. Shah professed a strong faith in Nyerere and was close to the president, once having him over to his ­house for 46

Diaspora and Nation

dinner. Meanwhile, pursuing the global f­ amily strategy, H. D. and Hira­ laxmi Shah’s five children travelled routes made possi­ble by new opportunities created by decolonization, globalization, and the astute investments of their parents. In 1959, the Shahs sent their eldest boy to ­England to study, and the second one followed in 1967. One dau­gh­ter studied for her medical degree in Bombay before migrating to the United States in 1971, taking her youn­gest, ten-­year-­old, sibling with her for better access to education. Eventually four of the five Shah children ended up in the United States (with all three boys marrying white ­women), while the fifth settled in Australia. As  H.  D. Shah says, he knew that because of their university educations his children would not want to stay in the family business, demonstrating an acute awareness that times had ­ changed dramatically since he was a young man in Zanzibar. It was also the po­liti­cal circumstance of heightened African nationalism a­ fter in­de­pen­dence that made the younger generation of Shahs reluctant to remain in Tanzania, and in the end—­despite his formidable economic and po­liti­cal connections—­H. D. Shah himself did not stay in the land where he grew up and which he never thought he would leave. ­A fter the Tanzanian government unveiled its new socialist orientation with the Arusha Declaration of 1967, it appointed Shah a member of the State Trading Corporation. This position, however, did not enable him to resist the government’s piecemeal nationalization of “most lines” of his business between the late 1960s and late 1970s. The Shah f­ amily also lost one of the three floors of their flat in East Upanga with the implementation of the Acquisition of Buildings Act of 1971. Despite these setbacks, throughout the 1970s  H.  D. Shah was determined not to leave Dar es Salaam, even though the size of his business had reduced considerably. He finally relented in 1983 when his wife Hiralaxmi’s health deteriorated. The Shahs considered joining their children in the United States, but realized that they w ­ ere unlikely to obtain insurance for her condition in Ame­rica. So they chose instead to head to their ancestral home, setting up a new life in Bhavnagar, close to the village from which H. D. Shah’s grand­father had left to trade in the eastern Indian Ocean almost a ­century earlier—­completing a multigenerational cycle of familial circulation around the region. Life for the Shahs is inexpensive and familiar in Saurashtra, although  H.  D. Shah refers to himself as more of a “world citizen” than one settled in India—­and in fact he retains his Tanzanian passport, perhaps out of sentimental loyalty more than strategic mobility these days. His brother, meanwhile, managed to keep a small foodstuffs 47

Chapter One

store ­r unning on Morogoro Road in central Dar es Salaam all the way through the periods of scarcity and liberalization reforms in Tanzania. It was only in 2002 that he finally sold the ­family home in Upanga and retired to Bombay, where the Shahs had vacationed and rented a flat since 1944. In reflecting on the story he had told me over several hours, H. D. Shah insisted that he holds no hard feelings ­toward African nationalists, as Tanzania is “their country,” and that they “must come up in life.” And while he adamantly did not want to leave the territory of his birth—­ where he had worked, socialized, raised a ­family, and served the government for decades—he concluded the interview by resignedly professing, “sab bhoomi Gopal ki” (all land is God’s). NATIONALIZING THE DIASPORA: TERRITORIALITY, MOBILITY, AND INDIANS OVERSEAS IN EAST AFRICA

Despite H. D. Shah’s fatalistic aphorism, the reality, as the above stories demonstrate, was that the pro­cess of decolonization led to the emergence of new nation-­states around the Indian Ocean and differently configured identity, mobility, and territoriality in the region. Nonetheless, as argued in the introduction, the utility of oceanic history in framing interregional connections—­despite the marked reduction in the influence of the Indian Ocean scale—­continues into this new phase. Bounded national histories, in contrast, often highlight the conflict between territorialism and mobility in much more narrow ways, losing sight of the perpetuation of older cultural traditions as a resource for understanding difference and belonging, as the opening of this chapter suggests. Nation-­ states are by their nature staked on a circumscribed geo­graph­i­cal delineation of territory, inside which they try to manage movement, diversity, difference, and certainly re­sis­tance to protect (or at least pro­ject the appearance of ) unity. Despite these perpetual attempts at creating coherent and insulated national communities, however, in actuality the foundational categories of national space, identity, and economy are historically constructed within global fields, as scholarship has increasingly started to assert.31 This holds true for the western Indian Ocean world into the era of decolonization, as meaningful interactions between India and Africa ­were sustained throughout the rise of often inward-­looking nationalism for two major reasons: diasporic relationships (such as those described above) and transnational anticolonial po­liti­cal networks. These two ele48

Diaspora and Nation

ments came together in the concern exhibited by Indian nationalists for the condition of members of the South Asian diaspora located in Eu­ro­ pean colonies around the world. The roots of this in East Africa date from at least the post–­First World War period, when Indian organizations abroad regularly began petitioning the colonial government of India and the All India Congress Committee (as a lobbying intermediary) by letter for assistance in achieving their local po­liti­cal aims. This correspondence often led to a flurry of semiofficial deputations dispatched in ­either direction, typically charged with assessing the circumstances of Indians living in Africa or presenting East African Indian grievances to officials in South Asia. The earliest state-­diaspora relationships across the empire previewed l­ater connections between the nationalist Congress Party and what it conceived of as its “overseas Indians,” a network increasingly built on anticolonial fault lines. The final section of  this chapter demonstrates how the Indian state (and in­de­pen­dent state-­in-­formation, during the colonial period) attempted to “nationalize” its diasporas in places like Tanganyika, with support from po­liti­ cally astute individuals and organizations overseas, creating an added layer of complexity to diasporic identity while further fusing together the categories of diaspora and nation in the Indian Ocean world. These connections persisted into the postcolonial period for a time, u ­ ntil Afro-­A sian solidarity movements and other projects of cooperation began to fray, eventually unraveling completely during the era of liberalization.32 Drawing on letters between Indians in East Africa and representatives of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) stored at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library in New Delhi,33 this section builds on the call of Harvard professor Sugata Bose “to address the issue of patriotism among expatriates without resurrecting the monolith of the Indian nation.”34 As Bose writes, such investigations of the relationship between nation and migration have generally stressed the aspect of an externally imparted Indian identity whenever and wherever expatriates have encountered the racial bigotry of hostile states or economic vested interests. Discreetly kept out of view have been the ways in which Indians of vari­ous religious, linguistic, local, caste, or class backgrounds may have—as historical subjects in their own right—­juggled their multiple identities in a diasporic public sphere.35 49

Chapter One

Bose’s research on this subject focuses on the po­liti­cal ideologies of two iconic Indian nationalists who ­were active overseas for a period, Mohandas Gandhi in South Africa and Subhas Chandra Bose in Southeast Asia, to show how cosmopolitan, transoceanic anticolonialism competed with territorial nationalism in imagining the Indian nation before the former was extinguished by the politics of partition. The letters below also display Congress’ development of notions of “Greater India,” a construct that infused first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s foreign policy ­toward Africa and other colonized regions of the world for at least some years a­ fter in­de­pen­dence, ­until the Indian Ocean scale receded once again ­under pressure from territorial nationalisms, Cold War politics, and economic liberalization. This section uses the aforementioned transoceanic correspondence not to track the history of India-­A frica anticolonial politics, but instead to offer a case study that further complicates understandings of “national” and “diasporic” identity, demonstrating how Indians in East Africa contributed to the constructions of “India” while negotiating much ­different local identities as overseas Indian residents in a colonial territory like Tanganyika. This case study reveals that ideas about nation and diaspora in the Indian Ocean w ­ ere co-­constitutive in the twentieth c­ entury—­eventually seeping into historiography as dominant frames of analy­sis—­and thus one formation cannot be understood historically without considering the other. It also demonstrates that as the category of diaspora became “nationalized” deeper into the ­century it began to lose the character of earlier, regional cross-­cultural interactions in the Indian Ocean arena, thereby trapping the Indian diaspora in East Africa between two competing nation-­states. The oldest extant letter examined here—­from the East African Indian National Congress (EAINC) to the All India Congress Committee—­dates to 1920.36 Sana Aiyar has shown that this time period witnessed the construction of a united trans-­Indian Ocean po­liti­cal sphere linking together East Africans, Eu­ro­pe­ans, and South Asians, although at first the Indian diasporic position in this dialogue certainly can be characterized as subimperialist, ignoring the downtrodden plight of Africans while demanding equal rights with white settlers.37 As Thomas Metcalf writes, “Above all, [diasporic Indians] conceived of themselves not merely as colonial subjects but imperial citizens. Both those who settled overseas and those who stayed ­behind conceived of the British Empire as an arena open to talents, where all, Indian and British alike, might flourish.”38 Appropriately, the first letter penned by EAINC, founded in K ­ enya Colony in 1914 50

Diaspora and Nation

to protect the rights of Indians settled there, included a long list of complaints about and demands to rectify the community’s unequal and inferior po­liti­cal and economic position in the region vis-­à-­vis Eu­ro­pe­ans.39 Desiring nothing less than to be “treated as equal partners in the Empire,” in 1920 EAINC letter-­w riters further reminded the British government of the significant role of Indian troops in the “acquisition of Tanganyika Territory.” 40 Demonstrating a peculiarly benign idea of imperialism, the authors went on to claim, “It is the avowed principal foundation and real strength of the British Empire that it is an Empire of Partnership and not of domination. And India is a partner in the Empire. The time has, therefore, come for Imperial statesmen to show courage and justice in their policy towards their Indian partners and prevent a calamity.” The Indian diaspora’s understanding of imperial citizenship and its accordant rights as represented ­here was shared by the letter’s recipients in New Delhi. In response to the claims raised by the EAINC, the AICC replied, “This Committee views with concern the position of the Indians in the East African territories . . . ​and the attempts made to deprive them of their just rights of equality of status with the other citizens of the Empire . . . ​and declares that there can be no bargaining or compromise in such basic principles of citizenship.” 41 The All India Congress Committee offered a pledge of support for “its brethren overseas” and exhorted “them to stand up for their rights undeterred by any threats of vio­lence or bloodshed on the part of the white settlers . . . ​and carry on the strug­ gle by all legitimate but non-­v iolent means in the full assurance that the ­whole of India is . . . ​ready to come to their [assistance] in all possi­ble ways.” This impressive display of solidarity, extended to Indians overseas (even with its attendant paternalistic Gandhian advice on tactics), also included some po­liti­cal posturing directed at the colonial metropole: the AICC warned the British secretary of state for the colonies of the “grave misapprehension and distrust [that] will be created in the minds of the Indians residing” in East Africa if remedies ­were not forthcoming.42 Full of nationalist hubris during the apex of Gandhi’s first noncooperation campaign, the AICC concluded its statement with a veiled threat to the masters of the British Empire: “[T]his Congress further puts on rec­ord that ­u nless immediate steps are taken to grant fully equal rights to Indians residing in these Territories Indians may be driven to resort to stronger mea­sures to achieve the same.” ­Later in the 1920s, the projection of Jawaharlal Nehru’s internationalist ideology into the Congress Party program offered a ­different vision 51

Chapter One

for relations between the Indian state and its diasporas. In 1927, Nehru produced an im­por­tant document for Congress titled “A Foreign Policy for India,” in which he previewed positions that he would hold surprisingly consistent for several de­cades. Concerning Indians in Africa, in contrast to “subimperialist” positions, Nehru’s words diverged strikingly in their interpretation of the benefits of imperial inclusivity: What does the British Commonwealth stand for ­today? In its domestic policy we see colour and racial prejudices and the doctrine that the white man must be supreme. . . . ​In ­Kenya and the adjacent territories it is now proposed to create a new federation or dominion with all the power in the hands of a few white settlers, who can do what they will to the large numbers of Indians and the over-­whelming African population. Can India associate herself with this group and be a party to colour bar legislation and the exploitation and humiliation of her own sons and the races of Africa? 43

Nehru’s alternative vision attempted to fuse a “Greater India” sentiment involving the diaspora to a much broader anticolonial alliance stretching across the Indian Ocean region, perhaps representing the deterritorialized, cosmopolitan nationalism that Sugata Bose sought to find in Gandhi and Subhas Chandra Bose. This idea resonated with some Gujaratis in East Africa, as evidenced in the correspondence between the All India Congress Committee and a curious individual, U. K. Oza, a po­ liti­cal activist, insurance agent, newspaper editor, and officer of the East Africa Indian National Congress.44 Oza originally left India in the 1920s at Gandhi’s bidding to assist with the po­liti­cal or­g a­ni­za­tion of Indian communities in East Africa, and eventually settled for some time in Tanganyika. Over two years of intermittent personal letters written to Nehru, Oza narrated his (mostly failed) attempts to build class-­based solidarity across racial lines in East Africa. He sent his first letter to Nehru from Nairobi in 1928, introducing himself and spelling out his faith in Indian nationalism as superior to imperial citizenship as an ave­nue to achieve what he considered to be their shared po­liti­cal goals: Personally I do not believe that we can achieve anything in the colonies and India must concentrate on the attainment of In­de­pen­dence. I had once ideals regarding the Empire. Close contact with En­glishmen and a two years po­liti­cal work in Tanganyika and ­Kenya have brought 52

Diaspora and Nation

home to me what an average Indian po­liti­cal worker does not see—­ Britain’s soulless methods of extending her tantacles [sic] and closing them on unwary peoples.45

Critically, Oza and his colleagues sought to establish one node in the deployment of Pandit Nehru’s transcolonial anti-­imperial strategy, which worked to bind the Indian diaspora not just to the Indian nation-­in-­the-­ making, but to other po­liti­cal constituencies in East Africa as well. Oza wrote Nehru again in July 1928, informing him of his plans to or­ga­nize a party in ­Kenya “consisting of town Eu­ro­pe­ans, Indians and intelligent Africans.” 46 While his choice of words might have belied the limitations inherent in his approach, at the same time Oza urged nationalists in India to strive forward aggressively, pinning his po­liti­cal aspirations in East Africa on the projection of power by the Indian National Congress: “The movement in favour of in­de­pen­dence must be kept ­going and strong. I have found that it has a ­wholesome and strengthening effect on the generality of p ­ eople ­here and while compromise and half-­hearted methods are not understood by Eu­ro­pe­ans ­here, they appreciate a movement for absolute freedom and are fairly afraid of losing India.” 47 Nehru, while responsive to and generally supportive of Oza’s initiatives, demurred a bit on the practicality of his strategy, writing, “My dear Mr. Oza, . . . ​I hope you will succeed in forming a strong party of Eu­ro­pe­ans, Indians and Africans. Personally I would distrust the Eu­ro­pe­ans as their interests are usually opposed to ours. But I would welcome the fullest cooperation between Indians and Africans.” 48 The difficulties before Oza ­were im­mense in or­ga­niz­ing such a po­liti­cal movement, among Indians as well as Africans; as he ruefully complained to Nehru in a l­ater letter, “our men and w ­ omen are not accustomed to think in terms of in­de­pen­dence. If you have any ideas how this could be done more easily, I shall be glad to have them.” 49 Given such challenges, Oza sought to concentrate on building alliances where class solidarity already existed. In late 1928, he seized on a protest by smaller Indian traders and African cotton farmers in Uganda who ­were battling larger Eu­ro­pean and Indian capitalists, including some based in Bombay. Pleading with Nehru to draw attention to the case in the South Asian press,50 Oza plaintively wrote, “You are the champion of the smaller men of India both at home and abroad and you will be d ­ oing a great ser­v ice if you take up [the Uganda Indian traders’] case in India. . . . ​It is all an Imperialist game of exploiting the Native of East Africa and it is a disgrace that our 53

Chapter One

Indian friends should join in the games at the expense of both the Indians and Africans.”51 For both Oza and Nehru, the construction of the identity of “Indians” overseas was premised on fusing it to the local po­ liti­cal category of “Indians” in East Africa, and in the pro­cess stressed transoceanic anticolonial nationalism more than the racial and diasporic solidarities that ­were also prevalent. Unfortunately for Oza, in this case the African peasants being exploited by the Indian capitalists expressed great skepticism about his motives. At an extraordinary meeting of the Baganda in Kampala called by the kabaka (king), the Bugandan prime minister told Oza, “Up to the last year we Natives believed that the Indians ­were our friends and wished well to our country and ­people . . . ​but since last year the Indians have joined hands with Eu­ro­pe­a ns and we now feel that we stand alone. The Indians have turned against us.”52 Faced with this power­f ul accusation, Oza attempted to persuade the prime minister that he was viewing the actions of only a few Indians, while “the huge majority of Indians and India as a ­whole stood for the wellbeing and prosperity of the Native Communities of East Africa.”53 Nehru, upon hearing Oza’s report, was very clear in spelling out how he believed the relationship should play out between overseas Indian diasporas and African populations as the 1930s arrived: I am sorry to learn that some Indians have created an impression in the minds of the natives of the country that Indians are against their aspirations. This is very unfortunate. I think it should be made perfectly clear to all concerned in East Africa that Indians have not gone there to injure the interests of the inhabitants of the country in any way. If necessary the Indians ought to be prepared to take a back place so far as the natives of the country are concerned. On no account must there be a rivalry between the two. I am glad you emphasized this before the native chiefs. You can certainly assure the Chief Justice and other native chiefs that this is the attitude of Indian nationalist leaders. They must not be led away by what a few Indians may say or do. Indians who go to foreign countries go there not to exploit the inhabitants of those countries but to live in cooperation with them for the mutual advantage of both. We go on these terms abroad and we expect o ­ thers to come on the same terms to India. We want no one to come to India to exploit us.54

54

Diaspora and Nation

Despite the setback in Kampala, U. K. Oza and his associates persevered to build tighter links between the EAINC and the AICC. In 1929, Oza penned “A Note on the Indian Position in East Africa,” a twenty-­page booklet describing the living situation of Indians in the three colonies of the region and railing against the lack of po­liti­cal equality with Eu­ro­pe­ans, paying special attention to ongoing conflicts in K ­ enya.55 The Foreign Department of the Indian National Congress printed the screed and distributed it in advance of a visit to India by Oza himself to address a full meeting of the AICC. Despite the small amount of attention Oza’s booklet paid to the status of Africans and their relations with Indians (less than a page), Nehru’s letter informing the Indian Association in Nairobi of the resolutions passed by the AICC a­ fter Oza’s address shifted the ideological focus considerably from subimperialist into the direction of his vision for a transoceanic, cosmopolitan anticolonial alliance: This Committee congratulates the Indians of East Africa on their friendly and cordial relations with the East Africans and trusts they will continue to maintain them and to treat the interests of the original inhabitants as superior to all other interests. . . . ​The Committee assures the Indian community of ­Kenya of its full support in its strug­ gle for the achievement of po­liti­cal and economic equality in East Africa. I trust you will kindly convey this resolution specially to the African inhabitants of the country.56

Encouraged by this response, the EAINC mustered a del­e­ga­tion to tour India and “place the case of East African Indians before the Indian public”57 in no fewer than ten cities spanning geo­graph­i­cally from Cawnpore to Rawalpindi.58 In reciprocation, se­nior Indian nationalist Sarojini Naidu travelled to East Africa to survey the condition of her overseas brethren, prompting yet another Congress resolution in early 1930 protesting against po­liti­cal inequalities in the region.59 This flurry of po­liti­cal cooperation across the ocean notwithstanding, as the freedom strug­gle accelerated in the subcontinent, dramatic events revealed that, no m ­ atter how inspirational the notion of “Greater India,” at key junctures it would inevitably be subordinated beneath territorial nationalism—­which came with its own view of autochthonous (and therefore racialized) unity that necessarily trumped diasporic and class-­based

55

Chapter One

solidarities. A ­ fter Gandhi launched his salt march to the sea in 1930, signaling the resumption of the noncooperation movement ­after an eight-­ year pause, an explosion of support erupted out of East Africa. Protests ­were held in many places, but the nature of colonial repression also made communication across the ocean much more difficult than before. In par­tic­u­lar, with Nehru in jail and the government refusing to deliver many letters or cables, vari­ous pleas for assistance sent by the EAINC to the AICC fell on deaf ears during “the extraordinary times through which [India was] passing.” 60 Earlier in 1930, even before the crackdown, the EAINC expressed awareness of the limitations colonial rule put on ­crafting diasporic networks of solidarity. Commenting on its most recent general meetings in an article printed in Federated India, a nationalist weekly, the EAINC wrote, Altogether the session was a memorable one and revealed that Greater India is able to organise itself. But, a­ fter all, it should not be forgotten that the most effective sanction is a f­ree, self-­governing India which will be able to make its position felt throughout the world. . . . ​[ B]y its very constitution and its position ­toward ­England, the extent of its power and authority is limited. A final solution of overseas Indian questions is contingent upon the achievement of Swaraj by India.61

While nation and diaspora remained intertwined, the strategic realities imposed by the contest between colonialism and nationalism forced loftier expressions of cosmopolitan, transoceanic anticolonial solidarity to play but a supporting role in the prerequisite achievement of territorial national in­de­pen­dence. Although an Indian Ocean frame remains im­por­tant in this story, its scale receded considerably at certain junctures, yielding the construction of diasporic identity more to local factors—­ including the emergence of African nationalism—­than to transnational ones. The po­liti­cal failures across the 1930s of the East Africa Indian ­National Congress and the individual Indian associations in the three territories stemmed partly from their own internal divisions.62 Nonetheless, to remedy their lack of po­liti­cal sway in the East African colonies, these organizations continued to attempt to use their contacts with the AICC to lobby the government of India to influence the imperial authorities in London. In 1931, the Indian Association of Tanganyika Territory wrote a fifteen-­page memorandum detailing the contributions of Indians 56

Diaspora and Nation

there and listing a series of grievances rooted in their lack of equality with Eu­ro­pe­ans, futilely sending it to both the INC in Allahabad and to a Joint Parliamentary Committee on East Africa then in session in London.63 The Secretary’s Report of the EAINC from 1933 to 1934 lamented its lack of po­liti­cal efficacy in ­Kenya64 and concluded a dramatic memo to India with a desperate plea for help from overseas: Our only hope now is that the Government of India taking up the ­whole question with the Imperial Government as an Imperial issue; and trying to get a solution of our problems at least for some time to come. In the absence of such a solution the increasing encroachment on our legitimate rights is likely to end in the extinction of the Indians [sic] Community in this Colony or their being driven to a position that is obtained for them in South Africa. We hope you will impress this on the Government of India.65

In sum, the prevailing po­liti­cal circumstances on all sides of the Indian Ocean forced po­liti­cal parties like the EAINC at this time to tack back to claiming imperial citizenship to sustain their position and privileges in East Africa, and they did so by highlighting the subimperial position of India in the web of colonial networks.66 The pre–­Second World War period saw the emergence of a renewed bout of internationalist or­ga­niz­ing with the reor­ga­ni­za­tion of the AICC, the 1936 creation of the Foreign Department, and the appointment of Rammanohar Lohia, a long-­dedicated socialist and staunch Congressman, as its head.67 Lohia’s indefatigable energy for contacting organizations scattered around the world and his optimism for building a global network of anti-­imperial allies w ­ ere truly impressive. As detailed in e­ xtant AICC letters,68 between 1936 and  1938 he established vigorous correspondence with (among o ­ thers) African American activists in the United States (including W. E. B. DuBois and the Associated Negro Press in Chicago); Pan-­A fricanist organizations dotted around the world (including the International Committee on African Affairs and the Ethiopian Pacific Movement in New York City, and the Pan-­A frican Federation in London); anticolonial sympathizers like Cedric Dover (a Eurasian who settled in London);69 and even a professor of history at the University of Iowa named W. Ross Livingston. Given his Nehruvian ideology of fostering a collaborative, regional anticolonialism, Lohia paid special attention to networks in Africa, connecting with the National Liberation League of 57

Chapter One

South Africa, the All African Convention in Johannesburg, the Nigerian Youth Movement based in Lagos, and the Gold Coast Aborigines Rights Protection Society. The newly appointed Foreign Department secretary also wasted no time in proposing amendments to the constitution of the Indian National Congress to encourage the establishment of affiliated congresses of Indians overseas, now allowing the formation of a branch with as few as fifty adult members.70 In promoting this initiative Lohia was deeply influenced by both Nehruvian and Gandhian nationalism, suggesting that each affiliate Congress branch focus on the “promotion of friendly relations” between Indians and the local population as well as intercommunal harmony, the removal of untouchability, production of self-­spun khadi, and abstinence from intoxicants.71 In a long series of essays on “Indians in Foreign Lands” issued to the press in India, Lohia eloquently summed up his argument for the necessity and utility of visions of “Greater India” in fighting what he deemed the “new imperialism”: Indians are not, as is usually supposed, a stay-­at-­home and tied-­to-­ the-­soil ­people. For every hundred that stay in the motherland, one Indian seeks his living overseas. These 3 million of our stock, who are spread all over the world, are our special concern and our link with the world. We must share their sufferings and joys in common. And while we do so, we may not forget that, through concentration of population and trade, they are the predominant community in several British colonies. With each advance in their unity and or­ga­ni­za­tion, a blow is struck for Indian freedom and against imperialism.72

It is perhaps the paucity of scholarship on the Indian National Congress’ overseas section during the colonial period that leads Thomas Metcalf to conclude that “Indian communities overseas w ­ ere left to look 73 ­after themselves” by the 1930s. He certainly is correct to suggest that attention shifted in India ­toward its own territorial freedom strug­gle, reducing the linkages between the nascent Indian nation and its scattered diasporas. Nonetheless, efforts at consolidating a “Greater India” in fact persisted into the 1940s before the final thrust t­ oward in­de­pen­dence in South Asia. An extraordinary letter written in 1940 to “Our Countrymen Abroad” by the new secretary of the Indian Overseas Department of the AICC, however, noted the stark reality of the or­ga­ni­za­tion’s limitations that arose from placing paramount importance on the nationalist movement at home. It is worth quoting at length: 58

Diaspora and Nation

[F]or a number of years the Indian National Congress has passed resolutions expressing its sympathy with the three million compatriots of ours living in foreign lands. But unfortunately, for want of correct information and adequate data and also because of its preoccupation at home with the bigger prob­lem of India’s fight for freedom, the Congress, so far, has been unable to do much for Indians living outside India. Of course the Congress is deeply concerned with their rapidly deteriorating status and position in vari­ous parts of the Empire and elsewhere. And from time to time, it has sent greetings and messages to all Indian Nationals abroad engaged in their just strug­gle for the assertion of their legitimate civic and po­liti­cal rights, always assuring them of its full sympathy and help and its readiness to take all actions within its power to ameliorate their condition. But only a ­free India can hope to protect and safe-­g uard the interests of Indians residing abroad!74

CONCLUSION

Moving into the era of decolonization, po­liti­cal solidarity between diasporic networks and anticolonial movements provided one context for Indian Ocean connections, although it is clear that over time this oceanic scale was once again on the wane. By this point, the Indian state had “nationalized” its disparate diasporas, which contributed to marking Indians overseas as possessing d ­ ifferent national origins from the majority population among which they lived. Once diaspora and nation fused together as categories, what it meant to reside in diaspora also changed: earlier having forged life experiences highlighted by cosmopolitan (although not necessarily entirely cordial) cultural interactions across the Indian Ocean, Gujaratis—­now Indians—­residing in East Africa found themselves trapped between two new, seemingly incompatible, national identities. Nonetheless, Nehru’s attention to the diaspora did continue ­after India secured its in­de­pen­dence and he became the new nation’s first prime minister, eloquently waxing about intrepid overseas Indians in a 1947 speech: “The history of Indian emigration abroad, including that of the humblest of those who went from India, reads almost like a romance. How these Indians went abroad! Not even citizens of a ­free country, working ­under all possi­ble disadvantages, yet they made good wherever they went. . . . ​It is a romance, and it is something which India can be proud of.”75 59

Chapter One

Regardless of Nehru’s fanciful imaginings, there ­were limits to the in­ de­pen­dent Indian government’s support of its diasporas, and these w ­ ere drawn at the edges of African nationalism. With territorial nationalism as­suredly ascendant in Africa and elsewhere, Nehru rather quickly dispensed with his romantic ideas about overseas Indian diasporas,76 warning, for example, in 1957 that “Indians abroad . . . ​should always give primary consideration to the interests of the ­people of those countries [where they reside]; they should never allow themselves to be placed in a position of exploiting the p ­ eople of those countries. . . . ​[I]f Indians do not do that abroad, they will be ground between the two millstones of the local population and foreign elements from Eu­rope and elsewhere.”77 Shifting his support from the Indian diaspora to African nationalists, Nehru now invoked newly dominant ideas of national citizenship to trace a vision of postcolonial liberation that aligned African nations with emerging Asian states, although the subsequent collapse of the Non-­A ligned Movement might indicate that much got lost in translation in this pro­ject. While Indian governmental support for African liberation struggles demonstrated that Indian Ocean regional networks could persist through the brutality of colonialism and the racial divisiveness of nationalism, ­after decolonization the oceanic scale receded to allow the politics of race relations between the Indian diaspora and African populations to be determined primarily by their local context, reflecting the waning utility in this circumstance of academic concepts like diasporic longing and homelands. At the same time, the presence of an older Indian Ocean diaspora within colonial Tanganyika and subsequently in­de­pen­dent Tanzania clearly contributed to formulations of national identity there, as diaspora and nation continued to coproduce one another across the ­century in East Africa—­a phenomenon largely unconsidered in theoretical scholarship on e­ ither theme. It is thus to the port city of Dar es Salaam that we now turn to consider how race was constructed on a micro level inside of si­mul­ta­neously local, national, and transnational urban spaces like schools and cinema halls.

60

c CHAPTER TWO

BUILDING COLONIAL SCHOOLS and CONSTRUCTING RACE

scho o ls in tan ga n yi k a w ­ er e i m­p o r ­t an t ci t y space s where individual actors and communities encountered institutional structures established by the colonial government based on officials’ conceptions of race. This chapter traces how competing ideas about race s­ haped urban schools from the 1920s up to the period before the rise of mass nationalism in the 1950s. Inside those settings, and in public discussions about education among and between segregated groups of Africans, Indians, and Eu­ro­pe­ans, colonial officials strug­gled to establish policies of governance that took into account the presence of an Indian Ocean diaspora within its territory. Colonial administrators perceived a substantive racial difference among the territory’s diverse urban populations, and took po­liti­cal advantage by deploying racial categories to build a tripartite, segregated educational system. Disparities in funding and curricula between the three separate committees on education—­one each for Eu­ ro­pean, Indian, and African schools—­led to educational inequities and deepened understandings of racial difference. Indian and African groups challenged elements of colonial education practices, but in so d ­ oing they largely had to work through the categories established by the government.1 Certain Indian organizations in par­tic­u­lar contributed to the maintenance of separate systems of education through po­liti­cal struggles to retain or expand community educational privileges. Through these actions, the initially deeply divided Indian communities—­which saw periodic movements for separate schools for vari­ous South Asian socioreligious groups—­started to form a more coherent diasporic po­liti­cal

61

Chapter Two

identity, assisted in part by availing themselves of Indian Ocean transcolonial networks that enabled the importation of teachers and educational materials from India. Some Islamic schools that admitted both Africans and Indians occasionally blurred the racialized nature of education in Dar es Salaam, but these by and large failed to have a significant impact due to government opposition. In sum, from the 1920s to the early 1950s, community activists and government officials in Tanganyika clashed over educational initiatives, as shifting ideas about race permeated urban schools, creating lasting educational inequalities that ­were linked to and, in turn, perpetuated racialized discourses for many de­cades to come. These actions occurred in the local setting of Dar es Salaam, but ­were influenced by networks stretching across a much wider regional scale, including those comprising imperial and diasporic connections. The intersection of colonialism and education is an ­under-­studied topic,2 especially within a transregional frame, as its lit­erature is dominated by ­either singular national contexts3 or a focus on education and development.4 Approaches from the perspective of postcolonial studies, or works that look at the history of schools as spaces of cross-­cultural encounters, are quite rare.5 In Tanganyika, the reality was that both the imperial context—­connecting the territory to London as well as to India and other East African dependencies—­and an influential settlement of Indians meant that Indian Ocean ties contributed to the crafting of a colonial educational system and had reverberations for how students and teachers experienced encounters in urban schools.6 INDIVIDUAL EXPERIENCES IN RACIALLY SEGREGATED COLONIAL SCHOOLS

This section illustrates some key themes of this chapter on education through a pre­sen­ta­tion of individual educational experiences in colonial Tanganyika. Despite living in medium-­sized towns with significant racial diversity, the five Tanganyikans whose narratives appear below had almost no opportunities to attend multiracial schools. Their stories demonstrate how colonial education helped racialize urban schools and create social differences and how individual actors experienced, understood, and navigated through these pro­cesses. Mr. Kingu, a Christian African, was born in 1939 in Singida, a town in central Tanganyika.7 He started his schooling late, as was common at that time, and attended a coeducational government-­assisted American 62

Building Schools, Constructing Race

Lutheran primary school near Singida. He passed out of standard eight in 1958 or 1959. The mission school was all African, despite the fact that over 25 ­percent of Singida town residents w ­ ere non-­A frican, according to 8 the 1952 government census. Kingu had a right to have felt “proud of my uniform” as he did well in his studies, joining approximately one-­fourth of his peers selected for secondary school. As no school was located near Singida, he went to Alliance Secondary School in Dodoma, another government-­assisted school originally established by Christian missionaries. Although Dodoma town was almost a quarter non-­A frican, the students at the school ­were all African boys hailing from regions across Tanganyika.9 Kingu finished secondary school in 1964, at the age of twenty-­five. In neither of his schools did he encounter a “non-­native”—­ that is, a non-­A frican. Mrs. Njawa and Mrs. Hilda Mwakilasa both taught at the government Olimpio Primary School in Dar es Salaam in 2002.10 Njawa, a Christian African from along Lake Nyasa in Ruvuma Region, was born around the late 1940s. She attended the Nyamabengo Primary School for standards one through eight from 1958 to 1966. She described an educational environment there similar to the one experienced by Kingu. Catholic missionaries ran Nyamabengo, and her teachers at the all-­girls school ­were nuns. There ­were “very few Muslims,” and all the students ­were Africans from villages in the region. Similarly, Mwakilasa was born around the early 1940s in Rungwe, Mbeya Region, in Tanzania’s southwest. Also an African Christian, she first attended primary school in Mbeya from 1951 to 1955, a time when Indians and Eu­ro­pe­ans each made up over 10 ­percent of the town population.11 While Mwakilasa’s school was about half boys and half girls, it was of course all African, and there ­were “not many Muslims.” For m ­ iddle school, she went on to a Roman Catholic institution in Iringa Region from 1955 to 1960, where there ­were only four Muslims at the all-­A frican school.12 A contemporary of Kingu’s, Mr.  B.  K. Tanna, a Hindu Indian, had much ­different educational experiences in his life due to the structure of colonial education as well as prevailing Indian Ocean influences. He was born in 1941  in Chunya, a small village located near the gold mines of southwestern Tanganyika.13 Chunya town’s population at that time consisted of 1,175 Africans, 121 Indians, forty-­five Eu­ro­pe­ans, fourteen Arabs, five “coloureds,” and two “­others.”14 However, Tanna’s primary school mates in the late 1940s consisted of twenty to thirty Indians, with all six standards learning together in a single room. The Ismaili community ran 63

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the school, the only Indian one in town, and Tanna remembers the more numerous Ismailis bullying the Hindu children. Gujarati was the language of instruction, while Kiswahili was not taught, although Tanna picked it up from Africans working in his ­house and in other informal contexts. Transoceanic networks influenced the structures of colony-­ wide education, as the textbooks all came from India, and spoke of that country as “Mo­ther India.” As a result, Tanna says, “India was my home, our country. I think at that time the way I grew up [our assumption] was that one day we would have to leave Africa and go to India.” In 1951, at the age of ten, Tanna’s ­family sent him to Dar es Salaam for secondary school. A world removed from Chunya, Dar es Salaam had a population then of about a hundred thousand ­people, including over seventy thousand Africans, over twenty thousand Indians, and more than five thousand more non-­A fricans of vari­ous ethnicities.15 He remembers that when a Eu­ro­pean school opened in 1954 or 1955 in Iringa, near his ­father’s shop, the young Tanna asked him, “Why must I live in Dar es Salaam when there is a school ­here? And the answer obviously was, ‘It’s not for us.’ ” Instead, he enrolled at the Government Indian Secondary School in Dar, which was all Indian although instruction was in En­glish. Tanna recalls that Hindu boys made up the majority of the students, but girls w ­ ere pre­sent, and Indian Muslims w ­ ere perhaps 10 ­percent of the total. He stayed in a boarding h ­ ouse for upcountry members of his specific Hindu caste group—­the Lohanas—­and thus lived a socially circumscribed existence. Tanna comments, “Our world revolved around all the Indians, we even spoke all the time in Gujarati, you know. So it was very much an enclave of Indians within a bigger picture.” The bigger picture was the rapidly growing city of Dar es Salaam, where opportunities for  interracial interactions ­were pre­sent outside the racially exclusive schools, despite patterns of urban segregation. Although he had only two ­free hours a day between the Indian school and the Lohana boarding ­house, Tanna reminisces that one of his best friends was an African boy who was studying at the Ismaili Aga Khan School. Within a year of his graduation from secondary school in 1957, Tanna went to Britain for higher education, financed by a wealthy ­uncle who was in the transport business. When Tanganyika became in­de­pen­dent in 1961, he was still in London. At this point, the narrative of his life story reveals the imprint of nationalism, and suggests Tanna’s eagerness—or anxiety?—to be included in the new nation: he recollects celebrating Uhuru at the East African House in London. 64

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Mr. Kishor Kanji Lalji Mangeshkar, a Hindu Indian born in Arusha in 1949, experienced educational segregation similar to Tanna.16 He first attended a Hindu nursery school in Arusha (a town with 2,740 Indians and 3,571 Africans in 1952),17 and then went to the town’s Indian Public School from 1957 to 1964 for standards one through seven. The school recruited and imported most of its teachers from India, and thus relied on Indian Ocean colonial and diasporic networks to support the official policy of educational segregation. Gujarati was a subject at the English-­ medium school, but Kiswahili was not taught u ­ ntil Mangeshkar’s final year when the government changed the curriculum. He instead learned Kiswahili from his parents’ h ­ ouse girls, calling it his “second mo­ther tongue.” An im­por­tant marker of his identity came with instruction in Hinduism during his Gujarati class, in which language, culture, and religion all merged. Muslims and Punjabi Sikhs also separated into other classrooms to study religion during language lessons designed by leaders of the individual communities, reflecting the fractured nature of the Indian diaspora. ­A fter Mangeshkar failed to qualify for secondary school on the standard seven examinations administered by the newly nationalized Tanzanian school system, he went on to study in Nairobi private schools. Each of the brief educational life histories above demonstrates that individual actors living within racially mixed—if residentially segregated—­towns attended schools that ­were artificial social settings constructed around racial categories: African, Indian, and Eu­ro­pean. In building schools, the colonial government, missionaries, and individual communities all contributed to constructions of race and the racialization of urban spaces. Separate systems of education also yielded disparate educational opportunities. Indians—­both Ismaili Muslims and non-­Ismailis, like Tanna—­took advantage of quality schools built by the Ismaili community and the relatively ample provision of government school places for urban Indians, although this situation changed in the postin­de­pen­dence period, as seen in Mangeshkar’s experience. They also availed themselves of instruction by qualified teachers and educational material, both sent from India. Further, Indians could use their academic training to gain admission to international institutions of higher education, drawing on community or ­family funds. In contrast, a majority of African children educated at this time ­were Christian, and they needed rare talent and great dedication to advance through a system that, although expanding, provided but a fraction of the places demanded by Africans. Those who could attain advanced qualifications 65

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found the most opportunities in Dar es Salaam, where they inevitably encountered colonial structures of segregation amid great diversity. Unsurprisingly, unequal educational opportunities—as crystalized in the racialization of schools—­frustrated aspiring African nationalists, who vocally targeted them come the 1950s, a subject addressed in chapter four. COLONIAL POLICY AND THE INSTITUTION OF A RACIALIZED SYSTEM OF EDUCATION

This section traces the formulation of racial categories as deployed in colonial educational structures by following the chronological history of formal schooling in the territory, focusing on Dar es Salaam. These government categories intersected with vari­ous communities’ ideas about race to shape the public urban space of schools. The Holy Ghost Fathers (Spiritans) established the first formal school, a Catholic institution, in Bagamoyo in 1862.18 The missionaries’ competition was not only what they perceived to be unchristian and uncivilized “traditional” African instruction, but also Islamic schools brought many de­cades earlier by vari­ ous groups of migrants from the Arabian Peninsula.19 The government of German East Africa facilitated both Catholic and Protestant missionary expansion from the 1880s onward, and, although it loosely oversaw the churches’ activities, for the most part mission schools operated in­de­pen­ dently. By the turn of the c­ entury there ­were over six hundred mission schools with a combined enrollment of around fifty thousand students in the colony. The Germans quickly realized the need for ­middle layers of administrative personnel to fill the civil ser­vice and for artisans with technical skills to assist in economic development. The first government school opened in Tanga in 1892, followed by one in the new town of Dar es Salaam ­ ere also established on in 1899.20 Most of the other government schools w the coast in developing urban areas, using Kiswahili as a medium to impart a secular education. Students hailed predominantly from the coast and ­were mostly Arabs and Indians,21 although in the Dar es Salaam government school the “vast majority of the pupils w ­ ere Africans, but there ­were also a few Indians.”22 In addition to race, the initial social divides in education lay in religion (between Christians and Muslims), in ethnicity (schools ­were unevenly distributed by region), and in gender (the German government failed to educate a single African girl23).

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The British colonial government would l­ater choose to or­ ga­ nize schools based on race instead of any of the other major differences created by the German educational system. However, it is critically im­por­ tant to note that the roots of a racially segregated educational system ­were planted earlier by Indian initiative. Given the paucity of government institutions, German officials expected the vari­ous Indian communities to provide their own schools. Each responded differently,24 but the best or­ga­nized ­were the Ismailis, who in 1905 imported seven teachers from India and founded one school (with substantial government aid) in Dar es Salaam.25 In this early case, Indian Ocean networks ­were used not to build a diasporic Indian identity, but to reinforce a sectarian identity for a single community—­a reminder of both the resources but also the fractiousness that made up transoceanic cosmopolitan culture. Notwithstanding the efforts of Indian communities to provide its members an education, and the colonial government’s foray into opening educational institutions, the mission schools, assisted by German funds, dominated the educational landscape of the territory before the outbreak of war in 1914.26 ­A fter the defeat of the Germans, Britain accepted the League of Nations mandate for Tanganyika Territory in 1922, which bound the British to promote “the material and moral well-­being and the social progress of [the] inhabitants.” 27 The new colonial power already had appointed a director of education in 1920, while allowing “immigrant communities” and the few remaining missionaries to continue their local educational efforts.28 In 1921, in place of the old German central school, the government founded the Dar es Salaam Boys’ School. For the government to attend to their educational needs, female pupils in Dar had to wait ­until 1932, when a girls’ primary school opened with nine students in a small ­house. To begin to fill the high demand for instructors in the territory, a teacher training college was built in Mpwapwa in central Tanganyika in 1923. Around the same time, British officials began to sketch out their educational objectives, which ­were much more ambitious than the modest German goal of staffing the administrative bureaucratic infrastructure. The 1924 Annual Report of the Department of Education of Tanganyika Territory stated, “Our objective is . . . ​an educational system which will provide for African needs and at the same time produce a virile and loyal citizen of the Empire . . . ​where character, health, industry and a proper appreciation of the dignity of manual labour rank as of first importance. . . . ​[T]he school is the centre of all government propaganda work.”29

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With this declared intent, it is clear that schools would become urban spaces where competing ideologies of education and race collided, as many ­different segments of Tanganyikan society—­colonizer and ruled, African and Indian—­vested their varying aspirations in the control of educational opportunities. Wider conversations across the British Empire sparked by the end of the First World War also informed this local strug­gle over schools in East Africa, leading to a flurry of commissions and conferences on education in the 1920s. In 1925 Britain propounded a continent-­w ide memorandum on “Education Policy in British Tropical Africa,” and the first education conference in Tanganyika convened in Dar es Salaam in the same year. The delegates—­including missionaries but no Africans—­deci­ded to adopt the policy called Education for Adaptation, which “aimed at the provision of basic reading, writing and accounting skills in support of the indirect rule system, the transfer of vocational agricultural skills to develop peasant agriculture and the transmission of Western civic values and Chris­tian­ity to ‘civilise’ and mute certain traditional values and customs.” 30 The presence of Indian settlers in the colony complicated this plan, however, demonstrating how formulations of diaspora and nation began to be fused together in the twentieth ­century, eventually resulting in their coproduction. Earlier, in 1924, the Ormsby-­Gore Commission had visited Tanganyika and determined that the government was obliged to provide education for the vari­ous Indian communities.31 The decision was thus made at the 1925 education conference to pursue separate school systems for the ­different racial groups in the territory, each with its own bureaucracy, bud­get, and educational goals. To create a framework for effecting this strategy, the colonial government introduced into East Africa a model of education based on the one in colonial India, a grants-­in-­a id scheme to fund nongovernmental institutions that met official guidelines. This allowed missionary schools to continue functioning but kept them u ­ nder strict oversight. At the same time, the government considered differently the education of groups they classified as nonindigenous. European-­style schools ­were to be provided for the small number of white children. The 1927 Education Ordinance concretized the previously ad hoc tripartite racial education system and extended grants-­in-­aid to qualified Indian schools like the Ismaili ventures, some of which had already received sporadic German and British funding. The ordinance established separate committees on education for each of the three major racial groups, and empowered them to determine cur68

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ricula, staff schools, and construct and maintain buildings out of their individual bud­gets. The reasons the British colonial government elected to separate the races in schools and impart a ­d ifferent education to each group went beyond s­ imple arguments of racial purity, racial superiority and difference, or race-­based notions of cleanliness and health.32 In terms of governance, racial segregation in schools neatly aligned with the prevailing practice of indirect rule, the structure of governance adopted throughout most of British colonial Africa.33 However, colonial rule operated differently in urban and rural areas, as Africans who left their villages to live in the city ­were viewed by officials as removed from their natu­ral environment, and therefore w ­ ere in the pro­cess of becoming “detribal­ ere thus administered much more directly than ized.” 34 The cities w the countryside,35 using categories like “native” and “non-­native” (which often mapped closely although not exactly onto race) rather than ones informed by ethnicity or tribe.36 Critical po­liti­cal considerations w ­ ere also at work in the implementation of racially segregated education in Tanganyika, which occurred at the same time that the government, drawing from loosely enforced German plans, created geographic racial zones across Dar es Salaam to enhance control of urban areas.37 Anxious about opposition to its rule, the government perceived the po­liti­cal utility of playing racial groups off of one another in the educational arena. This was a rare instance when traditionally impecunious Tanganyikan officials eschewed the thriftiest option, in this case coeducation, in ­favor of trying to forestall the advent of African nationalism by driving a wedge between Africans and Indians. In a 1925 confidential letter, the director of education declared, [T]here is the po­liti­cal aspect which in all schemes of education should be kept constantly in view. With the knowledge of po­liti­cal developments during the last few years in India, we cannot afford to ignore the possibility of an unfortunate African po­liti­cal repercussion in f­uture years as a result of the development of a closer liaison between the two races which might be the result of co-­education. At pre­sent we have a healthy rivalry and a growing race-­consciousness amongst the Africans and a certain feeling of resentment that the Asiatics get so many of the “plums.” In my opinion co-­education might conceivably weaken this healthy and natu­ral rivalry and eventually lead to making common cause for po­liti­cal ends. For fac­ility of educational administration and 69

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from the financial point of view, co-­education offers many advantages. There is, however, this po­liti­cal aspect, ­whether in years to come it may deprive the Administration of a very valuable asset.38

It is im­por­tant to underscore colonial cognizance in Tanganyika of events occurring in British India, where Gandhi’s noncooperation movement had expanded mass Indian nationalism by the early 1920s. The wider Indian Ocean imperial context thus encouraged the insertion of colonial ideologies of race into the design of the Tanganyikan tripartite system of education. The situation in other locations in British colonial Africa also affected the government’s assessment of education’s potential to spark African nationalism in Tanganyika. Responding to a suggestion to send qualified African students to study at a technical college in Uganda (an institution that would eventually develop into Makerere University), the assistant director of education in Tanganyika expressed great caution in 1929: “[T]here is an ele­ment of danger in sending them to Kampala where . . . ​ the type of po­liti­cal thought prevailing amongst Africans tends to be of a somewhat extremist nature and [the director] wishes to make certain that the men would return school masters and not versatile po­liti­cal agitators.”39 This sentiment about po­liti­cal expediencies typified colonial thinking about education in Tanganyika. Rather than simply regarding African students as intellectually inferior (a prejudice that some officials no doubt did hold), the government stressed the importance of providing them a vocational education based on agricultural production. This ensured that the mass of the territory’s residents would not receive a literary and academic—­and therefore political—­education. The irony was that the denial of such educational opportunities to Africans likely accelerated the development of nationalism in the long run. MAKING A DIASPORA: ISMAILI SEPARATISM AND “INDIAN” UNITY

The government’s implementation of a racially segregated system of education never overrode the clearly marked divisions among urban Africans or Indians, making the creation of racial thought a multisided affair involving individuals, communities, and the state. Distinct subcommunities also continued to demarcate themselves, especially the affluent and po­liti­cally influential Shia Ismailis led by the Aga Khan. ­A fter the 70

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British assumption of the mandate, Indian concerns about education revolved around community identity, especially based on a common religious sect.40 This was complicated by the British policy to dispense a grant to only one Indian school in each town. In Dar es Salaam, the funds went to the pan-­communal Lokmanya Tilak School, founded in 1920 and eventually taken over by the government as the Indian Central School in 1929.41 This government grant displeased the local Ismailis, who voluntarily donated significant funds to operate their own schools, and upset the Aga Khan, who himself contributed about half of the recurrent bud­ get of Lokmanya Tilak. In 1929, an Ismaili representative on the Committee on Indian Education—­the wing of the tripartite educational system deputized to oversee Indian schools—­pressured the government to make additional grants for Ismaili schools. According to a historian of the transnational Ismaili community, “Some local Ismaili community leaders believed that it was ‘not possi­ble to amalgamate with other Indian schools, or even Government school’ if they wanted their children raised in the Ismaili faith.” 42 The Ismailis’ plea for government support was ultimately successful in the towns of Bukoba, Moshi, Mwanza, Tabora, and in other upcountry centers with insufficient infrastructural capacity to accommodate students.43 In Dar es Salaam, however, the Ismaili Council agreed to fold the community’s children into the large Indian Central School, reserving its intention to request a government-­subsidized Ismaili community school u ­ ntil “education provision in the locality is insufficient to meet the needs of the population.” 44 As a concession to receiving government funds, the provincial Aga Khan schools agreed to open their doors to all applicants, including Africans, where places existed. Nonetheless, there w ­ ere instances of individual schools refusing to heed this requirement, such as one in Mwanza which did not accept African applicants in 1931. The Ismaili school there kept its grant-­in-­aid, however, as the local government school sorely lacked sufficient places.45 By 1933, government grants funded half of the Ismaili schools’ total bud­gets, ­later climbing as high as 70 ­percent.46 Nevertheless, the Aga Khan continued his financial support, essentially subsidizing Ismaili children’s education. The resulting Ismaili separatism produced a major dilemma facing both the government and non-­Ismaili Indian communities. Both entities sought to push for an amalgamation of schools, the latter seeking the comfort of the Ismailis’ financial largesse.47 However, these moves failed throughout the 1930s and 1940s as the Aga Khan refused to support 71

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amalgamated Indian education and the Ismaili community resisted opening up its quality schools. The cost savings to the government because of the size of donations from the Aga Khan also created an incentive for the British colonial government to go slow on integrating Indian schools. While Ismaili separatism collided with the government’s educational ideology based on race, practical considerations allowed for the perpetuation of divisions within Indian education. As the Tanganyika director of education wrote in 1944, It was evident that several members [of the Advisory Committee on Indian Education] ­were in a position to emphasise the growing dis-­ satisfaction with the system of dualism in Indian education and the increasing demand for the placing of all Indian education ­under a single control. The inexperience and incompetence of many of the school committees coupled with the dis-­satisfaction of staff ­were among the chief elements which caused members to press for the abolition of the non-­provided or voluntary school system financed partly by government grants-­in-­aid and partly by such fees and subscriptions as the committees could extract from communities. It was recognised that a large proportion of these schools w ­ ere owned by His Highness The Aga Khan and that no change of policy could be brought about without his consent and co-­operation.48

While the Ismailis fought to preserve privileged access to and support for their superior schools, the issue of integrated Indian education created other tensions within the fractious diaspora in Tanganyika. The territory’s Hindus represented a great variety of religious sects, language dialects, caste distinctions, and regional origins. An ugly row broke out in 1933 at the Indian School in Moshi, where a teacher claimed he had suffered discrimination because of his place of origin in India. Not finding satisfaction from the director of education, the teacher, Mayashanker L. Dave, fired off an angry handwritten petition directly to the governor.49 In it, he dramatically claimed that subcontinental rivalries carried over from the other side of the ocean w ­ ere the spurious reason for his sacking: I the undersigned most humbly and respectfully state that I was a assit. Teacher in The Indian School of Moshi. Now the committee released me whithout any cause. Up to last year my class result was sat72

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isfactory. I was in that school from very beginning 1929 and up to 1933 January. The main reason is that the committee members ­were Gujrati while I am Kathiawary. In this civil war which is g­ oing on in India most of us Kathiawars do not take part while all Gujratis take part. So they are prejudice to me. The second reason—­They ­were paying me a salary 150 Shs only per month while they ­were getting 190 Shs as grant. I asked them for my full pay. . . . ​I have infor[med] also for this ­matter to The Honable The Director of Education but I received no answer from him. These are many croocked ways which they have used.50

Somewhat surprisingly, Dave’s letter spurred the government into action, although it seems from the paper trail that an audit of the Indian Public School in Moshi had been planned even before receiving Dave’s complaint.  C.  M. Baker, the superintendent of education in charge of inspections (Northern Province), visited the school to conduct an investigation. Although the chagrined teacher Dave’s allegations ­were evaluated, the inquiry scarcely concluded as he would have hoped—­the government found no need for redress.51 The regional rivalries and discrimination within the Indian diaspora of the sort that Dave alleged apparently was not on the colonial government’s radar, especially given its tendency to view Indians monolithically and to allow them to mediate their own disputes. However, the reality was that serious differences existed between many of Tanganyika’s South Asian communities, and as of the early 1930s, the Indian diaspora there was far from a unified po­liti­cal entity. The manifold divisions within the Indian population in Tanganyika never seriously threatened the integrity of the government’s tripartite system of education, committed as it was to segregated schools. This was partly due to the Committee on Indian Education’s privileged financial position (discussed below). A more serious prob­lem facing separate Indian education between the wars was the shortage of qualified teachers. To remedy this inadequacy, and to facilitate the maintenance of separate curricula for its students, Indian schools relied on networks that circulated teachers throughout the Indian Ocean region. Despite the fear of importing teachers from India who might be anticolonial nationalist activists affiliated with the Congress Party, British officials supported this practice. Nonetheless, school administrators and board members of the Advisory Committee on Indian Education still complained of the difficulties in obtaining teachers because of the complicated importation 73

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regulations dictated by the 1922 Indian Emigration Act, which sought to prevent l­abor exploitation of Indians overseas ­after the abolition of indentured ­labor.52 Excessive government obstacles to recruiting teachers from India remained an issue throughout the colonial period in East Africa. For example, in 1947, the Aga Khan’s Central Council of Education for Africa’s administrator for Tanganyika, Mr. V. M. Nazerali, complained in a letter that he could not obtain qualified teachers because a morass of bureaucratic delays frequently caused them to take up other employment before they could be brought overseas.53 Due to the procedural complications, both the government and Indian private schools relied on recruitment agencies based in Bombay to locate qualified teachers.54 Tanganyikan officials usually contracted with the prominent Parsi Gujarati firm Mssrs. Cowasjee Dinshaw & Bros., a trading com­pany that acted as the territory’s official agents and operated throughout the Indian Ocean arena.55 The firm placed advertisements in the Bombay Chronicle and the Times of India—it was typical for there to be “many advertisements circulating in local Indian newspapers” at any one time56 —­a nd scoured western India for suitable teachers willing to travel to East Africa.57 Salaries for teachers at government schools in East Africa could be significantly higher than in India, 58 and usually included benefits like six months leave every four years, and sometimes f­ ree first-­class travel, to visit India.59 Despite the hassles of importation, the government in Tanganyika never developed a local infrastructure to train a sufficient pool of Indian instructors. Importing teachers reduced costs in the short term and provided flexibility in hiring practices. In 1934, the government raised the possibility of attempting to find suitable local candidates to staff Indian schools, but an official concluded, [I]t is the intention of Government to bring as many subordinate appointments as possi­ble within the scope of the Local Civil Ser­v ice but there are certain types of appointments for which it is not possi­ble to obtain local candidates; and the Education Department state that a teacher of the kind required cannot be obtained locally. In such cases it would appear necessary to continue to recruit from India or elsewhere and to grant the privileges of leave and passages to India, or such other place of engagement, as may be necessary.60

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One condition that made recruiting from India a necessity was the high qualifications required of teachers to work in Tanganyikan schools. For example, one 1929 ad seeking two assistant masters for the Indian Central School in Dar es Salaam demonstrated the advanced skills desired: “Both men should know Gujarati, one should hold a B.Sc. Degree with Chemistry, the other a B.A. degree with Physics and Chemistry. The latter should have a knowledge of Latin or French. Both should have an aptitude for games and a knowledge of m ­ usic and scouting is desirable. Trained men with experience are of course preferred.” 61 The acquisition of such skills was far beyond the reach of members of the Indian diaspora in East Africa, with its near barren landscape of academic institutions of secondary and tertiary education. For communities desiring to socioculturally reproduce themselves, drawing on Indian Ocean resources to locate suitable teachers was thus the only solution. Unsurprisingly, the shortage of qualified Indian teachers continued throughout the colonial period in Tanganyika, and schools, unable to recruit on their own, often asked for the government’s assistance to import ­ oing, the state enhanced the creation of a teachers from India.62 In so d “national” diaspora (as seen in chapter one) by connecting Tanganyikan Indians to their putative homeland through ties brought by mobile immigrant teachers. These imperial networks across the Indian Ocean also affected the development of urban schools in Tanganyika by facilitating the perpetuation of educational separation along racial lines, although it must be noted that local conditions drove this pro­cess more than trans­ regional ones did. COLONIAL EDUCATION AND RACIAL DIFFERENCE

The content of curricula and the medium of instruction w ­ ere ­different in each separate branch of the tripartite educational system in Tanganyika, and funding disparities between the three further exacerbated racial inequities across urban schools. The linguistic diversity among Indians also created small curricular divergences within Indian education, but the contrast with Eu­ro­pean and African education was much starker. The language of Indian instruction was occasionally Urdu but in most cases was Gujarati, with the Indian Muslim population, a slight majority, also learning in Gujarati. The politics of partition in South Asia had linked religious community identity to language, and this situation made

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the introduction of Urdu as a compulsory subject for all Indians in Tanganyika a controversial issue: a 1948 proposal to do so met fierce re­sis­ tance from the Committee on Indian Education.63 The committee selected other subjects with the particularities of Indians in East Africa in mind. The curriculum was overtly commercial and literary, without the agricultural or vocational impulses of the policy of Education for Adaptation adopted for African education. For example, bookkeeping—in ­either Gujarati or English—­was a widely available subject.64 Also included in the curriculum w ­ ere specialized topics like Indian ­music (ragas) and lessons for girls in knitting, needlework, and embroidery.65 Wary of the spread to East Africa of subcontinental Indian nationalism in the early 1930s, a time of great upheaval across the Indian Ocean, the colonial government endeavored to restrict the content of history courses in Tanganyika. Courses in Gujarati history and geography ­were permitted to advance a distinct Gujarati identity, although the government was aware of the po­liti­cal nature of history courses and thus sought to keep a close watch on them.66 A conference on education held in Dar es Salaam in 1933 led the Tanganyika Department of Education to conclude that “history should take but a small place in the curriculum of Indian schools in this Territory.” 67 Officials at the conference also suggested that history courses should concentrate on the study of the British Empire, and “should be limited to stories concerning great personages, great places and great events. In the fifth year instruction should be limited to stories and accounts of heroes of Indian history, with some East African History.” 68 The conference attendees even went so far as to propose that instruction in Indian history should somehow cover the period of East India Com­pany rule without referencing the “Mutiny of 1857.” 69 Indian schools stressed teaching En­glish in order to prepare students to compete for scarce opportunities in government employment, which ­were often denied to African graduates. During the course of a debate between members of the Advisory Committee on Indian Education in 1933 over w ­ hether the content of courses should be driven solely by employment prospects for male students, one advocate noted that the majority of Indian boys chose commerce or government ser­vice over agriculture, and argued that the curriculum should reflect these aspirations.70 However, a lack of quality En­glish language teachers made this difficult to accomplish: a member of the Committee on Education wrote in 1933 of “undesirable tendencies . . . ​which require to be guarded against” in “the Elementary Vernacular Gujerati Schools where quite misguided and fu76

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tile efforts are frequently made to introduce the teaching of En­glish by means of untrained Indian school masters (so called) who barely know a word of En­glish themselves.”71 As a solution, the committee suggested that instruction in the higher standards should be a blend of vernacular languages and En­glish. Given this, one wonders how Indian twelve-­and thirteen-­year-­olds in Tanganyika took to their courses on Shakespeare set by the committee in the 1930s.72 It also needs to be mentioned that Indian schools taught Kiswahili only very sporadically, and it was not a compulsory subject as mandated by the government u ­ ntil 1958. Far and away the largest issue facing Indian schools in both Tanganyika Territory and Zanzibar was the amount of funding received from the government, especially in relation to the monies allocated to Eu­ro­ pean and African education. One argument prevalent among Indian communities at this time was that they deserved a greater slice of the education bud­get because they paid more taxes.73 A letter to the Zanzibar Voice titled “Glaring Absurdities” criticized a 1936 official proposal to increase Indian school fees to subsidize non-­Indian educational expenses as “grotesque,” “inherent[ly] defect[ive],” and “muddleheaded.”74 In the author’s words, such an action “would amount to nothing less than penalisation of Indian community whose contribution to the Government revenue is not inconsiderable in order to benefit the other less taxed section of the population.” In debating w ­ hether intervention was required to protect its diasporic constituents, the government of India discussed the Zanzibar editorial and cited statistics indicating that its case was in fact quite baseless. In 1936, the Indian population on Zanzibar was recorded as 15,246 out of a total non-­European population of 235,150 (6.6 ­percent).75 However, 13 ­percent of government expenditure on non-­European education was directed ­toward grants-­in-­aid to Indian schools.76 As one Indian government official concluded, “Prima facie there seems ­little to complain about ­here.”77 Other Indian officials generally agreed with the Zanzibar editorial’s complaint, however, although they eschewed similarly vituperative language, as in the following note: I do not see why Arabs and Africans who do not pay any fees or make any other specific contribution as the Indian parent does, should be treated more favourably than the Indian on this account; nor do I see why the Indian parent who has always been keen on the education of his children should be penalised because of this admirable attitude, even though Zanzibar is not the native country of the Indians.78 77

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A closer examination of the disproportionate funding for Indian education in Tanganyika Territory reveals a considerable basis from which frustration and tension could arise between the racially demarcated communities. While schools for African students received by far the greatest amount of total funding, it was quite small in proportion to their population. For example, in 1930/1931, Africans received 87.7 ­percent of the total education bud­get in Tanganyika, compared with 4.7 ­percent for Eu­ro­pe­ans and 7.7 ­percent for Indians.79 However, government expenditure per pupil provided a paltry sum for the majority of students: in 1931 allocations w ­ ere a mere 0.44 Tanzanian shillings (shs) to an African student versus shs 9.22 for an Indian and a whopping shs 17.22 for a Eu­ro­ pean. African students’ percentage of the total education bud­get declined over the years, especially ­after the worldwide depression led to severe spending cuts in Tanganyika. The 1936 bud­get for education (which was 21.5 ­percent below 1931 levels) distributed only 73.8 ­percent of the total to African education, with Eu­ro­pe­ans receiving 10.3  ­percent and Indians 15.8 ­percent. Adjusted by population totals, per-­pupil disbursements in 1935 ­were shs 0.28, 8.85, and 20.20 for Africans, Indians, and Eu­ro­pe­ans, respectively. The disparity in government outlays to African and Indian schools only widened over time, even as education bud­gets expanded dramatically ­later in the colonial period. In 1945, the amount of educational funding for Africans declined to 70.8  ­percent of the total, while Eu­ro­pe­ans received 11.9  ­percent and Indians increased their share to 17.3 ­percent. Up to 1950, a large gap remained in per-­student expenditure between the three educational committees (shs 100.80, 181.80, and 2280 for Africans, Indians, and Eu­ro­pe­ans, respectively), although it was narrowing in percentage terms. Segregated colonial education produced a relatively better-­educated Indian population in Tanganyika. A 1926 government report counted 1,360 Indians in school.80 Great strides ­were made to increase Indian school attendance a­ fter the 1927 Education Ordinance created the Committee on Indian Education, spurring systematic reform. In 1931, there ­were 480 Indian children studying at government schools, those at assisted private schools numbered 1,220, and enrollment at private unassisted institutions was 855, for a total of 2,555 Indian students. By 1946, the total enrollment of Indian children ­rose to 8,824, with 1,680 in government schools and 7,144 in private (mostly assisted) schools.81 In 1953, fifty out of the 201 Tanganyikan students who passed their Cambridge

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School Certificate exams hailed from the Government Indian Secondary School in Dar es Salaam.82 As in the German period, the Ismaili schools led the way. In 1943, there ­were forty-­t hree Aga Khan schools instructing 3,062 students in Tanganyika Territory, together with thirty-­one assisted Indian schools (teaching 2,688 students), and three entirely government-­f unded Ismaili schools with a total enrollment of 1,250 students.83 In 1951, the Ismailis formalized their separatist tendencies by establishing the Aga Khan’s own Department of Education.84 In sum, the tripartite educational structure racially marked the diaspora and allowed Indian communities to protect their privileged position despite the charge of the League of Nations Mandate and the Department of Education’s foremost stated mission to provide for the needs of the overwhelmingly African majority population. School capacities in the early British period w ­ ere considerable for the small Indian minority, due in part to Indians’ urban location and relative affluence, but also to their demands for ser­ v ices from the government and their ­deployment of educational resources from around the Indian Ocean region. As a result, Indian education at this time was essentially nonselective, with the school-­age population roughly equaling the number of places available, a situation that was a far cry from that faced by the ­A frican majority.85 Despite the disproportionate amount of funds spent by the British on non-­A frican schools, the provision of African education improved somewhat during the interwar years. As a portion of the recurrent colonial bud­get, education as a ­whole received on average below 1 ­percent from 1919 to 1925, rising to around 5 ­percent during the period 1930 to 1945.86 The total numbers of African students r­ ose from over 168,000 in 1926 to more than 221,000 in 1936, although the effect of this increase was surely diluted by population growth.87 The most significant development occurred with the absorption of many mission schools into the government’s grants-­in-­aid system.88 Despite increases in school places, the quality of education for Africans was dismal. In the 1920s and 1930s most African children who obtained access to schools attended for only one to three years, and very few w ­ ere able to complete six years of primary education.89 Unlike admission for Indian and Eu­ro­pean children, African admission was highly restricted by insufficient school capacity: only 3 ­percent of all African students ­were in postprimary schools between 1931 and 1946.90

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The situation for African education in Dar es Salaam was not much better than in the territory as a w ­ hole. Up to 1939, there w ­ ere only three African primary schools for the city, two for boys and one for girls.91 In the 1930s, Dar es Salaam was growing rapidly, and the demand for school places was great. The government realized this, and a 1939 report by the Eastern Province’s Advisory Committee on Education noted that the “prob­lem of the education of African children in this township has reached a stage where rapid extension is a ­matter of vital necessity.”92 The committee hatched plans to build six more schools over a ten-­year period, but the Second World War delayed construction and no significant expansion in fact took place ­until the 1950s. The shortage of school places frustrated many Africans, as did the expense of school fees, although prior to the rise of mass nationalism their complaints ­were relatively quietly aired and their demands not very confrontational. In 1949, an African del­e­g a­tion of chiefs joined with the Liwali (Muslim headman) of Dar es Salaam to approach the deputy director of education at his office in the town hall.93 They politely asked the official to increase the availability of school places, and requested that students who failed their exams be given a second chance the following year. The deputy director replied that a shortage of teachers, funds, and buildings made these changes impossible to implement. This official rebuff led to a spillover of frustration into the pop­u­lar press, and in January 1950 the monthly newspaper Mambo Leo printed several questions posed by the African del­e­ga­tion. One rhetorically asked (in Swahili), “How come some students are unable to move forward in school ­after passing out of Standard IV? What are we to do with them now?”94 A letter from a reader in 1954 to Mambo Leo raised a similar question: “Why is it that Government does not want to build more large schools in Tanganyika that are able to provide for students who finish class ten to enter class eleven? To this date there are many students who wanted to continue their education but there w ­ ere no opportunities. I request that this issue be considered very seriously.”95 Many Africans also saw school fees as an obstacle to obtaining an education. One letter to the editor in Mambo Leo passionately argued, “Many times I’ve read in newspapers that Government wants a school to be in every location. This is very happy news for Africans. . . . ​But the truth is that schools are not open for all. . . . ​If I receive 15/-­Shs. per month, how am I able to educate my two or three children with that salary?”96 In the pre-­nationalist period, printed grievances infrequently commented on systemic racial 80

Building Schools, Constructing Race

segregation in schools (perhaps in part as Mambo Leo was published by the government), although one Mambo Leo reader did query in 1953, “We’ve only got one Government, so all the administration for schools should be properly consolidated by Government in order that fees be made equal at all levels of education.”97 Some Tanganyikans voiced the opinion that a lack of education put Africans at risk of exploitation by cunning businessmen, implied to be Indians. In a call to increase school attendance for African children, a leader of the Wazaramo Union was quoted in a 1948 newspaper article saying, “Not uniting is indeed the reason why we are being insulted by foreigners. . . . ​We don’t know how to do business because of our ignorance, and Indians deceive us” by buying cheaply in the rural areas and then selling for a profit in the city.98 A February 1953 newspaper cartoon echoed a similar theme, depicting an African youth hoodwinked into purchasing an elegant suit from an Indian shop­keeper only to have it shrink to an uncomfortable size in the rain on his walk home.99 Insufficient provision of education also limited employment op­ portunities for Africans, a more significant grievance. In contrast, the training received by Indians kept them more competitive in the small, although growing, market for civil ser­v ice and other salaried professional jobs. The derogatory ste­reo­t ypes held by some administrators exacerbated this situation. In 1925, the director of agriculture stated that a mere 5 ­percent of African children ­were “sufficiently intelligent to profit from academic instruction.”100 In the early British period, the government envisaged that African students who attained a higher education had but a small role to play in Tanganyika. The primary benefit of cultivating such students was the cheap reproduction of a miniscule professional class, as one administrator in the department of education wrote in 1930: [A]s a purely business proposition is it worth training a number of African medical subordinates to replace a given number of Asiatics? If it is—­and I have no doubt that the reply would be in the affirmative—if only on business lines—­then we must be prepared to pay for the education of the first generation at least, just as we should have to pay for it (including pocket Money) if we sent the boy to Eu­rope. The pro­cess would gradually cease as the African Sub-­Assistant-­Surgeon, for example, would then be able to educate his son out of his own means, and so on.101 81

Chapter Two

As Walter Rodney has argued, the colonial education system was crafted to produce “a small section of the African population trained to fill vari­ ous posts in the lower ranks of the administration, and to give, in turn, rudimentary instruction to their younger bro­th­ers in the primary schools. Essentially, it was a system designed to buttress the status quo, which meant for the Africans economic exploitation, social inferiority and po­liti­ cal dependence.”102 The most basic manifestation of the colonial “exploitation” of Africans involving education came in the form of the agricultural emphasis embedded in the policy of Education for Adaptation. Colonial ideas about race buttressed this philosophy and led to curricular differences between the three separate committees on education. In 1931, the director of agriculture suggested that “the African is a peasant farmer at heart and should be trained rather than educated.”103 The historian John Iliffe, describing the agricultural nature of colonial education in the 1930s, depicts a more complicated implementation of Education for Adaptation when he writes, “Much talk about making agriculture the core of the curriculum was hypocritical, for educators assumed in practice that farming was for children who w ­ ere no good at school, and the w ­ hole ­career and earnings structure of the colonial economy was biassed against it.”104 Nonetheless, the government sustained efforts to encourage school graduates to stay on the land, for example in sponsoring an En­glish essay competition in 1954 titled, “The need for educated Africans to take up agricultural work.”105 What the stereotyping of Africans as peasant farmers (which resembled in its racialized crudity opinions about Indians as an inherently commercial p ­ eople) ignored was that African children and their parents desperately wanted a literary education for the job prospects it afforded. The outnumbered African representatives on the Advisory Committee on African Education repeatedly pressed for reform in this direction, but failed to have much impact.106 Throughout the 1930s, appeals from African parents across the territory for a greater provision of academic instruction in schools reached the desks of unresponsive Education Department officials.107 The colonial orientation of state educational provision, featuring curricular differences and funding disparities based on race, had significant social effects in early Tanganyika. The structures of segregated education essentially built government schools intended to be spaces for the production of racialized in­e­qual­ity. Before the rise of mass nationalism enabled Tanganyikan activists, community leaders, and individuals to 82

Building Schools, Constructing Race

attack this situation, colonialism’s discriminatory approach to public education created a source of racial difference and frustrated large numbers of Africans who wanted to escape the experience of exploitation by attaining an academic education. However, it was not equality with Indians that Africans argued for at this time, but rather responsiveness to their proclaimed desires for greater access to schools and advancement in professional employment. Their appeals fell on the deaf ears of a determined colonial administration. ISLAMIC EDUCATION AND RACIAL IDENTITIES

Despite the colonial government’s conceptualization of race as a paramount difference among urban residents of Tanganyika, from the 1930s to the 1950s a shared adherence to Islam offered an opportunity to blur racial differentiation between Muslim Africans and Indians.108 Collectively, Muslims attempted to launch initiatives designed to remedy their relative educational disadvantage, but in the end their projects had limited effects in the region.109 In 1936, African and Indian Muslims in ­Kenya formed the East African Muslim Welfare Society, which opened an active branch in Tanganyika. Supported by a donation from the Aga Khan, the group eventually secured government grants-­in-­aid for its schools that offered a secular education. Local Islamic organizations in Tanganyika also coalesced in the 1930s to coordinate religious and secular educational activities. In 1933, prominent Arab, African, and Indian Muslims in Dar es Salaam registered the Muslim Association of Tanganyika (Al Jamiyyatul Islamiyyah Bi Tanganyika).110 Members of the or­ga­ni­za­tion went from door to door collecting donations from Muslim parents for a multiracial, multisect Islamic school.111 On a 1936 visit to Tanganyika, the Aga Khan learned of the pro­ject and donated money for the cost of a building to be located on New Street (­today Lumumba Street) in central Dar es Salaam. The fledgling school quickly became the most respected Muslim educational institution in town, and the government recognized its achievement by beginning to assist it with grants.112 On other occasions in the 1940s Indians supported Islamic education in Tanganyika, in par­tic­u ­lar as a charitable gesture to Muslim ­A frican students. In 1946, the Hindu Mandal made a donation of five thousand shillings for African education in commemoration of impending Indian in­de­pen­dence.113 The Ilala Muslim School and the El-­ Hussanain School in Dar es Salaam divided the sum and erected plaques 83

Chapter Two

to recognize the generous gift.114 This was but a rare moment of Hindu-­ Muslim solidarity, however, at a time of heightened communal tension leading up to the 1947 Partition of India. ­A fter 1940, when the Muslim League’s Lahore Resolution made the first explicit call for a separate Muslim homeland in the Indian subcontinent, many South Asian Muslims in Tanganyika felt more comfortable expressing their religious identity than another form of community identity. In fact, in 1952 the Aga Khan ordered his Ismaili followers to resign from “Asian” organizations in the territory to participate as Muslims and Ismailis instead of as Indians.115 The specter of the possi­ble rise of virulent communalism—so visible across the ocean in the strife-­torn Indian subcontinent—in South Asian settlements in East Africa also energized Indian Muslims to collaborate with African Muslims, especially in the field of education. In the 1940s, Cassam Sutchu (apparently an Ismaili, from his name) gave approximately shs 11,000 to open a “Native Moslem School.”116 In 1947, the Liwali conducted a brief survey of Islamic schools in Dar es Salaam and recorded that the Darul Islamia Muslim School got “some donations from Indians.”117 The much larger multiracial Al Jamiyyatul Islamiyyah School founded by the Muslim Association of Tanganyika had 315 students in 1956, making it the third-­largest school in Dar es Salaam.118 In the same year, a small school named a­ fter Habib Punja, a wealthy Ismaili businessman who no doubt was a key patron, enrolled exactly one hundred Muslim students.119 These community-­based educational alliances across racial groups occurred during a time of renewed Muslim or­ga­niz­ing in East Africa. Mambo Leo in 1951 gave extensive coverage to African and Indian Muslims in Burundi working together to overcome restrictive laws regulating racial segregation in order to celebrate the Prophet’s birthday together, and to their collective efforts to run an Islamic school.120 In Dar es Salaam and Tabora, respectively, the Ismaili and Ahmadiyya communities tried to bring Indian and African Muslims together for the advancement of Islam in Tanganyika.121 Demonstrating the enhanced po­liti­cal unity of the time, a collection of fourteen imams drawn from diverse groups joined with the Liwali of Dar es Salaam to approach the secretary of education in 1944 with their concerns, as summarized by Director Isherwood: [T]hey w ­ ere filled with deep anxiety about the widespread rumour in the town that it was the intention of Government to hand over the education ser­v ice to the control of Christian missionary socie­ties. 84

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With some urgency they expressed a hope that Government would not do this. They said that in order to maintain liberty of conscience it was their convinced opinion that all education should be placed in the hands of Government. They went on to state that, even where some missionaries gave promises and undertakings that there would be complete freedom of conscience in their schools, other missionaries did not carry this out in practice.122

Instead of race, many Tanganyikan Muslims perceived the largest source of discrimination in education to be based on religion, especially in predominantly Islamic areas like the coast. In addition to frustration at the government reliance on mission schools as the backbone of the educational infrastructure, Muslims w ­ ere also b ­ itter about the British refusal to make grants-­in-­aid to Koranic schools (as distinct from Muslim-­run schools offering a secular education) on the grounds that they w ­ ere purely religious associations. Muslims pointed out that the government’s grants-­ in-­aid program subsidized the spread of Chris­tian­ity, an accusation that likely was not without substance.123 Their relative disadvantage spurred Muslims’ or­ga­niz­ing efforts in the field of education, and also led to creative strategies by parents desperate to educate their children. Rehema Panda, a teacher at a school in Dar es Salaam who grew up in colonial Tanganyika, remembers that a few enterprising Muslim students assumed Christian names and applied to mission institutions.124 Furthermore, she asserts that many Muslims converted to Chris­tian­ity in order to gain access to better schooling in the period prior to in­de­pen­dence. Given this scenario, Muslim parents often had few palatable choices. Those obtaining admission in government schools for their children sometimes did so in violation of the wishes of religious leaders, who urged that parents should send pupils only to Islamic schools teaching the Koran and Arabic. Despite vigorous Muslim or­ga­niz­ing between the 1930s and 1950s, including across racial lines, the significant religious divide in Tanganyikan schools remained. In 1961 Christian churches controlled 75 ­percent of all places in primary schools and 56 ­percent of secondary school admissions, and the colonial state paid nine-­tenths of mission teachers’ salaries.125 In 1956, Muslim pupils ­were outnumbered in schools by at least a three-­to-­one ratio despite constituting 60 ­percent of the population, and they advanced to higher levels of education in even smaller numbers, proportionally.126 In 1956, there ­were twenty-­seven registered Muslim educational institutions,127 although in 1957 they received a meager £6,848 85

Chapter Two

of grants-­in-­aid money out of a total government outlay of over £1.3 million ( just over one-­half of 1 ­percent).128 The colonial government’s refusal to make commitments to Muslim schools subdued the best efforts by vari­ous co­ali­tions of Islamic communities to improve the provision of suitable educational facilities. For example, in late 1954, one outcome of a conference of Muslims in Dar es Salaam was the foundation of the Tanganyikan Muslim Schools Or­ga­ni­ za­tion, tasked with consolidating Muslim education in the country, especially in the Eastern Province.129 The group had four government-­assisted schools at that time, and three of them ­were in Dar es Salaam (the fourth was in Ruvu).130 However, these Muslim schools often found it difficult to deal with the government, a recurring theme in Islamic education in Tanganyika.131 Meanwhile, the government essentially abandoned the unassisted Muslim schools, keeping their quality at a level where they could not compete with other schools. Another example of how a Muslim institution fared in the 1940s and  1950s is instructive. The Al Madressa fii Sabillillah was formed in 1940, and by 1954 had ten board members who oversaw religious instruction.132 The original school, a mud and wattle temporary structure, occupied a location on the corner of Nyamwezi and Bagamoyo Streets in the African neighborhood of Kariakoo.133 The board claimed that there ­were two hundred enrolled students, but the government estimated a more likely total of eighty to one hundred.134 The widening of the Dar es Salaam–­Morogoro trunk road led to the de­mo­li­tion of the school in 1953, and a request for a move to the nearby area of Jangwani was denied—­ ostensibly due to the lowlands’ likelihood of flooding by the Msimbazi Creek.135 The lack of government support for Muslim schools was underscored in a letter between two education officers discussing Al Madressa fii Sabillillah: “The Muslim Schools of Dar es Salaam, w ­ hether grant-­ aided or other­w ise, are inefficient institutions. . . . ​I fear they never will do more than that ­until they have an assured supply of qualified teachers. . . . ​[I]t should be clearly understood that I do not contemplate accepting this school for ­either capital or recurrent grant assistance in the foreseeable ­f uture. To do so would be folly.”136 Without official assistance, Muslim schools in Dar es Salaam ­were doomed; they would continue to be rather ramshackle operations without much overall influence on the educational landscape right up to in­de­ pen­dence. The Liwali’s 1947 survey of Dar es Salaam reported that there

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­ ere only five major Islamic schools, and “­others which provide similar w teachings.”137 All w ­ ere coeducational, and each instructed between one hundred and five hundred pupils in Arabic and Roman scripts. Only the largest school, Al Jamiyyatul Islamiyyah, was government assisted, and as such “its name has been widely known throughout the territory. It has proven most satisfactory.”138 The rest of the institutions suffered in comparison, and w ­ ere funded by “the natives themselves.”139 The Mzinga & Sons Muslim School, opened in 1935, epitomized the poor state of the physical infrastructure of unassisted Islamic schools: “It has no building of its own. The female children occupy the passage of the h ­ ouse which has been provided ­free of charge by the ­house [o]wner through his kindness, and the male children occupy the mosque. Both places are close to each other.”140 Despite such formidable obstacles, the Liwali tried to assert the importance of such institutions to the headmaster of the Government Central School in a bid to gain greater private donations and access to public funds: In fact these Muslim Schools which are in the town are of a very great interest and value. . . . ​The education which is being provided is not only to make the boys to be clerks, Doctors, Teachers or Police Inspectors but they are also taught to be farmers, carpenters, Fundis [technicians] and many other kinds of work. . . . ​I strongly appeal to the Authorities concerned that they be considered along with o ­ thers so that they may get something from the Public Funds, as they are trying their level best to give good knowledge to the children. They are striving very hard to exist. If no efforts are made to let them survive the suffer[ers] will be the children who are the ­future citizens of this territory.141

Despite valiant initiatives to found in­de­pen­dent schools based on “Teacher[s’] courage, efforts and perseverance,” and plaintive appeals such as the Liwali’s for the government to assist in the effort, Muslim education in Tanganyika remained severely disadvantaged compared with government-­assisted Christian mission schools.142 This educational deprivation produced stronger religious unity that occasionally manifested itself in a multiracial Islamic alliance working for the uplift of the Muslim majority in Tanganyika—­although, notably, wealthier Muslims, and especially Indians among them, ­were not as forthcoming with economic support for Muslim schools as they w ­ ere with words of solidarity.

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Nonetheless, these po­liti­cal moments challenged colonial officials’ insistence on racial differentiation as a major princi­ple in or­ga­niz­ing urban public space and structuring administrative governance, and demonstrated Islam’s potential to blur racial divisions. In the event, the government’s refusal to support Muslim schools minimized their influence, and racial segregation in education only strengthened in the 1950s as official policies of multiracialism took hold. CONCLUSION

Mr. Kingu, Mrs. Njawa, Mrs. Mwakilasa, Mr. Tanna, and Mr. Mangeshkar, whose educational life histories w ­ ere presented in this chapter, grew up as students in colonial Tanganyika at a time when official policies segregated schools by race across the territory. Through disparities in funding and differences in curricula, the tripartite colonial education system created vastly unequal opportunities for students based on their racial group, denying many families even a slim chance at economic and social advancement. In diverse cities like Dar es Salaam, ideas about race penetrated urban schools, although it is im­por­tant to note that this pro­cess was not unilaterally imposed by the colonial government. From the 1920s to the 1950s, the interests of many groups, communities, and subcommunities—­drawn from African, Indian, and Eu­ro­pean, and Muslim and Christian constituencies—­collided in debates over the colonial government’s educational policies. In these exchanges, Indian and African actors and organizations largely worked through the racial categories that defined the separate committees on education. Indian communities experienced Ismaili separatism and ethnic and religious rivalries, but also united to protect their educational privileges based on the government’s racially segregated system. This buttressed the government’s usage of the artificial category of “Indian” to structure education in Tanganyika, as did imports of Indian teachers from across the ocean. At times, Islamic movements tried to transcend racial categories of colonial rule to improve schools for Muslim students, but with limited results. As discussed in chapter four, nationalists reacted sharply against educational segregation in the 1950s by attacking the racial basis of exclusion. As colonial-­era inequalities persisted into the postcolonial period, so too did the understanding that schools ­were racialized urban spaces, despite the eventual ascendance of policies of nonracial nationalism. Before moving on to this discussion, chapter three examines how 88

Building Schools, Constructing Race

ideas of race permeated and ­shaped another type of public space in u ­ rban Tanganyika, beyond schools. The rise of cinema halls in Dar es Salaam and other major towns created im­por­tant city social locations that attracted interacting ideas about race that w ­ ere also informed by transoceanic currents, as chapter three demonstrates.

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c CHAPTER THREE

INDIAN OCEAN WORLD CINEMA

this chapter a na lyz es h o w t r a ns n at i o n al i d e as about race surrounded the pop­u­lar new medium of film and penetrated the urban public space of cinema halls in Tanganyika. Through public discussions about cinema policy, British colonialists, theater entrepreneurs, the Indian diaspora, and early Tanganyikan film aficionados from many communities all commented on aspects of daily life in Dar es Salaam. Colonial officials attempted to control cinema by acting on their understanding of film’s impact on the territory’s diverse audiences. The government’s early censorship policies aligned with colonial efforts to segregate urban areas, resulting in race permeating cinema halls from their inception. Indians and Africans effectively contested the state’s cinema regulations by engaging with British officials in discussions of race and film at an even earlier date than the emergence of related complaints over education. Conceptually, one can consider debates about cinema as another form of public space, which operated by facilitating the interaction of ideas about race held by individuals who belonged to many d ­ ifferent communities. However, even successful challenges to government censorship practices by certain African and Indian groups did ­little to rearrange segregated urban space before the arrival of mass nationalism. This chapter shows that for two de­cades the colonial government worked to rearrange urban space using a racialized logic that l­ater hardened into formal multiracialism based on the parity of racial groups, regardless of their internal differences or the total size of each population. At the same time, the categories of “Indian” and “African” could not suppress the real 90

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divisions within each racial group. L ­ ater, a major reconsideration of the urban public space of cinema halls occurred with the rise of nationalism, a theme tracked in chapter five. DENATIONALIZING FILMS AND LOCALIZING TRANSNATIONAL CINEMA

Discussions about cinema in East Africa frequently invoke the box office dominance of international films, significantly from India. Studies of diaspora often describe the establishment of cultural and religious sites, including movie theaters screening Indian movies, as landmark (or even metonymic) urban spaces created by diasporic Indian communities, and write about how these places helped overseas South Asians abroad negotiate their relationships with “home.” For example, Jyotika Virdi writes, “[Hindi cinema] resonates powerfully with the Indian diaspora, often becoming their only connection with the homeland . . . ​while located in  places as far-­flung as Australia, [and] Africa.”1 Scholars of Indian cinema note that, in addition to the medium of film, the special resonance of the atmospheric place of movie halls triggers power­ful di­ asporic memories.2 African nationalist activists and ordinary residents alike criticized such urban diasporic places in Dar es Salaam as exclusionary and, over time, pointed to them as evidence of a minority’s refusal to assimilate to a singular cultural or national identity. The introduction discussed how analyzing these voices is useful in understanding the construction of national and diasporic identities. However, this approach sets up a  dichotomy—­describing ­people’s social lives as e­ ither segregated or integrated—­that does not encompass the range of historical experiences of Africans and Indians in East Africa. In fact, in colonial Tanganyika, successful challenges to racial bars opened up movie attendance to both Indians and Africans at a very early stage. Rather than being the privileged domain of a diasporic minority, local, national, and Indian Ocean–­wide influences converged as Eu­ro­pe­ans, Africans, and Indians all attended cinema halls in the territory, although in ways the state—­both colonial and postcolonial—­attempted to mediate. One Indian describes how audiences have changed over time: “Africans like Indian films. . . . ​P rogressively, you would find that there ­were more and more Africans. Now predominantly there are Africans ­going to see Indian films. . . . ​With the Indian films, even if you miss out a scene . . . ​it ­doesn’t m ­ atter. If you 91

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go out for a Coca-­Cola or a coffee, when you come back the boy and girl are still r­ unning around a tree!”3 In contrast to scholarship on the Indian diaspora and film, many studies of African cinema—­influenced by nationalism—­argue against the pernicious influence of Western films and stress the need for Africans to develop cinematic traditions in line with their cultural values and developmental needs.4 ­Until a very recent boom in Tanzanian movies that bypass theaters and go straight to DVD, a sustainable tradition of film production never emerged in East Africa,5 however, and movies imported from a wide range of countries dominated East African theaters. Pop­u­lar across racial, class, and gender lines, many of Tanzania’s most-­watched films came from India’s Bombay-­based Hindi language pop­u­lar film industry.6 Bombay cinema travelled well to many places, finding popularity among diverse audiences throughout the Indian Ocean region and beyond.7 Consistently reliable Indian Ocean networks of circulation helped secure Hindi films’ long-standing success at Tanzanian box offices, but there are many other reasons why East Africans preferred Indian movies.8 Familiar cultural elements in plotlines and themes (such as ­family relationships) and the intentional accessibility of much of Bombay cinema—­ made for multilingual Indian audiences—­contributed to the appeal of Hindi films for Tanzanian audiences, especially im­por­tant because movies ­were not dubbed or subtitled in Swahili. Similarities in colonial and postcolonial historical trajectories between South Asia and Africa provided other reasons why Indian films appealed across time. Not only did Bombay cinema offer Tanzanians a tantalizing glimpse of the world outside, including an ambivalent view of the desirable but de­cadent West, but it also described a similar colonized experience at the hands of the British. ­Later, Hindi films subtly encoded nationalist messages, up to 1947, when India gained its in­de­pen­dence. A ­ fter that year, South Asian films overtly portrayed nationalist themes as Tanganyikans marched ­toward their own Uhuru.9 Hindi films continued to be pop­u­lar as Tanzanians built an in­de­pen­dent nation and postcolonial India navigated a new relationship with the West. In recent de­cades films have dealt with issues of globalization and liberalization, developments that coincided in South Asia and Africa. When Zanzibari tele­v i­sion stopped airing a Hindi film every Sunday night in the 1990s, complaints flooded in from Africans, who demanded two showings a week instead.10 Cosmopolitan connections across the oceanic region via cultural elements like movies complicate simplistic but prevailing labels like 92

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“African cinema” or “Indian films,” terms that conflate and collapse ­nation and race. Instead, this book attempts to denationalize cinema studies by examining films and movie theaters in Dar es Salaam through overlapping local, national, and transnational lenses—­something that could be called Indian Ocean world cinema.11 In understanding how colonial power—­connected through vari­ous subimperial nodes in addition to emanating from the metropole12—­interacted with local systems of social or­ga­ni­za­tion to shape city spaces, scholars are increasingly looking at places of leisure.13 Viewing movie halls as social spaces14—­around which considerable discursive fields w ­ ere generated—­adds to the lit­erature on film in Zanzibar15 and mainland Tanzania, where the academic focus has been on censorship and colonial policy16 or cinema as an industry.17 It also substantially expands the scholarly inquiry into the relationship between imperialism and cinema, which gravitates ­toward the study of cinematic repre­sen­ta­tions of the empire and its subjects18 or colonial governmentality.19 Furthermore, the study of pop­u­lar culture can contribute significantly to understandings of the encounter between the Indian diaspora and nationalism in East Africa, and also to the broader history of the Indian Ocean in the twentieth ­century. To escape the historiographical divide between nation and diaspora that splits scholarship on Hindi films overseas, everyday social histories of cinema halls in Dar es Salaam might be framed within the Indian Ocean world. To do so successfully, through a case study of the transnational urban space of cinema halls in Dar es Salaam, challenges a lit­erature that asserts the collapse of this world in the early modern or colonial period (at the latest), and extends an Indian Ocean scale to capture the vibrant twentieth-­century movement of ­people and products. Audience encounters with international films, closely monitored by both the colonial and in­de­pen­dent state, deepened the relationship between race and cinema halls, which ­rose in prominence as places of public entertainment from the time of film’s glamorous inception in the region in the late 1920s. THE EARLY YEARS OF CINEMA IN TANGANYIKA

In December 1929, H. A. Jariwalla threw open the doors to the Empire Cinema in Dar es Salaam, raising the curtain on a new form of public entertainment in the city’s history.20 The theater hall accommodated six hundred patrons in three tiers of seating. This was a dramatic improvement 93

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over previous austere film screenings in the territory, with early showings h ­ oused in temporary tents not even outfitted with chairs.21 “Eu­ro­ pean” films (presumably from Hollywood and Britain) ­were the fare at the Empire from Wednesday through Friday, and the lucrative Saturday through Monday runs showcased Indian films.22 In 1931 the Empire Cinema sold seven hundred tickets per week to a “mixed” audience of “Eu­ro­ pe­ans, Asiatics and occasionally natives, but the latter are not encouraged.”23 Cinema operators, concerned about losing audience members from the non-­A frican audience majority, at first discouraged African cinema attendance. The colonial residential and commercial zoning of Dar es Salaam on racial lines in turn facilitated theater proprietors’ self-­ serving discrimination.24 The movie industry grew briskly in towns throughout Tanganyika Territory ­after the pioneering efforts of Jariwalla’s Empire Cinema. Three more theaters sprang up in Dar es Salaam between 1929 and  1934.25 Informal efforts to screen films also flourished in the city. A 1939 social survey of the township reported, “The building in which pombe [home brewed beer] was formerly consumed is now used as a cinema where a native can see old films at a cost of ten cents.”26 It was not the colonial capital alone that benefitted from expanded circulation of films, and by 1931 Tanga had two cinemas and Moshi, Mwanza, and Tabora one each.27 Each movie hall reported selling tickets to “mixed” audiences in profitable numbers, which, however, lagged b ­ ehind those of the Empire.28 Dar es Salaam continued to be the cinema capital of the territory, with the earliest theaters there eventually joined by other long-­standing institutions such as the Alexandra, Amana, Avalon, Azania, Cameo, Empress, Minerva, New Chox, Odeon, and Drive-­In Cinemas. However, cinemagoing as a social event was by no means limited to only a few larger towns. In the early 1950s, the colonial government counted thirty-­one cinemas within the territory, 29 including at newer upcountry locations such as Arusha, Dodoma, Iringa, Chunya, Shinyanga, Kigoma, and Bukoba.30 The mushrooming of privately owned cinema halls and the rise in film spectatorship throughout Tanganyika prompted the colonial government to consider regulation of the new industry. Of par­tic­u­lar concern to imperial minds was the unknown influence film would have on “primitive races,” a worry that lay b ­ ehind the creation of a colonial film policy. Metropolitan anxi­eties on this count initiated the 1929 formation of a Colonial Films Committee (CFC) in London, which studied the possi­ble effect of film on peoples in tropical African colonies. The three charges 94

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of the committee members, appointed by the Colonial Office, w ­ ere to examine film censorship options, the possi­ble use of cinema in education, and, naturally, the “supply and exhibition of British films.”31 While intrigued by the potential uses of film for colonial control in its African colonies, London also was concerned not to interfere with the British film industry, which was already badly outpaced across the globe by American movies.32 Aware of its broader economic interests (to cite a contemporary observer, “trade follows the film”),33 the Colonial Office treaded lightly in advancing the imperial aims of the Colonial Films Committee.34 The Colonial Films Committee released its final report in 1930, and, reflecting the registered caution against metropolitan centralization of cinema policy, recommended that individual colonies and territories establish their own film censorship systems. The report also advised that “certain proposals for discriminating in licensing films for showing to Eu­ro­pe­ans and non-­Europeans” are “fundamentally unsound and we trust that there will be no attempt to enforce them.”35 The intent of this warning was no doubt to reduce the possibility of grievances that held the potential to stir opposition to colonial rule. Regardless of its practical stance against discrimination, the members of the CFC still thought it necessary to assess the differing “civilizational levels” of vari­ous races in their discussion of film’s possi­ble impact on Africans. The committee’s final report indicated that locations like Tanganyika and ­Kenya, due to the mixed presence of Indians, Eu­ro­pe­ans, and “natives,” presented certain unique problems.36 Metropolitan discussions about cinema policy drew from evolving ideas about racial differences between Africans and Indians, established based on comparative imperial experiences across the Indian Ocean colonial world. For example, contrasting “populations . . . ​just emerging from barbarism” with “those old dependencies whose ­people enjoy a civilized standard of life,” a minority report to the CFC remarked that “the injury that can be done to primitive ­people by the exhibition of demoralizing films . . . ​can be hardly exaggerated.”37 The author of this statement alluded to the putative danger of Africans’ cinema illiteracy as evidenced by the (apocryphal) story of the ­giant mosquito, a tall tale that made the rounds through many empire-­w ide discussions of cinema.38 In viewing a magnified shot of a mosquito in an educational film presented to an African crowd, audience members w ­ ere “in doubt as to w ­ hether or not they w ­ ere being shown some beast approximating in size to an 95

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elephant,” prompting them to think, “No won­der . . . ​that white folk are frightened of the mosquito if they have them that size in their country!”39 Anxi­eties about controlling the “less civilized” African population also held sway in the colonies. Tanganyika’s director of education, prompted by his concern for the “brain of the unsophisticated native,” crystallized these thoughts in a memorandum responding to the Colonial Film Committee recommendations from London: What so many p ­ eople who do not know Africa fail to appreciate is that what may be educational elsewhere may be pure burlesque to the African. I have a vivid recollection of a film depicting the sheep industry . . . ​which was shown h ­ ere to school boys. The hall was a beer garden because the audience failed to understand [it] . . . ​There are two essentials if the film is to be an effective instrument in the pre­sent stage of African education, it must be within the scope of native mentality, that is there must be plenty of local colour, and the film must be supplemented by a good ­running commentary on the pictorial ­matter shown. Without the latter it will be a waste of money and energy.40

What the director misread in Africans’ boredom was not “unsophisticated brains” without film literacy trying to watch a film, it was an audience watching an unsophisticated film. This governmental misunderstanding of Africans’ cinematic preferences would persist throughout the history of film in the region.41 At the same time that separate school systems arose for Eu­ro­pe­a ns, Indians, and Africans in Tanganyika Territory (see chapter two), the colonial government developed a cinema policy rooted in ideas about race. Concurrent to the deliberations in London by the Colonial Films Committee, Tanganyikan officials pondered how to control the prominent urban leisure space of movie theaters through regulation of cinema access. The 1929 Cinematograph Ordinance first set down rules concerning the making and exhibiting of movies and shifted the authority for censoring films from the police to newly established censorship boards.42 The Cinematograph Rules of 1931, passed to regulate the censorship boards, was the next major piece of legislation, which declared its goal to be the protection and uplift of the territory’s “native” population.43 The rules defined categories of Eu­ro­pean, “native,” and “non-­native” by conflating race and tiered “civilizational levels.” 44 As Sir Hesketh Bell wrote in the 1930 report of the Colonial Films Committee, 96

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To the millions of unsophisticated ­people in Africa . . . ​moving pictures must be a most impressive vehicle of instruction. . . . ​They should aim at the gradual improvement of native character and customs and should especially show the progress that has been made by natives of Africa who have been transferred to other parts of the world . . . ​where they have been beneficially affected by contact with a higher race.45

One consideration (of many) that Bell and the Tanganyikan government failed to foresee in attempts to legislate cinema access, however, was how the racialized term “native,” loaded with civilizational conno­ tations, broke down with internal contradictions, especially in urban ­A frican settings. Most notably, the 1931 rules flouted the recommendation of the Colonial Films Committee to avoid discrimination and institutionalized a racial bar to cinema attendance: “The approval by the [censorship] board may be absolute, or may be given subject to a condition that the picture shall be exhibited to non-­natives or adults only.” 46 This policy formulation asserted that, as in education, Africans and Indians would be governed differently in regard to movie attendance, although the cinema prohibitions ­were not as absolute because censorship boards had the option to approve films for the population as a w ­ hole. Further, the discussions that led to the creation of government cinema attendance regulations exposed divisions in the colonial administration. For example, the former official in charge of censorship, the commissioner of police, dissented with the racial basis of the 1931 rules: “It is almost impossible to prevent a certain number of native attendants and servants attached to the hall from seeing offending pictures, and their exclusion will no doubt create a false impression in the minds of the ‘town’ natives. For these reasons it has been the practice to licence only such films as can be shown to all nationalities.” 47 An open policy t­ oward cinema attendance might have gained a consensus had stricter censorship regulations been in place, but officials knew that cutting offending movie scenes and prohibiting the screening of controversial films would annoy cinephiles, Eu­ro­pean and Indian alike (and likely African, too, should the government have recognized the growing African appreciation for film).48 The 1931 Cinematograph Rules vested the most authority to regulate cinema access and content with the censorship boards, intended to be the linchpin of the government’s system. The boards expanded in number and size a­ fter the passing of the initial 1929 ordinance, in no small 97

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part because of the work involved in censoring the increasing number of films imported into the territory. As the provincial commissioner in Tanga wrote, I have suggested this large increase in numbers [of censors] as it is very difficult to induce members to turn up sometimes three times weekly and sit from 7–11 p.m. or so censoring puerile Eu­ro­pean and Indian films. . . . ​It is suggested that Husband and Wife, in the case of married couples, should be on the Board together, when one or the other has to await dinner till 11 p.m. I am advised that domestic friction is likely to result.49

It was not only British worries over matrimonial distress that arose around film in Tanganyika in the early 1930s. As the following sections show, Indian and African communities reacted strongly to the racialization of cinema admittance contained in the new colonial ordinances, although in internally divisive ways. These protests reflected the real differentiation that existed within the racial categories established by the British, but at the same time, groups contesting colonial policy w ­ ere forced to work through these very categories. The attacks on early censorship regulations, ultimately successful by 1936, w ­ ere emotional in several ways: Dar es Salaam residents ­were upset about being denied access to films they wanted to see; individual communities w ­ ere angry that Eu­ ro­pe­ans held jurisdiction over deciding what was suitable for their entertainment consumption (a touchy issue, especially as Eu­ro­pe­ans blindly edited Indian films); and, lastly, the sting of colonial discrimination motivated groups to or­ga­nize and petition for change. INDIAN CENSORSHIP BOARD PROTESTS AND THE MAKING OF A DIASPORA

In 1929, an Indian member of the governing Legislative Council in Tanganyika, the Honourable Mr. Abdalla Khimji, queried the chief secretary, “Will the Government be willing to nominate some Indian members on the Board of Film Censors, out of regard for the sentiment of Indian spectators?”50 The official response illuminated the colonial belief in essential racial distinctiveness, rooted in British transcolonial experiences, that undergirded the territory’s censorship policies: “The primary function of the local Board of Censors is to ensure that films shown are 98

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suitable for exhibition to the native population; and Government does not consider that any good purpose would be served by adding, for the pre­sent, at any rate, an Indian member to the Board.”51 Although the government refused Khimji’s request, in the controversies that followed this disagreement the territory’s diverse Indian communities came together to act collectively. As with racially segregated education, the colonial state played a role in the coalescence of the Indian diaspora in Tanganyika through the racialization of cinema policy. The Indian Association (IA), Dar es Salaam, mobilized in 1930 to contest repeated decisions made by the government against including Indian members on the regional censorship boards. The IA employed two ­d ifferent strategies in its protests, each of which recognized colonial understandings of race. First, echoing subimperial claims from the diaspora similar to those presented in chapter one, the IA asserted Indians’ role as trustees of the African population. Second, it argued that Indian films and culture w ­ ere intelligible only to Indians. As in protests over education, a united Indian diaspora spoke out most forcefully when attempting to preserve or advance privileges dependent on colonial structures rooted in hierarchies of racial groups. As the IA argued in 1930, Firstly, the Indians are in as strong a position as any other members of the Board to decide the advisability or other­w ise of the exhibition of films to natives; and secondly, most of the films being of Indian make—­ picturing Indian life, it is essential that the board should have Indian members on its personnel in deciding about the advisability of the exhibition of films to natives.52

The Tanga branch of the Indian Association subsequently ratcheted up the pressure, holding a public meeting that passed a resolution that “strongly protests against the exclusion of Indians from the Cinematograph Licensing Board.”53 In public, the agitation yielded only an expression of regret from the government about the misunderstanding, but it  did spark internal official discussions debating the potential utility of Indian censors. Meanwhile, the Mwanza Indian community held a mass public meeting that echoed Tanga’s strong protest, and the vari­ous branches of the Indian Association kept up the pressure throughout 1931 to make Indian inclusion on local censorship boards a ­matter of official policy.54 An Indian Legislative Council member named M. P. Chitale also took up the cause through official channels, asking the government to 99

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remove “the complaint of the Indian Community.”55 It is im­por­tant to note that this “Indian Community” came together in the cinema censorship board debates as a collective fused by po­ liti­ cal necessities ­located entirely in local urban struggles against the colonial state, rather than as a group bound by primordial cultural connections rooted in a shared homeland. In the end, realizing the as-­constituted censorship boards’ inability to evaluate films in Indian languages, a confidential letter from the director of education to the chief secretary recommended adding Indian members to the board for the sole task of censoring Indian movies.56 This decision was reinforced by the fact that many films circulating in the territory w ­ ere of “Indian make and depict Indian life,”57 creating trying experiences such as the one described in a Eu­ro­pean censorship board member’s admittedly and amusingly naïve testimonial printed in the Tanganyika Standard in 1930: The Asiatic Board is im­por­tant . . . ​because most of the Indian pictures have their sub-­titles in the Indian language and at the pre­sent time there is no one on the local Censorship Boards who knows the first thing of what those sub-­titles might mean. The pictorial repre­sen­ta­tion might appear all right, but the titles might be ­really obscene. Who is to know? . . . ​I was at the censoring of one of these films and it appeared all right. Out of curiosity I visited the show the following eve­ ning. The sub-­titles ­were met with screams of laughter and a fire of remarks that amazed me and caused me to won­der what they ­really did mean.58

In the wake of the yearlong series of protests led by the Indian Association, the director’s confidential letter went on to acknowledge the benefits of avoiding confrontation and added a recognition of the advantages of cooptation: “It would seem, therefore, advisable to appoint ­Indian members in order to safeguard against advantage being taken of the language difficulty to engineer a disturbance on the ground that religious feelings have been violated.”59 As with education in Tanganyika, religious identity complicated colonial racial distinctions governing the control of film, as seen in the next section. Contests over censorship policies certainly could work to solidify the Indian diaspora, but also had the potential to splinter pan-­communal cooperation.

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INDIAN TENSIONS OVER FILM IN THE 1930S

The religious diversity of Indian communities obliquely referred to above by the director of education reflected the day-­to-­day reality of being “Indian” ­under colonial rule in Tanganyika. This racial label was a category of public discourse and po­liti­cal action, created and invoked by the government and employed by Indian leaders to their advantage. At the same time, the empty singularity of “Indian”—­identifying one in ethnoracial (and impending national) terms alone—­left space for multiple layers of identification to reflect one’s multiple attachments in a cosmopolitan town like Dar es Salaam. In fact, the unity of the Indian “diaspora” fractured often as conflicts erupted over religion and cinema in the 1930s. This section discusses a brief dispute that concerned communal repre­sen­ta­ tion on the censorship boards, and a longer one involving the contrasting ways that members of vari­ous South Asian religious groups reacted to Indian films. Pursuing its new policy to include Indians in the scrutiny of Indian films and responding to the increase of films in the territory, the Dar es Salaam censorship board sought to add two new Indian members in 1933. Wary of upsetting religious sensitivities, the chairman of the Cinematograph Licensing Board requested suggestions of candidates from the Indian Association, adding the following caveat: “In view of the fact that the two members at pre­sent on the Board are Mohammedans it may be as well if one or both the new members are Hindoos.” 60 In reply, however, the IA sharply opposed the “suggestion from the Government regarding appointment on communal basis.” 61 The disagreement was over jurisdiction more than religion: the Indian Association wanted the government to defer to it in determining the proper religious balance of Indian members on the censorship boards. The IA’s objection was not necessarily a condemnation of communal identity, but a claim in the stakes over who managed it: the colonial government or Indian po­liti­cal leaders in Tanganyika. The outlines of this contest became clearer in 1937 when a longtime cinema licensing board member saw his reappointment by the government challenged by the Indian Association, which demanded to be consulted first in this pro­cess.62 The significant issue once again was not w ­ hether the board member was Hindu or Muslim, but instead concerned the IA’s desire to manage Indian religious divisions ­free from government influence. In this case, the colonial officials involved acquiesced

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to the IA’s demand, perhaps because they themselves did not fully understand the rivalries and sensitivities of the territory’s Indian communities, an ignorance further exposed when religious controversies over film exploded into public quarrels during the early days of cinema in Tanganyika. In February 1930, the Empire Cinema released lavish broadsheets heralding the screenings of a “rare picture” called The Light of Asia.63 Advertisements described The Light of Asia as “Depicting the Life-­History of Lord Buddha and costoms [sic] and manners of Indians in ancient Era.” 64 It was an im­por­tant 1926 film from the s­ ilent era of Bombay cinema, and the director, Franz Osten, was l­ater hired in 1934 by the lead actor, Himansu Rai, to join the large movie-­production h ­ ouse Bombay Talkies. The Light of Asia was an expensive German-­Indian coproduction, filmed in India, which detailed the Buddha’s “fight between love and denial,” struggling to choose between “the carefree life with his beloved wife . . . ​ and a life in pursuit of eternal truth.” 65 Over a thousand tickets had already been sold for the movie by February 6 when the Dar es Salaam censorship board approved the picture.66 Adding to the high anticipation for the film, the Empire Cinema pledged to donate a portion of its proceeds to the Maratha Sports Club, a Hindu athletic and social or­ga­ni­za­ tion in Dar es Salaam.67 On February 12, three days before the Friday opening of the film, the commissioner of police in Dar es Salaam received a letter from the local Sinhalese Buddhist Association. The original members of this community migrated from Ceylon to Tanganyika in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, establishing the first Buddhist ­temple in Africa and founding the association around 1915. The community numbered about four hundred Ceylonese Buddhists at this point, although over time the maintenance of the Sinhalese Buddhist Association hall (established in 1927) also was supported by Hindus, Christians, Sri Lankan Muslims, and Thai, Burmese, Chinese, and African Buddhists.68 In their 1930 letter, the association’s leadership complained that “the w ­ hole Buddhist world in general object to the exposure of Lord Buddha’s life as outlined by this film com­pany, which we consider irregular and its exposure may lead to an incorrect understanding being formed in the minds of the public who are ignorant of the fundamental principles of the religion.” 69 The association requested that the commissioner of police prohibit the screening of The Light of Asia as scheduled by the Empire. Confronted by confusing and sensitive divisions among the South Asian communities resident in the territory, British officials deci­ded to 102

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solicit a variety of opinions about the film. They started with the Indian ­manager of the Empire, who on February 13 claimed emphatically that only the very small Buddhist Community ­were opposed to its exhibition; that their opposition was based on ignorance and was unreasonable; that the large majority of the Indian population w ­ ere in favour of the exhibition; and stressed the loss and unfairness to himself and to the Sports Club that would result if the film, having been passed for exhibition, should be withdrawn at the last moment.70

The ­manager added that while the colonial government of Ceylon—­ home to the original Sinhalese Buddhist community—­had banned the film, The Light of Asia encountered no opposition to earlier screenings in Tanga, K ­ enya, Uganda, South Africa, Portuguese East Africa, or India. Moreover, he claimed that twenty-­five to thirty tickets already purchased for the film in fact belonged to members of the local Buddhist Association. Called in l­ ater the same morning to chat with the police, the brother of the secretary of the Buddhist Association admitted that none of its 130 members had actually seen the film. Rather, he reported that the Dar es Salaam Buddhists w ­ ere acting on advice from the Sinhalese community in Zanzibar—­whose complaints forced the film’s withdrawal from exhibition there in 1927—­and from across the ocean in Ceylon.71 On February 14, only a day before the film was scheduled to open at the Empire, the commissioner of police issued his recommendation in the ­matter: [A]lthough Censorship is guided by a princi­ple that a film should not be passed for exhibition which is likely to upset the religious or other susceptibilities of any section of the Community before whom it is exhibited, it is, nevertheless, unreasonable for this very small minority to expect to impose their wishes upon a large Community, and I do not intend to ban this film ­unless Government instructs me to do so.72

Confirming his opinion, the commissioner predicted there would be “no reasonable objection” to the film from three individuals who ­were identified as “influential Indians”: the Ismaili secretary of the Indian Association and two respectable Hindu leaders. In response to this setback, the Buddhist Association marshaled a new strategy. It asked vari­ous organizations 103

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in town to rally in defense of the princi­ple that the sentiments of each individual community, however small, should be respected by the government. The association’s members also received permission to circulate handbills outside the Empire Cinema propagating the argument that the Light of Asia screenwriter “misconstrued, misrepresented, and has permitted the powers of imagination to over run his studio by depicting our Lord’s Life in such a vulgar and abominable manner,” which is “totally a myth as it is a disgusting untruth.”73 The Sinhalese Buddhist Association’s new argument spurred the city’s community organizations to recognize what was at stake in this charged po­liti­cal atmosphere. The president of the Indian Association, Tanganyika Territory, wrote that “My definite opinion in the m ­ atter is that the opinion of the Singalese [sic] Budhist [sic] Association should finally decide the m ­ atter as it pertains to their apostle. Since they are opposed to the screening of the film, the film ‘Light of Asia’ should be stopped.”74 The Chinese Buddhists in town also joined the cause, issuing a statement in support of the Sinhalese Buddhists.75 The Buddhist Association even submitted a letter to the government with notes from the “Chaplain of the En­glish Church” and the “­Father Superior of the Roman Catholic Mission” urging that the film should not be shown.76 Communal organizations around Dar es Salaam seized the opportunity provided by the Light of Asia controversy to claim sole authority over religious matters pertaining to their individual faiths, in so d ­ oing creating tensions generated from the colonial state’s management of diverse Asian populations through the po­liti­cal category of “Indian.” Before the curtain r­ ose at the 6:30 p.m. opening show on Friday, February  15, the commissioner of police went to the Empire Cinema to attempt to broker a last-­minute solution.77 He proposed that selected members of the Buddhist and Indian Associations should view the film in advance and offer objections to any par­tic­u­lar portions. The Empire management consented to the suggestion, at least ­until the majority of the Buddhist Association membership collectively presented itself at the cinema hall for the ­free advance screening. In a compromise, the agitated theater m ­ anager cancelled the first showing and allowed the full central committee of fifteen Buddhist leaders to enter the hall together with representatives from the Indian Association. ­A fter watching The Light of Asia, this ad ­hoc group convinced the Empire management and the police to remove the two most offensive sections from the film reels.78 While the president of the Buddhist Association thanked the commis104

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sioner of police for removing these parts, he “accepted u ­ nder protest the decision not to ban the w ­ hole film.”79 ­A fter the compromise, the show went on through the weekend but so did the protests. The eclectic movement opposing The Light of Asia gathered on February 16 to plot its next move.80 Reports indicated that anywhere between seventy-­five and 120 ­people w ­ ere in attendance, depending on w ­ hether one trusted the Tanganyika Herald or an unnamed “Asiatic” police officer interviewed by the government.81 This mixed group of largely South Asians, comprising “Buddhists, Hindus, Mohammedans, Christians, Arya Samajists, Ithnasheri Khojas, Ismailia Khojas, and Chinese,” unanimously passed a resolution calling for the immediate banning of The Light of Asia.82 Receiving news of the meeting on the night of February 16, the commissioner of police once again went to see the beleaguered proprietor of the Empire Cinema. He suggested that “it might be in the best interests of his business if he would himself make very sure of the views of the leaders of the d ­ ifferent sections of the Asiatic Community, and if he found the consensus of opinion to be against him to withdraw [the film] himself from the next day’s programme.”83 The Empire management, careful to protect potential profits from the controversial film, again consented to the commissioner’s request. Staking a ­gamble, the proprietor of the Empire sent an offer to the Buddhist Association to cancel the film if a consensus of “Asiatics” insisted, but the association refused. The theater ­manager described these negotiations to the police as follows: During the conversation the Buddhists expressed their thankfulness about the offer made by the proprietor and very much praised this intention towards the Buddhists, but they reluctantly did not agree with the offer, saying that “The permission of the exhibition has injured our feelings more than the exhibition itself, and hence this offer shall make no good. We are fighting with the Government to stop the picture.”84

Presumably, the Sinhalese Buddhist Association also refused the Empire’s offer knowing that they would be unable to muster the required consensus of Indians to achieve a ban on the film. Instead, most of the association’s support came from Indian community leaders, who saw po­ liti­cal gain in the Buddhists’ strug­gle. With cross-­Indian community cohesion obviously crumbled, and because a highly anticipated film had landed in front of a growing contingent of filmgoers, the proprietor of 105

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the Empire Cinema had an easy final decision to make: The Light of Asia played that night in Dar es Salaam’s grandest cinema hall. This episode demonstrates how heated debates over film dragged the Tanganyikan government into complicated public discussions about the use of urban spaces. Colonial officials found it impossible to pin down “Indian” opinion during this public disagreement, a natu­ral development as it was deeply divided both among and within communities. The reality was that colonial categories of race could not contain the complexity of Dar es Salaam’s diasporic communities, whose leaders expected the British to res­pect their distinctions by deferring to the advice of representative organizations. Put another way, this encounter set long-­established Indian Ocean cosmopolitan cultures—­f ractious, yet familiar to ­people in their understandings of religious differences—­against newer imperial attempts to manage them. Other groups tried to make similar interventions into colonial cinema policy following the confusion over The Light of Asia, with comparable overt failures. A week ­a fter the incident at the Empire, the Anjuman Islamia, a local interracial pan-­Islamic movement, sent a letter (signed by “Vari­ous Mahommaden Communities”) with a familiar request to the police: [A f]ilm named Yusuf Zulikha is to be shortly screened in one of the local cinema halls which is a most sacred and religious one and its show if permitted will injure feelings specially of the Indian Mahommadens and of the African Muslim Population in general to great extent. . . . ​We therefore beg to request that you will kindly intervene in the m ­ atter and see that the film in question is not screened just as it was done in Zanzibar recently. We also humbly suggest that in f­ uture all such religious films should not be passed by Censuring Authority without prior consultation with the parties effected.85

This case was much easier for the commissioner of police to ­handle, as none of the theaters in town had yet requested permission to show Yusuf Zulikha, apparently from its title the oft-­told love story of Prophet Joseph and his wife, as found in the Koran. Nonetheless, the Light of Asia controversy had set the pre­ce­dent, and the commissioner’s reply to the Anjuman Islamia held the following suggestion: “In the event of such an application being made it is proposed to invite one member from each of the vari­ous sects of the Mahommedan faith to meet with the members of 106

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the Cinematograph Censorship Board to view the film and to indicate in what manner and to what extent the scenes depicted offend against the susceptibilities of the Mahommedan community.”86 These disputes in the wake of the arrival of The Light of Asia revealed government censors’ inability to predict community reactions to films. The inherent weaknesses in the government’s cinema regulations, informed by prevailing administrative categories of race (which religion could blur, as in the case of Yusuf Zulikha), reverberated for many years whenever discussions arose on film policy. In 1934, the chairman of the Cinema Licensing Board wrote, “The establishment of a central film censorship in London would not obviate the need for local censorship. . . . ​A film which is unobjectionable in India might cause serious offence to a section of the community in East Africa or have a local po­liti­cal significance unobservable at a distance of 6,000 miles.”87 In other words, despite its “national” label deriving from the subcontinent, the Indian diaspora in East Africa clearly drew its identity significantly from localized circumstances that often had ­little to do with being “Indian.” A Tanganyikan government summary of censorship in the early 1930s reached a similar conclusion, while sounding a familiar chord of resigned futility in trying to comprehend the diversity of Indians in the territory: The most usual ground of complaint against the Censors has been that this, that, or the other incident in a film was unsuitable for “exhibition to Asiatics.” . . . ​The differences between the ideas of Hindu and Mohammedan races and those of Western Eu­rope races regarding decency, social decorum and behaviour, are so great that it is probably no exaggeration to say that almost every film contains some incident which is liable to be misunderstood and misinterpreted by the great majority of the Asiatic population of the Territory.88

While censorship policy changed dramatically a­ fter petitions from African communities in the mid-1930s, as the next section examines, the worries about South Asian religious sensitivities never receded. In 1946, one government official wrote, “Indian films are censored by the Indian members of the Board only and being mainly religious in character are ­ ere useful to censored almost solely on religious grounds.”89 Indians w the board of censors not because they w ­ ere Indian, in the end, but because they ­were Hindu, or Muslim, or Sikh, or Buddhist, or a member of any number of sects of several d ­ ifferent religions. In sum, British officials 107

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in Tanganyika realized the hopelessness of understanding its resident Indian diaspora through the broad category of race while at the same time remaining confident about infusing colonial ideas of race into segregated urban spaces like schools and cinema halls. In the event, the colonial government succeeded, for a time, in creating racialized categories with which to rule, ironically all the while failing to understand how the territory’s residents considered—or ignored—­racial difference. In this, Dar es Salaam’s population continued the much longer-­term pattern prevalent in the Indian Ocean world to accommodate newcomers, although on negotiated terms despite imperial attempts to impose its own structures on the region. AFRICAN TENSIONS OVER FILM IN THE 1930S

During the crucial early years of cinema in Tanganyika Territory, Africans urged changes to colonial film policies, echoing many of the demands issued by vari­ous Indian organizations. The resulting exchanges exposed the contradictions in British strategies of colonial control based on categories of race, pegged to their imagination of the civilizational capacities of ­different groups. In challenging the government, African and Indian organizations importantly accepted colonial racial categories, but tried to turn them to their advantage. As restrictive official cinema regulations clashed with the growing demand by Tanganyikans for access to compelling international films, ideas about race surrounded the urban public space of the movie hall. The first African petition in Dar es Salaam to gain access to films banned from exhibition to “natives” came from the newly formed African Association (AA) in 1930.90 The local district officer (DO) granted an audience to a deputation of the group’s members, typically comprising educated and salaried men, at which the AA made two requests. The first was to post censorship ratings in advance: The members of the deputation stated that natives are not in a position to know what pictures might be seen by them u ­ ntil they arrive at the Theatre and tender money for admittance when they are turned away often in a manner that annoys the native. The deputation feared that such treatment by Theatre Staff might incense natives and result in a breach of the peace and that the posting of a notice would obviate the possibility of this.91 108

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The District Office reported the second—­and more provocative—­request was that certain educated natives holding well paid appointments and men of good character should be granted special permits to visit films passed for “Non-­Natives only” [as] a large number of Arabs and Indians who attend the theatre are less educated and less civilized than the more respectable natives. The large majority of Arabs live with native wives and have native mothers, and their children, so called Arabs, are in ­actual fact 3 ⁄4 natives. The standard of living of these ­people is lower than that of the better class native and yet they may visit the Cinema Theatres.92

The AA’s argument implicitly accepted the government’s logic about distinctive civilizational levels, showing how colonial racial categories ­were often the entry point to interactions with officials. At the same time, the AA asserted that these levels could not be ascribed solely on a racial basis. The leaders of the African Association sought privileges for its educated and professional cadre alone, drawing a distinction between themselves and “less civilized natives” (and lower-­class Indians and Arabs, for that ­matter). The district officer sympathized with the AA deputation, especially on its first request, but noted the contradictions in policy that would arise if the second request ­were to be granted: I pointed out to the deputation that . . . ​Government did not yet consider that the vast bulk of the native population had yet reached a state when they could intelligently and without danger to themselves, owing to their complete ignorance of the conditions of life in other countries, view certain films, that the Government could not discriminate and prohibit one native and permit another to see a certain film, and that it is often necessary for small minorities to suffer disabilities in the interests of the general community.93

In determining who was fit to consume the modern moving pictures that arrived from overseas, this official was not willing to discard the ruling category of African “native,” and continued to tie it to tiered civilizational levels. The DO somehow did not find it problematic or hypocritical to state that permitting only elite Africans to see certain films was 109

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“discrimination,” while at the same time allowing access to Indians and Arabs (and Eu­ro­pe­ans). In the face of such contradictory callousness, it is no won­der that Africans experienced cinemas as zones of racial exclusion and privilege in Dar es Salaam. Nonetheless, in politely petitioning for its requests to be reviewed by the DO’s superiors, the African Association leaders too ­were comfortable dismissing most fellow Africans as unequipped to ­handle cinema experiences, expressing that they “fully realised that it might be most undesirable for certain natives to view certain films.”94 The next level of colonial bureaucracy to tackle the AA’s challenge to cinema policy was represented by the provincial commissioner (PC). He proved less sympathetic than the district officer, and refused to acknowledge that one could make any distinctions at all between “natives.” Moreover, the PC asserted the civilizational superiority of Indians and Arabs in refusing the AA’s second request for special cinema permits for educated Africans, writing, The Censor Board[’s] . . . ​difficulties are ­going to be increased considerably if a District Officer or some other official is to grant permits to certain Africans to view films which are made for Eu­ro­pe­ans and cater for the taste of the type of persons whose reading is largely confined to sensational newspapers such as the News of the World of which it is claimed that 3,000,000 copies are sold weekly. . . . ​A rabs and Indians do not demand the exercise of our trusteeship to the same extent as the natives. They have ages of civilization b ­ ehind them. . . . ​The educated African in Dar es Salaam is in most cases a native brought up in a native village but who is now living in highly artificial surroundings and I doubt ­whether any Eu­ro­pean could state with certainty the effect which sensational pictures produce upon Native imagination. . . . ​ It is unfortunate that it is a racial bar, but I am not able to make any alternative suggestion which would serve the desired purpose.95

The “desired purpose” in this case was to uphold the “trusteeship” of the African population, the mission explicitly entrusted to the British in ruling Tanganyika ­under the League of Nations mandate. In cinema policy as well as in education, at least in the early 1930s, this meant keeping Africans and Indians in separate categories, no ­matter their internal differences or overlapping similarities.

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The African sense of grievance borne from exclusion from Dar es Salaam’s burgeoning movie halls built throughout the rise of film in the early 1930s.96 Official recognition of these concerns signaled a growing willingness to reconsider cinema regulations but, in the end, a lack of consensus among Tanganyikan officials stalled the discussions.97 While some colonial officials wanted to remove racial prohibitions to cinema attendance primarily to preclude African protests, many local residents wished to see the stronger rules remain intact. Strikingly, this position could be found throughout the spectrum of residents in the territory. A first example rests in a letter sent to colonial authorities by a Eu­ro­pean ­woman named Gabrielle Stoneman who played piano at the “local cinema,” presumably the Empire. She was responding with alarm to the film The Green Goddess, which screened in early 1932: I am neither a Jingo, nor an anti-­anything, but common sense dictates that any film which is likely to encourage the theory that the West oppresses the East should, at a time like this, not be shown in this Territory. . . . ​[T]here have been two or three occasions before when films have been shown that caused one to won­der ­whether the film censors ­were asleep when watching it. . . . ​[I]t is natu­ral to take an interest in the country in which one happens to be living and more so when the population is as mixed as it is. . . . ​[C]ertain themes should be barred altogether. I mention a few. Any question of sex relations between ­people of ­different races and colour, any film showing a white ­woman as being beaten or sold; any film in which the British are shown or described as oppressors. Many ­people of vari­ous races attend the cinema and these may take seriously what is perhaps intended to convey an exactly opposite impression.98

To be sure, Stoneman’s comment about the precariousness of “a time like this” might have referred to anything from the deepening worldwide depression to an out-­of-­t une piano at the Empire Cinema. However, given her letter’s special concern to protect the image of a paternalistic colonialism buttressed by racial separation, it is possi­ble that she was invoking recent turbulent events in India and their potential repercussions in her colony of residence. Since the early 1920s, nationalist protests across the Indian Ocean had been triggers for incipient Indian nationalism in East Africa and occasions for po­liti­cal unrest in the port city

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of Dar es Salaam. In 1922, a­ fter the suspension of the first noncooperation campaign in India and Gandhi’s subsequent arrest, Indians in Dar es Salaam adopted the tactics of the Indian National Congress (INC) party to declare a one-­day hartal (strike).99 All Indian shops in the city closed for the day and appeals ­were made to use Indian goods and to support the INC. Reacting to local po­liti­cal issues in 1923, the Indian Association repeated its earlier hartal, only this time shuttering shop doors for fifty-­four days, causing great social and economic disruptions in Dar es Salaam.100 In 1930, the Dar es Salaam Indian Association declared yet another hartal as Gandhi launched a fresh round of noncooperation actions with a dramatic long march to the sea.101 When talks between Gandhi and the colonial state collapsed again in early 1932, the Mahatma unleashed a massive campaign of civil disobedience, executed over the next year by the entire subcontinental apparatus of the Indian National Congress. Renewed clashes with colonial institutions prompted the arrest of 120,000 ­people in India between January 1932 and March  1933, and undoubtedly worried Eu­ro­pean residents in colonies throughout the British Empire. Gabrielle Stoneman, writing in early March 1932, for her part urged the local colonial government to be vigilant against the seditious potential of film to challenge racial hierarchies or stir up nationalism in Tanganyika—­especially a movie like The Green Goddess, with its plot featuring the hostage-­taking of British citizens by an Indian maharaja. In addition to Eu­ro­pean residents of Tanganyika, Indian businessmen who owned cinema halls also expressed reservations about changing the official policy of racial exclusion at theaters—at least in the early years, before they realized the commercial potential of expanding African movie spectatorship. One government circular noted, “Africans are not admitted to the two cinemas in Dar es Salaam at pre­sent [even] when the films are passed for all sections. It is the proprietors who object to admitting Africans, I think they are afraid to lose non-­native customers.”102 As with actions that supported separate school systems, members of the Indian diaspora solidified racial categories by defending their privileges at the cinema hall. Surprisingly, more conservative Africans also lobbied colonial officials to maintain strict oversight of film content in order to protect the population. When the government debated censorship of “films likely to encourage crimes and acts of vio­lence especially among juveniles and primitive peoples,” it noted that “complaints have been received from upcountry by some of the older natives of the harmful effects of such films on the youths.”103 While generational, educational, 112

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economic, and urban/rural divides among Africans gave pause to British officials, who insisted on regulating cinema along racial lines, they also slowed African efforts to win greater access to films. ­A fter a gap of five years, the African Association renewed its grievance over the territory’s racially exclusionary cinema policies in an expanded 1935 campaign. With growing confidence, its leadership now claimed to advocate on behalf of all Africans to gain admittance to all films shown in the territory. The issue presented a dilemma in official circles: e­ ither to affirm racial categories as determinant in censorship policy or to acknowledge that the growth of an educated African class challenged colonial conceptions linking race and civilizational achievement. One official wrote, “I r­ eally do not understand the distinction between an educated African adult and an Indian. . . . ​I ­really do feel that discrimination made in such matters discourage Africans from taking interest in cinemas. I can quite understand that it is dangerous to show certain films to uneducated or young Africans.”104 The chairman of the cinema licensing board concurred with this sentiment.105 British officials, buffeted by African complaints over cinema access and wary of fuel­ling the development of nationalism, realized that a change in policy was necessary to respond to increasing pressure from educated Africans. Thus, in the beginning of 1936, the government directed the censorship board to abolish the category of “passed for non-­natives only” from its options, which now w ­ ere limited to passing or refusing films, or subjecting them to excisions. Cinema halls ­were now theoretically open to all. The censorship board, however, retained an understanding of its mission that still placed paramountcy on considerations related to race: Whereas it is realised that the influence of the cinema which is potentially enormous, both for good and evil on the backward races will inevitably increase, it shall be the endeavor of this Board so to mitigate any evil influences of the cinema whilst providing that the access of Africans to it shall be made progressively more easy over a period of years. . . . ​In addition to this . . . ​due consideration must be given to the conditions obtaining which are perhaps peculiar to a Mandated Territory where many nationalities and races are congregated together.106

Despite the rule changes opening up cinema halls, individuals and institutions still patrolled segregated urban boundaries using the language of race. It is possi­ble that, in drafting the new laws, the Tanganyikan 113

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colonial government deci­ded to rely on the extant racialization of city space in Dar es Salaam to do the work of the phased out censorship regulations. This would at least spare colonial administrators from being saddled with repeated charges of official racial discrimination against Africans in the realm of cinema. Government authorities ­were acutely aware of social patterns of racial segregation—­which they had earlier encouraged by privileging “non-­natives” in zoning regulations—­that could dissuade many Africans from venturing across the city for a night out at a movie hall. While interactions across racial lines and movements beyond informal spatial boundaries ­were possi­ble at privately owned leisure places like theaters, the freer cinema regulations did not yield equal rights or opportunities for all city residents to traverse around Dar es Salaam— at least u ­ ntil they had the force of African nationalism ­behind them. However, it is im­por­tant to recognize that segregation is not the same thing as isolation, and group racial identities in Tanganyika sharpened on the encounters between individual persons across a racially demarcated city. For example, in the first weeks of the new and more open cinema policy, one disgruntled African cinemagoer described a frustrating trip to the theater in a letter to a Swahili newspaper. Sulemani Bajuma contended that the cinema’s Indian employees harassed him while he tried to buy tickets for himself and his wife, mocking their clothes and poor En­glish language skills. His letter highlighted the ­couple’s humiliation at eventually being turned away because of their race.107 In framing his grievance, the author recounted his longtime dedication to watching movies in Dar es Salaam, and described his affinity for purchasing expensive seats when attending the theater. Bajuma implied that the unpleasant encounter occurred outside the most ­fashionable cinema hall in town, the Empire, which faced a challenge adapting to the new, freer cinema regulations due to its non-­A frican audience majority.108 Bajuma insisted that being refused entry to the cinema was first and foremost an insult to his status caused by a lack of res­pect (heshima) shown by the cinema hall’s employees. The theater attendants ridiculed the African ­couple’s social standing—­marked by their dress and speech—­while the language called upon to eject Sulemani Bajuma and his wife invoked the government’s racialized segregation of urban public space. While the Empire Cinema was a zone of interracial interaction in 1930s Dar es Salaam, informal attempts to enforce social boundaries meant that even rare cross-­community encounters further inscribed the salience of race into the experience of attending cinema halls. 114

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Shortly ­after the 1936 alteration to cinema access rules, the government tried to provide for African repre­ sen­ ta­ tion on the censorship boards, although this integration was as halting as it was inside the cinemas themselves in the l­ater 1930s. In an early comment on balancing the regional censorship boards one provincial commissioner neatly summed up his governing philosophy, which resembled the racialized structure of the educational system and the forthcoming administrative multiracialism: “If we make the President of the Indian Association, the Town Headman and the C.M.S. [Church Missionary Society] incumbent ex-­officio members of the Township Authority we shall have the bazaar, the native village and non-­ official Euro[pean] residents—­ all repre109 sented.” The first African censorship board member in Dar es Salaam joined shortly a­ fter the policy change in 1936, and there was likely never more than one African on the board throughout the rest of the de­cade.110 Concerned about the lax oversight of films screened at predominantly African cinemas, the chairman of the censorship board indicated to the colonial administration that a solitary African censor was not sufficient to meet the requirements of the board.111 African repre­sen­ta­tion on the boards r­ ose as time went on, if but slowly and slightly. A 1947 roster categorized the forty-­two censors as follows: fourteen Eu­ro­pean ladies, thirteen male Indians, six male Eu­ro­pe­ans, four Indian ladies, four male Africans, and one male Arab.112 At this juncture it became a strug­gle to find those willing and possessing the qualifications to serve, at least in the colonial perception. Given this challenge amid the expansion of moviegoing habits in the region, the government sought to professionalize the Cinematograph Censorship Board: With our growing non-­Native population and our growing number of cinema addicts among the natives, cinema censorship is likely to increase in importance very rapidly and it does seem essential that those who are to carry it out should at least have adequate background, knowledge of the territory, and its ­people, and even general knowledge. Some of the appointments to the Board . . . ​have been rightly described as inept.113

The early 1940s saw one last round of attempts to restore cinema access rules to their restrictive pre-1936 days. The episode illuminates government struggles to reconcile its open cinema admission policy with the stated British mandate of African uplift. The censorship board in this 115

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case led the effort to reintroduce a racial bar at the cinema hall. Its members—or at least the dominant Eu­ro­pean and Indian ones—­were concerned by the increasing numbers and sophistication of films entering the territory’s multiplying theaters. In late 1940, the board met and passed a resolution requesting an amendment to bring back the power to pass films for non-­native audiences only.114 In a sign of the powerlessness (or cooptation?) of the board’s two African members, neither cast a vote against the resolution, preferring instead to abstain. The remaining sixteen members pre­sent all voted in the affirmative, seeking to realign cinema rules with other administrative policies that segregated urban dwellers by race. The acting director of education reviewed the request to roll back the cinema policy, and he labeled the censorship board’s resolution “unjustifiable, illogical, inexpedient and unnecessary.”115 Concerned with preventing the rise of opposition to government policies, he pointed out the “discontent and suspicion” that would arise among Africans if the current cinema admission laws w ­ ere to be reversed. He argued that there was “no reason to suppose that the morals of Eu­ro­pe­ans, Indians, Arabs, ­etc., are less likely than those of Africans to escape contamination from ‘glamour,’ ‘bedroom scenes,’ or ‘gangster’ films.” He also signaled an awareness of differences within the African population, maintaining that urban Africans’ acquisition of education raised them above their “unsophisticated up-­country” bro­th­ers. In the director’s mind, the colonial objective in this situation was twofold: 1) to prevent grievances by allowing educated Africans continued access to films, and 2) to maintain the mission of the Mandate by developing governing policies that treated Africans differently than other racial groups. In observing that “the majority of those who [attend the cinema] are Africans who attempt to model their life and conduct on Eu­ ro­pean lines,” the director, seeing no contradictions in his logic, wryly reconciled these two tasks as follows: It would be difficult to justify the exclusion of an African who has received a secondary education and to admit a member of another non-­ European race whose education is inferior. The Board states that their proposed discrimination is “educational and cultural rather than racial.” . . . ​My conclusion is that the Board can best show their sollicitude [sic] for the welfare of Africans by insisting on a more rigid censorship of films and the deletion of unsavoury scenes rather than by 116

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excluding their wards from something which, it must be assumed, the trustee himself enjoys.

Keen to stifle the growth of African nationalism, the government accepted the director’s recommendation: Africans felt a good deal of discontent at the racial slur. . . . ​A change in policy now would revive po­liti­cal controversies that have been dead for 5 years at a time when such controversy is particularly undesirable. And the only advantage of continuing the pre­sent system is that the non-­native races may have to deprive themselves of a few glamour scenes and gangster films. This is unfortunate perhaps but is a sacrifice that it is submitted must be borne in the interests of the subject race.116

Knowing it could rely on informal patterns of segregation to limit access to films for what it perceived to be certain undesirable elements of the “subject race,” the government saw no need to make itself a target of grievances by reinstating racial discrimination against Africans at the cinema hall.117 At the same time, official conceptions of race ­were never far from the minds of administrators charged with crafting policies to govern city spaces like the cinema hall. In searching for a new chairman for the censorship board in 1936, the colonial secretary elaborated that understanding the capacities and characteristics of vari­ous racial groups was a central requirement of the chair’s portfolio.118 A de­cade ­later, in correspondence with London, Tanganyika’s colonial government articulated how social harmony and control ­were embedded into its cinema policy: “The general principles on which censorship is applied are to ensure that no picture or part of a picture shall be shewn . . . ​which might offend the moral or religious susceptibilities of any section of the community, [or] which might tend to raise inter-­racial ill-­feeling.”119 African and Indian campaigns to change cinema regulations complicated the government’s understandings of the territory’s racial groups and caused minor moves to open segregated urban space. At the same time, the colonial administration did not jettison its perceptions about the im­por­tant functions of race in the urban Tanganyikan po­liti­cal sphere—­a situation colonial officials had helped create through dialogue with petitioning African and Indian organizations. As Iliffe writes, “Having helped to create po­liti­cal tribes, government was helping to 117

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create po­liti­cal races.”120 Cinemas, like schools, became racialized city spaces through a combination of prevalent racism on the ground and the oppressive impact of state governance on the majority of Tanganyikans. Chapter five examines how nationalism challenged British rule by attacking racial privileges at the cinema hall, ensuring that race would continue to be a relevant way of understanding one’s place in Dar es Salaam society well into the postcolonial period. Before moving on to this topic, the section below explores the intersection of d ­ ifferent ideas about race, the composition of cinema audiences, and the content of the movies they watched in the period before the rise of nationalism in Tanganyika. RACE, FILMS, AND CINEMAGOERS IN TANGANYIKA, 1920S-1950S

While debates between Africans, Indians, and Eu­ro­pe­ans over governmental regulations converged at the cinema hall, these interactions did not necessarily carry over inside theaters spread throughout segregated Dar es Salaam. The prevailing trend was t­oward rapidly increasing cinema spectatorship among all sectors of the population, with ­little interracial social integration in the cinema halls themselves. That notwithstanding, it was the growing market potential of African cinemagoers that affected the size and composition of cinema audiences and the types of movies screened, more than did official film censorship and attendance policies. Colonial authorities typically regarded African interest in cinema in the early 1930s as minimal for economic and cultural reasons, a position that proved incorrect on both counts. One 1933 colonial minute summarized government’s view as follows: “It is admitted that in Dar es Salaam the attendance of natives at the principal cinema is for all practical purposes negligible. Even if economic conditions returned to normal one cannot picture the African native turning into a ‘film fan’—­ unless admission was f­ ree! He does not view with enthusiasm the expenditure of a few cents on anything in the nature of ­mental recreation.”121 Po­liti­cally active and educated Africans discounted this opinion about economic deterrents to African cinema attendance, such as those in the African Association who challenged the discriminatory early cinema regulations. Individual Africans also demanded greater access to cinema, as in the case of Sulemani Bajuma, who decried racial discrimination at the Empire. One colonial report on the ­f uture of film in Africa also correctly predicted that the expense of cinemagoing would not be a deterrent to 118

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Africans in the ­f uture: “The wealth of Africans is . . . ​increasing rapidly in certain parts of East Africa. . . . ​There can be ­little doubt that very shortly the attempt will be made by the Cinema Trade to exploit this increasing spending capacity of natives.”122 And in time Indian theater proprietors did build newer cinema halls that sold tickets at affordable prices, drawing in crowds of p ­ eople with mixed incomes. Anxiously watching this story unfold, British officials discarded their assumptions that Africans could not afford the cinema, instead turning t­oward questions about how to control this development. Regarding colonial assumptions about Tanganyikan Africans’ lack of a cultural interest in films, the chairman of the censorship board argued in 1933, “The influence of the cinema on the native has so far been very small, partly because only a few films are passed for exhibition to natives and partly because the[se] films . . . ​usually portray scenes that are of ­little or no interest to them. . . . ​[Thus] they so rarely attend a cinema owing to the result of the censorship regulations.”123 This idea was inaccurate on two counts. First, the British assumed that Africans ­were not interested in viewing international films that reached Tanganyika mostly from India and Ame­rica because of their cultural distance from African life. However, repeated colonial-­ sponsored experiments to produce “Films of Africans, Made in Africa, for Africans” from the mid-1930s through the 1940s flopped miserably.124 One director involved in the film production projects summed up what he learned from the failures: “It does not follow that a film about Africans, and in which Africans take part, is an African film. It may be l­ittle more than Hollywood . . . ​with a change of cast. It is interest­ing to note . . . ​that it is the Indian film which makes its appeal in the urban centres where the African pays to see his films.”125 Second, the chairman of the censorship board was incorrect to state that censorship prevented Africans from seeing most films, even prior to 1936 when government scrubbed the “non-­native only” censorship category. For the twelve months leading up to July 1931, for example, the Dar es Salaam censors viewed an impressive total of 220 films, rejecting only two and excising sections from five. Most tellingly, 161 of the 218 (74  ­percent) films that passed earned a rating allowing entrance to all, with only fifty-­seven (26 ­percent) cleared for non-­natives only.126 Not only did Tanganyika’s cinemagoers enjoy a surprisingly large range of films in the early 1930s, but the majority of them, at least by law, w ­ ere open to all. However, the segregated nature of Dar es Salaam combined with official and unofficial racial discrimination at cinema halls to ensure that 119

Chapter Three

theater audiences w ­ ere largely Indian and secondarily Eu­ro­pean in the early 1930s. For instance, the director of education ruminated on a proposal for an African cinema hall as follows: “I agree that the establishment of a cinema theatre in a town like Dar es Salaam solely for the native population has a great deal to be said for it. . . . ​[If ] the Africans knew they could attend nightly without being turned away [this cinema] would be of a very considerable value in Dar es Salaam.”127 The Empire and other early elite cinemas w ­ ere located in the Indian business district, a short distance from Eu­ro­pean offices and homes, and an area into which it was precarious for Africans to venture, especially at night.128 Segregation aside, there w ­ ere other reasons why audiences w ­ ere primarily Indian in the 1930s. The western Indian Ocean region operated as a cultural corridor, and recent immigrants from India who joined the diaspora in East Africa ­were already part of the international world of cinema due to the easy availability and huge popularity of films in their home country. Indians in Dar es Salaam frequently made the outing to the movies into a ­family event, with one colonial official noting that “many Indian parents cannot attend the cinema u ­ nless they bring their young children with them.”129 While segregation by cinema hall was a feature of the industry in 1930s Tanganyika, it did not prevent Africans from seeing more and more films over time, as Indians theater proprietors eyed lucrative investment opportunities in a growing market. For example, an article appeared in the Tanganyika Standard in 1934 accusing an Indian of showing a classified film to “natives.”130 Once the Empire faced some competition in town, the range of Dar es Salaam’s cinemagoers became more diverse, even if each individual theater’s audience did not. A survey of cinema halls in 1934 demonstrated this: “[D]iscrimination does in fact operate to a certain extent in this Territory and particularly in Dar es Salaam where the [Empire] theatre charges Sh. 1/-­and upwards for admission [which] is hardly ever attained by Africans. At the ‘Bharat’ cinema where admission can be attained for as low a price as Cts. 10, Natives do attend.”131 While a few elite Africans attended exclusive cinema halls like the Empire, and more than likely poorer Indians and Arabs (about whom the African Association complained, as seen earlier) frequented the cheaper cinema halls in town, the expense of high-­end theaters no doubt contributed to urban segregation in key leisure spaces across Dar es Salaam. The first films in the territory ­were American, Eu­ro­pean, and Indian. Most government officials believed that the films from the West ­were 120

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“trashy,” and the Indian ones innocuous. The superintendent of education in Dar es Salaam, who also sat on the cinema advisory board, explained the implications of this view for censorship in 1929: With the exception of certain Indian films to which no objection can be taken most of the films offered for inspection are of a trashy nature. Most are worn-­out discards dating from the earliest days of cinematography. They are sent to this country without any thought being taken as to their suitability. . . . ​[C]ertain episodes of “Do or Die” presented a ­castle scene which might well have been taken for the fortified boma places of Tanga, Kilwa, Mikindani or Newala. The plot was one of pitched battles and skirmishing between gangs of whites and blacks mixed, of stabbing, trussing-up and imprisoning antagonists—­ including ­women.132

Nonetheless, the government’s low opinion of the fare offered in Tanganyikan cinema halls did ­little to affect the expansion of cinema halls or the increasing popularity of the films themselves. In the early 1940s, there was a substantial rise in the popularity of Hindi movies. They ran not just at the Empire but also at the stylishly new Avalon Cinema (which requested daily censoring of films in 1945) and the more affordable Minerva Cinema.133 The new range of theaters enhanced opportunities to attend the cinema for all sections of the population. For example, the Alexandra Cinema in 1948 screened “indifferent films, largely Indian thrillers to an African audience composed mainly of boys and young men from the poorer classes.”134 In contrast to official cynicism about the quality of offerings at Dar es Salaam’s expanding number of cinema halls, advertisements portraying the glamorous coming attractions appeared daily in newspapers, announcing exciting movies to a fresh generation of cinemagoers. Glossy film stills accompanied by breathless text describing the new movies ­were printed in the papers or circulated town as fliers, luring p ­ eople to the Avalon, Azania, and Empire Cinemas (in addition to informing Eu­ro­ pean readers where to find cheap nylon knickers, mince pies, and Humber Super Snipe motor cars).135 Even more exuberantly promoted than the occasional Arabic film136 or the blockbuster Hollywood productions, Hindi films, with their lush and ample advertisements, lured Bombay cinema fans. At least four of India’s biggest box office hits of 1953 appeared that same year in Dar es Salaam, for example, no doubt creating a 121

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buzz that surpassed that of the slightly older American films that came on a l­ ater run to Tanganyika.137 While it is unlikely that Eu­ro­pe­ans attended Hindi films for linguistic and social reasons, the growing mass of African cinemagoers and the Indian fan base certainly did. Statistics from 1949 show that the gross ticket receipts from Indian films “outstripped” that of American films, despite the edge to Hollywood in the number of movies appearing that year in Tanganyika: ninety-­two American films, forty-­seven Indian, twenty-­seven British, and seven “Arabic.”138 The difficulty the British encountered in circulating newsreels in the early 1950s also revealed the box office power of Hindi films. In 1951 London suggested initiating a charge scheme to earn revenue from British newsreels, attached for many years to feature films in Tanganyikan cinemas. The governor’s deputy in Dar es Salaam reported the reaction to this idea back to the metropole: “Cinema managers frequently inform the Films Officer that they are unable to include British News in their programmes as that would make them run over time. This tendency is increased by the fact that a large proportion of the films now being shown are Indian, which tend to be longer than British and American films.”139 The commissioner for social development in Dar es Salaam responded to the newsreel charge scheme proposal more bluntly: “[M]ost cinemas h ­ ere in Tanganyika only make their money by Indian films shown. These are always long and drawn out, and it has only been by gentle persuasion in the past, that I was able to get the cinemas concerned to screen the News (sometimes it has had to be shown during the interval period!).”140 CONCLUSION

In the first de­cades of the history of cinema in East Africa (as well as for years beyond), Indian Ocean regional networks of film circulation provided many pop­u­lar movies from Bombay that w ­ ere watched by diverse audiences in Tanganyika. In Dar es Salaam, segregated cinema halls ­were a public location where daily interactions between urban residents confronted state, community, and individual narratives of race. During the earliest years of cinema in Tanganyika, officials based cinema attendance and censorship regulations on imperatives of colonial control and their understandings of how the new medium of film would differently affect the territory’s main racial groups. Cinema attendance restrictions contributed to the segregation of Dar es Salaam achieved by other colonial 122

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initiatives, such as those in education, but also offered opportunities for contestation. Both African and Indian groups successfully challenged aspects of official film policy, although they did not overtly oppose the government’s administrative reliance on racial categories. The disputes over cinema also revealed that these colonial categories of race—­slowly solidifying into a formal princi­ple of rule with the arrival of multiracialism—­ could break down when faced with fragmented Indian diasporic communities or the manifold divisions among Africans. Africans migrated to Dar es Salaam in much greater numbers in the 1940s and 1950s, and their increasing wealth and education contributed to a widening diversity of cinemagoers. Nonetheless, informal discrimination continued to enforce segregation in movie theaters along racial and class lines even ­after the government retired race-­based censorship practices. As a result, ideas about race continually surrounded cinema halls in Tanganyika. This racialization of city space was pervasive across Dar es Salaam, w ­ hether in cinemas or schools, and would l­ater be a target for nationalists seeking a new vision of urban, in­de­pen­dent Tanganyika. However, schools and cinemas would remain racialized places in the public imagination despite the rise of a power­f ul nonracial African nationalism bent on integration, as addressed in chapters four and five. In fact, ideas about race continued to shape im­por­tant urban spaces long ­after the formation of an in­de­pen­dent nation that theoretically discarded race as a consideration of governance. Part of the explanation for this lies in a rearrangement of the relationship between citizenship and identity that took place around the Indian Ocean region.

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EDUCATING the NATION

the is s ue o f edu c at i o n wa s c r i t i c ally p o si t i o n e d in both the fashioning of Eu­ro­pean colonial states and the visualization and construction of in­de­pen­dent nations in East Africa. The rise of mass African nationalism in Tanganyika—in all its d ­ ifferent shades and agendas—­ provided new momentum in the 1950s to eradicate the inequalities created by the racialization of urban spaces like schools and cinema halls. While certain po­liti­cal categories of British governance such as race, religion, and ethnicity ­were bulwarks of colonial power, they also provided targets for nationalist re­sis­tance. Reacting against segregation in educational structures and discrimination around theaters, among many other deprivations, anticolonial nationalists mobilized alternative visions of race to imagine an integrated in­de­pen­dent nation. Even with the ascendance of nonracial philosophies of nationalism and nation building u ­ nder the eventual first president, Julius Nyerere, urban spaces like schools and cinemas remained racialized places in public imagination and experience. This chapter demonstrates how ideas about race continued to permeate urban schools in Tanzania well beyond the formal integration of education. ­A fter the removal of the colonial state’s policies of segregation, the function of education reversed from being the creation of difference through racial separation to becoming the foundation of a unified, egalitarian, and nonracial nation. However, despite increasing openness and interracial interactions in urban schools throughout the nation-­building era, issues of race continued to provide a discursive weapon in times of po­liti­cal conflict for public officials and ordinary citizens alike. This was due to the per­sis­tent po­liti­cal utility of attacking 124

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(now antinational) economic inequalities using the language of race, as it was nearly impossible to jettison racial categories when disparities continued over access to critical institutions for economic and social advancement such as schools. This development amplified in the period of liberalization as exclusive private schools appeared in great numbers, reflecting growing class differentiation in Tanzania. These changes also unfolded in a new global context. A growing worldwide movement against racism, especially based in the United States, bolstered the appeals of Tanzanian nationalists. Regionally, even as the emergence of nation-­ states splintered aspects of Indian Ocean regional connections, India remained an im­por­tant actor in East Africa for both its diaspora and its support of local and global anti-­imperial movements. Julius Nyerere’s nationalist ideas provided a sharp departure from colonial notions of education and race, and he explained his philosophy of education as follows: “[E]ducation is a social activity, with a social purpose. It is individuals who are educated. But they are educated by their fellows, for the common purpose of all members of the society.”1 In the period a­ fter in­ de­pen­dence in 1961, the Tanzanian state concentrated on using education for nation-­building purposes, leading to the 1967 Arusha Declaration of egalitarian, nonracial socialism and the subsequent corollary policy of Education for Self-­Reliance (ESR). The government slowly dismantled the colonial system of segregated education, although racially integrated classrooms appeared only in larger urban areas with significantly diverse populations. ­After launching a scheme of Universal Primary Education (UPE) in the 1970s, public schools mushroomed, although their quality suffered from insufficient funding. The international donor regime eventually forced the government to reduce its education bud­get as liberalization began in the 1980s. Lifting the tight controls on private schools in 1995 ushered in the current phase of education in the history of Tanzania, where wealth allows for the renewal of larger-­scale class and racial separation. Schools once again reinscribe differences familiar from colonial days, and as a result, racialized public discourses continue to surround urban schools. THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT, RACE, AND EDUCATION IN LATE COLONIAL TANGANYIKA

While nationalism in Tanganyika was a decades-­old and diverse force, no movement captured public imagination and influenced public discourse as did the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU), which emerged 125

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from the preexisting Tanganyika African Association in 1954. The colonial administration attempted to manage TANU’s growth—­a strategy that backfired spectacularly—by encouraging African participation in governance through the formalization of tripartite multiracialism in government bodies. ­A fter the 1948 constitution introduced multiracial legis­ latures to Tanganyika, the government established a racial parity of representatives—­despite a population ratio of Eu­ro­pe­ans to Asians to Africans of 1:4:430—in the unofficial half of the Legislative Council (the official half was still all Eu­ro­pean). In the 1950s, the British attempted to further extend multiracial structures to local government, and TANU’s opposition to this move galvanized the vast African majority: Opposition to multiracialism became the cause in 1957 and 1958 which united the rural African and the educated and po­liti­cally active town dweller. This issue aroused deep-­rooted African fears that Tanganyika might yet be dominated by Asian and Eu­ro­pean minorities. The British effort to force “multiracialism” generated in turn an African sense of racial pride. Multiracialism was dismissed as “mseta” [sic], a word used for the intermixing of inferior with superior quality grains. This issue more than any other single issue in the final years of colonial rule convinced Africans throughout Tanganyika to support TANU and seek an early end to that rule.2

In this atmosphere, race and education became major TANU campaign themes, chosen to challenge the colonial segregation of Tanganyikan society.3 However, despite Africans’ long-­standing demand for an academic curriculum and adequate provision of school places—­both found in urban Indian schools—­the government did not raise educational integration as an option. Fearing the po­liti­cal repercussions of closer cooperation between students currently separated by race, colonial officials’ intransigence to integration continued despite mounting pressure from outside beginning as early as the 1940s, when a flurry of metropolitan policy papers on colonial education urged a shift to mass African schooling and a more demo­cratic “education for citizenship.” 4 In 1948, the United Nations Visiting Mission recommended a common educational system for Dar es Salaam and other major urban areas in the territory, a suggestion repeated by the 1951 Visiting Mission.5 Shortly before the second UN tour, Makerere University in Uganda opened its doors to students of all races, although the Colonial Office sought to evaluate the results of 126

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that experiment before recommending integration in primary and secondary schools.6 Regardless of what London and the UN would have preferred, the presence of the influential Indian diaspora and politics of multiracialism trumped other considerations in Tanganyika. The reluctance of the colonial administration to consider integrated education provided an opportunity for TANU to campaign against government racialism, often by invoking the injustice of Indian privilege. When the third UN Visiting Mission arrived in 1954, TANU complained that schools in Tanganyika ­were “merely preparing the African for ­being used as cheap labour for the immigrant races.” 7 A del­e­g a­t ion of African civil servants took the criticism further with a blisteringly accurate analy­sis of the history of education ­u nder colonial rule in the territory: ­ verything boils down to that one word: discrimination. We Africans E want more opportunities; the Administering Authority tells us that we have not the necessary educational qualifications. But who holds the key to our proper education? . . . ​It is always the African who occupies the bottom rung in the Civil Ser­v ice, and the Government’s argument is always that the African educational standard is below that of the Eu­ ro­pean or Asian.8

Nationalists began to discuss race frequently in pointing out the effects of separate education. The circumstances created by segregation in urban schools and other institutions forced nationalists of all ideologies (including nonracialists) and of all racial groups to confront colonialism with visions of an in­de­pen­dent Tanganyika built on ­different ideas about race. Nyerere acknowledged Tanganyikans’ colonial inheritance in racial terms in a 1959 article: In this country . . . ​the economic divisions between rich and poor coincide almost exactly with the divisions between the races. Wherever extreme poverty exists beside a visibly high standard of living, there is the risk of bitterness; when the prob­lem is linked with racial differences, it is far more potentially dangerous. . . . ​[T]he African can see that his quarrel is not with the non-­A fricans in his midst, but with the colonial system itself. He does not allow his natu­ral resentment of the humiliations of that system to degenerate into any sense of personal grievance against Asians or Eu­ro­pe­ans.9 127

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Encouraged by Nyerere’s inclusive nationalism, progressive Indian leaders of the Asian Association—­formed in 1951 from the defunct Indian Association—­echoed TANU’s calls for school integration, a position that would not have been supported by more conservative Indians interested in preserving their educational privileges. In 1954, TANU-­allied Asian Association nationalists presented their analy­sis of the deleterious effect of racially segregated education to the UN Visiting Mission, arguing that children in the colonial school “system grow up with set notions of watertight compartments, some with superiority, o ­ thers with inferiority, and still ­others with hatred and ridicule.”10 In the wake of a critical report from the UN Visiting Mission in 1954, Tanganyika’s chosen path of gradualism in the area of educational integration came ­under a withering assault from nationalists. They disapproved of waiting for the outcomes of the “experiment” at Makerere, and tired of officials tepidly and vaguely suggesting some f­ uture ­trials for integration. Frustration deepened especially because government funding for education continued to be apportioned unequally on a racial basis. Perhaps aware of the tide turning against segregated schools in the United States with the 1954 Supreme Court decision in a landmark case, Brown v. Board of Education, Nyerere angrily wrote in 1955, [T]he decision to distribute [education] funds on a parity basis must have come to many ­people as a shock. . . . ​Disparity of educational expenditure per head of the population in each racial group is always there . . . ​[ but] this par­tic­u ­lar disparity is aggravated to the point of absurdity. . . . ​For lack of education is one thing in which the African can claim undisputed superiority over the other racial groups.11

Despite the edge in these words, Nyerere recognized the danger of a turn to overheated racialized rhe­toric. In his nationalist vision, which jockeyed with other interpretations in the late colonial period, race would not be foregrounded as a determinant of citizenship, privilege, or identity. Nyerere’s desire was to build a nonracial country that harmoniously balanced racial and religious diversity. He formed these views early in his life, writing while still a student at University of Edinburgh that “The Africans and all the Non-­A fricans who have chosen to make East Africa their home are the p ­ eople of East Africa and frankly we do not want to see the Non-­A fricans treated differently. . . . ​We must build up a society in which we shall belong to East Africa and not to our racial 128

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groups.”12 A de­cade ­later, in 1960, Nyerere reiterated this idea as Tanganyika neared in­de­pen­dence: “A man’s colour is no sin in Tanganyika. . . . ​W hen we formed our nationalist movement, we set out to do one thing—­u nite ­people. . . . ​A nd the ­people of Tanganyika . . . ​immediately began to think of themselves, not as Eu­ro­pe­a ns, Indians or Africans, or even as Wasukuma, Wamasai or Wanyamwezi, but as Tanganyikans. It is that unity that has made it possi­ble to reach this stage peacefully.”13 Making good on his rhe­toric, Nyerere reached out to Indians (although not without a slightly threatening tone), asking them to support the nationalist strug­gle: ­ hether or not the non-­A fricans cooperate, that is the vital quesW tion. . . . ​[I]f freedom and in­de­pen­dence is won with the willing cooperation of the immigrants, Tanganyika . . . ​is bound to become a happy democracy and an example to the rest of Africa. If, on the other hand, freedom is won against the opposition, apparent or real, of the immigrant communities, democracy in this country will have to strug­gle against prejudices which could have been avoided, before this country can be what it ought to be.14

In addition to warning Indians about racialism, Nyerere also stressed to Africans the importance (and difficulty) of hewing a nonracial path to in­de­pen­dence: We must learn to forget the arrogance and prejudices and also the irritations and humiliations of the past. . . . ​Temptation to vio­lence and lawlessness as a means to in­de­pen­dence has been resisted. The ­people of Tanganyika became fervent nationalists without becoming racialists. . . . ​The example we have set is worth much more than gold, and we will continue to show the world that it is possi­ble for the ­people of ­different races to live together as one nation.15

Power­ful unifying rhe­toric aside, nonracial Tanganyikan nationalism faced not only opposition but also a difficult contradiction in its mission to achieve equality: how to create cross-­racial unity while dismantling racial privilege. In the event, public discourse started to fill with loud discussions about removing Indian privilege in the name of nationalism,16 especially in the realm of education. 129

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Nyerere had a difficult time persuading the pro-­independence grassroots, both within and outside TANU, to accept his vision of a nonracial Tanganyika. As John Iliffe argues, “Tanganyika’s prob­lem was not relations between races, but relations between Africans with d ­ ifferent views of race.”17 In late 1957, Nyerere resigned from the Legislative Council for a number of reasons, one of which he labeled “Unnecessary Invitation of  Racial Suspicions.”18 He alleged that opponents of nationalism had stirred up racial antagonism ­toward non-­A fricans as a ploy to delay in­de­ pen­dence. In January 1958, Nyerere faced the challenge of convincing TANU leadership to accept the government’s plan to sponsor multiracial elections ­later that year as a stepping-­stone to eventual in­de­pen­dence, a position that represented an apparent capitulation of his nonracial stance. Arrayed against him w ­ ere those who wanted to boycott the elections. At a convention of delegates at Tabora, “all hell broke loose,” prompting Nyerere to employ his “legendary debating skills” to carry his position.19 However, voting was not unanimous, and substantial dissent prompted TANU’s assistant secretary Zuberi Mtemvu to secede from the party and form the Tanganyika African National Congress (ANC), with its slogan proclaiming “Africa for Africans.”20 The ANC campaigned for the elections in 1958 and 1960 on an overtly racialist platform. For example, Mtemvu wrote in 1958, Retail Co-­Operatives should be formed through out the territory to break the mono­poly of Asians in that line of business and ensure that there are as few middlemen as possi­ble. . . . ​The points expressed in some quarters that politics will scare away foreign investment is merely an excuse of discouraging the healthy growth of African Nationalism. Non-­A frican Contribution: to the economy of the territory is often exaggerated and is calculated to inspire fears among Africans that non-­ Africans are indispensable to the territory.21

In 1960, the propaganda secretary for Congress issued a statement calling for the exclusive reservation of government jobs for Africans, claiming that the “meaning of Tanganyikans is Africans with black skins.”22 Shortly thereafter, the or­ga­niz­ing general secretary of the ANC opposed Nyerere’s gradualist approach to Africanization, urging instead that Africans should immediately replace “expatriates” in government jobs.23 When Congress leaders rallied in downtown Dar es Salaam in December 1960, three to four thousand spectators crammed a hall to hear 130

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Mtemvu’s power­f ul speech attacking Indians: “­People who came h ­ ere to do business or build railways should have nothing to do with the administration of this country. If they oppose us we shall send them home to build railways and sweep the streets. Nehru did not see fit to put an African Minister in his government; why should Tanganyika, therefore, have an Indian minister?”24 The calls for immediate redress to alleviate the oppression of racialist colonial policies resonated with many Tanganyikans. One letter to the editor in 1960 proclaimed that anyone with any sense can see the new government’s policy: the plums are for the foreigners, and the Africans will get nothing out of this uhuru because the foreigners will continue to be given all the good jobs. Those leaders who shouted loudest “why should the Africans be ruled by foreigners?” are those who want jobs to be given to foreigners . . . ​so that we can till the land to make room for Smith and Somji at the office desks.25

Throughout the late colonial period, strident opposition voiced through manifestos issued by Congress and ­others who disagreed with Nyerere’s nonracialism forced TANU to engage in public debates about race and to take action to stem outbreaks of racial antagonism.26 TANU was willing to take action to prevent racial disharmony partly out of ideological commitment, but also because of fears that racial disturbances would cause the British to delay in­de­pen­dence. Ultimately, the election results in 1958 and  1960 gave TANU a commanding po­liti­cal position in Tanganyika and a strong mandate as the leading party in the nationalist movement. The election also produced a clear victory for Nyerere against both more radical and more accommodating forms of nationalism, as Mtemvu’s Congress Party was crushed.27 TANU took advantage of its first overwhelming electoral triumph to launch another broadside against the segregated colonial education system. In response, the government convened the Committee on the Integration of Education in December 1958. Faced with a po­liti­cally charged issue, the delegates deliberated and negotiated slowly while a public storm raged around them. Finally, in October 1959, the committee proposed moderate recommendations, to take effect only from January 1962: to open schools to all based on examinations and to institute a common curriculum, but to leave unchanged the languages of instruction.28 This 131

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latter injunction would virtually ensure the continuation of a certain amount of racial separation in schools. Nyerere knew that the committee’s limited decision on integrated education would not satisfy his constituents, so he and his TANU colleagues drew up a white paper a year ­later that accepted most of the committee’s recommendations but in addition supported eliminating school enrollment based on ­different mediums of instruction ­after three years. In addition to maneuvering in a fraught po­liti­cal environment in Tanganyika, Nyerere also made public speeches overseas to assuage international concerns that minorities would be treated unfairly in in­de­pen­dent Tanganyika. In New York in February of 1960, he told a large gathering that “Tanganyikans of all races are contributing to an educational program because they feel they are contributing to the advance of the entire country.”29 By the time of this speech, Nyerere was the chief minister of a colony due for in­de­pen­dence before the end of 1961, but the mood inside Tanganyika was not one of patience. At a legislative debate over the TANU white paper on educational integration, some of Nyerere’s peers castigated him for excessive moderation and timidity and advocated more revolutionary change. One member of the Legislative Council pushed for “complete and unconditional integration to rectify the situation in which being a Eu­ro­pean or an Asian gave one a passport to prosperity, while being an African meant that one was downtrodden and treated as sub-­human.”30 Realizing that the debate was threatening to spin out of his control, Nyerere testily reminded legislators of TANU’s commitment to nonracialism: If anybody from outside Tanganyika was sitting up there and did not know what we ­were discussing ­here, he would not know from the speeches of some honourable members that we ­were discussing integration. He would think we ­were discussing a law which was intending to build racial schools in this country which is like talking about this racialism, this discrimination, this imperialism, and all this rubbish, when in fact, we w ­ ere discussing the integration of the school system in Tanganyika.31

­ fter an eloquent speech in which he asserted that the past could not be A obliterated overnight, and that “his government would do nothing to satisfy the irresponsible,” Nyerere’s white paper passed the Legislative

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Council without formal dissent, paving the way for racially integrated schools in Tanganyika come the dawn of 1962.32 Interestingly, the relationship between religion and education did not become a major issue for TANU despite a serious chasm in opportunities between Muslim and Christian students (see chapter two) and not inconsiderable Muslim-­Christian communal tensions. One reason for this was that Muslims likely thought that a TANU government would dramatically expand the (secular) public school system, giving them greater access to education. Furthermore, the colonial ruling structure did not formally incorporate religious differences as it did with race, and thus Muslim anticolonial rhe­toric rarely took on a religious tone. By and large, Muslims received TANU more positively than Tanganyikan Christians,33 and religious-­based re­sis­tance against TANU was small. In 1956, probably in response to the or­ga­ni­za­tion of TANU, the Tanganyikan African Muslim Union formed, but it never had much impact. A multiracial group of African, Arab, and Indian Islamic leaders established an alternative or­ga­ni­za­tion a month ­later called the Central Society of Tanganyika Muslims, but it, too, never got off the ground. In 1959, a Dar es Salaam–­ based group called the All Muslim National Union of Tanganyika proposed that in­de­pen­dence be delayed u ­ ntil the territory’s Muslims achieved educational equality with Christians. In response, TANU mobilized a range of Islamic community leaders to discredit this position. Furthermore, Nyerere accepted that there was a disparity between Muslims and Christians in education, and “begged” Muslims to put their faith in TANU to work for equality a­ fter in­de­pen­dence.34 For the most part they did, some out of a plaintive awareness of the devastating effects of religious factionalism on nation building as observed across the Indian Ocean in 1947. One account of Muslim anticolonialism in Tanganyika argues that the vio­lence that accompanied the partition of India was fresh in the minds of Nyerere and the territory’s Muslims as in­de­pen­dence drew near. As such, Nyerere warned against religious communalism, which might replicate the horrors that surrounded the birth of India and Pakistan.35 Throughout TANU’s attempts to create an atmosphere ­free of religious sectarianism, and Nyerere’s exhortations to support racial harmony, Tanganyika’s residents made vociferous calls for social equality and integration in the days r­ unning up to Uhuru (In­de­pen­dence) in December of 1961. The colonial government, concerned about an orderly

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transfer of power, tightly monitored nationalist public rhe­toric. British officials closely read the Swahili daily newspapers, especially the TANU mouthpiece Mwafrika (The African). They translated editorials and letters to the editor, and filed notes about articles reporting on issues related to colonial control and governance.36 In late 1960, as these reports reveal, Tanganyikans actively pronounced their ideas for the new nation, visions informed by African nationalism and inflected by the presence of the privileged Indian diaspora in their midst. Race contributed the everyday vocabulary with which Africans could espouse equality and express the potential of in­de­pen­dence to reshape their urban existence, thereby championing new, territorial notions of citizenship. On October 6, 1960, the Kiswahili newspaper Ngurumo published a letter titled “Who is a Tanganyikan?” and signed by “One Who Wants to Know.” It is worth quoting at length: [A]s there is no citizenship law in Tanganyika it is difficult to know who is a Tanganyikan. But it is also easy for p ­ eople who come from far away to call themselves Tanganyikans. How many of those who call themselves Tanganyikans now will be prepared to renounce the citizenship of their countries of origin? Let us ask them two or three questions: do they renounce their original citizenships? Do they renounce the benefits they get from it as expatriate servants? Do they refuse to send their children to schools which do not accept African children? Have they troubled to learn Swahili? How many of them call themselves Tanganyikans when they go to their homes abroad? Tanganyikan Africans have no choice: they can only be Tanganyikans. It is difficult to agree to call the foreigners Tanganyikans ­until they have shown that they love and honour this country and have identified themselves with it entirely for good or ill. In the past the foreigners have done nothing to encourage the Tanganyikans and to assure them of their being at one with them. It is necessary that Tanganyika Africans should be given pre­ce­ dence because they are ­behind in education, in civilization, and in money-­ earning power and business. When all are equal then no preference will be given to anyone and all will travel in the same boat.37

Imbued by the nationalist spirit of the hour, and influenced by the drive for in­de­pen­dence led by TANU, the letter-­w riter blasted the lack of commitment to Tanganyika of the territory’s Indian residents. In issuing what w ­ ere common charges at the time—­the echoes of which are still 134

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heard ­today—­the disgruntled writer listed several critical components of “national belonging,” including a singular national self-­identity (and a renunciation of other citizenship), adoption of the national language (Kiswahili), and education in multiracial schools. Underlining these ideas ­were desires for equality and integration to be accomplished through the force of a unifying nationalism. Importantly, the letter also articulated languages of national citizenship and identity that undercut the character of older transregional exchanges and cultures of belonging in the Indian Ocean arena. On the cusp of in­de­pen­dence, many soon-­to-be citizens yoked their desires for social change directly to TANU, urging the party to eradicate discrimination in part through an educational revolution. In Mwafrika, in August 1960, the president of the Tanganyika Students’ Association in Uganda squarely blamed the colonial government for the failure to build enough schools, forcing students to flee to Uganda for further schooling.38 On the same day, a teacher in Moshi wrote to Ngurumo to call on Nyerere to remove discrimination in educational policy.39 The editor of the pro-­TANU paper replied, [W]hen TANU becomes the government, schools will be for students of all races; secondary education will be expanded; ­middle schools will be abolished and a four-­year primary course will be started; teachers’ training and technical schools will be expanded; a university will be established in Tanganyika, and adult education for all will be introduced. So if you want all these changes vote for TANU.40

Effecting this transformation would be a steep challenge for the new state, as the condition of colonial education at in­de­pen­dence left Tanganyika facing many problems. A 1960 letter to Ngurumo lamented that, due to a shortage of school places, only 550 of 1,250 standard five students continued to standard six even ­after passing qualifying exams: “This is a great loss to the parents in par­tic­u­lar and the ­whole country in general, for these students could l­ ater turn into vagabonds and thieves.” 41 In Ngurumo, Sheik Amri Abedi, president of the Tanganyika Parents’ Association, voiced the thoughts of many residents when he argued that “education from Standard I to VIII should be ­f ree, without intermediate examinations, and open to all races together—­Indians, Eu­ro­pe­a ns, Africans and Italians.” 42 Tanganyika’s nationalists argued that educational expansion and integration would solve many problems created by racial separation. One 135

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reason for the special attention paid to education was its link to professional opportunities, and urban residents blamed colonial education for the unfair distribution of jobs: “[W]e have not got the qualifications required to do all the jobs. This is the fault of the out-­going government which has not provided sufficient education. The writer hopes the new government will put all this right and says that p ­ eople do not like to see government offices served by Asian and Eu­ro­pean ­women d ­ oing jobs which Africans should do.” 43 Mwafrika’s editor argued, Many se­nior posts are still in the hands of Eu­ro­pe­ans and Asians. We are told that higher education is necessary for se­nior posts. But, for example, police work can be done by any African with a general education. This also applies to prisons. . . . ​As for teachers and headmasters, young Eu­ro­pe­ans from Universities ­were appointed to the posts and Africans with long experience w ­ ere left [out]. Two Africans w ­ ere tried as secondary school headmasters and they carried out their duties successfully. We leave this prob­lem to our ministers: let them satisfy the public.44

Mwalimu (teacher) Juanita of Dar es Salaam took the idea of educational integration even further. She had received a small salary while teaching for years at a TANU school but did not see such sacrifices on the part of ­others, so she “hoped that the policy of integrating all schools would be realised and would put an end to [my] troubles.” 45 However, an October 1960 letter to Mwafrika seemed to caution against racial integration as a panacea for society’s ills. It complained of an Asian teacher in a typing class at a local technical institute who claimed that Eu­ro­pe­ans w ­ ere all very good at the skill, Indians w ­ ere not bad, but, pointing at an African, said in Swahili, “Hawa bure kabisa” (they are completely worthless).46 ­A fter the December 9, 1960, Legislative Council debate at which Nyerere promised integration at a reasonable pace, newspapers carried supportive comments. Mwafrika, in an editorial the following morning, expressed optimism that the new state was aware of its duties: Government intends to remove both racial and religious discrimination from education; in the past those groups, w ­ hether racial or religious, which ­were able to do so built good schools for their children while those communities which ­were without means ­were left ­behind. 136

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There are of course obstacles to integration such as language, fees, and, in boarding schools, living conditions. But all these difficulties can be overcome if we all try hard to find the best means of educating our children and don’t look for obstacles put in our path.47

Putting it more bluntly, as Mr. Mkasinongwa’s letter to Mwafrika did, “[It is] wrong that at African schools children should have to sweep and cultivate while in schools of other races p ­ eople are hired to do this.” 48 ­A fter Nyerere’s public commitment to create a single school system by January 1962, Ngurumo waxed eloquent about the importance of integrated education, explicating nationalist desires for interracial schools as a social benefit rather than a bud­getary expedient: Although race relations are very good in Tanganyika, they are not beyond improvement. Separate education in the past has led inhabitants of this territory to feel that they ­were living in ­different countries. If what government intends to do now had been done 15  years ago, we  should be reaping the harvest to-­day as everyone would have been brought up together and we should understand each other so much better.49

Nonetheless, the cautious way in which members of the Indian diaspora approached educational integration clearly foreshadowed the hesitant nature of reforms a­ fter in­de­pen­dence, a subject of the next section. For example, in December 1960, an advertisement announcing job openings for African teachers at the Government Indian Primary School at Chan­ g’ombe, Dar es Salaam, came with a wary stipulation: “provided they do not discriminate against Indian children.”50 NATIONAL IN­D E­P EN­D ENCE AND RACIAL INTEGRATION IN TANZANIAN SCHOOLS

Julius Nyerere’s inaugural presidential address to Parliament on December 10, 1962, directly discussed the new nation’s inheritance of social problems involving race and education: [I]n this Tanganyika we have inherited there are but a few of her citizens as yet with sufficient education and wealth to live in reasonable dignity and comfort. The majority of her ­people are poor and 137

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uneducated. And unfortunately . . . ​ this dividing line between the “haves” and “have-­nots” coincides with yet another dividing line. . . . ​ In that small group of the educated and well-­to-do are a large number of Indians and Eu­ro­pe­ans. For this reason there is a very real risk that the economic division can lead to racial enmity between our African and our non-­A frican citizens. . . . ​[T]he highly educated African was, and is in a very small minority in this country.51

Although the in­ de­ pen­ dent Tanganyikan government sought to act quickly on its promises to integrate and expand education, reforms w ­ ere halting during the 1961–1967 period of national consolidation. The new state did not nationalize all schools in the country overnight, instead assuming administrative control of education while allowing a few nongovernmental agencies to continue r­ unning schools if they employed a centralized curriculum.52 Nyerere’s white paper of 1960, framed to please both nationalists and entrenched interests, called for gradual integration a­ fter in­de­pen­dence (as detailed above). Schools did open their doors to students from all communities, but language and cost barriers to attendance remained. For example, the plan included a provision allowing primary schools to offer preferred admission for three years to students whose first language was the same as that of the school’s existing medium of instruction. In Dar es Salaam, with a concentration of Indian day schools thanks to its substantial population of South Asians, the language preference policy meant that practically all Indian students continued to attend the same primary schools as before in­de­pen­dence. While prestigious English-­language secondary schools in the city now educated mixed-­race student bodies, de facto segregation continued in Gujarati-­, Punjabi-­, and Urdu-­medium schools. Moreover, primary school fees remained tiered. Former Eu­ro­pean day schools charged thirty pounds per year compared with six pounds for Indian schools and only ten shillings for Swahili-­ medium ones.53 While a few wealthier African parents could afford the higher rates, for the most part this system failed to eradicate community segregation in schools while widening a gap in educational opportunities among Africans of ­different economic statuses. In the early years of in­de­pen­dence, ordinary Tanganyikans ­were as incensed as the TANU radicals who had urged faster school integration prior to Uhuru, and together they pressured the government into quickening the pace of educational reforms. In response, the government 138

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banned Indian languages as mediums of instruction in 1963, authorizing only Swahili and En­glish. Primary schools saw changes, which began to level their fee structures, while in secondary schools fees ­were abolished altogether.54 The government also took action in individual cases to appease m ­ iddle-­class parents who knew that a secondary education was essential for their children to obtain a professional job. In urban areas, groups of parents w ­ ere known to descend on education officers with threats, pleas, and bribes.55 In 1963 and 1964, Indian candidates for secondary school fared better than African students on the entrance exams. To dampen the resulting agitation of urban ­middle-­class Africans, the Ministry of Education gave “preference” to African students applying to city schools. Ministry officials defended this decision in 1966 “as being necessary to avoid a much more severe and uncontrolled outbreak of anti-­ Asian sentiment, which . . . ​would surely occur if Asians continued to be as successful as they had been in securing secondary school positions.”56 Nonetheless, the protests continued, and the Tanganyika Parents’ Association convened a large public gathering to discuss the shortage of secondary school places in 1966.57 Nyerere was forced the next day to give an emergency speech defending his education plans, imploring parents not to complain about “matatizo yetu ya elimu” (our problems concerning education).58 The Ministry of Information was more forceful in scolding parents for airing their elitist educational aspirations, urging them to stop “regarding primary education as a licence to run away from the labouring village life. Instead they should help Government to orientate the youth to the land where they will find gainful existence.”59 With reform occurring slowly in the early postcolonial period, the racialized dimension of anticolonial rhe­toric continued to surround education while the idea that integration was a positive social good in and of itself started to fade. So long as inequalities remained in educational opportunities, it was nearly impossible for citizens to transcend the racial categories that the colonial government had used to structure institutions of daily life such as schools. Unsurprisingly, in 1966 one member of Parliament raised as an issue the government’s policy of offering primary school places to children of Tanganyikan residents who had not taken citizenship despite long terms of residency—­clearly an attack on the nation’s Indian diaspora.60 Some Africans, in contrast, tried to infuse old racial terminology with new meanings, perhaps taking advantage of turbulent times to open new conversations about race. A scant two weeks before the ­union between 139

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mainland Tanganyika and the Zanzibar archipelago, and only three months a­ fter the African nationalist revolution toppled the Arab Sultan from power in the islands, one Zanzibari, quoted in shorter form at the opening of this book, perplexedly wrote the following to a Dar es Salaam newspaper: Of all the ambiguous words in this universe, the word “African” is surely the top one. Hence I would be very grateful if a learned African would tell us exactly “Who is an African?” At school we w ­ ere taught that an African was a man who lived in Africa. . . . ​Then petty politicians set in. . . . ​To them the criterion is rested on the blackness of one’s skin and the coarseness of one’s hair. . . . ​Personally I think all those who maintain that an African ought to be black, and black only, are as colour conscious as the whites of South Africa. They belong to the same category and are equally sinful of colour segregation. . . . ​ ­[T]here are many statesmen in East Africa who preach against apartheid but who daily practice it.61

In between debating about “who is a Tanganyikan” (as seen in an earlier 1960 letter) and “who is an African,” many residents fervently hoped that po­liti­cal and educational reforms could transform their new nation into a model for race relations. One African suggested in a 1964 letter to the Tanganyika Standard that “it is high time the word ‘African’ be removed from ‘Tanganyika African National Union’ considering that the doors are now open for anyone to join Tanu.” 62 In the same year, another letter-­w riter praised the enormous improvement in educational provision since the colonial period, concluding, “Tanganyika will set an example in multi-­racial Africa which may well have a tremendous influence in both the East and centre of the continent, and if this succeeds [M]walimu Julius K. Nyerere will have done more than any other African leader to show the value of moderate demo­cratic persuasiveness and firm, patient leadership in defeating the evils of racialism.” 63 A headmaster in Arusha echoed this vision, hoping that integrated schools would instill tolerance in the “cosmopolitan population of the school. . . . ​‘We are black, we are brown, we are white. We are Christians, we are Moslem, we are Hindu. . . . ​But despite these differences we live happily together. We are a r­ eally United Nations without this bloc or that bloc. We are together.’ ” 64 Mrs. Njawa, who was a student in the 1960s, argued in an interview that nationalized education held the potential to alleviate racial 140

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animosities because p ­ eople came to feel that everyone was a ­human being, which brought love between individuals and made Africans, Indians, and Arabs “one f­ amily.” 65 This phrase is clichéd, but demonstrates how Nyerere’s nonracial nationalism affected public discourses about race and education, and possessed the power to be inclusive or exclusive in its imagination of the Tanzanian nation. To build racial harmony, President Nyerere sought to erase the language of race from all state policies and institutions, a necessary precondition for fulfilling his vision of a nonracial Tanganyikan society. In early 1964 the government banned racial discrimination and ended a program of Africanization, which had awarded civil ser­v ice hiring preferences to African over non-­A frican citizens.66 The response was mixed across the country. The English-­language press was supportive, editorializing, “All that Mwalimu Nyerere has done is to give practical expression to the declared policy of . . . ​equal opportunities for all citizens and an end to racial discrimination. This is one of the basic ­human freedoms for which African nationalists have fought so tenaciously.” 67 Some non-­A fricans also responded positively to Nyerere’s announcement, with supportive letters to the editor appearing throughout January and February.68 Husein Mohamedtak wrote eloquently about his ­family’s history in Tanganyika, dating his forefathers to among the earliest Indian settlers in the territory: We w ­ ere ­under the colonial-­imposed category of “Asians” but I cannot recollect ever seriously considering myself an “Asian.” . . . ​We have been brought up the Tanganyikan way and it is unimaginable for us to think of leaving our home country, Tanganyika, and settling even, say, in neighbouring ­Kenya, let alone India. None of the members of my ­family has visited India for even a holiday. We belong to Tanganyika; Tanganyika belongs to us. . . . ​W hen I claim with pride that I am a Tanganyikan, [­people abroad] are astonished and they hold in high esteem the unique non-­racial society we are trying to build in Tanganyika. . . . ​ ­A fter Mwalimu Nyerere’s announcement the sense of belonging I already had has been further strengthened [to] the country that I love so dearly.69

Not all quarters of Tanganyikan society showered such flowery praise on the move to abolish the official use of categories of race. One fierce critic was the Tanganyika Federation of Labour, which—­upset at the 141

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limited employment gains during two short years of Africanization—­ reacted with “shock and disappointment.”70 The general secretary of the mines ­union claimed “that the announcement called for a division between the inferiors and the superiors [and] Africans would be the inferior group. The policy of Africanisation had not been given time to do what it was intended to do,” which was to rectify the “imbalance in development” between non-­A fricans and Africans.71 If Tanganyikans believed that opportunities like employment and education ­were still disproportionately accessible to ­people of ­different racial groupings, then calls to “integrate” would directly target the privileged position occupied by Indians. This occurred throughout the mid-1960s, in defiance of Nyerere’s attempt to muffle the use of racial rhe­toric. In February 1964, Tabora’s regional commissioner “urged the Asian community . . . ​to join in nation-­building projects rather than keep aloof and only concern themselves with business.”72 In June 1964, Dar es Salaam’s area commissioner called an “unusual” meeting of eight hundred Indians to express concern that some South Asian youth “showed no res­pect to leaders of the Government, including, on some occasions, the President. ‘Those few youths will destroy the w ­ hole group of Asians, he said.’ ” He also claimed that “Asians w ­ ere acting as if there ­were differences between them and other ­people.”73 Shortly thereafter, a minister in Nyerere’s cabinet, the Ismaili Amir Jamal, spoke frankly to the Indian community in a radio broadcast, imploring them to become po­liti­cally active in building Tanganyika. He called racial integration and harmony “the most crucial and most challenging [issue] in not only the United Republic, but in the ­whole of East Africa.”74 Supporting Jamal’s call, the Tanganyika Standard menacingly editorialized, “The days of the settler communities are over. . . . ​The choice before [the Asian community] is to identify themselves with the ­people among whom they live or remain as permanent outsiders with only diminishing hope of survival.”75 In the face of such relentless criticism, some Indians publicly defended their commitment to Tanganyika, while most urged fellow South Asians to comply with the calls made by po­liti­cal leaders.76 Meanwhile, heedless of President Nyerere’s appeal for nonracialism, some Africans vociferously supported the pressure being brought to bear on Indian Tanganyikans.77 Throughout 1966, with frustration mounting over the pace of integration, public attacks on Indian privilege raged on, with frequent charges that Asians lacked commitment to building the nation. A letter to the editor written by a resident of Tanga signaled that citizens had started to 142

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lose their hope for the ­f uture (kukata tamaa kuhusu maisha yao ya mbele) because Indians ­were still preferred for municipal jobs and ­were paid better as well.78 Other Tanzanians complained that garbage collectors did their job in the Indian neighborhoods of Dar es Salaam, but left trash to rot in African areas.79 There also was a series of allegations about African citizens being denied access to Ismaili housing cooperatives in Dar.80 And the pressure on Indians to attend public meetings and marches continued to build. P. B. Mpandu of Dar es Salaam observed that the only Indians who cared to show up for these events e­ ither carried cameras or ­were just vegetable sellers from the poorer mixed neighborhood of Kariakoo.81 Ngurumo called this Asian indifference a “great shame,” especially given how wealthy Indians had become in Tanzania, and how generous Africans ­were in agreeing to live together as bro­th­ers, without segregation.82 More bitingly, another letter-­w riter called out Asians as “our false bro­th­ers” (ndugu zetu bandia).83 Beyond the issue of public discourse in in­de­pen­dent Tanganyika targeting the perpetuation of in­e­qual­ity in racial terms, the integration of education posed practical problems as well. The Ministry of Education launched a small temporary scheme of job exchanges between African and Indian instructors in 1962, pending the full-­scale integration of teaching staffs in 1965.84 Cultural friction arose as teachers ­were thrown into ­different learning environments, previewing the challenges that lay ahead. African instructors charged that they ­were being used merely to teach Swahili. Female Indian teachers refused to take up positions, away from their homes, in boarding schools that remained largely African. Some African teachers complained about the “arrogance” and “incivility” of Indian students, while a few Indian instructors went so far as to claim that African pupils “differed from o ­ thers in innate ability.”85 Two Africans who ­were in school in the 1960s recollected that racial groups frequently did not sit together during breaks and that light racial teasing occurred in both directions, although friendships did form between students of d ­ ifferent communities.86 And while most teachers at racially mixed schools in 1966 expressed great optimism about education’s potential to promote interracial understanding, it was clear that much was left to be done to accomplish meaningful cross-­community socialization in Tanganyikan schools. Despite all the obstacles to integration, remarkable progress occurred in Tanganyika (and then Tanzania, following the u ­ nion with Zanzibar in 1964) during the period of national consolidation. The state’s dedication 143

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to school reform gave the Ministry of Education the highest bud­get allocation of all government departments in 1965.87 The new educational system all but eliminated open discrimination and unequal structures, and enthusiasm ran high, at least in some quarters.88 In urban locations,89 many more opportunities for Africans opened up, and their enrollment in former Indian day schools steadily approached and then passed 50 ­percent.90 Within a few years, a w ­ hole generation of students in Dar es Salaam experienced something their parents or grandparents never had: a multiracial educational environment. Manjula Buhecha, born in Dar es Salaam in the late 1940s, remembers when her class in the late 1950s voluntarily admitted the first African student to the formerly all-­Indian D. A. Girls’ School.91 As classrooms integrated, students’ interests inevitably converged to some degree, especially regarding ­f uture employment. A 1966 survey of African and Indian secondary school students reported nearly identical results in rankings of desirable professional occupations.92 Nonetheless, the Tanzanian government subordinated student ambitions to the perceived needs of the country, relying on schools first and foremost to instill nation-­building responsibility in its youthful citizenry.93 This trend only accelerated a­ fter the Tanzanian state embarked on a period of socialist reform. EDUCATING THE NATION, FROM THE ARUSHA DECLARATION TO THE ERA OF LIBERALIZATION

During the first five years of in­de­pen­dence, the Tanzanian government transformed multiracial state structures inherited from the colonial period to make them more justly proportional for the African majority population, achieving significant progress in school integration and the Africanization of the civil ser­vice. However, the economic stratification created by the undersized and overstretched secondary education system would have been disturbing to many factions of Tanzanian society: In 1967 . . . ​there ­were 6,635 students admitted to secondary schools in contrast to over 60,000 students who had finished primary school in that year. A secondary school certificate was a virtual laissez-­passer ­either to university or to a ­middle-­level position. A student who failed to get into secondary school would be most unlikely ever to be able to earn a “­middle class” income. None knew this fact better than the members of the African ­middle class.94 144

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In­e­qual­ity ran against President Julius Nyerere’s philosophical vision of African socialism, encapsulated in the concept of national ujamaa (familyhood). To combat persisting inequalities, and for reasons of po­liti­cal control, Nyerere proclaimed a new orientation to the Tanzanian state in the Arusha Declaration of February 5, 1967. Its unique strategy featured self-­reliant demo­cratic socialism as articulated in ujamaa, including state own­ership of the major means of production and a focus on rural agrarian collectivism. Following the nationalization of banks and a few industries, the government turned its attention to education. While noting that the major structural deficiencies (racial segregation and the non-­A fricanized curriculum) of the colonial system already had been addressed, President Nyerere, in an education manifesto published shortly ­after the Arusha Declaration, attacked the current schooling system in the country as overly elitist and antiegalitarian.95 To overhaul this system, the government introduced a new policy called Education for Self-­Reliance (ESR), which remained the basic framework for Tanzanian education u ­ ntil the 1980s. ESR was designed to give schools a central role in building the nation and continuing the nationalist strug­gle carried over from the anticolonial movement. Nyerere argued, “The education provided by Tanzania for the students of Tanzania must serve the purposes of Tanzania. It must encourage the growth of the socialist values we aspire to. . . . ​[I]t is wrong if it even contributes to the continuation of those inequalities and privileges which still exist in our society because of our inheritance.”96 In addition to the promotion of Kiswahili, there ­were other curricular adjustments that came alongside ESR. The “Africanization” of course content, accomplished most notably by altering history syllabi, took several years of effort from a small group of intellectuals based at the University of Dar es Salaam. A 1963 critique of the history syllabus of primary schools described the content in standards seven and eight as “largely a history of Africans being acted upon rather than a history of the inhabitants of this area. . . . ​It is not a history which is likely to awaken in primary pupils national pride or even pride in the achievements of Africans outside his [sic] own country.”97 The revised primary history syllabus, unveiled in 1966, attempted to inculcate a national identity as opposed to an ethnic, religious, or racial one. What actually defined “Africa” in the Africanization of the curriculum was a ­matter of some debate. One member of the National Assembly argued in 1962, “Our young men must be told that education does not 145

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mean a separation from life in the villages. With the colonial type of education one grew to despise his own home and his fellow villagers so that African culture came to be regarded as backward and uncivilized. This situation must change.”98 This argument translated into a school curriculum focused on developing the country’s rural and agricultural base through vocational training. Schools founded farms to impart practical knowledge, teach self-­reliance, and raise money for the school and local community. Nyerere strongly lobbied for the school farming projects to the citizenry: “This is a break with our educational tradition, and ­unless its purpose and its possibilities are fully understood by teachers and parents, it may be resented at the beginning.”99 While there was an initial burst of patriotic compliance with government exhortations to pick up the hoe, over time this goodwill wore off steadily among urban populations. Once again, Indian traders w ­ ere targeted for their lack of participation in agricultural projects.100 Some Dar es Salaam secondary students complained in 1977 about a new scheme forcing them to farm areas outside the city for a stretch of two weeks.101 A city newspaper reported of African parents in 1983 that “too many of them believe that their children are simply being used as laborers for the benefit of teachers.”102 What the ESR policy makers underestimated was families’ desire for an academic education as a way of moving into the ­middle class. As one prescient outside observer wrote in 1968, “If we can occasionally detect a direction in history, the continual repetition of the phenomenon of rural exodus is a good example of it. The desire to make young educated Africans remain on the land runs exactly contrary to history.”103 Despite some contradictory aspects, Tanzania’s postin­de­pen­dence educational expansion made great strides. The expenditure on education, largely financed by foreign donors, was enormous. In the first year ­a fter in­de­pen­dence, education accounted for nearly 20  ­percent of the total government bud­get, a level roughly maintained through the end of the 1970s.104 The numbers of students in the system soared. Between 1962 and 1966, enrollment in registered schools r­ ose from about 537,000 students to over 800,000.105 ESR’s stress on mass primary education helped multiply this number. With the National Education Act of 1969 the government assumed control of all schools, including former voluntary ones. In 1973, fees for primary schools ­were abolished. In 1974, the Musoma Resolutions directed Tanzania ­toward Universal Primary Edu-

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cation (UPE) by 1977. Subsequently, primary school enrollment grew to over 1.5 million in 1975, and then surged to almost 3.2 million in 1979.106 Although Nyerere’s socialist-­inspired ESR and UPE strove to use education to create an egalitarian society, certain aspects of the schooling system increased inequalities. Most notable was a continued urban bias, in par­tic­u­lar at higher levels of education. In 1976, while the rest of the country was closer to the 6.2 ­percent average enrollment of the school-­ age population in form one, Dar es Salaam’s share was 17 ­percent.107 Uneven quality was another issue, as the vast increase of pupils strained the capacity of the system. In 1974, even before the acceleration to Universal Primary Education, there was a shortage of ten thousand teachers in primary schools and a serious deficiency of physical facilities and instructional materials.108 Faced with this reality, Nyerere yet adhered to the stress on mass primary education, saying, “We cannot protect the excellence of education for the few by neglecting the education for the majority. In Tanzania, it is a sin to do so.”109 The stakes w ­ ere high in educational reform, as Indian and African parents alike knew that education was a crucial f­ actor in determining ­future income and economic status. Despite the massive expansion of school places, enrollment at secondary schools in 1984 was u ­ nder seventy thousand students, and “only 3 ­percent of primary school leavers went on to secondary school, surely one of the lowest rates in the world.”110 In the two de­cades ­a fter in­de­pen­dence, income disparities ­rose quickly despite the egalitarian socialism of the Arusha Declaration.111 As one teacher pointedly commented in a 2003 interview about this time, “those who could got very rich, and those who ­couldn’t are poor ­until ­today.”112 Workers of all racial groups whose monthly salary was over a thousand shillings increased as a total percentage throughout the 1970s, rising from 5.7 ­percent in 1973 to 11.1 ­percent in 1978.113 However, while the total number of regular salaried positions r­ ose by almost thirty thousand between 1973 and 1978, just over one-­third of male workers ­were in “permanent employment” even in eco­nom­ically advanced Dar es Salaam in 1978.114 Relative educational privilege assisted Indians to obtain lucrative jobs ­a fter in­de­pen­dence, and “on the average [Asians] have higher incomes than the Africans. For their number, they form a disproportionately large part of the salaried ­labor force.”115 As during the colonial period, the key to obtaining professional positions ­after in­de­pen­dence was education. A series of surveys conducted in

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1980 revealed that Tanzanians with a secondary school education had a dramatically better chance at landing a salaried job, and, in turn, a significantly higher income.116 Moreover, while economic differences ­were wide across the board, on average Indians’ wages w ­ ere about twice that of Africans’.117 This contributed to the perpetuation in in­de­pen­dent Tanzania of public discussions linking race, in­e­qual­ity, and education, despite Nyerere’s nonracial socialism, which discouraged such language. This linkage continued even though the inequalities no longer exactly conformed to colonial racial hierarchies; Pratt writes that the “class stratification which had largely been along racial lines in 1960 was thus an African phenomenon by 1966.”118 Nonetheless, in the end, the educational reforms of the postin­de­pen­dence era never eradicated racial inequalities, resulting in the perception and the reality that Tanzanian schools continued to be racialized urban spaces. Facilitating this pro­cess was the uneasy relationship between the new nation and a diaspora adjusting to changing ideas about territoriality, identity, and belonging. Given the im­mense stake Tanzania put in educational reforms, it was almost inevitable that frustrations would be directed at Indians, given their privileged position. Furthermore, the Arusha Declaration had tied education to nationalism, infusing heated nationalist rhe­toric into debates about urban schools even ­after in­de­pen­dence and educational integration. As such, Education for Self-­Reliance was viewed as a “revolution” in education “vital” to nation building.119 Second Vice President Rashidi Kawawa spoke publicly in April 1967, a month ­a fter Nyerere announced ESR, prophetically arguing, “­Unless we succeed in transforming our education now, we may find in ten or even five years’ time that our united society is no longer united, and our ­people are frustrated and ­bitter instead of working happily.”120 Tanzanian Indians looking ­toward a ­f uture in the country ­were aware that participating in nationalist unity would require more than s­ imple school integration and the Africanization of the curriculum, and must also include the elimination of Indian educational privileges. One Indian member of the Legislative Council, Sophia Mustafa, pleaded with South Asian communities early on to cooperate with this pro­ject in a bold speech in Arusha in 1959: Asians will have to alter basically their idea of education for their children. At the moment Asian parents . . . ​t hink in terms of the child getting through the School Certificate examination irrespective of 148

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­ hether the child is capable of such academic work, and irrespective w of w ­ hether there is any opening. . . . ​[T]he bulk of Asian children can be properly trained . . . ​through trade and technical institutions for useful and productive work.121

Despite Mustafa’s conciliatory rhe­toric, it appeared to many Tanzanians that not all Indians evinced a similar dedication to self-­sacrifice and nation building. For example, one newspaper opined that rich Indian businessmen w ­ ere parasites and exploiters who evaded paying taxes, thus preventing the government from building a sufficient number of schools.122 Even more radically, a spirit of frustration and impatience pervaded a 1967 Zanzibar Revolution Day rally featuring a speech calling for racial integration by Joseph Nyerere, the president’s brother. Castigating Indian businessmen for their transnational dealings, Nyerere suggested, according to newspaper accounts, that “[s]uch p ­ eople w ­ ere like murderers and deserved hanging. . . . ​Mr. Nyerere asked the crowd what should be done to such a person. The crowd replied: ‘Kill him.’ ”123 Although there was a public backlash against Joseph Nyerere’s “wild words,”124 he was not the only person to charge Indians with putatively antinational activities. Threatening letters appeared in newspapers throughout 1967 calling Indians “exploiters,” “corrupt,” and “cap­i­tal­ist blood-­suckers.”125 One author amusedly commented that an Indian shop­keeper who suddenly stopped selling soda straws misunderstood President Nyerere’s symbolic comparison of capitalists to straws sucking the wealth from the nation.126 A February 1967 article in an American magazine reported, “A barefooted Tanzanian farmer, cheering anti-­Asian demonstrations earlier this month, expressed the deep-­seated African feeling that the Asians are taking what should belong to the Africans. Said he: ‘There are too many ticks on the lion’s belly.’ ”127 Expulsions of noncitizen Indian (and Arab) traders coincided with public challenges to their patriotism,128 and “black-­uniformed men conducting a self-­styled ‘commercial revolution’ ” burned down at least two Indian-­owned shops in central Dar es Salaam.129 Making the diaspora’s situation even more precarious, the government in New Delhi warned that it would only admit into the country Tanganyikans who held Indian citizenship,130 instead urging that South Asians in Africa should “adjust themselves to the changing situation and identify themselves with the local p ­ eople.”131 The enforcement of new national languages of citizenship—­emanating from all sides of the sea—­was threatening to alter irretrievably patterns of cosmopolitan 149

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Indian Ocean cultural exchange, vibrant for centuries, in the pro­cess leaving a diaspora in the lurch. PRIVATIZING IN­E ­Q UAL­I TY: THE RISE OF PRIVATE SECONDARY SCHOOLS, 1961–1980S

In addition to generating tense rhe­toric between communities, the competition for scarce secondary school places led to greater efforts to establish private schools in Tanzania. Despite an uneasy relationship with the socialist government, private schools ­were an im­por­tant part of the educational landscape in the nation—­and, as during the colonial period, the role of the Indian diaspora and its transnational connections was significant in this movement. The desire to centralize school administration, especially ­after the Arusha Declaration’s formalization of egalitarianism as a national goal, created a conflict of interest between the government and private schools. Practicality won out in the scenario of limited resources, and the government never banned private schools. Instead, it subjected them to rigorous registration procedures and complete national control in the setting of syllabi and fees. At the beginning of 1963, there was only one private secondary school in the country.132 With an increasing shortage of secondary school places, the private sector expanded more quickly. In 1966, there ­were seventeen private secondary schools servicing 13.7 ­percent of all secondary school students in Tanzania, and this rapidly ­rose to thirty-­seven schools in 1969 teaching 21.3 ­percent of students. In 1978, seventy-­one private secondary schools133 instructed 31.4  ­percent of secondary students, as wealthier parents demanded for their children opportunities available only with an academic education. By the late 1970s, requirements for the registration of private secondary schools eased as chronic bud­get shortfalls plagued the Ministry of Education, only to worsen l­ ater during the fiscal crisis of the liberalization era. Private schools emerged unevenly, with noticeable regional differences.134 In 1984, 42 ­percent of all private secondary schools ­were in Kilimanjaro Region, home to only 5.3 ­percent of the mainland population.135 Dar es Salaam, home to most of the country’s civil servants and relatively wealthy Indian families, was another beneficiary of considerable numbers of private schools. Children from communities that self-­ financed a private school through donations—­a ­legal way to supplement meager revenues collected from low government-­regulated fees—­could avoid competing for the slim number of available public secondary school 150

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places. Another strategy was to send students out of the country for secondary school, a trend that quickened a­ fter in­de­pen­dence.136 For example, Manjula Buhecha, an Indian who attended Dar es Salaam’s  D.  A. Girls’ School in the 1950s, went to Pune (Maharashtra), India, for her secondary schooling in the late 1960s.137 Given the scarcity of university-­level education in Tanzania, even more students sought a college degree overseas,138 some assisted by scholarships offered by the government of India to qualified East African students—­a program deemed to be of “urgent importance” to aid in “cultural relations” with friendly countries.139 Despite the rise of national borders all around the Indian Ocean, India continued to be a favored destination for wealthier Tanzanians of all races seeking higher education, with over six hundred students enrolled at Indian universities in the 1990s.140 Indian communities in Dar es Salaam in the late 1960s sought to establish schools to replace those nationalized by the government. Building on their long history of or­g a­n iz­ing, the Ismailis led the way. At in­de­pen­dence, their Aga Khan–­supported educational network owned seventy-­five schools throughout Tanganyika. Among these ­were the first Indian schools to admit Africans and to introduce the teaching of Kiswahili (1956 and 1957, respectively).141 In 1967, the Ismailis opened Aga Khan Mzizima Secondary School (AKMSS). As mandated, the school was open to the public and followed the national curriculum.142 The government set reasonably low fees for private secondary schools—­although they ­were still many times more expensive than public schools—to encourage a diversity of applicants. Nonetheless, fee revenue covered only one-­third of expenses, forcing the Aga Khan’s educational fund to make up the difference.143 Uniform standards ­were difficult to maintain because lower entrance requirements w ­ ere set for Ismaili students and the children of AKMSS staff members. Further, early on “there ­were approximately ten to fifteen ‘pressure cases,’ where high-­ranking government officials influenced the school to accept their children.”144 As in the case of the Ismaili community, other wealthier groups established schools that gave preferential treatment to their own, while allowing the admission of students from outside their community if their parents could afford the cost differential between public and private schools. With the growth of private schools, educational separation based on economic differentiation grew over the de­cades following the founding of AKMSS. This is evident in the history of the Dar es Salaam Hindu community’s secondary school. Concerned about the lack of available places 151

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in government secondary schools, a group of Hindus formed the Dar es Salaam Educational Society in January 1963. Its responsibility was to run Shaaban Robert Secondary School (SRSS), which opened in May of that year.145 The minister for education, Solomon Eliufoo, aptly summarized the school’s ambivalent relationship with government at the opening of a school building in 1964. In his speech, the minister clearly endorsed private schools, but he also delivered a message that his Ministry would carefully regulate them.146 The founding members of the Dar es Salaam Educational Society w ­ ere aware of this scrutiny. Fearful of nationalization throughout the school’s existence, in the words of Thomas Mathew, the headmaster in 2001, the or­ga­ni­za­tion continually “played it safe.”147 The first class of Shaaban Robert Secondary School opened in May 1963 with five streams of thirty students each, with a total enrollment of 120 boys and thirty girls.148 The Ministry of Education was in charge of admissions and set fees at the high level of six hundred shillings a year (thirty pounds), equivalent to the rate charged by the former Eu­ro­pean schools.149 In its first year, SRSS was located on the premises of the Hindu Nursery School, but in 1964 the government granted the Dar es Salaam Educational Society about four acres of land in the ­middle-­class (and significantly Indian) neighborhood of Upanga at a nominal rent on a ninety-­nine-­year lease.150 Wealthy Hindus donated materials for building construction, and the Aga Khan supported the establishment of the school’s library.151 The school grew slowly, depending on donations from prominent persons and, l­ ater, alumni.152 In 1969, SRSS had 957 pupils, forty-­four teachers, and a five-­member administrative staff. The student body reached thirteen hundred before the Ministry limited the number of streams and capped the enrollment in each stream, leaving about one thousand students at the school in the early 1980s. Originally providing education for forms one through four, SRSS added forms five and six in the early 1980s, thereby offering an opportunity to study up to the university level without attending a government school in Tanzania. However, this did not mean that the nation’s socialist milieu did not permeate private secondary schools like SRSS. The school followed the national curriculum and implemented self-­reliance activities, having students farm agricultural produce, clean classrooms, and make baskets and clothes for sale to supplement the school’s operational costs.153 The school’s self-­reliance program collapsed in the 1980s, as did Tanzania’s economy. In the era of liberalization, the trend ­toward private schooling accelerated dramati152

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cally. As we shall see, in this atmosphere Tanzanians refracted growing economic inequalities through po­liti­cal notions of race and nationalism. REINSCRIBING RACE: NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION ­A FTER LIBERALIZATION

Despite worsening economic stagnation in the early 1980s, President Nyerere—in the face of increasing donor pressure—­continued to expend dwindling state resources in pursuit of the egalitarian vision laid out in the Arusha Declaration. In the late 1970s, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) invoked conditionality—­attaching conditions to the terms of its loans—to coerce Nyerere into capitalistic macroeconomic reform, but the president rebuked the lending institution for its interference. True to its tradition of self-­reliance, the Tanzanian state instead tried a series of homegrown structural adjustment programs that achieved limited success. Nyerere voluntarily stepped down in 1985 as Tanzania’s president, refusing to bow to Western demands to reform the country he had led for its entire existence. This set the stage in 1986 for new president Ali Hassan Mwinyi, chosen in a one-­party election, to agree with the IMF to liberalize Tanzania’s economy in exchange for desperately needed loans. Painful cutbacks in social ser­v ices ­were a hallmark of the IMF structural adjustment programs of the 1980s, and the ax fell sharply on education. Once as high as 20 ­percent of total expenditures, education’s share of the bud­get had dropped to about 12 ­percent in 1982, and further plummeted to approximately 6 ­percent for the period between 1985 and 1990.154 UPE fell apart, and, despite a population growing by almost a million ­people per year in the early 1980s, school enrollment at the primary level declined from 3.56 million in 1982 to 3.15 million in 1986. Teacher morale—­ already battered by the shortages—­further deteriorated: 81.9  ­percent of one survey’s respondents reported dissatisfaction with school facilities in 1989.155 The same study found a shortage of nearly 750,000 desks, 57,000 classrooms, six million exercise books, and 170,000 toilets. One government solution was to introduce cost sharing of education by parents. Tanzania reintroduced primary school fees in 1984, and they continued to rise significantly. As observers noted, “For many, the only solution was withdrawal. Wealthy or influential families opted out of the national education system. . . . ​Rural communities with the financial and or­gan­i­za­ tional means took steps to prevent declining quality; those with neither 153

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money nor or­ga­ni­za­tion watched as the village school literally collapsed before their eyes.”156 The government’s other major response to the education funding crisis was to loosen the reins on private schools. Their numbers steadily increased throughout the period of liberalization, and President Mwinyi allowed private schools to set their own fees in 1995. In 1986, more than half of secondary school students ­were in private schools,157 and by the early 1990s the ratio of private to public secondary schools rapidly approached two to one.158 This trend accelerated throughout the 1990s and into the new millennium. Obtaining a quality secondary school education in Dar es Salaam became dramatically more expensive a­ fter liberalization. At Aga Khan Mzizima Secondary School, tuition and fees before Mwinyi liberalized them in 1995 w ­ ere nine thousand shillings a year; by 2001, they ­were 750,000 shillings.159 While the government continued to set the syllabus in the liberalization era, efforts at nation building through education confronted increasingly global student populations. Mr. Thind, the headmaster at AKMSS in 2001, indicated that the majority of form six graduates went abroad to continue their education rather than attending the highly selective University of Dar es Salaam.160 Furthermore, as private school students chose their stream of study based on prospective ­future careers, history classes declined in relevance as a tool of inculcating nationalist ideas. Mr. Kingu, a history teacher at AKMSS, said, “For Asians, history is worthless” because most opted to pursue science or business streams.161 ­A fter form two, history at AKMSS became an optional subject. It is im­por­tant to note that the rise of private schools and the decline of public ones w ­ ere not unrelated pro­cesses. Kingu indicated that the dismal situation in public schools led him to accept an offer at AKMSS when it recruited him.162 Private schools historically coped better during difficult economic times in Tanzania. Groups with government connections and better access to private funds preserved their community’s educational privileges during difficult eras, while those depending on public schools plunged far ­behind. A closer look at several Dar es Salaam schools—­public and private—in the era of liberalization reveals how disparities in educational opportunities intensified social and economic divisions. One feature of this pro­cess was the continuing efficacy of labeling class stratification as an antinational development—­especially where it overlapped with race. As in the encounter between colonial structures of educational segregation and anticolonial nationalism, as 154

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well as during the two de­cades of socialist egalitarianism in educational reform, the prominence of racial thought continued to be a salient feature of life for many urban residents as the Indian diaspora and African nationalism negotiated an uneasy coexistence in globalizing Tanzania. This story is illuminated by students’ experiences at Shaaban Robert Secondary School and in interviews conducted with history instructors at SRSS.163 One teacher commented that SRSS students, like those at Aga Khan Mzizima, viewed history as less useful than subjects geared t­ oward obtaining a professional job.164 He claimed that this created racial and gender divisions in the classroom because the highest-achieving pupils—­ disproportionately eco­nom­ically advantaged Indian and male students—­ pursued competitive places in professional streams.165 While education was substantially integrated ­after in­de­pen­dence, new inequalities developed within individual private schools, as select students opted out of the nation-­building history curriculum. An SRSS teacher remarked that globalized images presented by tele­vi­sion and other media contributed to affluent students losing their African identity.166 In response, the history instructors tried to reinforce it in their courses. However, the same teacher asserted that the national syllabus stressed “African” identity more than “Tanzanian” identity, and thus Indians did not relate to this instruction because they w ­ ere “not originally from h ­ ere.”167 Another teacher went further, arguing that, as part of a mobile diaspora with worldwide connections, Indian students did not see the benefit of studying national history because they ultimately sought to leave the country.168 South Asians’ mobility—­whether across the Indian Ocean or, ­later, also to the West—­ was a function of economic means, but as a marker of unequal educational opportunities it drew racialized criticism as an antinational activity.169 Private schools clearly diminished the state’s capacity during liberalization to assert the primacy of a Tanzanian nationalist identity, and wealthier students who favored global cultural trends created a challenge for school teachers and administrators. Headmaster Thomas Mathew of SRSS commented, “There is . . . ​pandemonium among our youth, as they get caught up in a state of confusion as to which culture is good.”170 During these changing times, SRSS sought to embrace the concept of global citizenship, with its mission statement describing the school as a cosmopolitan society balancing national and global cultures: Shaaban Robert Secondary School is a multi-­cultural school committed to a non-­racial secular society. . . . ​Shaaban Robert brings together 155

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individuals from ­different racial, cultural and religious backgrounds into an environment in which sensitivity is maintained ­toward the varied backgrounds from which staff and students are drawn. . . . ​Furthermore, the School will attempt to ensure that classes and extra-­curricular activity [promote the] culture, society and values of Tanzania and seeks to instil in its students leadership qualities which will ensure the progress and development of the country.171

To get around the paradox of clashing national and global cultures, Mathew, in an interview, distilled the mission statement into the idea that students are “world citizens” of “education without borders.”172 This approach—­while not always convincing to African parents aspiring to ­middle-­class standing—at least attempts to defuse the contentiousness of perceived antinationalist developments caused by private schools. These included the role schools such as SRSS and AKMSS played in widening disparities in economic and educational opportunities, and encouraging transnational travel and connections. Such trends invoked latent grievances, exposing Indians in par­tic­u ­lar to accusations of lacking loyalty to Tanzania, an echo of earlier charges made by nationalist newspaper letter-­w riters like “One Who Wants to Know.” Although racialized disputes continued to surround education, private schools ­were still racially heterogeneous spaces, if only in Dar es Salaam and other major urban centers. One teacher at SRSS remarked that very close friendships formed between Africans and Indians.173 Two history instructors stressed that membership in elective clubs and socie­ ties did not follow a racialized pattern.174 Another teacher attributed increased social mixing to the emergence of Dar es Salaam as a cosmopolitan city.175 He claimed that Dar was a new society, created through de­cades of nationalist sacrifice to ensure that multicultural p ­ eople could reside together without confrontations. This again demonstrates the dual nature of nationalist discourse: inclusive exhortations to national unity and social harmony could coexist with racialized aspersions of anti­ national actions thought to exacerbate inequalities. The latter form of nationalism certainly found space for expression ­after liberalization halted nationalist attempts to bring racial parity to education, while increasing economic disparities that manifested in the growth of private schools. For example, in July 2001 an angry parent of an SRSS student wrote a long accusatory letter to a Dar es Salaam newspaper claiming, among other things, the following: 156

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Referring to the students sponsorship programme of students who cannot afford paying their school fees, the scheme the way I see it has religious and racial inclination. Students entitled to the scheme should be Hindu and of Indian origin other­w ise he/she shall not be entitled to this scheme. I have deposition of my claims and I openly challenge the club secretary to produce names of non Hindu and non Indian students who have been granted sponsorship. On top of all these I have come to know from reliable sources the management of Shaaban Robert is misusing funds by recruiting teachers from India paying them in foreign currency while Tanzanian (wazawa) gradu­ate teachers never get job to the extent that many teachers in f­ uture might become shoeshiners or salesmen. This is against ­human ethics. As Shaaban Robert School is not registered by Ministry of Education and Culture as a seminary or religious school it should not be on denomination of Hindu religion whereby presently non Hindus are prohibited eating non vegetarian food such as beef products or on all Hindu [occasions] school is closed such as Divali Day (Hindu new year) and on some [occasions] whereby students must participate in dancing and teasing and ultimately emiting fancy colours to each other as this is a common Hindu religious practice.176

Although SRSS teachers denied these charges, the complaint’s nationalist rhe­toric and allegation of Indian privilege, buttressed by lashing out at Indian cultural difference, resonated with the public.177 The following section of the letter further expressed parental frustration and even desperation over the diminishing educational opportunities in liberalized Tanzania: As one of the guardians of students at the school, I have noted that this [scholarship] scheme operates on an unfair basis because first, parents or guardians wishing their children to join the school are forced to pay compulsory donation [besides] fees for a club which is known as DSM Secondary School club run ­under management of Shaaban Robert Secondary School. . . . ​Membership fees are as follows Patron 1,000,000/-­life member 500,000/-­and ordinary member 250,000/-. One ought to ask why a parent or guardian is forced to join this club and pay a donation besides the ­legal school fees to Shaaban Robert as set by Ministry of Education and Culture. . . . ​Joking part of this club is that once you have joined this club if ­after 3 or 4 years you 157

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intend to enrol another child again on all occassion you have to become a member and pay membership charges as indicted above. While negotiating on amount of donation for reduction I was told by club secretary that if I was not eco­nom­ically well off why did I bring my son to “this world.” This was great abuse to me but as I wanted my child to be educated I had no other say.178

The letter’s author recognized what African parents had argued since early in the colonial period: a secondary education was necessary for social and economic advancement. For those many parents with limited funds, the small cadre of professional salaried workers and civil servants must have appeared much like a “club” in which they (or their children) ­were unable to become “members.” One SRSS teacher remarked about the scholarship scheme row, “There is the feeling that discrimination still exists ­here. Its form changes, but the content is the same.”179 While overt structures of racial privilege have been replaced by economic stratification, the teacher is right in the sense that unequal educational opportunities continued despite national campaigns aimed at using schools to build an egalitarian society. Moreover, growing class divisions ensured that ideas about race still held great currency in the era of liberalization. Nationalist activists and ordinary citizens both continued to use the language of race to criticize privilege, as the presence of an old diaspora, a remnant of the receding Indian Ocean scale, continued to complicate the construction of a new national identity in Tanzania. Privatization in education also occurred at the primary level, although ­later and to a lesser degree than in secondary schools in Tanzania. U ­ nder UPE, the government ran virtually every primary school. Even through the early liberalization period, the Ministry of Education tightly controlled the expansion of private primary schools, registering only twenty-­ one in 1990.180 The Ismaili community had lobbied the government for permission to open a primary school from the 1980s onward without avail.181 At stake was the nation-­building potency of universal access to exclusively Kiswahili-­medium primary schools, one of the major hallmarks of Education for Self-­Reliance. While Ismaili leaders w ­ ere willing to use Kiswahili in instruction, they preferred to run an English-­medium school to prepare students for secondary education and beyond, echoing SRSS headmaster Mathew’s ideas about privileged Tanzanian students’ place in a globalizing world.182 In 1992, a­ fter years of decay in the government’s provision of primary education caused by the structural adjustment–­ 158

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induced bud­getary cutbacks, the Ministry finally relented and allowed the Aga Khan Educational Society to found an English-­language primary school in Dar es Salaam. It opened in 1993 with 297 students, 44 ­percent of whom ­were Ismaili while 30 ­percent of the enrollment was African. At the same time, the government issued five other private primary school operating permits, with another Indian Muslim group (the Ithna’sheris) founding the Al-­Muntazir Primary School, also in Dar. The Ministry’s policy capitulation paved the way for private English-­ medium primary schools to mushroom in the ensuing years. When asked why these schools could use En­glish as a medium of instruction (so long as they also mandated Kiswahili as a subject), the director of the Institute of Curriculum Development speculated that Swahili had a firm enough foundation in the country to ensure that it would not be threatened.183 The decision to allow the new community-­founded schools might also have indicated the government’s lessening concern with racial privileges in education, or, perhaps, its dwindling ability to combat it. In the event, the private primary school movement grew in Dar es Salaam throughout the 1990s, involving Indian group initiatives like the Shree Hindu Mandal Primary School. This institution in 2001 had fees of 400,000 shillings for standards one through five, and  500,000 shillings for standards six and seven, in addition to a one-­t ime registration fee of 400,000 shillings.184 The proliferation of private primary schools tightened the link between economic differentiation and race during the age of liberalization in Tanzania. An example rests in the history of Olimpio Primary School (OPS), located in the ­middle-­class neighborhood of Upanga in Dar es Salaam.185 The Catholic Church originally founded the school in 1958, but the state nationalized it at in­de­pen­dence.186 The government intended for the school to provide an elite education to the children of national diplomats who w ­ ere posted abroad. As such, it was the only English-­ medium public primary school in the country. However, there ­were only a small number of students from families who met the admission qualifications, so OPS opened its remaining enrollment to all. Because of its location and language of instruction, it drew a heavily Indian student body, perhaps about half of the total. Therefore, in student composition it was not very d ­ ifferent from former Indian or Eu­ro­pean day schools in urban areas in the first de­cade ­after in­de­pen­dence, although the percentage of African students was somewhat higher at Olimpio. As primary school enrollments grew rapidly in Tanzania, the same occurred at OPS: its 159

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student body ­rose from about one thousand children in 1986 to more than three thousand in 2003. In 2002, President Benjamin Mkapa promulgated a Primary Education Development Plan that aimed for a return to universal primary education by 2015.187 To accomplish this, the government once again abolished primary school fees. Up u ­ ntil 2002, Olimpio Primary School followed the government fee structure and curriculum. However, fearing a decline in educational quality as witnessed earlier u ­ nder UPE, the managing board of OPS began calling an annual meeting with parents to determine a set “contribution” from every ­family. This augmented a practice of raising private funds that had begun much earlier because of the low and often late government subsidy to the school. These “fees” ­were 40,000 shillings in 2002 but spiked to 75,000 shillings in 2003 ­after the declaration of Mkapa’s new plan.188 Historically, the public OPS could be described more accurately as quasi-­private, sustained not by a religious group or ethnic community but by a collective of urban parents of advantaged economic status. These school sponsors in 2003 w ­ ere predominantly of the African ­middle class, despite OPS having large Indian enrollments u ­ ntil the mid-1990s. A ­ fter President Mwinyi authorized private primary institutions early in the 1990s, wealthier Indian students left Olimpio in droves to join schools run by their individual communities. There w ­ ere only about fifty Indian students left at OPS by 2003, mostly children of families who could not afford fees at the new schools. In this way, community divisions colored the growing economic divide in educational opportunities, often making it significantly racial in appearance and in reality. Many of the instructors at Olimpio Primary School had taught through the harsh conditions and extensive shortages of an earlier period. Thus, most ­were not opposed to private schools, believing that they could help provide a quality education for more students. However, some teachers predicted a negative impact on race relations as private schools newly segregated students. Mathilda Temba said, “Now it is about money. . . . ​Children change schools more as parents’ income fluctuates.”189 Mrs. Njawa noted that the opening of private primary schools in Dar es Salaam created divisions in society by excluding the poor from new educational opportunities.190 Teachers linked class differentiation to a deterioration in race relations, expressing it as a setback for the nation. Hilda Mwakilasa suggested that before liberalization, “mingling made it easier to understand one another [across racial groups], and it 160

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was good to know what o ­ thers are d ­ oing. This c­ an’t be done with the current separation [in schools]. Bad things [for race relations] might be happening now.”191 Rehema Panda was even more severe in her evaluation of the changes in education, saying, “The long run effects of the separation of p ­ eople [by race] might take us back to where we ­were before the Arusha Declaration.”192 In her analy­sis, Panda retrospectively interpreted the Arusha Declaration as an attempt to end racial in­e­qual­ity when its primary purpose in fact was to diminish class in­e­qual­ity. While better-­ off Africans of course also pursued educational opportunities available ­after liberalization, Panda argued that new inequities in schools will disproportionately harm Africans in the employment market: “Asians will [study] business only and become money-­minded, they will find they are superior, they will start exploiting, and will make ­others work for them so that they can earn more.” The move to private schools in Dar es ­Salaam ruptured many benefits gained from integrated education, and fears of growing educational exclusivity based on economic standing allowed familiar anti-­Indian rhe­toric to resurface. Despite the many postin­de­pen­dence educational achievements, Tanzanian schools remained deeply racialized urban public spaces from the socialist period through to the liberalization reforms of the current day. The trend ­toward sectarian private schools in Dar es Salaam also exacerbated perceptions of religious discrepancies in access to education. Rehema Panda suggested that Indians rushed to join community-­run schools because their own religion would be taught there, as “every religion has its own culture.”193 She contended that Indian communities likely did not want their schools open to students of all faiths but relented because the government did not permit religiously exclusive schools. While this charge was nothing more than personal speculation, in fact the move to allow private primary schools did reignite the contentious theme of religion in debates over educational policy. In 1992, President Ali Hassan Mwinyi attempted to allow churches to take back own­ership of schools that had been nationalized.194 His initiative stalled within a week, reportedly because an Islamic cultural or­ga­ni­za­tion protested that it would result in educational disadvantages for Muslims.195 In fact, liberalization had already widened unequal access to education on a religious basis as churches founded far more new private schools than did Muslim groups.196 While a number of unaffiliated madrassas also opened, these ­were overshadowed by the much better endowed Christian organizations. Correspondingly, public attention increasingly focused on differences in 161

C h a p t e r Fo u r

educational opportunities among religious groups. The author of a 2001 newspaper article blamed the “economic stagnation” of Muslims on a lack of education (especially for ­women).197 One Muslim academic commented, “We (Muslims) are always lagging ­behind. Look at examination results and you will establish the truth of what I am saying. This makes us also lag b ­ ehind eco­nom­ical­ly. . . . ​The Islamic community should invest in education if at all we want to be on the same level with followers of other religio[ns].”198 Moreover, the continuation of state sanction for religion classes at all public and private schools allowed students’ confessional identities to remain prominent even in religiously mixed educational settings. For example, the Shree Hindu Mandal Primary School (like most other schools) separated students upon admission into communal groups, including differentiating between individual Christian and Muslim sects.199 For two class periods a week, community organizations ­were invited into the school to teach sessions on religion exclusively to students of their specific faith, thereby reinforcing communal identities. The classes usually separated Muslims by race, as the largely Sunni Africans and the dominantly Shia Indians shifted to d ­ ifferent classrooms for instruction in distinct cultural and moral values. The Dar es Salaam Hindu Mandal took advantage of the religion sessions to teach a Hindu spiritual and moral education using the Gujarati language. Binita Bakrania, of the Religion and Religious Education Committee of the Hindu Mandal, commented, “In Tanzania, religion is a must.”200 As seen in the colonial period, both religious divisions (within a racial category) and religious commonalities (across racial categories) could blur issues of race in education. However, the accelerating class and social separation driven by private schools a­ fter liberalization in Tanzania indicates that the long-­standing common perception of urban schools as racialized city spaces is unlikely to fade away anytime soon. CONCLUSION

In conclusion, the theme noted above persisted in the history of education in Tanganyika from the colonial period to the pre­sent, although the racialization of urban schools vacillated according to the po­liti­cal climate and community and government interventions. Colonial structures of urban segregation and separate education had fashioned race as a public field of discourse, and nationalists deployed contending ideas about 162

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race in campaigns to dismantle privilege. Propelled by the rise of mass African nationalism in the 1950s, activists w ­ ere joined by ordinary Tanganyikans who vigorously debated the ­f uture of education in an in­de­pen­ dent country by voicing d ­ ifferent ideas about race. In the postin­de­pen­dence period, Tanzania haltingly but successfully dismantled colonial educational structures based on racial categories and replaced them with an integrated school system designed to help build a nation. Amid the constraints of widespread poverty, Education for Self-­Reliance generally succeeded in constructing a coherent national identity using initiatives like standardized and Africanized curricula. For all its accomplishments, the egalitarianism of the Arusha Declaration never eradicated educational and economic inequalities, nor severed the tight link between them. The language of race remained useful a­ fter in­de­pen­dence to attack educational disparities as antinational, despite the nonracial character of Nyerere’s mainstream nationalism. Liberalization subsequently widened class differentiation and increased social segregation through the spread of private schools, in turn amplifying racialized public discourse. Across the history of education in the region, the state and communities constructed schools to educate f­ uture generations, and each had to negotiate nationalist sentiments that strug­gled to accommodate the legacies, mainly in the form of a long-­established diaspora, of a dwindling Indian Ocean scale. Chapter five returns to the privately owned, voluntarily attended leisure space of cinema halls to examine how local ideas about race and nationalism continued to surround film, a medium in Tanzania that was entirely transnational in nature.

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c CHAPTER FIVE

TRANSNATIONAL FILMS in NATIONAL CINEMA HALLS

in the years ­a ft er t h e em pi r e c i nema opened in Dar es Salaam in 1929, heralding the formal arrival of film to the British-­r uled colony, debates concerning race s­ haped Tanganyikan movie theaters. The emergence of nationalism in the territory only intensified public conversations about the relationship between race and city space, as discussed in chapter four. This chapter traces the urban intersections of race, state cinema policies, and film spectatorship through the periods of anticolonial nationalism, postcolonial nation building, and liberalization in Tanzania. The earliest linkages between cinema and nationalism in Tanganyika demonstrated the reach of Indian Ocean connections. When Indian nationalism confronted British colonialism in South Asia in the de­cades before in­de­pen­dence in 1947, Tanganyikan cinemagoers felt the collision through local changes to government censorship practices. African nationalists in the 1950s and 1960s, galvanized by grassroots support from the masses, more substantially transformed public debates about film by attacking racial inequities in access to cinema halls, in the pro­cess marking them as im­por­tant urban spaces. Both South Asian and African nationalism met with a colonial response at movie theaters in Dar es Salaam, but British efforts to subdue nationalist momentum mostly replicated earlier failed projects involving cinema production and censorship. In­de­pen­dence in Tanganyika in 1961 had less effect on cinema’s role in society than did the 1964 Zanzibar revolution, which brought a radical African nationalist government to the islands, or the shift to self-­reliant socialism in Tanzania ­after the Arusha Declaration of 1967. Nonetheless, cinema—­still dominated by movies from overseas—­grew in popularity 164

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despite new conceptions of proper entertainment urged by nationalist cultural projects. The range of cinemagoers continued to expand and diversify in the 1970s, even as a generally typical experience for movie hall audiences involved the continual negotiation of racial politics. A ­ fter the privation of the 1980s forced Tanzania’s acquiescence to global policies of liberalization, in the pro­cess allowing for the introduction of new consumer technologies including tele­v i­sions and videocassette recorders (VCRs), interracial public leisure spaces such as cinema halls eroded in prominence. Throughout the long history of cinema in Tanzania, two themes remained constantly pre­sent: the enduring popularity of Bombay films reliably provided by Indian Ocean networks, and the close relationship between nationalism, race, and the urban space of movie theaters. While President Nyerere explicitly tried to build a nonracial nation, the language of race continued to permeate discussions of film amid the ongoing proliferation of transnational movies in Tanzania and the emergence around the Indian Ocean region of new ideas about citizenship, belonging, and territory. CINEMA IN THE CITY: LEISURE AND THE EXPANSION OF MOVIE HALLS IN THE 1950S

The cinema industry boomed in Tanganyika during the age of African nationalism, and modern movie halls became more prominent public spaces as urban areas grew. By the mid-1950s, several new theaters had arrived on the Dar es Salaam pop­u­lar entertainment scene. The Empress, New Chox, Odeon, and Amana joined the Empire, Avalon, Azania, Alexandra, Minerva, and ­others already in (or out of ) existence.1 All the new additions ­were located in the central commercial district except the Amana, in Ilala, a neighborhood just beyond Kariakoo, the African residential section of the racially segregated colonial town. Movie halls w ­ ere an im­por­tant part of the rapid development of Dar es Salaam in the 1950s, and competition between them escalated as vigorous construction projects expanded the number and size of halls. As profits became more lucrative, cinema halls engaged in an arms race of glamour to attract more customers with disposable income to spend on leisure. Many theater proprietors attached restaurants or bars to increase their cinema’s stature as a social gathering space and to earn extra revenue.2 In 1954, municipal planners received an application to enclose a space at Temeke, an African working-­class area, for the purpose of showing 165

Chapter Five

movies.3 In the same year, the Avalon redid its foyer and the Empress, located on a f­ ashionable corner of Acacia Ave­nue, added advertising boards and a neon sign with two-­foot-­high lettering blazing into the night.4 The grand old Empire Cinema, still owned by Jariwalla Theatres, Ltd., requested permission from municipal authorities to extend its building structure in the 1950s.5 In 1955, the Odeon Cinema added seats, and one of its rivals constructed two large neon “Avalon” signs—­one on the roof, and one out front.6 The newest cinema also similarly competed for customers: the New Chox hung a neon sign from its canopy and, in the coup de grace, erected a display that read “Chox Air Condition.”7 One resident of Dar es Salaam recalled monthly outings with his Indian boarding school classmates to the Amana Cinema and other movie halls in the 1950s: Even if the quality [of the film] was not very good . . . ​to us there was nothing ­else. But we had to come back and show the ticket stub to the teacher to make sure that we went to the right film. A lot of Indian films ­were shown, but some w ­ ere very saucy, and some w ­ ere semi-­religious, but we w ­ ere only allowed to see the religious kind of films. I was the good boy. Some of the other boys would want to go to see the saucy films, with girls and so on. So I would pick up extra stubs for them! Empress Cinema was considered the most comfortable . . . ​[with] carpeting, and a beautiful screen and all that. But they w ­ ere all pop­u­lar. You had to buy your tickets days in advance, sometimes on the black market. It was all chock-­a-­block, and mostly on Sundays, almost every Asian would go to the cinema. There was no tele­v i­sion in those days, and cinema was the most accepted escapism.8

As film earned a starring role in the leisure landscape of Dar es Salaam, majestic cinema halls became pop­u­lar urban spaces that drew in increasing numbers of Tanganyikans. As seen in chapter three, racial segregation and discrimination in the city largely prevented ­different racial groups from attending movies together. Nonetheless, Africans, Indians, and colonial officials all engaged in debates over film, often offering clashing opinions about the relationship between race and cinema halls. In the 1950s, the ascendance of grassroots African nationalism motivated the general public and nationalist leaders to seize on the racialization of movie halls in successful attempts to alter the experience of cinemagoing in the region. Yet the first mass nationalist force to confront colonialism

166

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through cinema in Tanganyika originated from the same location that produced many of the films themselves, India. SOUTH ASIAN (TRANS)NATIONALISM, CINEMA, AND POLITICS IN TANGANYIKA, 1930–1961

The glamorous expansion of Dar es Salaam’s movie halls in the 1950s paled in significance to the rise of nationalism as a transformative force in the history of cinema in Tanganyika. Nationalist campaigns physically and conceptually changed the racialized urban space of cinemas from elite social and commercial places to nationally significant public locations where communities gathered in times of deliberation or cele­bration. The first waves of nationalist agitation to spark this transition in Tanganyika erupted more than three de­cades before the territory’s eventual in­de­pen­dence, and ­rose in response to po­liti­cal developments occurring across the Indian Ocean. In 1930, Mahatma Gandhi and other Indian National Congress party leaders, including Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Jawaharlal Nehru, initiated a movement of mass civil disobedience aimed at achieving in­de­pen­dence from Britain. Gandhi subsequently embarked on his famous long march to the sea in Gujarat, where he illegally manufactured salt from ocean ­water. When the resulting protests supporting Gandhi threatened to spread out of control, the British reacted with mass arrests, including of Patel, Nehru, and Gandhi. Indians in Tanganyika closely followed these events,9 especially Gujaratis who claimed an ethnic and linguistic affinity with Gandhi and Patel. Moreover, the growing strength of the in­de­pen­dence movement in India was not lost on aspiring African nationalists. In a letter written during this tumult in 1930, the Indian Association (IA) of Dar es Salaam described local rising nationalist sentiments as follows: It must be urged that “agitation” . . . ​among the Indians . . . ​started when news of the arrest of Mr. Vallabhbhai Patel was received. . . . ​With the arrest of Pandit Jawahirlal [sic] Nehru . . . ​Tanganyika Indians became more sympathetic towards events in India. But with the arrest of Mahatma Gandhi the activities of Tanganyika Indians took a definite turn. Subscriptions began to be raised to be remitted to Congress and are being remitted to this day by a voluntary contribution by the public. . . . ​

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Moreover it is believed that British piecegoods imports in East Africa have decreased partly as a result of the influence of foreign cloth boycott in India.10

In many cases, the spontaneous and planned demonstrations in response to developments in India took place in and around Dar es Salaam’s theaters, turning Tanganyikan cinema halls into bases for Indian po­liti­cal or­ga­niz­ing. On the day when the news of Gandhi’s 1930 arrest arrived in the city, a huge crowd hurriedly assembled that same eve­ning at the New Cinema Hall. The police ­were on careful watch outside the theater, and the surrounding streets w ­ ere deserted all ­after­noon, disrupted only by the “hundreds of paddlers and motorists hurrying ­toward the New Cinema Hall.”11 A newspaper account described the charged (and almost rapturous) atmosphere at the po­liti­cal gathering: Before the hour of meeting arrived the New Cinema Hall was packed to its utmost capacity. Even the rostrum and the entrance gates w ­ ere not spared. More than 2,000 p ­ eople—­men, ­women and children attended. Cries of shame on the conduct of the Government resounded in the hall when Sayad Ataullah Shah drew an inspiring parallel between the crucifixtion of Christ and the imprisonment of Gandhi. “The fortunes of 3 millions of colonial exiles of India w ­ ere closely wound up with the fortunes of mo­ther country,” pointed out Mr. Shah. “It would be a miracle if the weapon of non-­v io­lence won freedom in the face of weapons of Vio­lence and Gandhiji’s name would go down to posterity as a unique apostle,” said the Honourable Mr. M. P. Chitale. “The fact that the British Government could not resist the crime of putting into an unk[n]own prison the Uncrowned King of India, testifies to the incompetency of the foreign Government to rule any more over India,” thundered Sheth Alidina Datu Patel in his characteristic style. “The observance of complete hartal (strike) and the participation at this great gathering of the residents of Dar es Salaam are a practical demonstration of the inner feelings of Colonial Indians,” said Mr. Rasiklal M. Vakil.12

There is no doubt that this outpouring of anticolonial sentiment would have troubled the Tanganyikan government, cognizant as it was of both the meeting place and the medium of cinema as potentially subversive of colonial rule. Much of this knowledge came from an awareness 168

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of British experiences attempting to control restive subjects of the Raj in India. In addition to diasporic links and transoceanic nationalism as vehicles for maintaining connections across the Indian Ocean into the twentieth c­ entury, imperial networks also contributed to the construction of this regional world. In 1934, Tanganyikan officials had received a well-­circulated colonial report titled “Pernicious Influence of Picture Shows on Oriental Peoples: Possibility of Efficient Action Against Their Detrimental Effect.” It had been unanimously approved by delegates from seven nations (including Britain, France, Japan, and the Netherlands) at the Colonial Section of the 1932 International Parliamentary Commercial Conference. The tract contained the usual bogeys linking cinema to crime, but also revealed an early recognition of nationalist impulses in the reception of moving pictures: [T]he great mass of orientals . . . ​are so to say never satiated with looking at pictures from their own epics, dramas, sagas and legends, in many of the figures of which, frequently invested with super­natu­ral properties, they see the embodiment of their own primeval national greatness and power. The oriental literally gloats over per­for­mances of this kind; he enjoys them frequently and in a childish way, he is wrapped up in them, even when he has seen and admired the same picture again and again.13

Film sparked nationalist responses from Tanganyikan Indians in ­different ways. For example, it could spur pride in the successes of the Indian freedom strug­gle or unleash anger by disseminating pejorative portrayals of South Asians. One such offensive celluloid depiction was seen in the 1938 British production The Drum, which dramatizes British attempts to control the restive, Muslim-­majority North-­West Frontier Province of colonial India. Its screening caused disturbances in Bombay in 1938 and provoked public expressions of rage by Indians in Tanganyika in 1939.14 When theater ­owners in Dar es Salaam—­Indians who ostensibly put commerce above politics, or perhaps w ­ ere comfortable with pro-­imperial themes and onscreen caricatures of Muslims—­tried to bring the movie to the city once again in late 1940, the public directed its fury at cinema proprietors and the government. One newspaper letter-­w riter vented, Do the cinema proprietors forget the agitation against the showing of this film? . . . ​This time if it is shown they will show to an [sic] ­house 169

Chapter Five

devoid of Indians and in time of war to hurt Indian feelings is no joke. Government is g­ oing all out to get all help they can and showing of films of this kind will only embitter Indian feelings ­toward their white British friends. Will the cinema proprietors be the cause of stirring up hatred towards the white p ­ eople or will they take the hint in time?15

As seen ­here, Indian nationalism could bring out forceful voices that sought to unify disparate diasporic communities, and cinema controversies ­were often a flash point in this pro­cess. As the strug­gle for an in­de­pen­dent India escalated across the Indian Ocean, so did nationalist support in Tanganyika. In August of 1942, the Indian National Congress launched the Quit India movement, a massive campaign of civil disobedience that frequently broke down into uncoordinated vio­lence across the subcontinent. The British Raj immediately jailed protestors and used punitive military force to crush the movement, actions that once again prompted a nationalist response from across the ocean. Cinema proprietors in Tanga supported the August rising by displaying a slide of Mahatma Gandhi before every Hindi film screening. The secretary of the censorship board in Dar es Salaam described the prob­lem posed by growing Indian nationalism in Tanganyika as follows: [The] photograph of Mr. Gandhi . . . ​has been represented by a member of the public (non-­Indian) to the Board as being undesirable in view of the acclamations with which the slide is greeted by certain sections of the Indian audience. The Board feels . . . ​that the practice should be discontinued but some difficulty arises on the interpretation of the Board’s function in this res­pect: does the slide come ­under the definition of “Cinematograph Exhibition”? It may be added that the Indian members of the Board (Mr. Mohamed Husain and Mr. Jivanjee) feel that it is a m ­ atter of no consequence ­whether or not Mr. Gandhi’s photograph is shown at Indian per­for­mances. The Board as a ­whole is of the opinion that no slide of po­liti­cal personages should be shown on the screen before or ­after a cinematograph per­for­mance. This suggestion does not of course refer to the photograph of His Majesty The King normally exhibited at the end of cinema per­for­mances.16

During the war, the British ­were wary of losing the support of Tanganyika’s Indian residents, but also w ­ ere unwilling to allow rising nationalism to threaten its rule in South Asia or compromise its authority in East 170

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Africa. The eventual decision on the Gandhi slide followed the hard line adopted in India, although the Tanganyikan government did not summarily punish the cinema managers or ­owners. Instead, British officials changed the law to suit colonial needs. The provincial commissioner, Tanga, concluded the ­matter as follows: [Mr. Gandhi] is a declared ­enemy of the State and is at the moment ­under restraint. No doubt a prohibition in general terms which would include this slide would cause some resentment among those elements of the Indian Community which are unfriendly to us. . . . ​I cannot support the opinion of the Board that “no slide of po­liti­cal personages should be shewn.” I would modify that by saying that no slides of po­ liti­cal personages hostile to the State should be shewn.17

It would be interest­ing to know the reasons ­behind the supposed indifference of the Indian members of the censorship board to the po­liti­cal debate over the Gandhi slide (quoted above). It is entirely possi­ble that this was the only position that they could feasibly pro­ject, and their private sentiments might have been radically d ­ ifferent. It is plausible that Jivanjee in par­tic­u­lar, as a member of a wealthy business ­family that was at that time the largest producer in the territory of sisal (a critical resource to the war effort), simply could not risk alienating the British.18 However, it could also be the case that the conflict between religious communities in India, represented by the contest for power between Congress and the Muslim League that eventually contributed to the partition of the subcontinent, was spilling over into East Africa, especially as both Jivanjee and his fellow board member Husain w ­ ere Muslims. During this tense time in India, Congress refused to support the British war effort, while the Muslim League was ambivalent about participating in the Quit India movement. The colonial observation that only “certain sections of the Indian audience” reacted with “acclamations” to the Gandhi slide might be another hint that the strong tendencies t­ oward communal politics found in the l­ater stages of the Indian in­de­pen­dence strug­gle also manifested amid Indian Ocean anticolonial networks to create religious tensions among Indians in East Africa, an ominous development that officials ­were tracking. The government of India established a file in 1946 with press clippings and notations on the growth of communal problems in East Africa.19 One memo reported that brewing Hindu-­Muslim antagonisms led some opposing Indian communities to 171

Chapter Five

collect and sell weapons in Nairobi “with a view to communal disorders.”20 As partition loomed in South Asia, an editor for the Hindustan Times in New Delhi dramatically wrote, One of the most regrettable consequences of the communal conflict in India is that deliberate attempts are being made to draw Indians abroad into its vortex. Hindu-­Muslim dissensions in this country are bad enough, but if the malady should spread to Africa . . . ​where considerable numbers of Indians have managed to strug­gle their way through enormous difficulties and establish themselves, they face the risk of complete extinction.21

Faced with the growth of Indian nationalism in the territory, and fearing communal tensions as well, Tanganyikan officials resorted to their standby policy of film censorship. However, the 1930s decision to allocate responsibility for approving Indian-­language films to South Asian members of the board of censors severely limited the government’s efforts. Practically, this arrangement meant that, in the years leading up to Indian in­de­pen­dence in 1947, South Asians in Tanganyika had greater access to nationalist content in films than cinemagoers in the subcontinent, where a ner­vous British government carefully monitored films.22 Instead of heightened Indian nationalism, in fact, it was the threat posed by mass African nationalism in the early 1950s that ended the rather lax colonial oversight of Hindi films in Tanganyika, something that seems consistent for all forms of cinema across British colonial Africa. As film studies scholar Priya Jaikumar writes, “Africa was subjected to a more stringent visual regime of containment at a time when India was close to in­de­pen­dence and considered a bad pre­ce­dent for Britain’s African colonies. In British discussions of African cinema ­after 1947, India became an unnamable bad ambition with a potential to set off inexpedient aspirations ­toward nationhood in African colonies.”23 According to extant rec­ords, the Dar es Salaam censorship board banned no Indian films from 1949 through 1951, but prohibited two in 1952.24 This occurred shortly ­after the Tanganyika African Association’s (TAA) 1950–1951 campaign advocating responsible self-­government and possi­ble eventual in­de­pen­dence. As Jaikumar suggests, for African nationalists India provided an example of a successful freedom movement, and TAA leaders had invited the Indian high commissioner in Tanganyika to speak on “India’s own strug­gle for freedom.”25 Moreover, Africans 172

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in East Africa mourned Gandhi’s assassination in 1948, 26 an event eulogized in poetry by the prominent Swahili writer Shaaban Robert.27 Compounding the prob­lem for Tanganyikan officials, Bombay filmmakers possessed new freedoms ­after Indian in­de­pen­dence to make movies tapping into the commercial popularity of patriotic entertainment. In just one example among many, a Hindi film song in early 1948 contained the ly­rics, “Chala gaya gora angrez, Ab kaahe ka hai darr” (The white En­ glishman has gone away, who is to be feared now?).28 The emergence of anticolonial and patriotic Indian movies circulating around the Indian Ocean region offered a possi­ble source of inspiration to burgeoning nationalist movements such as those in East Africa. Fearing the spread of anticolonial protests fuelled by overlapping Indian and African nationalisms, while still wary of movies’ ongoing potential to enflame religious sensibilities at a time of dangerous communal politics, the colonial government in Tanganyika responded to more overt nationalist themes in Hindi movies with stricter censorship. The first banned Indian film was a 1952 cinematic enactment of prominent Bengali writer Bankimchandra Chatterjee’s best-­ k nown work, an 1884  novel titled Anandmath. The story narrates a revolt in late eighteenth-­century Bengal by a band of Hindu holy men who fought against both local Muslim rule and the soldiers of the British East India Com­pany, making it thus potentially subversive of both colonial rule and communal harmony.29 While the novel ends with the defeat of the rebels and the ac­cep­tance of temporary British supremacy as a necessary precursor to a Hindu-­r uled motherland in Bengal, the Indian nationalist movement seized on Chatterjee’s stirring poem that recurs throughout the story, Vande Mataram (“Hail to thee, Mo­ther”), for wider deployment in the strug­gle against the Raj. By 1952, no longer fearing sedition laws in India, the film version of Anandmath was much more “stridently nationalist,” in a broader anticolonial sense, than Bankim’s novel.30 In Tanganyika, the British banned Anandmath from playing at the Odeon Cinema and ­later in 1952 prohibited a second film, Maharani Jhansi—­about the role of a legendary maharani in the massive 1857 uprising against the ruling British East India Com­pany—­from appearing at the Avalon Cinema.31 Following these moves, the managing director of Indo-­A frican Theatres issued a letter complaining about tight censorship in advance of a highly anticipated forthcoming 1953 release—­about the same rebellious maharani—­called Jhansi Ki Rani.32 The story of Jhansi Ki Rani would have been unsettling to the British government in Tanganyika, and the 173

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film went on to become one of the most famous Indian historicals in Bombay cinema history. It contained a “spectacular account” of the life of Rani Laxmibai, the nineteenth-­century queen of the princely state of Jhansi who gloriously led her troops into b ­ attle during the 1857 revolt, which saw both Hindu and Muslim factions rise up, sometimes in concert. The chairman of the licensing board in Dar es Salaam replied the next day to the Indo-­A frican Theatres’ complaint, promising the managing director that Jhansi Ki Rani would have a fair hearing with the cen­ anager, the sorship board.33 Not evident in the letter to the theater m chairman’s alarm over the prospect that this film would play in Dar es Salaam was very palpable in subsequent correspondence with the police: Please arrange to have an Indian member of the Board when this film [Jhansi Ki Rani] is previewed. You might find out why the Indo-­A frican film was not allowed, and I would suggest that you might ask the Se­ nior Superintendent of Police to let you have one of the Indian Sub-­ Inspectors to sit with you. Please arrange to let me have a copy of the member’s report . . . ​as the Indo-­A frican Theatres might return to the charge and I would like to have the necessary ammunition to shoot them down.34

In the early 1950s, with the confluence of triumphant South Asian nationalism and the first stirrings of mass African nationalism, British officials in Tanganyika took a harder look at cinema fare. Whereas in earlier years the colonial government ignored Hindi films because officials regarded them as indifferent and innocuous, now it tried to restrict the nationalist manifestations of Bombay cinema, shielding them from African and Indian members of Dar es Salaam’s cinemagoing public. One Tanganyikan film fan recollected the audience response to patriotic Indian films that did play in Dar es Salaam in the 1950s, slipping past an overstretched censorship board: “The ones about the freedom movement, I particularly liked. The Indian community reacted quite vehemently. . . . ​ So I see a film about some freedom fighter being put in jail by the British, and our blood would be boiling!”35 Cinema halls by the 1950s ­were politicized and racialized urban social spaces of public importance, still influenced by colonial manipulations but also significantly transformed by the efforts of nationalist actors working from multiple locations around the Indian Ocean.

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CINEMA AND COLONIAL SOCIAL ENGINEERING IN DAR ES SALAAM, 1950S–1961

Acutely aware of surging strains of nationalism in Tanganyika and their manifestation in the arena of cinema, the colonial government knew that it could not respond solely with heavy-­handed tactics like censorship. One strategy to promote multiracialism and slow the growth of African nationalism in Dar es Salaam—­and to a lesser degree in other urban centers across the territory—­involved creating controlled public spaces for programmed entertainment.36 Cinema, as one of the most pop­u­lar forms of urban public leisure, formed an integral component of this plan. Despite many earlier failures at film production, the Tanganyikan government remained determinedly optimistic about film’s potential to assist with colonial control and development.37 At the same time, British officials (finally) acknowledged the challenge of making movies for urban audiences who possessed sophisticated film literacy and had access to the great range of cinematic fare available in Dar es Salaam. In early 1952, the commissioner for social development wrote, There is no doubt that moving pictures are a pop­u­lar attraction, and also a pop­u­lar medium of instruction, among all classes of Africans, and prospects of making increasing and better use of them for “mass education” are good . . . ​but it will not be possi­ble, with the means at our disposal, to have created more than half a dozen special Tanganyikan programmes. These will obviously be inadequate to exert much effect on the general run of films shown in urban areas throughout the year.38

Colonial officials in cash-­strapped Tanganyika sought a way to reach urban and rural residents through film, especially ones that spoke specifically to “Africans.”39 Unable to make local movies that could compete for viewership with those from overseas, in 1950 Tanganyika signed an initial three-­year contract with the South Africa–­based African Film Productions (AFP), Ltd.40 The deal resulted in the production of four feature films by the end of 1953. One of the movies, Muhogomchungu, starred the ­f uture chairman of the Tanzanian National Censorship Board (NCB) and ­f uture prime minister, Rashidi Kawawa.41 The most pop­u­lar film—­ perhaps boosted by Africans’ appreciation for Bombay musicals—­was

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Zonk!, which featured songs with ly­rics alternating between En­glish and Sesotho.42 The Tanganyikan Films Research officer evaluated audience reaction to Zonk! in Dar es Salaam and one village close to the colonial capital.43 He described the crowd at the Welfare Centre’s Alexandra Hall, located in Dar’s African quarter, as follows: “The audience is composed of the illiterate and half-­literate Swahili speaking urban African, with a sprinkling of En­glish speaking ­people. They are used to seeing films, both at the commercial cinema and in the Alexandra Hall.” The seventy-­ minute movie went over well, even though Tanganyikan audiences puzzled over the origins of the all-­A frican cast, guessing that the actors ­were “American negroes” or from vari­ous K ­ enyan and Ugandan ethnic groups. To discerning cinemagoers used to international movies in Dar es Salaam, just because a film was “African” did not mean it would resonate with them, as local understandings of race w ­ ere far more cosmopolitan than the government’s rigid racial categorization that tended to associate culture with place of origin. One audience member, while praising Zonk!, delivered a damning indictment of Tanganyika’s previous attempts to target film production at specific racial groups: “What do they want to give us films on the feeding of pigs and such like, this [referring to Zonk!] is what we want.” Despite the popularity of the AFP ventures, in 1956 TANU-­led African nationalists successfully demanded the ejection from Tanganyika of the apartheid South Africa–­based AFP, bringing an end to regionally produced films in the territory.44 In addition to limited efforts at film production, colonial officials tried to neutralize the potentially subversive urban space of cinema halls by creating competing places of entertainment that they could control.45 One prominent example was the cinema component of the f­ashionable Arnautoglu Community Centre (ACC), which sponsored social events for Africans, Indians, and Eu­ro­pe­a ns in the ­m iddle of the centrally located Mnazi Mmoja Park in Dar es Salaam.46 The government constructed the ACC in 1952 at the whopping cost of forty thousand pounds, half of it donated by Mr. G. N. Arnautoglu, a Greek national with a sisal empire and one of the territory’s richest men in the 1950s.47 The ACC featured a large movie hall modeled ­after the privately owned theaters that ­were ­doing roaring business around town.48 Optimism ran high in official and unofficial circles for the success of the ACC’s mission to create a multiracial urban leisure space.49 A full-­page spread in a Swahili newspaper detailed the opening ceremony,50 and a member of local government “expressed the hope that the new Centre might become the 176

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meeting place of communities of all races.”51 One excited African resident of Dar es Salaam even penned a ten-­verse shairi (Swahili poem) praising the ACC, which was printed in Mambo Leo.52 Despite the lofty aspirations, the cinema wing of the ACC never achieved its goals. Without commercially ­viable films, it failed to attract a viewership in Dar es Salaam.53 By 1954, screenings ­were occasional at best.54 While musical and drama groups comprising Indians and Africans met at the Centre, and there was a “mixed Asian/African membership” at the library, the most pop­u­lar elements of the ACC w ­ ere the Saturday night dances and the bar.55 With the urban space of the city lost to private enterprise, at least on the cinema entertainment front, the government resorted to its old rural and provincial town tactic of offering ­free mobile movie screenings in lesser settled areas of Dar es Salaam in order to pop­ u­lar­ize their development.56 The original multiracial programmatic intent of the ACC also would not last long in the changing po­liti­cal climate of late colonial Tanganyika. Only two years ­after the Arnautoglu Community Centre welcomed Princess Margaret in 1956, African nationalists began mobilizing at the hall for meetings and rallies.57 In the end, colonial attempts at social engineering in the realm of film culture found­ered on the rocks of shallow official understandings about race, the inability to provide Tanganyikans with cinematic fare that could compete with transnational films, and the rising force of African nationalism. AFRICAN NATIONALISM AND CINEMA IN TANGANYIKA, 1953–1961

African nationalists in the second half of the 1950s reacted to racialized injustices concerning film by pushing to integrate urban cinema halls and to influence content on screen. TANU, at its foundation conference in 1954, debated what to do about pejorative ste­reo­types that w ­ ere prominent in films about Africa.58 As in­de­pen­dence neared, nationalists worked to transform theaters from places of exclusion to sites of open congregation. Movie halls, largely segregated social spaces since their appearance in the territory, became inclusive public places of entertainment and of cele­bration, mourning, and meetings in the national interest.59 For example, Julius Nyerere made frequent campaign stops in cinemas to deliver speeches to urban communities. In 1960, he spoke before a “crowded gathering” inside Tanga’s Majestic Cinema about the incoming government’s vow to not tolerate racial discrimination.60 In 177

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1957, a “huge public meeting” held at the Avalon in Dar es Salaam commemorated the life and mourned the death of the Ismaili spiritual leader, the Aga Khan.61 The speakers ranged from prominent members of the Asian Association to the African nationalist John Rupia, a founding member of both the Tanganyika African Association and TANU.62 And on October 11, 1960—­Madaraka Day, when Nyerere formed an internal “responsible government” to transition to in­de­pen­dence in 1961—­the Empress and Odeon Cinemas celebrated by featuring “special shows.” 63 African nationalists challenged racialized inequities in their calls to open up urban cinema halls, as they did with school integration. If Indians treated theaters as their own community stomping grounds, such be­hav­ior offended nationalists and associated South Asians with the oppression of colonially enforced segregation. An episode from 1960 illustrates this. In that year, Ngurumo newspaper announced an exciting upcoming event in Dar es Salaam: “Louis Armstrong, the ‘Chachacha’ expert, who ‘blows the trumpet as well as Stanley Matthews kicks a ball’ will soon ‘knock down the cockroaches and chase away the rats from the roof of the Avalon Cinema.’ ” 64 Unfortunately, the show did not come off as envisioned by many, and a Mwafrika editorial columnist castigated the Indians of Dar es Salaam as to blame: The Porcupine’s weekly feature is devoted to the Louis Armstrong concert. He condemns persons of other races for buying up all the tickets at the Avalon Cinema on the first day and l­ater selling them at a profit of several hundred p ­ ercent. This, he says, is sheer greed. He says that without doubt the Avalon tickets w ­ ere made so expensive in order to keep Africans out. Only two Africans are said to have attended the Avalon per­for­mance. Africans ­were denied the opportunity of hearing the m ­ usic of Satchmo in order to enable “the children of God” to have it all to themselves. The Ilala per­for­mance is not considered an adequate substitute for the exclusion of Africans from the Avalon show. The Porcupine is certain that this is a deep-­laid plot to damage the reputation of Tanganyika. The organisers wanted to show Armstrong that Africans don’t like his m ­ usic: and these are the p ­ eople who say “sisi zote dugu moja.” 65

As the columnist observed, if the concert at the Avalon (in the center of town) was overwhelmingly attended by non-­natives, and the Ilala show (held in an African area, likely at the Amana Cinema) largely comprised 178

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Africans, then urban segregation still persisted on the eve of in­de­pen­ dence in Dar es Salaam despite the efforts of nationalist activists. Another racially charged event occurred at a Dar es Salaam theater in late 1960 when a crowd of Indian youths took to the streets outside the Odeon Cinema to celebrate the Hindu festival of Diwali. Traditional holiday firecrackers thrown inside a car left it burning in front of the cinema, and the commissioner of police sealed off the area of public disturbance and summoned Nyerere to chastise the crowd with a lecture in Swahili.66 In the following week, the press roundly condemned as anti­ national the actions of the Indian youths at the Odeon, especially given that they occurred not long a­ fter the cinema halls had celebrated Madaraka Day. A government summary of the Ngurumo lead story of October 22, 1960, reads, [The article a]ttacks hooliganism during Diwali celebrations in Dar es Salaam and says that the “shenzi” youths concerned gave much trou­ble to the police who exercised great patience in their task and who deserve congratulations. Usually, the leader continues, the police expects close co-­operation from those races which boast that they are more civilised, but it is a m ­ atter of regret that they got none at all. The manner in which the police w ­ ere ignored has heaped shame on the ­whole tribe. The recent celebrations of responsible government should set a good example to these hooligans. It is high time that the police took drastic action against “this taka taka of the town.” Any leniency shown these fools is contrary to their deserts.67

With Uhuru nigh and African nationalism in ascendance, the ugly events at the Avalon and Odeon turned around old arguments about cinema halls and race: Indians ­were now considered the uncivilized tribe, and nationalists had clearly marked cinema halls (like schools) as public spaces for racial integration, although not necessarily ones ­free from racial conflict. STATE INTERVENTION AND PUBLIC RECEPTION TO FILM IN IN­D E­P EN­D ENT TANZANIA, 1961–1980S

Unlike with schools, the Tanzanian state never fully controlled the urban social space of cinema halls, and therefore could not shape them with initiatives targeting racial integration or the Africanization of content or 179

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employees. This does not mean that nationalists did not advocate for these projects. For example, Nyerere’s minister of the Directorate of Planning, Amir Jamal, pleaded for racial integration in movie theaters in a 1964 radio broadcast, saying, “I experience within myself a most discomforting feeling when I see . . . ​cinema ­houses full of mostly non-­ Africans.” 68 However, in the absence of citizen cooperation or a successful state film industry, the government could only rely on tactics regulating censorship, taxation, and distribution to confront commercial cinema during the period that followed in­de­pen­dence. Incrementally, Tanzania’s cinema policy aligned with the national cultural pro­ject informed by African socialism,69 ensuring that ideas about race remained central to the politics of film reception. Notwithstanding the state’s attempted interventions, almost all movies screened in the country during this period continued to originate from overseas. National film production developed slowly in Tanzania, and the newly created Government Film Unit (GFU) focused on newsreels, educational films, and documentaries.70 Momentum for local filmmaking grew ­after Nyerere’s 1967 Arusha Declaration promoted self-­reliant African socialism. However, the government largely followed the paternalistic plan employed by the erstwhile colonial government: using film production to educate the population (now for rapid development) and censorship to protect its citizens (now against corrupt capitalistic culture). In addition, Tanzania sought to nationalize film distribution networks and to maximize tax revenue collected from this im­por­tant leisure industry. These tired state strategies all but assured the continued influence and influx of films from Bombay. More importantly, the Tanzania Film Com­pany (TFC) formed in 1968, a subsidiary of the National Development Corporation and part of the government’s efforts to build an indigenous film industry that offered content in line with the socialist politics of the nation a­ fter the Arusha Declaration.71 In addition to importing and distributing films from outside the country, the TFC’s mission was to study the possibility of founding a studio to make films that displayed African culture, self-­ reliance, and inspiration. Luminous American stars Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier, on a continental tour in 1972 to build solidarity between Africans and African Americans, even chipped in their expressions of hope for original Tanzanian cinema to develop.72 However, as late as 1973, the TFC had not yet started to produce any films, instead concentrating on building up a staff (from the original three workers to thirty-­ 180

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five), seeking assistance from outside film companies, and training some talented young filmmakers.73 Eventually, TFC films intended to challenge imported features for viewership among the nation’s cinemagoers, still largely concentrated in urban areas.74 In 1976, the Tanzania Film Com­pany released its first full-­length feature, Fimbo ya Mnyonge (A Poor Man’s Salvation).75 Observers described the plot as “quintessentially Ujamaa propaganda,”76 and likened its theme to colonial film productions’ “didactic back-­to-­the-­v illage message.”77 Constantly hampered by a shortage of funds, the TFC continued making a handful of similar films, many through coproductions with other countries. Smyth sums up the history of film production in Tanzania through the 1980s by writing, “The inherited British tradition of cinema with a social purpose is still strong . . . ​[ but] a doctrinaire ele­ ment is, perhaps, almost inevitable in a government-­sponsored film in a developing country such as Tanzania. . . . ​W hat is missing, in contrast to West Africa, are in­de­pen­dent film-­makers such as Ousmane Sembene of Senegal . . . ​to play the role of outsider and pre­sent films which are strong essays in social criticism.”78 While no doubt accurate, what this argument elides is that, before liberalization in the 1980s, tight state control of media made such social commentary nearly impossible in Tanzania. Given the limited influence of TFC films, the government looked to strengthen its control over the economics of the cinema industry in the 1970s through tighter distribution regulations and new taxes. No doubt this was partly attributable to the widespread evasion of government taxation efforts in the 1960s: in 1967, an estimated 60  ­percent of film proceeds went out of the country.79 When the government prosecuted two cinema businessmen in 1964 for failing to pay customs duty on an imported film, the court found, in acquitting them, the evidence of fraud “totally lacking.”80 Given the ongoing difficulties of tax collection, the state imposed a direct excise on cinemagoers’ tickets, which occasionally raised complaints from the public.81 More importantly, the Tanzanian government in 1975 moved to nationalize film importation and distribution, an action protested by both Tanzanian importers and foreign distributors.82 This streamlined censorship, as the TFC acquired all the movies and then submitted them directly to the National Censorship Board. Nevertheless, the structure of this system reduced the TFC’s incentive to restrict films, as it relied on ticket sales at privately owned cinema halls for its tax revenue.83 181

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In addition to promoting film production and controlling movie distribution, censorship provided another tool in the in­de­pen­dent government’s cinema policy, although one clearly inherited from the colonial period. The NCB spared the young nation from viewing images that propagated anti-­A frican ste­reo­t ypes, but also peddled old alarmist rhe­ toric about the imitative nature of youth who attended the cinema. Former child actor in CFU and AFP productions—­and ­f uture prime minister—­ Rashidi Kawawa was the first chair of the NCB, and, ironically, he took office with a warning about the link between films and crime.84 Re­sis­ tance to Tanzania’s censorship policies was initiated by cinema proprietors and patrons, who both chafed at reduced access to content they ­were used to enjoying. In late 1963, the Dar es Salaam police charged the ­manager of the New Chox cinema, his assistant, and the projector operator with screening parts of a film marked for deletion by the censorship board.85 The trial ran for over ten months, with the accused pleading not guilty, claiming their error was an innocent ­mistake. And when the censorship board banned several films “in the national interest” in April 1967, cinema fans deluged newspapers’ letters-­to-­the-­editor section with howls of protest.86 One filmgoer sarcastically quipped that only Lassie would pass the board’s moral test.87 Another argued, “Who is this Censor that he has the right to guard our morals? Is he endowed with more virtue, is he more inured against the temptations of the flesh, is he less corruptible than the rest of us?”88 James Kakoye angrily wrote, “I would suggest . . . ​that the pre­sent N.C.B., apparently full of over-­enthusiastic politicians, be dissolved by the Government.”89 The Tanganyika Standard, encapsulating earlier public discontent over censorship in 1964, editorialized, “The cinema provides one of the most pop­u­lar forms of entertainment available to the ­people of Tanzania, and, as such, every effort should be made to maintain the highest standards and allow the widest pop­u­lar choice for all ages.”90 National attempts to control the cinema industry did not end the provision of films to Tanzania by long-­standing Indian Ocean networks. Throughout the 1970s the Hindi film remained the most profitable genre, for theater ­owners and the state. Indian movies ­were cheaper to import than Hollywood productions91 and also drew better at the box office. For example, in a single day in Tanzania, almost ten thousand p ­ eople watched Kal Aaj Aur Kal, a pop­u­lar 1971 Hindi film. By contrast, Buck and the Preacher, a 1972 Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier feature, sold less than six thousand tickets ­after a run of six full days—­despite a visit that year 182

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to Dar es Salaam by the stars themselves.92 According to the head of the TFC, in 1973 only one cinema showed an En­glish film on profitable Sundays, as Indian films typically earned more than twice as much on that day.93 Unsurprisingly, when it initiated nationalized film distribution the TFC first began by taking over the importation of all Hindi films, thereby significantly reducing the use of foreign currency.94 Films had to be popu­lar—as opposed to philosophically consistent with the spirit of ujamaa—­for profits to accumulate to all stakeholders, including the state. Unfortunately for the government, ideologically appealing movies frequently flopped at the box office.95 Socialist fare from the Soviet Union and other revolutionary countries never played well with Tanzanian cinemagoers used to Indian or American entertainment.96 The reliance on foreign films from cap­i­tal­ist countries to generate revenue was an ideological compromise for the socialist state, but one official noted that Tanzania needed the lucrative tax collections from pop­u­lar Hindi films “for the Government to provide more social ser­v ices to ujamaa villages.”97 Accordingly, 75  ­percent of all films brought into Tanzania between 1977 and 1983 w ­ ere “Indian musicals.”98 The preponderance of international movies entering Tanzania presented frequent opportunities for the self-­reliant national government to fulminate against the deleterious effects of foreign imports, especially in the early years a­ fter in­de­pen­dence, bringing the pro­ject of building a new national culture into movie theaters.99 Beyond familiar attacks on cinema’s role in seducing youth into a life of crime (now antinational as opposed to a threat to colonial order), the atmosphere of creeping Cold War politics resulted in more vitriol being directed t­ oward American than Indian foreign films. This tension was especially apparent in Zanzibar ­after the 1964 revolution, which made the islands an im­por­tant Tanzanian site of nation building, where ideas about cinema and race intersected.100 For example, the Zanzibar News Ser­vice editorialized, in June 1964, Before [the] January Revolution, Zanzibar p ­ eople ­were made to pay and see films only produced from imperialist countries specially the United States, which dominates all other cap­i­tal­ist film-­producing countries. These films . . . ​pave way for imperialist cultural infiltration and to rule, oppress and exploit peoples of the world. How long, how much, the p ­ eople of Zanzibar and other countries have suffered from such films as “Ame­rica by Night” and “Paris, I Love You” and hundreds of obscene and corruptive ones. Our young generation was on 183

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the brink of being devoured up by the so-­called “American way of life.” Thanks to the Revolution and our Revolutionary Government the ­people of Zanzibar will never again want to see the filthy films of U.S. imperialism.101 .

The major concern for the Zanzibar government was the disturbing appeal of cinema among youth. Indian and Western films ­were both pop­ u­lar at the three cinemas in Stone Town and two on Pemba, the northern island of the Zanzibar archipelago.102 Responding to this situation, “the revolutionary state mobilized to suppress physical evidence of the influence of Western cinema on young p ­ eople. Youth ­were supposed to learn how to serve as citizens of the nation ­after the 1964 Revolution, and not to identify themselves through their appearance as citizens of a transnational youth culture.”103 This proved to be a daunting task, for the cinema hall in East Africa had always been a transnational site in terms of the foreign material on screen. Perhaps fearing a confrontation with the African nationalist revolutionary government, the main movie hall in Stone Town, the Sultana, reinvented itself as Cine Afrique.104 More drastically, two months ­after the revolution, the new regime nationalized all the theaters, including Cine Afrique.105 The government quickly learned what cinema meant to the everyday lives of citizens, however, as one contemporary observer reported: “Closed for a while a­ fter the revolution, Zanzibar Town’s three cinemas ­were open for business again in April. A decision by the government to nationalize them drew an immediate and furious protest from ordinary Zanzibaris, who loved g­ oing to the movies, and the decision was revoked.”106 Although the Zanzibar government would not attempt nationalization again, the issue of cinema’s subversive potential never fully went away. The Afro-­Shirazi Party youth conference in December 1964 passed a resolution to fight racial discrimination through, in addition to other mea­sures, instituting state control over cinemas and banning all American films “that have a demoralizing effect.”107 Despite the fact that Bombay cinema’s offerings ­were just as “international” as Hollywood fare, Hindi films’ unthreatening transnationalism flew ­under the radar of nationalist governments in Zanzibar and on the Tanzanian mainland to remain pop­u­lar with audiences, as they ­were throughout the colonial period. The Indian Ocean sphere had been transformed by the politics of nationalism and in­de­pen­dence, but yet retained relevance through a shared, if changing, regional cosmopolitanism that 184

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existed as an alternative to both Western modernity and state-­driven African socialism. In­de­pen­dent India practiced nonalignment politics favorable to Tanzania and, historically, both Zanzibar and Dar es Salaam had long been connected to the wider Indian Ocean world. Tanzanian cultural norms in the 1960s and 1970s, especially those revolving around dress, ­family, marriage, and romance, ­were far more similar to India’s than Ame­rica’s.108 The themes prominent in Bombay cinema at this time also assisted its resonance in Tanzania, framing images of the de­cadent West in the 1960s and featuring ordinary heroes fighting a corrupt system for justice in the 1970s.109 Ignoring Hindi films, Tanzanian nationalists instead blamed the cultural dangers of globalization on the West by attacking Hollywood films. The government targeted suspect foreign movies with revolutionary rhe­toric while allowing cultural products sourced through older Indian Ocean connections to flow unhindered. The nationalist rhe­toric pre­sent in Zanzibar also surrounded cinema on the Tanzanian mainland. TANU in 1969 claimed that the “ro­g uish” elements of foreign films ­were ruining African culture.110 These kinds of charges w ­ ere directed particularly at nightspots in the city, with Dar es Salaam’s movie theaters, ­music halls, and bars often mentioned as corrupting locations, especially for ­women.111 Antisocial crime was also linked to urban cinema halls,112 and movies w ­ ere blamed for encouraging such deviant be­hav­ior. For example, one Swahili newspaper suggested that the pop­u­lar 1971 Hollywood blockbuster The French Connection, about international drug smuggling, might have inspired some beautiful young Tanzanian ­women to attempt to hoodwink customs officials by wearing attractive modern clothes to distract the men from finding smuggled precious metals hidden in their hair.113 Reacting to this sort of public rhe­toric, the Tanzanian government sought greater control over the circulation of “foreign feature films regarded as ‘irrelevant to the national development aspirations, because they glorify affluent foreign life styles.’ ”114 Cold War ideological tensions led to the banning of James Bond films, a movie featuring a negative portrayal of Mao, and The Godfather (for exalting the unsocialist and illegal accumulation of wealth).115 However, given the state’s reliance on cinema tax revenue, the TFC was acutely aware of constraints on its ability to control film content by selective distribution. In 1973, the TFC director indicated his agreement with public cries arguing that movies coming from cap­i­tal­ist countries failed to represent Tanzanian circumstances 185

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or culture, but noted that the TFC could not stop importing “cowboy films” without replacing them with something e­lse that would sell a comparable amount of tickets.116 In sum, despite being surrounded by nationalist rhe­toric, the Tanzanian cinema hall remained an im­por­tant place for the circulation of international images ­after in­de­pen­dence. Local cinemagoers rejected a ­simple opposition pitting indigenous African culture against external influences deemed destructive, reflecting longer-­ term historical pre­ce­dence in the Indian Ocean region for cultural constructions (especially in the realm of film) featuring transnationality over those defined by bounded territoriality. For most of the 1960s and 1970s, cinema remained widely pop­u­lar in urban Tanzania—­despite a constant stream of mundane complaints from the public about smoking, mosquitoes, hooliganism, and dilapidated facilities (including the toilets!).117 The earlier building boom in theaters had ended, and construction was no longer feasible a­ fter the government nationalized buildings in 1971 and forced movie hall proprietors to pay rent. Only one major addition to the cinema scene arrived in the postin­ de­pen­dence ­period, the enormously pop­u­lar Drive-­In Cinema in Dar es Salaam, with space for six hundred cars and featuring a bar, restaurant, dance hall, and play area for “restless or unmanageable” children.118 The grand opening in 1966 of the Drive-­In—­owned and operated by the state National Development Corporation, which l­ater also ran the Tanzania Film Com­pany119—­featured a gala event presided over by Zanzibari president Abeid Karume.120 With the addition of the Drive-­In, Tanzania by the 1970s had about thirty-­six movie theaters, with five on the islands, seven in Dar es Salaam, and the rest scattered across smaller urban centers throughout the country.121 Indians owned almost all the theaters,122 although the Avalon had African shareholders.123 Cinema halls continued to draw sizable public crowds, especially in Dar es Salaam.124 Filmgoing largely remained an urban leisure event: a late 1970s report estimated that four million ­people per year saw entertainment films in Tanzanian towns, while only 1.5 million rural dwellers per year viewed primarily educational and documentary films.125 As in­de­pen­dent Tanzania’s cities grew, cinema halls remained prime urban locations through intense periods of social change, with post–­ Arusha Declaration nationalist interventions intersecting with percolating racial tension. In addition to other initiatives, the government nationalized Asian rental properties,126 encouraged campaigns promoting na-

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tional dress, integrated schools, and Africanized educational curricula. Many of these developments influenced the nature of youth in Tanzania.127 While Hindi films remained pop­u­lar at the box office, there was also an increase of interest in kung fu movies and blaxploitation pictures, especially ­after Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon (1973) played to packed ­houses in Dar es Salaam.128 This film spurred novel fashion trends among young ­people of all races in the city, and at the time “Youth [could] be seen in the streets of Dar es Salaam practicing Kung Fu on their friends, on walls, or on trees.”129 One media scholar enthusiastically wrote in the early 1980s, “[A]ttendance rec­ord-­breakers to date are the Hong Kong karate choppers, led by the dagger-­fin­ger-­man, the late Bruce Lee. In a real action packed Karate film, a blink would be a nuisance.”130 Explaining the mass popularity of kung fu films, May Joseph contends that they offered transnational images that aligned with aspects of Tanzanian socialism: “Tanzanian spectatorship drew on new definitions of plea­ sure, social space, and emancipatory possibilities within an African-­ style socialism. . . . ​The economy of kung fu movement echoed a local aesthetics of the frugal, unadorned, but active socialist body, capable of serving the state.”131 Taken in a ­different direction, Joseph’s argument reinforces themes consistent across the history of cinema in Tanzania. In spite of state policies of film censorship and production that w ­ ere always cognizant of ideas about race, and ongoing national cultural campaigns that also surrounded film, Tanzanians viewed transnational cinematic images and interpreted them to square with their own local ideologies. Audiences dismissed the state’s false binary of national/socialist versus foreign/subversive in watching kung fu, blaxploitation, and Hindi movies. ­Going to the movies continued to be a cosmopolitan experience for cinemagoers, although the content of transnational cultural consumption clearly began shifting from predominantly Indian Ocean regional influences to follow globalization and include newer international trends in cinema. Yet it is apparent that some filmgoers saw more cultural continuity with regional and other, more familiar worlds, drawing a critical distinction between films from the Indian Ocean area and those from Hollywood. For instance, one Tanzanian commentator in 1981 called “Asian films” “perhaps the most indigenous, not . . . ​spoilt by Western imitations. . . . ​ [A]lmost all the films, leaving out a few of the [South] Asian ones, are [culturally] foreign.”132

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This of course did not mean that racial tensions had been eliminated from the movie-­watching experience in postin­de­pen­dence Tanzania, just as they ­were not removed from schools a­ fter integration. As in the past, issues involving race and nationalism continued to arise at the thriving cinema halls, often resulting in conflicts between African cinemagoers and Indian theater proprietors and employees in par­tic­u­lar. These clashes frequently occurred during the rush to acquire tickets for pop­ u­lar movie showings. In 1966, one irate film fan in Tanga bitterly complained in a letter to Ngurumo about Novelty Talkies’ laborious anti–­ black market procedures, which involved selling tickets only at show time, then allowing patrons to enter, followed by individually verifying that each and every person sitting in the theater held a valid ticket—to the point of refusing customer requests to go out of the hall to use the bathroom u ­ ntil the lengthy pro­cess was completed. In pleading with fellow readers to join in his complaint, B. M. Masanja called on the ­owners of Novelty Talkies to stop their Indian employees from counting the customers like sacks of grain.133 A 1974 article in Mfanyakazi also drew public attention to the chronic prob­lem of black marketeers who fearlessly sold tickets in broad daylight for double or ­triple their face value, especially for blockbuster films. The investigative reporter in this case found many vociferous witnesses who specifically called out the Chox in Dar es ­Salaam, alleging that ticket smuggling there was being driven by the theater’s employees.134 A similar and scathing expression of the anger and racial tension that resulted from the proliferation of black market movie tickets was published in Nchi Yetu in 1977, in the form of a long dialogue between two African friends, John and Juma.135 The piece was accompanied by a large drawing of the Empire’s box office with a “House Full” sign in front, with some shady characters brazenly scalping tickets just outside the theater’s main doors. The conversation opens with John offering to take his friend Juma (who confesses that movies are his weakness, ujongwa) to a cinema hall. They decide to go to the Empire despite John’s warning that the place is den of hooliganism (uhuni) and exploitation (unyonyaji), where callow youth connive with the corrupt ticket collectors to scam customers. When the friends reach the cinema hall, the box office attendant—­ employing the type of broken Swahili that often represented the caricature of an Indian speaker—­informs the duo that tickets have sold out. At the same time, John and Juma observe youth obviously selling black market

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tickets in front of the Empire, and, in their frustration, condemn them (invoking the national socialist language of the day) for not being willing to sweat and ­labor (kutoka jasho) to earn their income. Meanwhile, the Indian ticket seller notes that there are a handful of nine-­shilling tickets already purchased by a third party that now appear to be available, and he offers to part with them for fifteen shillings each—to the shock and outrage of the two friends. At this critical moment in the story, an Indian cinemagoer, Lalji, swoops into the conversation and pounces on the ticket seller’s offer. Lalji boasts that he is willing to pay even twenty shillings for the tickets, and goes on to abuse John and Juma (again in pidgin Swahili) for being poor and full of hot air (hapana iko pesa maneno mingi tu). This final insult provokes the full fury of the two harassed and angry film buffs, who collectively explode in indignation: John: You guys are huge thieves who shouldn’t anger us like this. You think that we would be fooled into spending our hard-­earned money on buying nine-­shilling tickets for fifteen! Is this stupidity or what? It’s not stunning to say that this is stealing money! . . . ​ Juma: Keep giving it to them, John . . . ​ John: I won’t pay even one cent above the marked price. . . . ​W ho has permitted you to do this illicit business? Movies bring enjoyment to the public. T ­ oday you are pretending to do this as an excuse to openly oppress ­people. There are those who claim that money makes rich ­people’s heads swell. . . . ​This is the time of [the ruling po­liti­cal party] CCM.136 There are CCM youth who don’t want their zeal for building the nation to be spoiled by those few with greedy eyes. Okay, go ahead with your game, but the time will come when you will be shaved without ­water. The CCM youth will not tolerate your conspiracy to sabotage and afflict the development of our country. I will ensure that these actions will be stopped and those involved will be harshly punished. In a scene that recalls the humiliation heaped upon Sulemani Bajuma and his wife at the Empire in 1936, and the frustration of Africans shut out of the Louis Armstrong show at the Avalon in 1960, John and Juma are still forced to negotiate issues of race as part of their cinemagoing experience. What was d ­ ifferent about their encounter in the l­ater 1970s,

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at least in the imagination of the piece’s author, is that the friends now feel empowered by an in­de­pen­dent African nationalist government to verbally abuse their tormentors and threaten them with the punitive power of state intervention. Judging from all the press attention to films and movie theaters, African interest in pop­u­lar cinema continued to increase from in­de­pen­dence right through the 1970s, despite the fact that virtually all commercial movies w ­ ere imported from outside East Africa. Working on a consistently tight bud­get, the Tanzania Film Com­pany refused to outlay funds to dub or subtitle any foreign films into Swahili, w ­ hether from socialist allies, India, or Ame­r ica.137 The language issue did not deter Africans from watching Hindi films, predictable and familiar as they ­were.138 Even at the pop­u­lar Sunday eve­ning show, when extended Indian families traditionally enjoyed outings to the cinema hall for the latest Hindi film, Africans would be pre­sent as well.139 It is clear that Tanzanian audiences had diversified over the many years since film entered the region. In the 1970s, urban African youth writing to Nchi Yetu looking for a pen pal frequently listed cinema as a hobby.140 While estimates vary, Africans likely constituted from 30 to more than 50  ­percent of audience members at cinema screenings during this time.141 However, on average, the small Indian minority frequented movie theaters far more regularly than the typical African resident of Dar es Salaam, a city of perhaps three-­quarters of a million ­people by the early 1980s. On occasion, complaints from African cinemagoers who ­were not Bollywood fans appeared in the press. In 1976, Isaac H. Adhero opined that the dominance of Hindi films on Sundays in par­tic­u­lar kept Africans away from theaters, querying, “is this Dar es Salaam or Bombay”?142 The cosmopolitanism of Indian Ocean culture was always a cacophonous sort, shot through with differences of opinion and vari­ous social hierarchies emerging from centuries of evolving interactions. While the prevailing trend was ­toward theater integration in the postcolonial period, racialized discourse pointing out persisting inequalities to film access did not disappear from frequent public discussions about cinema halls, as demonstrated. When liberalization arrived in the ­later 1980s, rapid economic change created a new era in the history of cinema in Tanzania, one that would witness the end of the large movie theaters where communities had congregated for de­cades, thereby peeling away another layer of the Indian Ocean scale.

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LIBERALIZATION AND THE DECLINE OF CINEMA HALLS IN TANZANIA

­ fter the pro­cess of liberalization introduced sweeping economic reA forms and opened space for the expression of new cultural attitudes in Tanzania, urban public leisure spaces in the country once again underwent dramatic alterations, as they had previously during both the colonial and nationalist eras. The 1980s saw the bleakest years of privation, and the cinema industry suffered. This difficult period followed a time when cinema profitability involved a delicate balance of passing on taxes and distributor costs to price-­conscious cinemagoers.143 The Tang­ anyika Standard editorialized in 1967 about dipping “your hand in your pocket this weekend to pay an exorbitant sum to see a par­tic­u­lar film. . . . ​ There is ­little sophisticated entertainment available in Tanzania. The cinemas can offer it. If seat prices ­were at attractive levels, more ­people would attend, and ultimately cinemas would be more ­viable propositions.”144 This advice went unheeded, despite regular consumer complaints, and ticket prices kept climbing to offset tax increases and the escalating costs of importing films.145 The final, fatal ticket price hike occurred in the late 1980s, eroding movie attendance from three million to one million viewers per year in the short period between 1986 and 1988, which in turn drove the cinema hall industry into ruin.146 The shortage of foreign currency during the economic crisis also made it increasingly difficult to acquire international movies for display in Tanzania. Rigid state control of distribution and content forced the last American distributor to withdraw in 1982, ending a half-­century run of Hollywood feature films lighting up Tanzanian movie screens.147 The nation’s film fans in the 1980s w ­ ere left with an odd cinematic mishmash from which to choose: one 1985 report stated that movies screened in Tanzania ­were 30 ­percent Indian, 30 ­percent Italian (cheap “spaghetti westerns”), 20  ­percent American (“ancient westerns and some 1950s films which have been circulated a number of times”), and 20 ­percent “other” (likely kung fu movies, other East and South Asian fare, Arab language films, and pornography).148 This glum scenario was a depressing change from earlier years: in 1976, 550 films ­were imported to Tanzania, a number that fell to 230 within a de­cade, and subsequently plummeted to one hundred by 1988.149 ­A fter liberalization reforms lifted the importation ban on VCRs in 1985,150 and mainland Tanzania gained its first

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tele­v i­sion station in 1994, the writing was certainly on the wall for public cinema halls.151 It was a dismal time for an im­por­tant urban leisure industry and tradition with six de­cades of history, and Dar es Salaam residents felt that the end of cinema came quickly: Cinemas ­were full up into the 1980s, crowded. . . . ​It was the one source of entertainment in town, tickets w ­ ere relatively cheap, and it was a sort of an outing to meet friends, have dinner, chat during the interval. But it w ­ asn’t a slow decline. . . . ​Once videos came, soon ­after liberalization, there ­were video shops opening up everywhere. . . . ​ ­People changed their businesses. ­People selling crockery, ­etc., realized it was more profitable to have a video library. It was incredibly fast . . . ​ and then cinema was dead.152

With profits tumbling, o ­ wners started to close theaters around the country, and cities like Dar es Salaam lost cinema halls as prominent urban spaces of social interaction, echoing the decline in integrated public schools. The Empress shuttered its once stylish doors in the 1980s a­ fter new o ­ wners realized that its commercial space could be put to more profitable use.153 The New Chox collapsed next in the early 1990s, leaving only the Empire, Avalon, Odeon, and Drive-­In in Dar es Salaam. In the mid1990s, Dar es Salaam Tele­vi­sion (DTV) bought the Odeon’s building, although the attached Odeon Bar—­decorated with tattered posters of Bollywood stars in glamorous poses—­continued to ply its trade for almost another de­cade. The Empire, the first and one of the last grand Tanzanian cinema halls, strug­gled to remain in business before shutting down in the late 1990s. The Drive-­In folded around the same time, selling its spacious land where hundreds of cars used to park, loaded with families and friends. The Avalon hung on by occasionally letting out its space to religious and other social functions before becoming the last cinema to succumb in 2002.154 Most of the theaters’ original building structures and facades still stood in Dar es Salaam as of 2005, although they no longer offered the city’s residents a place to watch their favorite Hindi or Hollywood heroes: the erstwhile Empress ­housed offices and shops; the old Odeon hosted the headquarters of DTV; the closed New Chox sheltered the office of a traditional healer (amid extensive rubble); and at the formerly glamorous Avalon—­where nationalists celebrated, communities mourned, and Louis Armstrong once “chased the rats from the roof”—­one could browse rent-­ to-­own furniture.155 192

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There was a similar attrition in the pop­u­lar cinema industry in Zanzibar and around the rest of the country. In one generous estimate, there ­were still twenty halls across Tanzania in some state of semi-­operation in 1997.156 However, many of the theaters played ancient films, showed satellite TV sporting events, or projected poor-­quality videos on an irregular schedule. For example, the Metropole in Arusha oddly offered weekend shows with pornographic movies on Saturday night and a f­ amily Hindi film on Sunday ­a fter­noon. These sorts of desperate film se­lection strategies did not prevent full-­scale cinema closures. When Zanzibar lost its Empire Cinema in 1996, that left Cine Afrique—­the successor to the Sultana, founded in 1951157—as the last place to catch a new feature film in Zanzibar.158 Part of the reason Cine Afrique survived as long as it did was reliance on profits generated by its subsidiary film distribution business, which imported films from India and circulated them around Tanzania. The government had dissolved the TFC parastatal during the liberalization era, although it continued to tax cinema tickets and net revenue heavily.159 With all expenses factored in, including over half of its gross receipts expended to import films, for 1996 Cine Afrique reported a net loss of about three thousand dollars (US), almost the exact amount forked over in taxes.160 In 1997, Cine Afrique’s ­manager, Firoz Hussein, lamented that the theater’s owner was ready to lower the curtain for the final time, but the Zanzibar government refused him permission to close; ­after all, Hussein remarked, where ­else would it get almost two million shillings in annual tax revenue?161 In the end, Cine Afrique went the way of the mainland theaters shortly ­a fter the 2002 demise of its partner theater in Dar es Salaam, the Avalon. Its building hosted an upscale air-­ conditioned grocery store in 2005. ­A fter the last feature film played in Dar es Salaam in 2002, residents lived in a rapidly changing and expanding metropolis amid reconfigured urban spaces—­and without a movie theater for more than two years, although creative attempts to keep cinema alive in the city did exist.162 Consumerism mostly drove film watching into private spaces, and commercial logic created new patterns of city segregation. When cinema made a return to outlying Dar es Salaam in 2004, it replicated the exclusivity of the elite private school movement. The New World Cinema, a  pricey multiplex with three small screens, more than delivers on its name. Hollywood and Bollywood share top billing, but prices are definitely first world. Moviegoing, once a premier form of mass public entertainment in urban Tanzania, has become an exclusive, air-­conditioned 193

Chapter Five

niche market.163 Traces of Indian Ocean flows are still pre­sent t­ oday in the continuing circulation of Bombay films at the metroplexes, but, ­after the neon sign darkened above Dar es Salaam’s last elegant old cinema hall, watching a movie in a public theater became virtually restricted to the m ­ iddle and upper classes. For Dar es Salaam’s remaining cinema fans, they had few choices other than to stay at home and switch on the tele­v i­sion, if they could afford one. CONCLUSION

One constant across the history of cinema in Tanzania was the lurking presence of the state. Although liberalization eroded the reach of the state into commercial enterprises, theater o ­ wners w ­ ere always aware of their fraught position. When a cholera epidemic erupted on Zanzibar in December 1997, the government shut down Cine Afrique during what would have been three busy days of holiday film screenings, while duplicitously allowing a soccer match to proceed in a large stadium. The theater m ­ anager suspected that the forced closure had origins in po­liti­ cal retribution rather than concern for public health: the cinema’s urban district of Malindi voted for the losing opposition party in the previous ­ ying days, movie theaters remained im­por­ elections.164 Even in their d tant urban social spaces in Tanzania. Tanzanian cinema halls ­were always contested city locations where communities converged and collided, many times across lines of racial segregation. Ideas about race continually permeated public discussions concerning film, taking on d ­ ifferent manifestations during overlapping periods of colonialism, nationalism, and liberalization, ­until the cinemas themselves disappeared. Nationalism was a diverse force in these encounters. Reacting to events occurring across the Indian Ocean in the 1930s and 1940s, diverse Indian communities mobilized around cinema halls in Dar es Salaam, ­later influencing early African nationalists. In the 1950s and  1960s, ascendant African nationalists attacked unequal access to urban entertainment that paralleled colonial racial segregation, such as that seen in schools. Colonial and postcolonial state efforts to harness the cinema industry for social engineering and nation building—­through film production and regulation, and attempts to control the public space of theaters—­largely failed because of per­sis­tent audience preferences for transnational films, especially familiar ones from

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India. Yet even in in­de­pen­dent, ostensibly nonracial Tanzania, campaigns concerning film policy or content, such as those affiliated with the national cultural pro­ject, ­were discussed in terms of race. Economic and cultural changes that accompanied the liberalization reforms finally put the film industry in a fatal financial position, and Dar es Salaam’s movie fans eventually suffered the end of the long era of grand movie theaters. U ­ ntil that time, the history of colonialism, nationalism, and race played out with Tanzanian cinemagoers and the state meeting for seventy-­five years at the im­por­tant transnational urban public space of the cinema hall. To conclude, if one examines the history of cinema in Tanzania by looking at interracial interaction instead of exclusionary diasporic practices or nationalist insistence on singular expressions of citizenship, then the Bombay films that have traditionally predominated cannot be seen simply as escapist fare for African cinemagoers or as expressions of nostalgic longing for the Indian diaspora. In other words, a closer study of the history of pop­u­lar culture can help break tendencies in the historiography of Indians in East Africa ­toward considering nation and diaspora in separate frames. In addition, an Indian Ocean perspective enables a viewing of the transregional production of culture, and the ways that cross-­cultural flows ­were part of the construction of im­por­tant ideas about race, nationalism, and urban space in East Africa. Finally, these approaches yield new chronologies of Indian Ocean history. As discussed in the introduction, scholarship commonly asserts that colonial domination of the Indian Ocean eroded transoceanic connections, an interpretation that has been challenged recently by Sugata Bose and Thomas Metcalf.165 But even their work points t­oward inward-­looking nationalism ­after the First World War, the effects of the worldwide depression, or the end of the global British Empire as factors leading to the dismemberment of Indian Ocean networks. However, this case study on cinema halls indicates that—­despite the removal of imperial connections, despite the reduction in diasporic ties between East Africa and South Asia with the establishment of national borders, and despite the dominance of African po­liti­cal and cultural nationalism—­the cosmopolitan culture of Indian Ocean exchange, represented ­here by the enduring popularity of Bombay cinema in Tanzania, continued at least through the 1980s. It is also clear that the content of this Indian Ocean culture was dramatically affected by nationalism and globalization, and

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its scale began to reduce over time, with only traces of it remaining visible in daily life t­ oday. Yet following the history of these traces across the length of the twentieth c­ entury in the Indian Ocean world reveals the entanglements of race, nationalism, and diaspora, and tells a story that played out for many de­cades in and around the cinema halls of urban Tanzania.

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m o dern dar es s a l a a m would be scarcely recognizable to the nationalist-­inspired residents of Tanganyika who gazed into an in­de­pen­ dent f­ uture, such as “One Who Wants to Know,” whose power­f ul 1960 letter titled “Who is a Tanganyikan?” to a city newspaper asked ­whether or not Africans and Indians “travel in the same boat.”1 Despite the tremendous changes in Tanzania over the past five de­cades, this book has shown the historical existence since the 1920s of continual connections among race, urban space, nationalism, and diaspora, interactions ­shaped by influences emanating from around the larger area of the Indian Ocean. The preceding chapters describe how debates between vari­ous groups of Africans, Indians, and Eu­ro­pe­ans involved competing ideas about race that penetrated urban schools and cinemas in Tanzania, albeit in varying ways. To be sure, these two locations offered residents of Dar es Salaam, specifically, ­different ways to experience cosmopolitan urban diversity while negotiating the relationship between an evolving diaspora and a nation always ­u nder construction. The study of the encounters between diasporas and nations in the region—­t racking migrants’ networks across the ocean while considering how nations manage their resident or overseas diasporas—­furthermore enriches conventional diasporist approaches that describe Indians’ historical experiences in East Africa in isolation and bridges the entrenched divide between nation and diaspora in the writing of this history. It also opens up the study of the interregional arena of the Indian Ocean to l­ater time periods, while at the same time exposing the limits of prevailing concepts of diasporic identity as largely locally generated. 197

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­Until recently, authors of historical studies of the Indian Ocean have been reluctant to enter the twentieth c­ entury, assuming that the brutality of colonialism and inward-­looking nationalism destroyed the cohesion of transoceanic linkages and the attendant cosmopolitan culture they created. This book argues that if the Indian Ocean is viewed as a scale, with regional connections rising and falling in influence over time, its temporal per­sis­tence is more evident despite the challenges arising from imperial projects of economic and social control and the eventually victorious responses of overlapping anticolonial nationalisms. As demonstrated, one way to render new chronologies of Indian Ocean history is to take the mea­sure of ongoing oceanic networks as they encountered empire-­w ide webs of British colonial administration and the rise of languages of national citizenship that, at least on the surface, appeared to be confined within territorially defined states. In contrast, the presence of the Indian diaspora became foundational to mechanisms of British colonial rule in Tanganyika as well as to the fashioning of the in­de­pen­ dent nation-­state of Tanzania. Thus, one can trace the history of the regional scale of the Indian Ocean as it r­ ose and receded across the twentieth ­century, in par­tic­u­lar through its confluence with intersecting diasporic, colonial, national, and globalizing influences. In the colonial period, imperial exchanges worked to transform but also intensify certain trans-­Indian Ocean connections—­ for example, the tapping of diasporic linkages to import Indian teachers to East Africa, or the circulation of Indian films around the region. And while territorial nationalist forces challenged structures of colonial order, they si­mul­ta­neously drew on transnational influences to ensure that nation and diaspora in Tanzania, rather than exclusive and opposed categories, w ­ ere mutually constituted through historical interactions between Africans and Indians. It is not u ­ ntil the era of global economic liberalization that the Indian Ocean scale withered to the point where only faint traces of the legacy of its impact remain visible in port cities like Dar es Salaam. This book also argues that unraveling the complicated character of the historical relationships between diaspora and nation in the Indian Ocean requires careful attention to the fine texture of local experiences, such as those that manifested in contestations over specific city spaces. Answers to the question of why racial thought remains prevalent in early twentieth-­century East Africa can be found in a close study of urban spaces. For example, to enhance its administrative control, Tanganyika’s 198

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colonial government was constantly aware of the pressing need to understand and regulate the cosmopolitan (although by no means harmonious) encounters unfolding in the territory’s towns. In 1951, long ­after the establishment of systems of racial segregation across city spaces, British officials debated the need for a comprehensive social survey of Dar es Salaam to update ones dating from the 1930s. During this conversation, one colonial administrator wrote perceptively about the difficulty of governing diverse city residents experiencing the dislocating effects of rapid urbanization in Tanganyika: The urban problems of most immediate concern are those of Dar es Salaam and Tanga [which] have for many years been foci of alien influences and centres of break-­down of African culture. Nascent communities of polyglot multi-­racial composition are developing. On the African side they contain representatives of perhaps almost every tribe in Tanganyika, in addition to many from outside the Territory and, on the non-­A frican side, a plurality of mixed elements divided by race, culture, religion and language. The reduction of this complexity by systematic research . . . ​is a pressing requirement.2

The official quoted h ­ ere was concerned that urbanization would trigger dramatic social changes that could imperil colonial power during a time of nascent nationalism. This was not a misplaced worry. Nationalist forces, emanating from the African grassroots and from across the Indian Ocean, emerged to challenge colonialism and successfully reshape urban space in the late colonial and postcolonial periods in East Africa. In dismantling colonial structures of racial segregation—­whether embedded in school systems or cinema regulations—­nationalists of all ideological positions, including nonracialists like the first Tanzanian president, Julius Nyerere, w ­ ere forced to confront and deploy competing ideas about race. This book demonstrates the continuing salience of race in the formation of Tanzanian society as evident in struggles over prominent city spaces like schools and cinema halls. Unequal access to education and film persisted in in­de­pen­dent Tanzania despite state efforts ­toward egalitarianism a­ fter the 1967 Arusha Declaration, evoking b ­ itter memories in citizens of colonial-­era discrimination and exploitation. Therefore, it is unsurprising that probing questions about race and national identity such as those posed by “One Who Wants to Know” all those years ago still occupy some Tanzanians t­ oday, including several in 199

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high government positions. For example, in 2001 the Tanzanian government embarked on the task of determining the formal definition of an “indigenous Tanzanian,” a racially charged pro­ject that advertised its goal as one of “indigenous empowerment.” 3 As we have seen, state officials from the colonial period through to the pre­sent consistently have attempted to govern cosmopolitan and transnational urban areas in the territory employing ideas about race. The conflicts that arose in response to these government efforts had the effect of deepening the racialization of city spaces, while constructing Tanzanian society through everyday interactions involving many d ­ ifferent African and Indian communities. As discussed in the introduction, race in the history of urban Tanzania was “a relationship, and not a thing.” 4 In this res­pect, “One Who Wants to Know” and all the other residents of the region always have been travelling together in the same boat. Continuities in the long history of racial thought in Dar es Salaam are, as such, abundant: the recent po­liti­cal rhe­toric exemplified by public cries for “indigenization” ­today echoes calls for “Africanization” heard during the high nationalist period of the 1950s and 1960s. Former Minister of Industry and Trade Iddi Simba’s twenty-­three-­page manifesto on the indigeneity (uzawa) controversy in Tanzania offers historical parallels with the Arusha Declaration in its desire to achieve national self-­reliance and to eradicate economic differences between and within racial groups.5 This pamphlet is no racialist screed, however, as Simba—­himself Burundi-­ born and educated at the University of Punjab in Lahore, Pakistan—­ distances himself from racial divisiveness and discrimination (ubaguzi wa rangi). It is striking that in their appeals for equality Simba and other mainstream commentators on uzawa rarely invoke older and familiar racial discourses to launch attacks on the Indian diaspora.6 The source of in­e­qual­ity in the Dar es Salaam of ­today is no longer the colonial government, which racially circumscribed the city, nor Indians who disregarded nationalism’s moral condemnation of the privileged use of public space. ­After more than two de­cades of deeply unequal but generally swift economic growth following the liberalization reforms, the acquisition of privilege is now a desirable—if still somewhat contested—­benefit of a ­middle-­class lifestyle in modern Tanzania. Aware of seemingly unstoppable global economic trends, Iddi Simba and other uzawa activists simply propose that ­people of indigenous African descent should control Tanzania’s economy. Contemporary po­liti­cal articulations about equality are more likely to embed race in abstract concepts about the distribution of economic resources rather than 200

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in the concrete daily reality of urban space,7 and the presence of an old Indian Ocean world diaspora within its national borders is not the same consideration that it once was for ­either the Tanzanian state or its ­people. The appearance of mujra bars, featuring Bollywood ­music and female Indian dancers, further illustrates how urban space in Dar es Salaam—­ still a zone of Indian Ocean exchanges, despite the triumph of territorial nationalism throughout the region—is approached differently ­today by the Tanzanian state.8 At these unadvertised locations throughout the city, sari-­clad Indian girls imported from similar bars in Bombay dance from eve­ning ­until almost sunrise. The ­women perform almost exclusively to the ­music of Hindi films, which have circulated in the Indian Ocean world since the 1920s. At the termination of their short-­term contracts, the “bar girls” (as they are referred to) typically go back to Bombay before eventually heading out on another overseas assignment. First opening in the mid-1990s, there have been up to a half-­dozen mujra bars in operation at any one time in Dar es Salaam. They are pop­u­lar with male members of city’s Indian communities, but in early 2002 the police cracked down on the mujra clubs. Finding that the dancers held tourist visas instead of work or residence permits, the government forced the girls to return to India.9 This was a relatively rare moment in post-­liberalization Tanzania when the state acted to disrupt the use of city space for a leisure activity that was commonly perceived to be racially exclusive, even though the clubs certainly are open to all. However, only a few months ­after the mujra dancers ­were sent back to India, a new group of bar girls arrived in Dar es Salaam and all the original clubs quickly reopened. Connections between race and city space continue to exist in Tanzania ­today, but now the state lacks the resources or will to cultivate and protect a national cultural identity through the manipulation of urban space, despite occasional calls from the public to do so. At places all around the city ­today, visible and invisible memories of historical encounters such as those described in this book continue to linger in Dar es Salaam, despite incessant physical construction in and constant social reconstructions of these locations. In  M.  G. Vassanji’s collection of short stories called Uhuru Street, one story narrator elegantly laments the passage of time and the emergence of a modern Dar es Salaam from a viewpoint overlooking its Indian Ocean–­facing port: The ships that pass h ­ ere no longer carry portents of faraway, impossible worlds. The same harbour, in front of me. The tall-­spired cathedral 201

Conclusion

­ ehind me on the right. The pipe fence on which I perch, ner­vous of b pickpockets and the traffic screeching at the back of me; a gust of sea breeze to cool the heat still pulsing in my veins a­ fter the long walk. Before me a rolling patch of grass down which I remember as a child ­doing somersaults. And I remember looking up intently at some ship passing slowly through the narrow channel, at the white-­clad passengers leaning out gaily against the railings, waving at us. Strangers whose worlds we had no cravings for at that time, mere curiosity. All worlds are possi­ ble now. Shadowy cargo vessels cheerlessly ply these waters, bringers of unaffordable goods, reminders of deprivation, enticements to get up and go. ­Silent pipers, whom we follow by jet planes, those who can, and stretch ourselves between lives as contrary as the ends of a cross.10

This book concludes with a final reminder that the fragments of the past often remain stubbornly embedded in the pre­sent. In 1998, a power­f ul car bomb tore through the American Embassy in Dar es Salaam, forcing the U.S. government to seek out a spacious new locale in order to rebuild it with enough setback to prevent attacks from the street. In a profound repre­sen­ta­tion of the nature of city space in post-­liberalization Dar es Salaam, the U.S. government acquired the land that had hosted the recently closed Drive-­In Cinema on Old Bagamoyo Road.11 ­A fter nearly four de­cades of entertaining hundreds of families ­under Dar es Salaam’s open sky with transnational films coming largely from India, the grassy grounds of the beloved theater w ­ ere sealed off to ordinary Tanzanians ­behind the fortress-­like walls of the formidable new American Embassy. The history of cinema in Tanzania was writ large in the fate of the Drive­In. During the age of liberalization, the grand old cinema halls faded in their role as f­ ashionable cosmopolitan locations for leisure in Dar es Salaam, depriving residents from all communities of pop­u­lar city spaces for outings. The expanding private school movement and the decline of integrated urban public schools replicated the social effects of this trend in the educational sector. However, given its prominence, the Drive-­In Cinema will not be forgotten by the city’s residents for a long time. Indeed, even a de­cade into the twenty-­first ­century, daladalas—­the ubiquitous buses that crawl and honk their way through Dar es Salaam’s ever more congested streets—­ destined for the local neighborhood around Old Bagamoyo Road are identified with the stencil-­painted letters “Drive­In,” and not “Ubalozi wa Marekani” (American Embassy).12

202

Notes

INTRODUCTION 1. Letter to the editor, Tanganyika Standard, April 10, 1964. There was a specific historical context into which this question was aired, and it will be taken up in a ­later chapter. 2. IPP Media website home page, www​.­ippmedia​.­com, accessed February 26, 2001. 3. Ghosh, In an Antique Land, 339–340. For more on using Amitav Ghosh’s writing in thinking about the Indian Ocean world, including a critique of the author’s nostalgic sensibilities in his historical reconstructions, see chapter two of Desai, Com­ merce with the Universe, 20–54. ­ entury, 93. The 4. The latter claim is made in Smith, Nationalism in the Twentieth C argument about ethnic communities runs through Smith’s work. For a general overview, see his Nationalism: Theory, Ideology, History, and for a more specific discussion on the topic, see his “Ethnic Nationalism and the Plight of Minorities,” in Myths and Memories of the Nation, 187–202. 5. The best accounts of the relationship between nationalism and racial thought in Tanganyika and Tanzania are Aminzade, Race, Nation, and Citizenship in Post-­ Colonial Africa, and Brennan, Taifa. 6. There is no general history of Kutch. For a discussion of historiography on Kutch, and a general background to the region, see Simpson, Muslim Society and the Western Indian Ocean, 33–52, as well as his “Making Sense of the History of Kutch,” in Simpson and Kapadia, eds., The Idea of Gujarat, 66–83. 7. Interview with Tulsidas N. Swali, Mundra, Kutch, Gujarat, India, October 28, 2002. 8. According to the story as narrated by Tulsidas Swali. For a historical account of the ­career of Jairam Shivji, see Goswami, The Call of the Sea. 9. Sheriff, Slaves, Spices, and Ivory in Zanzibar, 201–244. 10. For a discussion of the rise of container shipping and its impact on maritime ­labor and Indian Ocean ports, see Pearson, The Indian Ocean, 262–264. 203

Notes to Pages 6–11

11. It is well known that Africans of vari­ous nationalities play a significant role in the smuggling, distribution, and selling of drugs in South Asia and other parts of the Indian Ocean. See Bertz, “Indian Ocean World Travellers,” in Basu, ed., Journeys and Dwellings. 12. This composite of Ali’s life was put together from many conversations with Ali (last name withheld for reasons of privacy) in Bombay in 2002. This story of his incarceration is from an interview on September 4, 2002. 13. For more on African students in India, see Bertz, “Indian Ocean World Travellers.” For one case study, see Teshome-­Bahiru, “The Perception of African Students T ­ oward the Host Population in Pune, India.” 14. This composite was put together from a life history of Fatma Rashid Mohammed collected over several sittings on August 21, 28, and September 6, 2001. 15. From many conversations with the Jhaveris in Dar es Salaam and New Delhi between 2002 and 2005. See also K. L. Jhaveri, Marching with Nyerere, and Urmila Jhaveri, Dancing with Destiny. 16. For an account of the trial, see Jhaveri, Marching with Nyerere, 20–58. 17. For an analy­sis of gender, ­women, and the nationalist movement, see Geiger, TANU ­Women. 18. For more detailed Indian Ocean life histories, see Anderson, Subaltern Lives, and Nair, “Moving Life Histories.” 19. These groups are far from homogeneous. See Nagar, “Making and Breaking Boundaries,” for a disaggregation of the Indian communities of Dar es Salaam. I will predominantly use “Indians” as the best translation from the Swahili “Wahindi” (the most common label in everyday speech) for ­people who settled in Tanzania and claim an ancestral heritage in South Asia. At ­different times, Indians in Tanzania also have been referred to as “South Asians” and “Asians.” African communities, even more so, are divided by many factors into a great range of d ­ ifferent groups. The point is that each of these racial categories—­“African” and “Indian”—­reveal very ­little. However, for the purpose of clarity, these terms will be used frequently in the pages that follow as analytical categories to refer to identities undergoing constant historical construction. 20. Lefebvre, The Production of Space. For more on class and urban space, see Harvey, Social Justice and the City. 21. Glassman, War of Words, War of Stones. He argues that Zanzibari intellectuals—as opposed to colonial structures—­have not been given enough credit for the construction of racial thought. For a similar argument regarding African agency in the intellectual history of race on the Tanganyikan mainland, see Brennan, “Realizing Civilization through Patrilineal Descent.” 22. Tabili, “Race is a Relationship, and Not a Thing,” 126. Tabili’s short essay builds on her book, “We Ask for British Justice.” 23. For more specifically on the relationship between discourse, language, and space, see Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 130–140. For a manifesto outlining ways to move beyond race in public discourse, see Gilroy, Against Race. 24. These experiences also should be read as consistent with the active pro­cess of “identification,” as proposed in Brubaker and Cooper, “Beyond ‘Identity.’ ” 204

Notes to Pages 11–15

25. This phrase is borrowed from Freund, Insiders and Outsiders. 26. This argument is made in Tonkin, Narrating Our Pasts. 27. For a ­different theory on the relationship between nation and community, see Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments. 28. For an example, see Amin, Event, Meta­phor, Memory. 29. “Wahindi wamtupa Nyerere jalalani!” Mfanyakazi, August 4, 1997, 1. The article was accompanied by a photo of a disgruntled-­looking Nyerere sitting among a group of Indians. “Mwalimu,” the Swahili word for “teacher,” is an honorific term for educated elders, and became almost synonymous with Nyerere. 30. Interview with Dinesh Vaishnav, Dar es Salaam, December 22, 1997. 31. Freund, Insiders and Outsiders, 91. 32. See also Nagar, “Communal Discourses, Marriage, and the Politics of Gendered Space Boundaries.” 33. Interview with Dinesh Vaishnav, Dar es Salaam, December 22, 1997. 34. Middleton, African Merchants of the Indian Ocean, 114. 35. Horton and Middleton, The Swahili. 36. Pearson, Port Cities and Intruders. ­ nder German Rule. 37. Iliffe, Tanganyika U 38. Iliffe, A Modern History of Tanganyika. 39. Gujarat—­despite its name likely dating back over a millennium—is a modern po­liti­cal formation, created as a state only in 1960. The scholarship on the area offers ­d ifferent views on when it began to emerge historically as a distinct region, with a consensus that it contains power­f ul subregional identities to the pre­sent, notably Kutch, Saurashtra (or Kathiawar), and mainland Gujarat. For an overview of Gujarat’s history, see Yagnik and Sheth, The Shaping of Modern Gujarat. For a collection of critical essays on the region, including its history, see Simpson and Kapadia, eds., The Idea of Gujarat. Also im­por­tant is Rajyagor, History of Gujarat. 40. Pearson, Port Cities and Intruders, 36–37. 41. For a broader perspective on the regional textile trade, see Barnes, ed., Tex­ tiles in Indian Ocean Socie­t ies. 42. Pearson, “Introduction I: The Subject,” in Das Gupta and Pearson, eds., India and the Indian Ocean, 17. For more, see Rielle and Roy, eds., How India Clothed the World. 43. Rajyagor, History of Gujarat, 391. 44. Gregory, India and East Africa, 41. 45. Ibid., 44. 46. East Africa still imports Indian textiles t­oday. I visited a kanga (a common ­women’s dress in East Africa) factory in Jetpur, Saurashtra, and interviewed exporters in Bombay. Interview with Sanjaybhai Paragbhai and Vimalbhai Patel, Oceanic Exports, Jetpur, Gujarat, November 12, 2002, and interview with Rajesh Patel, Oceanic Exports, Bombay, September 12, 2002. 47. The most convincing evidence of early settlement is contained in a volume written by an unknown Greek sailor near the end of the first ­century C.E. For a survey of evidence of early connections, see Gregory, India and East Africa. 205

Notes to Pages 15–18

48. For a critique of the lit­erature’s undifferentiated look at South Asian migration through the lens of economic opportunities, see Nagar, “The South Asian Diaspora in Tanzania,” 63. 49. Moffett, ed., Handbook of Tanganyika, 132. 50. Gregory, South Asians in East Africa, 13. 51. Ibid., 26. 52. Ibid., 14. 53. According to the 1921 Census of India, over 60 ­percent of residents of Gujarat (as a region of the Bombay Presidency) ­were involved mainly in agriculture, compared to around 7 ­percent in trade. The numbers are very similar in the 1951 census. See Sedgwick, Census of India, 1921, 206–248, on occupations, and Bowman, Digest of the 1951 Census Report for Bombay, Saurashtra and Kutch, 5–6, on livelihood patterns. 54. Rajyagor, History of Gujarat, 509. 55. Bowman, Census of India, 1951, Part I, 5–6. 56. Rajyagor, History of Gujarat, 446. 57. Bowman, Census of India, 1951, Part IIa, 12–15. 58. For example, one scholar estimated that in 1972 Gujarati speakers made up about 90  ­percent of the total South Asian population in East Africa. Bharati, The Asians in East Africa, 11–22. 59. Burton, African Underclass, 45–52. The Sultan of Zanzibar originally founded Dar es Salaam as a small port town in the 1860s. In 1891, when the German East African capital shifted from Bagamoyo to Dar es Salaam, the Germans defined but did not strictly enforce residential zones for Eu­ro­pe­ans, Asians, and Africans. For the early history of Dar es Salaam, see Brennan, Burton, and Lawi, eds., Dar es Salaam, 16–31. 60. British conceptions of race ­were varied and changing, and informed by encounters at home and across the empire. Cultural relativism prevailed for most of the early de­cades of the twentieth ­century, yielding only slowly as sociology and anthropology gained respectability as academic disciplines and imperial power began to wane ­after the Second World War. Rich, Race and Empire in British Politics. 61. Between 1927 and  1930, the government forced African occupants of 170 buildings to quit the open space that served as the buffer zone. The British assumed that the Germans had originally planned the open space as a “lung” to separate residents who used proper toilet facilities from those who used “primitive” methods of disposing waste. See Kironde, “Race, Class and Housing in Dar es Salaam,” in Brennan, Burton, and Lawi, Dar es Salaam, 104. 62. A thorough account of colonial interventions into urban space and daily life in Dar es Salaam is contained in Brennan, Taifa, especially chapters one through three. 63. Brennan, Burton, and Lawi, Dar es Salaam, 34. 64. Moffett, Handbook of Tanganyika, 306. 65. Or, for a brief look at the impact of segregation, see Campbell, “Race, Class and Community in Colonial Dar es Salaam,” in Creighton and Omari, Gender, ­Family and Work in Tanzania, 17–43. 66. “Report on a possi­ble so­cio­log­i­cal survey of Dar es Salaam” by R. Sofer and C. Sofer of the East African Institute of Social Research, 1951, in Tanzania National 206

Notes to Pages 18–20

Archives File No. (hereafter TNA) 18950, vol. 3, “So­cio­log­i­cal Survey of African Population in Dar-­es-­Salaam Township survey,” 16–17. 67. Ibid., summarizing and quoting Gillman’s 1945 report on the city’s history to the colonial government, 20–21. 68. Nagar, “A History Retold,” 62–80. 69. Aminzade, “The Politics of Race and Nation.” 70. For background on the revolution, see Clayton, The Zanzibar Revolution and Its Aftermath, or Lofchie, Zanzibar. Analy­sis of the issue of race in the revolution is found in Glassman, War of Words, cited above. 71. Brennan, Burton, and Lawi, Dar es Salaam, 53. 72. Nagar, “The South Asian Diaspora in Tanzania,” 70. 73. The in­de­pen­dent Tanzanian government did not track communal data in its censuses, so these numbers and those in the next paragraph for the Indian population are common estimates. 74. Indians ­were not the only targets of racialized po­liti­cal discourse from the 1990s onward. Public rhe­toric also called out “outside” commercial interests (notably from South Africa and, more recently, China) and labeled certain groups as encroachers (especially refugees from Central Africa and Somalia). For more, see Aminzade, “From Race to Citizenship.” For a study of white South African investors in Tanzania, see Schroeder, Africa a­ fter Apartheid. 75. According to the latest census, the Dar es Salaam region has a population of 4,364,541. United Republic of Tanzania, 2012 Population and Housing Census. 76. On the underdevelopment of East African urban history, see Burton, ed., The Urban Experience in Eastern Africa, 1–4. 77. The pathbreaking books have been Brennan, Taifa; Burton, African Under­ class; Brennan, Burton, and Lawi, Dar es Salaam; and Ivaska, Cultured States. 78. Port cities in the Indian Ocean have received considerable scholarly attention. See, for example, Broeze, ed., Brides of the Sea. 79. For an analy­sis of the Tanzanian metanarrative, see Geiger, TANU ­Women, 6–9. Newer works on Tanzanian history combat the elite-­centered and nationalistic early approaches. For an example, see Giblin, A History of the Excluded. 80. Isaria N. Kimambo, a se­nior Tanzanian historian, shows how the unified socialist po­liti­cal environment affected history writing in “Three De­cades of Production of Historical Knowledge at Dar es Salaam.” Key socialist and nationalist volumes include Kimambo and Temu, eds., A History of Tanzania; Coulson, Tanzania; and Shivji, Class Struggles in Tanzania. 81. Anderson, Imagined Communities. Also see Bhabha, “Introduction: Narrating the Nation,” in Bhabha, ed., Nation and Narration, 1–7. 82. For example, street terms for Indians ste­reo­t yped them as an extractive, parasitic bourgeois class. See Brennan, “Blood Enemies.” 83. For examples, see Delf, Asians in East Africa; Ghai and Ghai, eds., Portrait of a  Minority; Hollingsworth, The Asians of East Africa; and Mangat, A History of the Asians in East Africa. 84. Robert Gregory has produced invaluable and comprehensive work on East African Indians that identify Indian contributions to East African socie­ties. Cited 207

Notes to Pages 21–22

earlier ­were South Asians in East Africa and India and East Africa. See also his Quest for Equality and The Rise and Fall of Philanthropy in East Africa. Newer works that also employ a diasporist approach include Seidenberg, Mercantile Adventurers, and Voigt-­Graf, Asian Communities in Tanzania. 85. Nagar, “The Making of Hindu Communal Organizations, Places, and Identities in Postcolonial Dar es Salaam,” “Communal Places and the Politics of Multiple Identities,” and “Indigenization Debate and Tanzanian Asians.” Also, cited above: Nagar, “Making and Breaking Boundaries,” “The South Asian Diaspora in Tanzania,” and “Communal Discourses, Marriage, and the Politics of Gendered Space Boundaries.” 86. See, most significantly, Oonk, Settled Strangers. 87. This approach is largely eschewed by Brennan in Taifa, which asserts, “Blithe celebrations of Indian Ocean cosmopolitanism tend to obscure these deeper currents of racial resentment upon which African nationalist thought and practice would be built” (7). 88. Two examples of such an approach for d ­ ifferent geo­g raph­i­cal areas include Amrith, Crossing the Bay of Bengal, and Gilroy, The Black Atlantic. Gilroy writes, “In opposition to . . . ​nationalist or ethnically absolute approaches, I want to develop the suggestion that cultural historians could take the Atlantic as one single, complex unit of analy­sis . . . ​and use it to produce an explicitly transnational and intercultural perspective” (15). For an analy­sis of the utility of Gilroy’s category of diaspora in Indian Ocean history, see Alpers, “The African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean,” in Jayasuriya and Pankhurst, eds., The African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean. 89. For analyses of Indian Ocean world historiography, see Vink, “Indian Ocean Studies and the ‘New Thalassology,’ ” or Bertz, “Indian Ocean World Travellers.” 90. Toussaint, History of the Indian Ocean, 1. Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Phillip II. 91. Lewis and Wigen, The Myth of Continents. 92. Pearson, The Indian Ocean, 5–9, 37–41, chapter four, and elsewhere. 93. Allen, “A Proposal for Indian Ocean Studies,” 140. 94. Bose, A Hundred Horizons, 4. For my review of Bose’s book, see Journal of World History 18 (2007): 377–379. 95. Appiah, Cosmopolitanism; Breckenridge, Pollock, Bhabha, and Chakrabarty, eds., Cosmopolitanism; and Vertovec and Cohen, eds., Conceiving Cosmopolitanism. 96. As observed in Pollock, “Cosmopolitan and Vernacular in History,” in Breckenridge, Pollock, Bhabha, and Chakrabarty, eds., Cosmopolitanism, 15–53. 97. As noted in Andre Wink’s review of Simpson and Kresse, eds., Struggling with History, H-­A sia, H-­Net Reviews, October 2010. Wink argues that the Simpson and Kresse volume pushes back against this tendency. 98. McPherson, The Indian Ocean, 83. 99. Simpson and Kresse, “Introduction,” in Simpson and Kresse, eds., Struggling with History, 14. 100. Kris Manjapra writes, “Yet, while scholars have lauded the cosmopolitanisms of the precolonial and postcolonial eras, they have tended to assert that in the age of colonialism, cosmopolitanism was a tainted pro­ject of Western capital and 208

Notes to Pages 22–29

Western epistemic frames.” See the introduction to Bose and Manjapra, eds., Cosmo­ politan Thought Zones, 4. 101. Simpson and Kresse, Struggling with History, 15. 102. For a move in this direction, see the introduction to and subsequent articles in Journal of African History 55 (2014), special edition on “Performing Citizenship and Enacting Exclusion on Africa’s Indian Ocean Littoral,” or, Hawley, ed., India in Africa, Africa in India. 103. Pearson, The Indian Ocean, 15. See also Alpers, “Imagining the Indian Ocean,” chapter one in his The Indian Ocean in World History, 1–18. 104. Appadurai, Modernity at Large, 33. 105. Ibid. 106. Desai, Commerce with the Universe, 1–10. 107. Chaudhuri, Trade and Civilisation in the Indian Ocean; Chaudhuri, Asia Before Eu­rope; Das Gupta, Merchants of Maritime India; and, cited above, Das Gupta and Pearson, eds., India and the Indian Ocean; Pearson, Port Cities and Intruders; and Pearson, The Indian Ocean. 108. Pearson, The Indian Ocean, 113. 109. McPherson, The Indian Ocean, 199. 110. Metcalf, Imperial Connections; Blyth, The Empire of the Raj; and Bose, A Hun­ dred Horizons. See also the contributions to the special issue on “Print Cultures, Nationalisms and Publics of the Indian Ocean,” Africa 81 (February 2011). 111. In addition to Bose and Metcalf, see, among several ­others, Aiyar, “Empire, Race, and the Indians in Colonial ­Kenya’s Contested Public Po­liti­cal Sphere”; Bang, Sufis and Scholars of the Sea; Brennan, “Politics and Business in the Indian Newspapers of Colonial Tanganyika”; and Hofmeyr, “Universalizing the Indian Ocean.” 112. Pearson, The Indian Ocean, 6–9, 249–288. Pearson borrows the terms from Horden and Purcell, The Corrupting Sea. 113. For these arguments, see Bose, A Hundred Horizons, and Metcalf, Imperial Connections, cited above. Most accounts attempting a comprehensive history of the Indian Ocean do cover the twentieth ­century. See, for example, Pearson, The Indian Ocean, or Alpers, The Indian Ocean in World History. 114. For example, see Bertz, “Traces of the Past, Fragments for the ­Future.” 115. Alpers, The Indian Ocean in World History, 143.

CHAPTER 1: DIASPORA AND NATION IN THE INDIAN OCEAN 1. Metcalf, Imperial Connections. 2. For a “conventional” approach to diaspora, see Brown, Global South Asians. For a more critical approach, see the collection of essays in Oonk, ed., Global Indian Dia­ sporas. 3. For a similar description of the reduction of diversity within the diaspora, see Hansen, “The Unwieldy Fetish,” in Gupta, Hofmeyr, and Pearson, eds., Eyes across the ­Water, or Anderson, The Spectre of Comparisons, 44–45. 4. For example, see Rai and Reeves, eds., The South Asian Diaspora, and Vertovec and Cohen, eds., Migration, Diasporas and Transnationalism. 209

Notes to Pages 29–35

5. For a d ­ ifferent perspective on how diasporic communities in East Africa forged ties with regional homelands in India, notably Gujarat, underneath the power of nationalism and nations, see Nair, “Moving Life Histories.” On the Hadhrami diaspora within the Indian Ocean, see Ho, Graves of Tarim. For a perspective on the liberating power of diaspora as a theoretical category to move po­liti­cal culture beyond nationalist and racialist notions of belonging, see Gilroy, Against Race, 123–133. 6. For more on citizenship in Africa, including its relationship to race, see Dorman, Hammett, and Nugent, eds., Making Nations, Creating Strangers, and Mamdani, When Victims Become Killers. 7. Passport register of the British po­liti­cal agent, Rajkot, Gujarat, February 1934 to March  1937, Rajkot Western Circle Rec­ords Office, Gujarat State Archives. The data on passport applications from the time period used in the text that follows is taken from this s­ ource. 8. Wilberforce-­Bell, The History of Kathiawad from the Earliest Times, 197. This history was written in 1916 by a British colonial officer posted to become the po­liti­ cal agent of Sorath, one of four administrative divisions in Saurashtra at the time. 9. Naturally, this worked on both sides of imperial transit. For example, in 1929 the colonial government of India’s revision of the Emigration Act included a questionnaire that asked migrants for their ­father’s name, occupation, dependents, age, caste, district, specific place of origin (taluk, post office, village, town, ­ nder and mohalla), distinguishing marks, destination, and more. “Revision of Rules u the Indian Emigration Act,” Maharashtra State Archives, 6835, Po­liti­cal and Ser­v ices Department, A Branch, 1929. 10. Gregory, South Asians in East Africa, 13. 11. The total number of Asians in East Africa between 1931 and 1939 grew only from 98,164 to 104,697, an increase of just over 6 ­percent across an eight-­year period. Ibid. 12. For more on this point, see the chapter titled “The Forgotten Pioneers” in Seidenberg, Mercantile Adventurers, 93–117. 13. The model of circulation rather than migration for mobile Sindhis is also employed in Markovits, The Global World of Indian Merchants. 14. Gregory, South Asians in East Africa, 13. 15. Passport register of the British po­liti­cal agent, Rajkot, Gujarat, July 31, 1944, to December  31, 1947, Rajkot Western Circle Rec­ords Office, Gujarat State Archives. The data on passport applications from this time period used in the text that follows is taken from this source. 16. One autobiography recounts, “Meanwhile Japan entered the war and steamships ­after steamships ­were torpedoed in the Indian Ocean. For six long years none could go to Africa or come back to India.” Mehta, Dream Half-­Expressed, 239. 17. Bearing out this theory are the numbers of passports (only 514) issued over the seven months from March through September 1945, when the Japa­nese surrender was completed. Furthermore, steamships, first introduced in the nineteenth ­century, gained ascendancy only slowly over dhows, which resiliently continued to ply many routes into the twentieth c­ entury. See Gilbert, Dhows and the Colonial Economy of Zanzibar. 18. Jhaveri, Dancing with Destiny. 210

Notes to Pages 35–51

19. Ibid., 65–66. 20. Ibid., 69. 21. Ibid., 69–70. 22. Ibid., 73–74. 23. Interview with Dr. Harshad L. Udeshi, Mandvi, Kutch, Gujarat, October 29, 2002. 24. Interview with Naresh Doshi, Rajkot, Gujarat, October 30, 2002. 25. Other Indians who left Zanzibar for India have told similar stories concerning what they w ­ ere allowed to carry with them, although there are reports that it was difficult to leave the islands with one’s goods intact. See, for more, “200 Searched Before Leaving Zanzibar,” Tanganyika Standard, April 14, 1964, and “India to Give Passages Home to Refugees,” Tanganyika Standard, March 30, 1964. 26. On language and East African Gujarati culture, see Oonk, “ ‘ We Lost our gift of Expression,’ ” in Oonk, ed., Global Indian Diasporas, 67–87. Linguists also acknowledge that East African Gujarati is its own dialect. See Dwyer, Gujarati, 6. 27. Interview with Pramod P. Mawadia, Ranavav, Gujarat, November 3, 2002. 28. Interview with Ashrafbai M. M. Alloo, Mundra, Kutch, Gujarat, October 28, 2002. 29. Interview with H. D. Shah, Bhavnagar, Gujarat, November 13, 2002. 30. In fact, the Shahs (a surname typically belonging to a merchant caste of Gujarati Jains) ­were originally from a Vaishnavite community of Hindu Gujarati traders, and ­were not r­ eally Shahs at all but Doshis: as H. D. Shah tells it, when his f­ ather’s shop opened he started using the prominent surname Shah since there ­were no credible traders named Doshi in Zanzibar at that time! 31. See, for example, Goswami, Producing India. 32. For more, see Lee, ed., Making a World a­ fter Empire, and McCann, “From Diaspora to Third Worldism and the United Nations.” For a critical take on African-­ Indian relationships and the issue of race during the Non-­A ligned Movement, based largely on a study of fiction, see Burton, Brown Over Black. 33. The AICC was created with the new 1920 constitution of the Indian National Congress, which overhauled the party’s or­ga­ni­za­tion as demanded by Mohandas Gandhi ­after he returned to India from South Africa. The AICC “was the general ­house which approved all policies and programmes of the Congress, chose the President for the year and elected the members of the [Congress Working Committee].” Gautam, The Indian National Congress, 92. 34. Bose, A Hundred Horizons, 149. 35. Ibid. 36. For fuller histories of the politics of EAINC, including its contact with the AICC, see Gregory, India and East Africa, and Mangat, History of the Asians in East Africa. 37. Aiyar, “Empire, Race, and the Indians in Colonial ­Kenya’s Contested Public Po­liti­cal Sphere.” 38. Metcalf, Imperial Connections, 2. 39. For the founding of the EAINC, see Aiyar, “Empire, Race, and the Indians in Colonial ­Kenya’s Contested Public Po­liti­cal Sphere,” 135. For a broader local description 211

Notes to Pages 51–57

of these politics in Tanganyika, see Brennan, “South Asian Nationalism in an East African Context.” 40. EAINC to the AICC, December 11, 1920, FN4/1921, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, Teen Murti House, New Delhi (hereafter NMML). 41. A draft statement written by the AICC, 67, FN9/1922, NMML. 42. Statement written by the AICC, 131, FN9/1922, NMML. 43. Jawaharlal Nehru, “A Foreign Policy for India,” 1927, AICC 8/1927, NMML. 44. For more on Oza, see Brennan, “Politics and Business in the Indian News­ papers of Colonial Tanganyika,” Gregory, South Asians in East Africa, and Gregory, The Rise and Fall of Philanthropy in East Africa. 45. U. K. Oza to Jawaharlal Nehru, May 30, 1928, AICC OS-4/1928, NMML. 46. U. K. Oza to Jawaharlal Nehru, July 23, 1928, AICC OS-4/1928, NMML. 47. Ibid. 48. Jawaharlal Nehru to U. K. Oza, September 7, 1928, AICC OS-4/1928, NMML. 49. U. K. Oza to Jawaharlal Nehru, October 5, 1928, AICC OS-4/1928, NMML. 50. Ibid. 51. U. K. Oza to Jawaharlal Nehru, October 31, 1928, AICC OS-4/1928, NMML. 52. U. K. Oza to Jawaharlal Nehru, November 15, 1928, AICC OS-4/1928, NMML. 53. Ibid. 54. Jawaharlal Nehru to U. K. Oza, December 6, 1928, AICC OS-4/1928, NMML. There is no rec­ord of a response to Nehru’s letter from Oza in East Africa. 55. U. K. Oza, “A Note on the Indian Position in East Africa,” AICC FD-8/1929, NMML. 56. Jawaharlal Nehru to Mr. S. Acharyar [sic], President, Indian Association, Nairobi, May 29, 1929, AICC FD-8/1929, NMML. 57. S. Achariar to Jawaharlal Nehru, June 17, 1929, AICC FD-8/1929, NMML. 58. Secretary, EAINC Del­e­ga­tion, to Secretary, Congress Committee, September 2, 1929, AICC FD-8/1929, NMML. 59. AICC FD-8/1930, 15, NMML. 60. Secretary, AICC, Ahmedabad, to General Secretary, EAINC, Nairobi, July 16, 1930, AICC FD-8/1930, NMML. 61. EAINC in Federated India, January 8, 1930, AICC F68/1930, NMML. 62. For more on this point, see Gregory, Quest for Equality. 63. AICC FD-8/1931, NMML. 64. Secretary’s Report of EAINC 1933–1934, AICC 9/1933, NMML. 65. “Memorandum by the EAINC to  K.  P.  S. Menon, Indian Civil Ser­v ice, for transmission to the Government of India,” AICC 9/1933, NMML. 66. For more on this latter point, see Metcalf, Imperial Connections. 67. For more, see Mehrotra, Lohia. 68. All the information following in the text concerning overseas organizations in contact with the AICC (­unless other­w ise noted) comes from correspondence in AICC FD8/1936, NMML, with the exception of the letters from the University of Iowa professor, AICC 29/1936, NMML. 69. For more on Dover and the ties between African American po­liti­cal movements and anticolonial nationalists in India, see Horne, The End of Empires. 212

Notes to Pages 58–62

70. “Proposed Amendments to the Constitution of the Indian National Congress,” AICC 28/1936, NMML. 71. Ibid. 72. AICC 30/1936, NMML. 73. Metcalf, Imperial Connections, 214. 74. Secretary of the Indian Overseas Department, “Our Countrymen Abroad: An Appeal,” February 6, 1940, AICC OS-40, NMML. The first draft of the letter, eventually sent out to over 250 organizations overseas, was mailed on January 25, 1940. This message certainly heartened the community settled in Dar es Salaam, prompting a flow of correspondence and clippings from a renewed U. K. Oza, as well as an optimistic letter from V. R. Boal, the editor of the Tanganyika Herald, who wrote, “I thought it would be unwise to bother Congressmen who ­were busy tackling big problems concerning India’s freedom . . . ​[ but y]our appeal to ‘Our Countrymen Abroad’ has greatly encouraged me.” V. R. Boal to Dharam Yash Dev, Secretary, Indian Overseas Department, Indian National Congress, February 14, 1940, AICC OS-20, NMML. Oza’s letters are in the same file. 75. Indian Council for Africa, Nehru and Africa, 39. 76. It is notable that the contemporary Indian government has resurrected a romanticism about its overseas diaspora, incorporating its many strands into new formulations of Indian citizenship, identity, and history. See, for example, Dickinson, “Decolonising the Diaspora.” 77. Indian Council for Africa, Nehru and Africa, 40. For more on the fracturing of alliances of Indians located in East Africa who formerly collaborated to advocate for “Greater India,” as well as the impact of the rise of African nationalism on these actors, see Brennan, “Politics and Business in the Indian Newspapers of Colonial Tanganyika.”

CHAPTER 2: BUILDING COLONIAL SCHOOLS AND CONSTRUCTING RACE 1. Paul Gilroy discusses a similar phenomenon in a d ­ ifferent context in his Against Race, 11–14. 2. A claim convincingly made in Küster, Neither Cultural Imperialism Nor Precious Gift of Civilization, 1–3. 3. For Tanganyika, see Morrison, Education and Politics in Africa, and Cadogan, “Students and Schools in the Southern Highlands.” Two anthologies that attempt a broader comparative perspective are Altbach and Kelly, eds., Education and the Colo­ nial Experience and Watson, ed., Education in the Third World. 4. For example, see Buchert, Education in the Development of Tanzania. 5. Exceptions to this include Küster, Neither Cultural Imperialism Nor Pre­ cious Gift of Civilization, Summers, Colonial Lessons, and Viswanathan, Masks of Conquest. 6. For an early exposition of this narrative and argument, see Bertz, “Educating the Nation,” in Dorman, Hammett, and Nugent, eds., Making Nations, Creating Strangers. 213

Notes to Pages 62–68

7. Mr. Kingu’s narrative and quotes in this paragraph are from an interview conducted at Aga Khan Mzizima Secondary School (where he taught history at the time), Upanga, Dar es Salaam, October 1, 2001. 8. Moffett, ed., Handbook of Tanganyika, 306. Singida’s population in 1952 was 3,125, of whom 856 ­were non-­A frican, according to the official government census. 9. Ibid. In the 1952 census, 2,887 of Dodoma’s 12,262 residents ­were non-­A fricans. 10. From interviews with Mrs. Njawa and Hilda Mwakilasa on March 19, 2003, at the Olimpio Primary School in Dar es Salaam. 11. Moffett, ed., Handbook of Tanganyika, 306. 12. Iringa Region in 1952 had a non-­A frican population of over two thousand. Ibid. 13. From a life history of B. K. Tanna taped at his office in Dar es Salaam over numerous meetings between January and November 2001. All information in the text that follows about Tanna’s life story is from these interviews. 14. Moffett, ed., Handbook of Tanganyika, 306. 15. Ibid. 16. From a life history taped with Mangeshkar (which is not his a­ ctual surname, but one he uses to represent himself ) over several meetings between March  12, 2003, and April 24, 2003, in Dar es Salaam. All information in the text that follows about Mangeshkar comes from these interviews. 17. Moffett, ed., Handbook of Tanganyika, 306. 18. Sahle, “Julius Nyerere’s Critical Education Thought,” in McDonald and Sahle, eds., The Legacies of Julius Nyerere, 88. On the missionary presence in Tanganyika, see Oliver, The Missionary ­Factor in East Africa. 19. Cameron and Dodd, Society, Schools and Progress in Tanzania, 50–55. 20. Mhina, “Education in and around Dar es Salaam,” in Sutton, ed., Dar es Sa­ laam, 175. 21. Buchert, Education in the Development of Tanzania, 16. 22. Mhina, “Education in and around Dar es Salaam,” 175. 23. Cameron and Dodd, Society, Schools and Progress in Tanzania, 57. 24. Kaiser, Culture, Transnationalism, and Civil Society, 21. 25. Walji, “A History of the Ismaili Community in Tanzania,” 139. See also Mhina, “Education in and around Dar es Salaam,” 175. 26. In 1913, the German government oversaw nine main schools with an enrollment of 2,394, and eighty-­nine branch schools with 3,706 pupils, while the number of students in mission schools was 108,551. Buchert, Education in the Development of Tanzania, 16. 27. Iliffe, A Modern History of Tanganyika, 247. 28. For the chronology that follows in the text, see Mhina, “Education in and around Dar es Salaam,” 175. 29. As quoted in Mbilinyi, “Experience in Schooling and Teacher Training,” in Hinzen and Hundsdorfer, eds., Education for Liberation and Development, 78. 30. Buchert, Education in the Development of Tanzania, 30. 31. Kaiser, Culture, Transnationalism, and Civil Society, 23.

214

Notes to Pages 69–73

32. For example, Iliffe writes, “­Behind the new [educational] thinking lay psychological and racial theories, white fears of black Americans, ­middle-­class fears of working-­class Eu­ro­pe­ans, anxiety to perpetuate Christian principles, unhappy experience of Indian [subcontinental] education, and a host of other reasons and prejudices.” Iliffe, A Modern History of Tanganyika, 338. 33. Iliffe calls education policy the “most im­por­tant embodiment of indirect rule ideology” in Tanganyika. Ibid. 34. For more on governance and the urban rural divide, see chapter two of Ivaska, “Negotiating ‘Culture’ in a Cosmopolitan Capital.” 35. See Mamdani, Citizen and Subject. 36. See chapter one in Brennan, Taifa. 37. See Burton, African Underclass. Moreover, separating Africans from the rest of the colonial population potentially aligned with the charge of the League of Nations mandate, ­under which African interests ­were to be made paramount. 38. Cited in Morris-­Hale, British Administration in Tanganyika from 1920–1954, PhD diss., University of Geneva, 1969, and quoted in Mbilinyi, “Experience in Schooling and Teacher Training,” 79–80. 39. TNA 13658, vol. 1, “Higher Education for Africans,” 1942–1947. 40. This tendency ­toward communal sectarianism among overseas Indians was also noticed by the government of India. “Zanzibar Advisory Council on Education, Indian Schools,” National Archives of India (hereafter NAI) 5–73/36-­L & O, Department of Education, Health & Lands (Lands & Overseas B), 1936. 41. TNA 12957, vol. 1, “Advisory Committee on Indian Education, Minutes of Meetings,” 1928–1933. 42. Kaiser, Culture, Transnationalism, and Civil Society, 24, citing from TNA 11486, “Schools: Indian Schools—­Grants-­in-­A id,” 1936–1939. 43. TNA 12957, vol. 1. 44. Minutes of a May 1929 meeting of the Advisory Committee on Indian Education, TNA 12957, vol. 1. 45. Minutes of the January 27, 1931, meeting of the Advisory Committee on Indian Education, TNA 12957, vol. 1. 46. Walji, “A History of the Ismaili Community in Tanzania,” 188–189. 47. See in par­t ic­u ­lar volume 2, covering 1943 to 1948, of “Advisory Committee on Indian Education (Indian Education Board), Minutes of Meetings,” TNA 12957. 48. Director of Education Isherwood to Chief Secretary, Dar es Salaam, November 7, 1944, TNA 12957, vol. 2. 49. TNA 11558, vol. 2, “Recruitment of Indian Teachers for Indian Schools,” 1933– 1936. ­W hether the affair actually involved discrimination or was simply a front to cover other motivations is unprovable; regardless, it is interest­ing that in framing his charges, Dave highlighted regional discrimination. 50. Letter from Mayashanker  L. Dave to the Governor (General), Tanganyika Territory, March 21, 1933, TNA 11558, vol. 2, 1933–1936, 188–189. All errors in the extract are in the original. Within the administrative unit of the Bombay Presidency in

215

Notes to Pages 73–76

colonial India at this time, peninsular Kathiawar and mainland Gujarat w ­ ere separate but adjacent regions. 51. The government sent a letter on April 22, 1933, to Dave indicating that there was no cause for government intervention ­a fter an investigation of his complaint. TNA 11558, vol. 2, 1933–1936. 52. For example, see a disagreement between a recruitment agency used by Tanganyika called Mssrs. Cowasjee Dinshaw & Bros., Bombay, and the Protector of Emigrants Office, TNA 11558, vol. 1, 1927. 53. Mr. V. M. Nazerali, Ismaili Central Council of Education for Africa, Administrator for Tanganyika, to the Director of Education in Tanganyika, February  28, 1947, TNA 11558, vol. 3. 54. There are many examples of this between 1927 and 1947 in the three-­volume file “Recruitment of Indian Teachers for Indian Schools,” TNA 11558. 55. TNA 11558, vol. 1. The Aga Khan’s Central Council of Education for Africa, however, preferred other agencies such as Messrs. Smith Mackenzie & Co. and the Indian Overseas Trading Com­pany. See Mr. V. M. Nazerali, Administrator for Tanganyika for the Ismaili or­ga­ni­za­tion, to the Director of Education in Tanganyika, February 28, 1947, TNA 11558, vol. 3. 56. According to “Kanti,” a Gujarati who went to teach in Uganda in the early 1950s, interviewed in Poros, Modern Migrations, 73–74. 57. See TNA 11558, vol. 1, for a 1929 case involving recruitment for the Indian Central School, Dar es Salaam. 58. Gregory briefly notes the story of one Gujarati who obtained three degrees from Bombay University and could command a salary eight times higher in Uganda than Gujarat. See the section on Asian teachers in Gregory, South Asians in East Af­ rica, 228–233. 59. See the Gujaratis interviewed by Poros, Modern Migrations, 73–75. 60. Chief Secretary to the Trea­surer, February 26, 1934, TNA 11558, vol. 2, 1933– 1936. 61. F. Johnson, writing for the Director of Education, to the Director of Public Instruction, Bombay Presidency, March 20, 1929, in TNA 11558, vol. 1, 1927. 62. See especially vol. 3, 1940 of TNA 11558. 63. Minutes of the Advisory Committee on Indian Education, July 1–3, 1948, TNA 12957, vol. 2. 64. TNA 12957, vol. 1. 65. Ibid. 66. TNA 21792, “Teaching of History in Indian Schools.” 67. Director of Education to Chief Secretary, Dar es Salaam, March 20, 1934, in TNA 21792. 68. Proceedings of conference held in Dar es Salaam in June 1933, TNA 21792. 69. TNA 21792. A bloody revolt of Indian soldiers sparked a wider anticolonial civil rebellion in 1857–1858, and this vio­lence ended East India Com­pany rule in India, as subsequent to its pacification the British crown officially took control. 70. Minutes from a 1933 meeting of the Advisory Committee on Indian Education, TNA 12957, vol. 1. 216

Notes to Pages 77–79

71. Ibid. 72. Appendix B, containing revised syllabi of instruction in the vernacular, TNA 12957, vol. 1. 73. See, for an example, NAI 5–73/36-­L & O, Department of Education, Health & Lands (Lands & Overseas B), 1936. During 1930–1932, a special education tax levied on non-­A fricans financed the expansion of government schools in Zanzibar, but this was a short-­term mea­sure. 74. The letter was published on September 13, 1936, NAI 5–73/36-­L & O, Department of Education, Health & Lands (Lands & Overseas B), 1936, 1. 75. See “Report of a Sub-­Committee of Zanzibar Advisory Council on Education on Grants-­In-­A id and on the Reor­ga­ni­za­tion of Indian Education, November 1935,” 5–14, NAI 5–73/36-­L & O, Department of Education, Health & Lands (Lands & Overseas B), 1936. 76. Ibid. Indian schools on Zanzibar at that time included the Aga Khan Boys’ School (founded 1907), Aga Khan Girls’ School, Bohora School (1909), Hindu Girls’ School, Ithna’sheri Girls’ School, Aryan F ­ ree Girls’ School, and the pan-­communal Sir Euan Smith Madressa (1890), which between 1931 and 1934 received half to two-­ thirds of government spending on Indian education. 77. See the official government of India commentary on the letter cited above, NAI 5–73/36-­L & O, Department of Education, Health & Lands (Lands & Overseas B), 1936. 78. Official commentary on the letter cited above, NAI 5–73/36-­L & O, Department of Education, Health & Lands (Lands & Overseas B), 1936, 7–8. Cameron and Dodd argue in Society, Schools and Progress in Tanzania that because education in Zanzibar was never separated into racialized committees, a greater degree of racial tolerance prevailed on the islands (76). While Zanzibari schools certainly helped produce a d ­ ifferent character of race relations in the islands than in Tanganyika, it is unlikely that this conclusion is completely correct given the disproportionate levels of government funding for each racial group. 79. These numbers are based on bud­get allocation tables in Buchert, Education in the Development of Tanzania, 22, and Dolan, Transition From Colonialism to Self-­ Reliance in Tanzanian Education, 192. 80. Morrison, Education and Politics in Africa, 46; all other statistics ­here, ­unless other­w ise noted, are from Buchert, Education in the Development of Tanzania, 29. 81. It should be noted that secondary school enrollment was low, although increasing during this time. Of the totals given h ­ ere, only 191 students (7.5 ­percent of all students) in 1931 and 1,547 in 1946 (17.5 ­percent) ­were in secondary schools. Walji attributes the relative disinterest in upper levels of schooling to the fact that education was seen as marginal in relation to business opportunities for Indian families. This changed ­later in the colonial period as the availability of civil ser­v ice positions increased. Walji, “A History of the Ismaili Community in Tanzania,” 189. 82. Mambo Leo, April 1954, “Wanafunzi wa Tanganyika wameshinda vyema mtihani wa Cambridge” (Tanganyikan students successfully pass Cambridge exams). 217

Notes to Pages 79–81

83. Kaiser, Culture, Transnationalism, and Civil Society, 25. 84. Morrison, Education and Politics in Africa, 50. 85. Ibid., 51. Indian boys took up these opportunities in greater numbers than Indian girls, especially at the more competitive government schools. In 1931–1932, Indian girls totaled 505 of the 1,220 students (41 ­percent) in private assisted schools, but ­were only seven of 191 at the government Central Indian School in Dar es Salaam. In 1946, Indian girls constituted 43 ­percent of the total Indian enrollment, although still ­were only sixty-­nine of five hundred students (14 ­percent) at the main government secondary school. The gap closed over the years, and by 1956 Indian girls outnumbered boys in private assisted schools. However, despite totaling 46 ­percent of the total Indian enrollment in 1961, girls made up only 33 ­percent of those studying at government secondary schools. See Buchert, Education in the Development of Tanza­ nia, 29 and 67. 86. Buchert, Education in the Development of Tanzania, 23. 87. Morrison, Education and Politics in Africa, 45. 88. The enrollment of students in full government and native authority schools ­rose almost sevenfold between 1931 and 1946, as the total of students in mission-­assisted schools jumped more than five times, while the number of students in mission-­ unassisted schools dropped by one-­third in the same period. However, in 1946 more students ­were still in mission-­unassisted schools than all other schools combined. Buchert, Education in the Development of Tanzania, 24–27. 89. Morrison, Education and Politics in Africa, 45. 90. Buchert, Education in the Development of Tanzania, 26. 91. There ­were a few places available for African children at mission schools in and around Dar es Salaam, the most well known being St. Joseph’s Convent School, founded in 1921 by the Swiss Capuchin Sisters. St. Joseph’s had a Eu­ro­ pean section, but also welcomed minority groups such as Catholic Goans, Seychelloise, and Mauritians, along with a few Africans. See Mhina, “Education in and around Dar es Salaam,” 176–177 and Kaiser, Culture, Transnationalism, and Civil Society, 25. 92. Mhina, “Education in and around Dar es Salaam,” 176. 93. The meeting occurred on July 7, 1949, as reported in Mambo Leo, December 1949, “Safari ya machifu wa Tanganyika kuizuru Dar es Salaam kuonana na mheshimiwa Bwana Governor kadhalika kuelimishwa mambo ya kutawala na kusawazisha hali kuwa moja.” Liwali was “a headman, usually an Arab, appointed by the Government to deal with the affairs of the Muhammadan community.” Johnson, A Standard Swahili-­English Dictionary, 248. 94. Mambo Leo, January 1950. 95. Mambo Leo, July 1954, letter from Bwana  S.  P. Kingsley Baraka of Dar es ­Salaam. 96. Mambo Leo, May 1951, letter from Laban Swila titled “Ombi kwa serikali juu ya masomo kwa Waafrika” (A plea for the government concerning African education). 97. Mambo Leo, September 1953, letter from A. M. Mtetezi titled “Elimu Tanganyika” (Tanganyikan Education). 218

Notes to Pages 81–84

98. The Wazaramo are an ethnic group originally from coastal areas near Dar es Salaam. Mambo Leo, January 1948, “Safari ya mwanarumango ya Wazaramo Union Dar es Salaam.” 99. Mambo Leo, February 1953, “Kijana aliyekwenda kununua nguo dukani kwa Mhindi” (A youth who went to purchase clothes at a shop from an Indian). The du­ kawallah tells the youth, in a form of broken Kiswahili associated with Indians, “This is a cool (safi) suit, man (Bana).” The youth is seen thinking, “There is no reason why I shouldn’t show off (nijivune) a suit like this.” 100. P. Saul, “Agricultural Education in Tanganyika: The Policy, Programmes and Practices, 1925–1955,” cited in S. Mbilinyi, ed., Agricultural Research for Development (Nairobi: East African Lit­erature Bureau, 1973), cited in Mbilinyi, “Experience in Schooling and Teacher Training,” 83. 101. TNA 13658, vol. 1, 1942–1947. 102. Rodney, “Education and Tanzanian Socialism,” in Resnick, ed., Tanzania, 71. 103. Saul, cited in Mbilinyi, “Experience in Schooling and Teacher Training,” 83. 104. Iliffe, A Modern History of Tanganyika, 340. 105. The winning essay, by M. G. Kayuza, concluded, “I would like to remind my fellow Africans that the soil is our greatest asset and we should do our best to preserve it.” See Mambo Leo’s monthly En­glish essay competition in the June 1954 edition. 106. Buchert, Education in the Development of Tanzania, 31. 107. Iliffe, A Modern History of Tanganyika, 340. 108. For more on this topic, see Brennan, “Constructing Arguments and Institutions of Islamic Belonging.” 109. The efforts discussed below came in the wake of the disintegration of the Anjuman Islamiyya—­established in 1926 as “an interracial welfare society that or­ ga­nized Islamic festivals, hosted speakers, and raised funds for African Islamic education”—­over financial disputes concerning the or­ga­ni­za­tion’s failure to invest in schools for African Muslims. Brennan, Taifa, 83. 110. The or­ga­ni­za­tion’s letterhead listed Seyyud S., Omar L’Attas, Dr. S. B. Malik, A. A. Adamjee, Kassam Sunderji, and Mohamed Abdulla Khimji as the board’s patrons. See TNA 540/13/7, “Islamic Education, 1942–1956.” 111. Said, The Life and Times of Abdulwahid Sykes, 44–45. 112. Letter from Liwali, Dar es Salaam, to Headmaster, Government Central School, Dar es Salaam, November 19, 1947, TNA 540/13/7, 90. 113. The donation came on October 29, 1946. See TNA 540/13/7. 114. Ibid. 115. Iliffe, A Modern History of Tanganyika, 478. 116. TNA 540/13/7. 117. Letter from Liwali, Dar es Salaam, to Headmaster, Government Central School, Dar es Salaam, November 19, 1947, TNA 540/13/7, 90–91. 118. See a chart on attendance at Dar es Salaam primary schools, TNA 13/11, “Education—­Schools Policy, 1949–1958,” 12. 119. Ibid. For information on Habib Punja, see Iliffe, A Modern History of Tangan­ yika, 374. 120. See a long article in Mambo Leo, April 1951, “Habari za Maulidi nabii, Usumbura.” 219

Notes to Pages 84–87

121. For the Ismailis, see two articles in Mambo Leo in April 1951, “Sherehe Dar es Salaam” (Cele­bration in Dar es Salaam) on the occasion of the Aga Khan’s son donating money for African development and “Jengo la msikiti bora kwa Waafrika wa Ilala, mjini Dar es Salaam” (An Excellent Mosque for Africans in Ilala, Dar es Salaam). For the Ahmadiyya community, see Mambo Leo, December 1949, “Kuagana na Shekhe Mubaraka Ahmad mjini Tabora” (Farewell to Sheikh Mubaraka Ahmad in Tabora town), as the Sheikh returned to Pakistan a­ fter eleven years of working for the social well-­being (usitawi) of Africans. 122. A. A. M. Isherwood, notes from “Meeting with the Imams of Dar es Salaam at the Office of the Director of Education,” January 11, 1944, in TNA 540/13/7, 45. 123. See Cameron and Dodd, Society, Schools and Progress in Tanzania, 68–69 for another discussion of issues presented h ­ ere. 124. From an interview with Rehema Panda, Olimpio Primary School, Dar es ­Salaam, March 17, 2003. 125. Iliffe, A Modern History of Tanganyika, 546. This dominance had repercussions on the composition of the nationalist movement, as Christian schools trained most of its leaders, including Nyerere. 126. Morrison, Education and Politics in Africa, 53. 127. Ibid. 128. Cameron and Dodd, Society, Schools and Progress in Tanzania, 113. 129. TNA 540/13/15, “Education—­ Tanganyika Muslim Schools Or­ ga­ ni­ za­ tion, 1954–1956.” 130. TNA 540/13/15. 131. TNA 540/13/15. For example, in 1955 the government rebuked the Tanganyikan Muslim Schools Or­ga­ni­za­tion for not following fundraising guidelines. 132. 1954/1955 Registration papers of the Al Madressa fii Sabillillah, TNA 540/13/17, “Education—­Koranic School Site Magomeni, 1953–1955.” 133. See the government notes on a request to move to Jangwani, June 30, 1953, TNA 540/13/17. 134. TNA 540/13/17. 135. The school eventually received a thirty-­three-­year allocation of land in the ­middle of a coconut shamba (farm) in Magomeni, at the time an immediately outlying area of Dar es Salaam. See Government circular notes, TNA 540/13/17. 136. E. T. L. Spratt, Provincial Education Officer, to Director of Education, Dar es Salaam, September 15, 1953, TNA 540/13/17. While Spratt himself l­ater raised the issue of integrating Muslim schools into the municipal system, the idea was quickly dropped. See Government circular notes, ibid. 137. Letter from Liwali, Dar es Salaam, to Headmaster, Government Central School, Dar es Salaam, November 19, 1947, TNA 540/13/7, 90–91. 138. Ibid. 139. Ibid. 140. Ibid. 141. Ibid. 142. Ibid.

220

Notes to Pages 91–93

CHAPTER 3: INDIAN OCEAN WORLD CINEMA 1. Virdi, The Cinematic ImagiNation, 2. 2. Dudrah, Bollywood, 100. 3. Interview with Mr. B. K. Tanna, August 21, 2001, Dar es Salaam. 4. For an introduction to this body of work, see Bakari and Cham, eds., African Experiences of Cinema, or Barlet, African Cinemas. 5. There ­were many attempts to create films explicitly for Africans in Tanganyikan and Tanzanian history. The first was the Bantu Educational Kinema Experiment (BEKE) in the mid-1930s. The Colonial Film Unit (CFU) in the 1940s and 1950s sponsored another effort at film production in the territory. The Government Film Unit and the Tanzania Film Com­pany followed ­a fter in­de­pen­dence. 6. Bollywood is the modern—­and disputed—­term referring to this industry. Some scholars feel the name is pejorative and modernist, reducing a diverse and long history of film to a subgenre that arose sometime between the 1970s and 1990s. “Hindi films” or “Bombay cinema” or related terms will be used in the text for the Bombay-­based Hindi-­Urdu language pop­u­lar film industry, which is the oldest and largest of several within India. 7. For more on the circulation of Bombay cinema in West and South Africa, the ­Middle East, Southeast Asia, the West, and other locations, see the essays in Kaarsholm, ed., City Flicks, and Kaur and Sinha, eds., Bollyworld. 8. For research illustrating why East Africans watch Indian cinema, see Fair, “Hollywood Hegemony?” “Making Love in the Indian Ocean,” and “ ‘They Stole the Show!’ ”; and Reinwald, “ ‘To­night at the Empire.’ ” 9. See Kaul, Cinema and the Indian Freedom Strug­gle, especially the appendix, which lists “freedom films” by year of release, 230–231. 10. Interview with the Consul of India, the Indian Consulate, Zanzibar, December 26, 1997. 11. For an early exposition of this narrative and argument, see Bertz, “Indian Ocean World Cinema.” 12. Metcalf, Imperial Connections. 13. For Dar es Salaam, among ­others, see Burton, “Townsmen in the Making,” and Callaci, “Dancehall Politics.” 14. Examples that go beyond the study of film as social texts are Burns, Flickering Shadows; Fair, “Drive-­In Socialism”; Larkin, “Colonialism and the Built Space of Cinema in Nigeria,” in Kaarsholm, ed., City Flicks; and Hughes, “Policing S ­ ilent Film Exhibition in Colonial South India,” in Vasudevan, ed., Making Meaning in Indian Cinema. 15. Burgess, “Cinema, Bell Bottoms, and Mini­skirts,” and the articles by Fair and Reinwald, cited in note 8. 16. Brennan, “Demo­cratizing Cinema and Censorship in Tanzania,” and Smyth, “The Development of British Colonial Film Policy.” 17. Smyth, “The Feature Film in Tanzania,” and Ssali, “The Development and Role of an African Film Industry in East Africa.”

221

Notes to Pages 93–95

18. See Grieveson and MacCabe, eds., Empire and Film, and Grieveson and MacCabe, eds., Film and the End of Empire; Richards, The Age of the Dream Palace; and Chowdhry, Colonial India and the Making of Empire Cinema. 19. Jaikumar, Cinema at the End of Empire. 20. From the appendix of a 1930 report compiling “Price of Seats and Provision Made for Africans in Cinemas in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi, 1930,” TNA 20496, vol. 1, “Scheme for Establishment of Cinematograph Theatres in Native Areas.” For a parallel look at the early development of cinema in Zanzibar, including how “audiences in search of plea­sure interfered with or simply bypassed the colonial pro­ject of socio-­spatial engineering of post-­abolitionist Zanzibari society” (81), see Reinwald, “ ‘To­night at the Empire.’ ” 21. Sulemani Bajuma, a Dar es Salaam resident, wrote a letter to Mambo Leo in early 1936 attributing early cinema shows in Dar es Salaam to a German named Mr. Haller, who charged between twenty-­five cents and two shillings for a ticket despite not having lamps or seats. See the letter in TNA 13038, vol. 2, “Cinematograph Films Censorship of Display,” 504. 22. TNA 20496, vol. 1. 23. TNA 20496, vol. 1. 24. Almost all the early cinemas w ­ ere located in Zone II, the busy central business district that ­housed most of the Indian population. The first theaters ­were close to the border with Zone I (Eu­ro­pean), although there was a steady movement westward among newer theaters ­toward Zone III (African). The Amana was the exception, located in Ilala, beyond Kariakoo, the heart of Zone III. See Burton, African Underclass, especially 48–52 for a discussion of zoning. 25. TNA 540/6/1, vol. 2, “Trade and Industry—­General.” 26. “Memorandum on the Social Conditions of Dar es Salaam Township,” in TNA 18950, vol. 2, 1939, “So­cio­log­i­cal Survey of African Population in Dar-­es-­Salaam Township survey,” 7. 27. TNA 20496, vol. 1. 28. Ibid. The following ­were the weekly average attendances (and seating capacities per show): Bharat, Dar es Salaam, 400 (300); The Cinema Theatre, Tabora, 400 (250); The Cinema, Tanga, 300 (150); The Cinema Theatre, Mwanza, 150 (200); Royal Cinema, Tanga, 120 (200); and The Cinema Theater, Moshi, 50 (120). 29. TNA 35999, vol. 3, “Film Production by Colonial Film Unit.” From Commissioner for Social Development, October 16, 1954, to Member for Local Government, Secretariat, Dar es Salaam, re: “Films: Provision and Use of ‘British News.’ ” 30. TNA 13038, vols. 1, 2, 4, and 6. By 1958, in addition to all of the urban centers previously named, Korogwe, Lindi, Mbeya, Morogoro, and Singida also had cinemas; see Moffett, ed., Handbook of Tanganyika, 503. 31. Report of Committee “Q,” Colonial Office Conference, 1930, in the final report of the Colonial Films Committee, presented by the Secretary of State for the Colonies to Parliament in July 1930, 27. TNA 19244, “Report of the Colonial Films Committee.” 32. Jaikumar also underscores the importance of the British film industry, in competition with Hollywood, to the drafting of the British Cinematograph Acts of 1927 and 1938. Cinema at the End of Empire, 41–64. 222

Notes to Pages 95–98

33. This quote is from  R. Donald, “Films and The Empire,” Nineteenth ­Century (October 1926): 497, and is cited in Smyth, “The Development of British Colonial Film Policy,” 437. 34. “In outlining the [CFC], we have not defined too closely the exact balance of responsibility between the trade and Government. If the scheme is to be a success, each depends on the good will of the other.” “Report of the Colonial Films Committee,” 12, TNA 19244. 35. Ibid., 15. 36. See the Minority Report by Sir Hesketh Bell to the Report of the Colonial Films Committee, 23, TNA 19244. 37. Ibid., 24. 38. Ibid., 23. 39. Notcutt and Latham, The African and the Cinema, 146. 40. Memorandum, Director of Education Rivers-­Smith, no date, likely late 1930, TNA 19244. 41. See Burns, Flickering Shadows, especially 37–59, for more on colonial attempts to understand Africans’ cinema literacy, including a discussion of the origin and spread of the mosquito story. 42. The ordinance is located in TNA 13864, “Cinematograph Ordinance.” It replaced the authority vested in the commissioner of police by the preexisting 1922 ordinance. Over time colonial officials interchangeably used a range of names for the central and local boards, including, for example, “Licensing Board,” “Cinematograph Censorship Board,” and “Board of Film Censors.” For an account of the history of censorship regulations in Tanzania, see Brennan, “Demo­cratizing Cinema and Censorship in Tanzania.” 43. The full rules, technically included ­under the Cinematograph Ordinance of 1930, are in TNA 18931, “Cinematograph Ordinance 1930 Rules.” 44. For discussions of African identity and colonial conceptions of “civilization,” see chapter four in Brennan, Taifa, and chapter one in Ivaska, “Negotiating ‘Culture’ in a Cosmopolitan Capital.” 45. “Report of the Colonial Films Committee,” 1930, 23, TNA 19244. 46. Ibid. “Non-­native” was colonial terminology for non-­A frican, although the government over the years debated ­whether or not to include Arabs, Somalis, and mixed-­race ­people in this category. For more, see Brennan, Taifa, chapter one. 47. Acting Chief of Police and Prisons, to Colonial Secretariat, October 1, 1929, in TNA 13038, vol. 1. 48. A circular in Dar es Salaam’s colonial bureaucracy concerning the debates initiated by the Colonial Film Committee commented, “I had to . . . ​admit that in a country like Tanganyika it was impossible to prevent Eu­ro­pe­ans, or Indians, seeing the pictures that they ­were entitled to see, so long as natives ­were not admitted if the film had not also been passed for them.” Circular, name illegible, October 3, 1930, TNA 19244. 49. Letter on March 27, 1930, from the PC Tanga, TNA 18843, vol. 1, “Cinematograph Licensing Board—­Appointment of Members.” 50. TNA 13038, vol. 1. The issue started as early as 1928: TNA 18843, vol. 1, 58, contains a letter from the Indian Association, Tanganyika Territory, referring to an 223

Notes to Pages 99–102

earlier request on September  26, 1928, to consider Indian repre­sen­ta­tion on the board. 51. Chief Secretary responding to Mr. Khimji, April 4, 1929, TNA 13038, vol. 1. 52. TNA 18843, vol. 1, 82. 53. TNA 18843, vol. 1. See July 14, 1930, letter from the Indian Association, Dar es Salaam, to the Chief Secretary, mentioning the resolution passed at “Mass Meeting of the Indian Public of Tanga” on July 12. 54. Both the Tanga and Dar es Salaam branches submitted indignant letters requesting the addition of Indian members to their town boards. TNA 18843, vol. 1. 55. TNA 18843, vol. 1. 56. TNA 18843, vol. 1. Confidential letter from Director of Education to Chief Secretary, Dar es Salaam, August 24, 1931, 197–198. 57. Letter from Secretary, Indian Association, Tanganyika Territory, to Chief Secretary, Dar es Salaam, July 29, 1931, 188–189, held in TNA 18843, vol. 1. 58. TNA 13038, vol. 2, 340, is a clipping of a newspaper article dated February 22, 1930. The title is “Censoring East African Films: A Suggestion by Sir Hesketh Bell” and quotes Mr. Wetherall, presumably a censorship board member in Dar es Salaam. The subtitles referred to w ­ ere common in s­ ilent films, which talkies began to replace in the early 1930s. 59. TNA 18843, vol. 1. Confidential letter from Director of Education to Chief Secretary, Dar es Salaam, August 24, 1931, 197–198. 60. TNA 18843, vol. 2. Biscoe, Chairman of the Cinematograph Licensing Board, Dar es Salaam, to the Indian Association, Dar es Salaam, March 21, 1933. 61. TNA 18843, April 4, 1933. 62. Indian Association, Tanganyika Territory, to Chairman, Cinema Censor Board, Dar es Salaam, April 12, 1937, TNA 18843, 501. The IA exercised this privilege throughout the 1930s. See, for example, TNA 18843, 528, Provincial Commissioner, Northern Province, to Chief Secretary, Dar es Salaam, February 12, 1938. 63. The handbill is in TNA 13038, vol. 1, 54. 64. TNA 13038, vol. 1. An alternate title of the film was Prem Sanyas, but it was also known as The Light of Asia and Die Luchte Asiens. See Chabria, ed., Light of Asia, 57–58, and Rajadhyaksha and Willemen, Encyclopedia of Indian Cinema, 230. There is no mention in ­either of the above two volumes about the controversy the film spawned in a few Buddhist centers around the world, including Dar es Salaam in February 1930. 65. Schonfeld, “Franz Osten’s ‘The Light of Asia.’ ” The film flopped in India, but received praise for its artistic value in Germany, where “There was a large audience hungry for exotic places.” Schonfeld, too, does not mention any controversies associated with the film. 66. Prior to Dar es Salaam, the Tanga censorship board approved the film. TNA 13038, vol. 1, 75, from a memo by the Commissioner of Police containing a timeline of the Light of Asia controversy. 67. As advertised in the handbill in TNA 13038, vol. 1, 54. 68. Pannasekara, Buddhism in Africa. Reverend Pannasekara, originally from Sri Lanka, has been the monk in residence at the ­temple since 1998, and I have interviewed him many times since first meeting in 2000. 224

Notes to Pages 102–107

69. Honorary Secretary, Sinhalese Buddhist Association, to Commissioner, Tanganyika Police and Prisons, Dar es Salaam, February 11, 1930, TNA 13038, vol. 1, 50. 70. From the timeline memo by the Commissioner of Police, TNA 13038, vol. 1, 76. 71. From Honorary Secretary, Ceylon Congress of Buddhist Associations to the Chief Secretary, Dar es Salaam, February 19, 1930, TNA 13038, vol. 1, 85. ­A fter the controversy was resolved, a letter arrived from Colombo’s Ceylon Congress of Buddhist Associations repeating that the film was “wounding” and “highly offensive.” 72. TNA 13038, vol. 1, from commissioner’s timeline memo, 77. 73. TNA 13038, vol. 1, 63, which is a copy of the association’s handbill. 74. From President, IA, Tanganyika Territory, to Chief Secretary, Dar es Salaam, February 15, 1930, TNA 13038, vol. 1, 68. 75. TNA 13038, vol. 1, 71. On February 16, 1930, the government received a note from the Kuo-­Min-­Tang thanking the Sinhalese Buddhist Association for their stance and referring to its members as “your Chinese bro­th­ers.” 76. President, Sinhalese Buddhist Association, to Chief Secretary, Dar es Salaam, February 16, 1930, TNA 13038, vol. 1, 69. 77. For an account of the commissioner’s trek to the Empire, see TNA 13038, vol. 1, 79–80, in the commissioner’s timeline memo. Brennan reports that at the cinema “scores of police had to be deployed . . . ​together with airplane reconnaissance.” “Demo­cratizing Cinema and Censorship in Tanzania,” 490. 78. The two controversial scenes that hit the cutting floor involved the depiction of the “birth of Lord Buddha” and another “which portrays the Prophet’s courtship.” From the commissioner’s timeline, 79–80, TNA 13038, vol. 1. 79. TNA 13038, vol. 1, 80. 80. They met at another theater in town, using the large space offered by the New Cinema. For a report on this meeting, see TNA 13038, vol. 1, 80–82, and a letter from the Office of the Commissioner of Police and Prisons, Dar es Salaam, to Campbell, Secretariat, Dar es Salaam, February 17, 1930, TNA 13038, vol. 1, 72–73. 81. These two sources, respectively, estimated the meeting attendance as two-­ thirds and 95 ­percent Buddhist. TNA 13038, vol. 1. 82. A typed copy of the resolution is held in TNA 13038, vol. 1, 70. 83. From commissioner’s timeline memo, in TNA 13038, vol. 1, 81. 84. P. Oza, ­Manager, Empire Cinema, to Commissioner of Police and Prisons, Dar es Salaam, February 17, 1930, TNA 13038, vol. 1, 74. 85. TNA 13038, vol. 1, 83. Vari­ous Mahommaden Communities, Dar es Salaam, c/o Anjuman Islamia, to Commissioner of Police and Prisons, Dar es Salaam, February 24, 1930. All errors are in the original. 86. TNA 13038, vol. 1, 84. Deputy Commissioner, Tanganyika Police and Prisons, to President, Anjuman Islamia, Dar es Salaam, February 26, 1930. 87. Circular notes, TNA 13038, vol. 4. Chairman, Cinema Licensing Board, July 2, 1934. 88. Circular notes, TNA 13038, vol. 4, 7. 89. TNA 13038, vol. 6, from Provincial Commissioner, Northern Province, to Chief Secretary, Dar es Salaam, September 2, 1946. 225

Notes to Pages 108–113

90. Ivaska points out that one of the AA’s first actions concerned greater access to motion pictures. “Negotiating ‘Culture’ in a Cosmopolitan Capital,” 56. 91. TNA 13038, vol. 1, 126. Letter from District Officer, Dar es Salaam, to Provincial Commissioner, Eastern Province, December 8, 1930. A year ­later the issue apparently still persisted, as the director of education noted that, “[F]ilms shown at the existing theatres are usually passed for non-­natives only and it is a constant source of irritation to the natives of the town to arrive at the theatre only to find that the programme that night is for non-­natives only.” TNA 20496, vol. 1, Acting Director of Education, December 30, 1931. 92. TNA 13038, vol. 1, 126. Letter from District Officer, Dar es Salaam, to Provincial Commissioner, Eastern Province, December 8, 1930. 93. TNA 13038, vol. 1, 127. Letter from District Officer, Dar es Salaam, to Provincial Commissioner, Eastern Province, December 8, 1930. 94. In the words of the District Officer, in ibid. 95. TNA 13038, vol. 1, 124–125, Acting Provincial Commissioner to Chief Secretary, Dar es Salaam, December 11, 1930. 96. A new provincial commissioner wrote that the existing cinema policy “gives rise to a feeling of resentment among the educated Africans at a regulation which they consider suggests they are inferior persons in comparison with o ­ thers.” TNA 13038, vol. 1, 227, Provincial Commissioner to Chief Secretary, Dar es Salaam, November 19, 1931. 97. TNA 13038, vol. 4, circular notes with no date but very likely 1934. For a contrasting view, see TNA 13038, vol. 1, Secretary for Native Affairs, December 31, 1931. 98. TNA 13038, vol. 2, 239–240, Gabrielle Stoneman, Dar es Salaam, March  3, 1932. The Green Goddess was a 1930 talkie about three British citizens who crash land in India and are subsequently held hostage by a maharaja. “The Green Goddess,” Internet Movie Database, http://­w ww​.­imdb​.­com​/­title​/­tt0020938​/­, accessed September 23, 2012. 99. For an account of the 1922 hartal, see Iliffe, A Modern History of Tanganyika, 264–265. 100. Ibid., 265. The 1923 Indian protests reacted against the government’s efforts to introduce a new fee and tax on shop­keep­ers, and to require Indian businesses to keep account books in En­glish or Swahili instead of Gujarati. 101. “Rec­ord Gathering Pays Homage: About Shgs. 6,000 Subscribed for Congress: Dar es Salaam Prays for Success of Gandhi Movement,” Tanganyika Opinion, May 9, 1930. NAI 123–124, Education, Health & Lands (Overseas B), December 1930, “Memo of the Indian Association Dar es Salaam, to Permanent Mandate Commission on position of Indians in Tanganyika.” 102. TNA 13038, vol. 2, 277, September 23, 1935. 103. TNA 13038, vol. 2, 300. 104. TNA 13038, vol. 2, circular notes, September 23, 1935. 105. “There is . . . ​a large number of Africans in Dar es Salaam of the same standard of education as many non-­natives who attend cinema exhibitions from which Africans are excluded and it may be possi­ble to differentiate between these and the

226

Notes to Pages 113–117

less sophisticated Africans whom the pre­sent regulations are designed to protect.” Ibid., colonial minute, likely from October 1935. 106. TNA 13038, vol. 2, 300, memorandum of the Chairman of the Cinematograph Licensing Board. 107. TNA 13038, vol. 2, 503–506. Sulemani Bajuma, Dar es Salaam, to the editor of Mambo Leo, presumably in January or early February 1936. Bajuma titled his letter “A Native Not Allowed.” 108. See the quote at ftn. 102. 109. TNA 18843, vol. 2, confidential letter from Provincial Commissioner, Dodoma, to Chief Secretary, Dar es Salaam, November 22, 1932. 110. TNA 26633, vol. 2, “Cinematograph Censorship Board for Dar-­es-­Salaam Township.” 111. The chairman in par­tic­u­lar called for “closer supervision of the per­for­mances at the Alexandra and Minerva theatres.” TNA 26633, vol. 2, Chairman, Cinematograph Censorship Board, to Chief Secretary, Dar es Salaam, June 18, 1940. 112. TNA 13038, vol. 6, 105, Acting Chief Secretary, Dar es Salaam, August 11, 1947. By 1954, there ­were five Africans on the board, and, with the censorship board “anxious to augment the number,” it was considering seven other names. TNA 540/27/37, “Cinema and Films, 1952–58,” 49. P. Everett, Territorial Film Censor, to C. C. Harris, District Commissioner, Dar es Salaam, November 24, 1954. 113. TNA 540/27/37, colonial minute, June 3, 1948. 114. TNA 13038, vol. 6, 4. Chairman, Cinematograph Censorship Board, Dar es Salaam, to Chief Secretary, Dar es Salaam, December 19, 1940. 115. TNA 13038, vol. 6, 5. Colonial minute, Acting Director of Education, January 4, 1941. The following quotes in this and the next paragraph in text are from this minute. 116. TNA 13038, vol. 6, January 10, 1941. Fearing losing their access to risqué movies, and deploying the misguided assumption that Africans’ “well-­k nown gift of imitation” would cause films to lead them into a life of crime, the members of  the Censorship Board offered one last suggestion—­which was summarily ­d ismissed as “paradoxical” by the government—to change cinema regulations, namely “granting power to restrict exhibition of certain films to a specified place viz: the Empire Theatre, Dar es Salaam. Few Africans are in the habit of attending this theatre and those who do are of the educated type. The ordinary native frequents the other cinemas in the town. . . . ​T he suggestion has the added advantage of being devoid of any suspicion of racial discrimination.” TNA 13038, vol. 6. Chairman, Cinematograph Censorship Board, to Chief Secretary, Dar es Salaam, February 13, 1941, and Director of Education to Chief Secretary, Dar es Salaam, July 1, 1941. 117. The Director of Education also noted that the war was the paramount concern at the time. TNA 13038, vol. 6, 18. Minute, Director of Education, November 20, 1941. 118. TNA 18843, vol. 2, minute by Mr. C. F. Beauclerk, Secretariat, Dar es Salaam, 1936.

227

Notes to Pages 117–122

119. TNA 13038, vol. 6, letter from Government, Dar es Salaam, to Secretary of State for Colonies, London, September 19, 1946. 120. Iliffe, A Modern History of Tanganyika, 375. 121. TNA 13038, vol. 2, colonial minute dated June 17, 1933. 122. TNA 20496, vol. 1, from a report by G. K. Latham dated March 1, 1937, titled “Notes on the use of the film in Africa,” 77–78. He went on to add, “It is for this reason that the assumption of control by Governments in the m ­ atter of entertainment by cinemas is becoming a ­matter of urgency.” Latham was one of the progenitors of the Bantu Educational Kinema Experiment. 123. TNA 13038, vol. 2, 269, circular written by the Chairman, Cinematograph Licensing Board, January 24, 1933, in response to a query regarding films from the Secretary of State, London. 124. Slogan from the Bantu Educational Kinema Experiment, TNA 22858, vol. 1, “Bantu Education Kinema Experiment.” In addition to BEKE, which ran in the mid1930s, the Colonial Film Unit made films in the 1940s. 125. TNA 41428, “Scenarios for Production of Films,” 9, Norman F. Spurr, Colonial Film Unit, regarding Tanganyika Film Unit, to the Honourable Member for Social Ser­v ice, August 2, 1950. 126. TNA 13038, vol. 2, Donne, Secretary of Education, Tanganyika, in response to a query from Undersecretary of State, London, June 30, 1931. 127. TNA 20496, vol. 1, note by the Acting Director of Education, December 30, 1931. 128. The best account of the dangers of crossing segregated boundaries in Dar es Salaam is Burton, African Underclass. 129. TNA 13038, vol. 2, 397, note by Acting Director of Education, Dar es Salaam, in 1935. 130. TNA 13038, vol. 2, 337. The article is in the archival file. 131. TNA 13038, vol. 4, note by Chairman, Cinema Licensing Board, July 2, 1934. 132. TNA 13038, vol. 1, 46–47. S. F. Male, Superintendent of Education, Dar es Salaam, to Superintendent of Police, Dar es Salaam, October 5, 1929. 133. TNA 26633, vol. 2. For the Avalon, see the letter from the Information Officer to the Secretariat, Dar es Salaam, May 11, 1945. For the Minerva, see a circular note, December 30, 1943. 134. From TNA 38616, 1a, Nickol, September 1948 Social Welfare Report, as quoted in Brennan, “Demo­cratizing Cinema and Censorship in Tanzania,” in ftn. 74, 494–495. 135. TNA 540/27/37, 34, contains a copy of “Avalon Speaks,” a collection of movie ads published by Indo–African Theatres Ltd. and printed by the Tanganyika Standard. TNA 540/27/14, “Township and minor settlements—­mosques, religious actions, pilgrimages, ­etc., 1943–1958,” contains some film announcements inside a pamphlet of the Central Society of Tanganyika Muslims (which likely dates to 1957 or 1958), 16–18. 136. Zuhra newspaper in 1948 contained an ad in Swahili for a new Arabic film coming to the Azania. TNA 540/27/14, newspaper contained in the file, April 16, 1948. 137. TNA 540/27/37, “Avalon Speaks,” 34. 138. Smyth, “The Feature Film in Tanzania,” 391. 228

Notes to Pages 122–130

139. TNA 35999, vol. 2, 397, Governor’s Deputy, Dar es Salaam, to The Secretary of State for the Colonies, London, November 28, 1951. 140. TNA 35999, vol. 2, 395. Memo of the Commissioner for Social Development, Dar es Salaam.

CHAPTER 4: EDUCATING THE NATION 1. From an address titled “Education and Liberation” given by Nyerere at the Dar es Salaam Institute of Development Studies Dag Hammarskjöld Seminar in 1974, 7. Thanks to John Hungu for sharing his personal copy. 2. Pratt, The Critical Phase in Tanzania, 34–35. The correct Kiswahili word for what Pratt describes is mseto. The best two sources on the emergence of colonial multiracialist politics are Iliffe, A Modern History of Tanganyika, especially 475–484, and Pratt, The Critical Phase in Tanzania, especially 12–19 and 28–35. 3. While working to broaden its po­liti­cal base, in 1955 TANU started to operate informal educational institutions—­along the lines of the old missionary “bush schools”—as a protest against the government’s failure to provide sufficient educational opportunities for Africans. See Morrison, Education and Politics in Africa, 77. 4. For these metropolitan memoranda, see Buchert, Education in the Development of Tanzania, 49–52. 5. On the visiting missions, see Morrison, Education and Politics in Africa, 78–81. For a comparative look at how internationalist organizations and social scientists waged a global campaign against racial discrimination, see Shepard, “Algeria, France, Mexico, UNESCO.” 6. Makerere, once reserved exclusively for African students, was opened to all races in 1951—­a move that British educational observers had urged since 1937. See Morrison, Education and Politics in Africa, 78. 7. Cited in ibid. 8. Ibid., 79. 9. Nyerere, “The Race Prob­lem Demands Economic Action,” in Nyerere, Freedom and Unity, 73–74. This extract is from an article titled “We Cannot Afford to Fail,” published in December 1959 in an American magazine, Africa Special Report. 10. Cited in Morrison, Education and Politics in Africa, 79. 11. Ibid., 80–81. 12. From “The Race Prob­lem in East Africa,” in Nyerere, Freedom and Unity, 28. 13. Cited in Mustafa, The Tanganyika Way, 129. Mustafa, an Indian Muslim affiliated with the Ahmadiyya community, won election as a TANU candidate in the 1958 multiracial Legislative Council elections. 14. Nyerere made this statement in 1957. Pratt, The Critical Phase in Tanzania, 86. 15. This statement is from 1960. Ibid., 87. 16. For more on the history of the relationship between African nationalist rhe­ toric and racial thought, focusing on the Indian presence in Dar es Salaam, see Brennan, Taifa, especially chapter four. 17. Iliffe, A Modern History of Tanganyika, 552. The argument could be extended to include Indians with ­different views of race. Within the Asian Association there was 229

Notes to Pages 130–135

considerable friction regarding the or­ga­ni­za­tion’s support of African nationalism. See Jhaveri, Marching with Nyerere, 113–128. 18. From “Why I Resigned,” in Nyerere, Freedom and Unity, 51. Sauti ya TANU, the party broadsheet, originally published the piece on December 16, 1957. 19. Said, The Life and Times of Abdulwahid Sykes, 238–254, quotes from 241–242. 20. Ibid., 243–244. 21. Underlining in the original. Zuberi M. M. Mtemvu, May 19, 1958, TNA 540/16, “LegCo Elections, 1958–62.” 22. Printed in Mwafrika, October 4, 1960, TNA 540/DC 1/68, “Summary of the Vernacular Press, 1960–61.” 23. Ngurumo, November 22, 1960, TNA 540/DC 1/68. 24. Ngurumo, December 5, 1960, government translation in TNA 540/DC 1/68. 25. Stephen Mhina to Ngurumo, November 1, 1960, government translation in TNA 540/DC 1/68. 26. When disturbances in the Congo targeted non-­ A fricans in 1960, fears emerged among Tanganyika’s Indians, leading some to leave the territory. Nyerere quickly moved to reassure the resident non-­A frican population, insisting that similar events ­were impossible in Tanganyika due to the strength of TANU. Following through on this pledge, in September of 1960 TANU struck two nationalist activists from its membership roll for extorting money from Indians. The Congo issue was reported in Ngurumo, August 18, 1960, as recorded in TNA 540/DC 1/68. See Nyerere’s speech on the Congo crisis in the Tanganyika Standard, August 5, 1960, reproduced in Mustafa, The Tanganyika Way, 121–122. Ngurumo reported on the extortion attempt in Njombe in its September 8, 1960, edition, TNA 540/DC 1/68. 27. For Mtemvu’s defeat in 1958, which was repeated in 1960, see Iliffe, A Modern History of Tanganyika, 572. 28. Morrison, Education and Politics in Africa, 81–82. 29. From a United States Information Ser­v ice press release, February 12, 1960, titled “Nyerere Says Africa has History on its Side.” The public event was a benefit program for African students held at the Biltmore ­Hotel, and was part of an American tour that Nyerere undertook to gain support for his vision of in­de­pen­dent Tanganyika. Thanks to John Hungu for sharing his copy of this press release. 30. As quoted in Morrison, Education and Politics in Africa, 83. 31. Quoted in Pratt, The Critical Phase in Tanzania, 111. 32. Morrison, Education and Politics in Africa, 83. 33. See Iliffe, A Modern History of Tanganyika, 551–552, for this argument and the details of religious groups’ or­ga­niz­ing on issues of education. 34. See discussion in Said, The Life and Times of Abdulwahid Sykes, 251. 35. Ibid., 252. 36. These reports are held in TNA 540/DC 1/68. 37. TNA 540/DC 1/68. Italics added. At this time, Ngurumo employed an Indian, Randhir Thacker, as managing director of its publishing com­pany. See Jhaveri, Marching With Nyerere, 66. 38. Mwafrika, August 23, 1960, TNA 540/DC 1/68. For more on sending children to study in Uganda during the colonial period, see “Shule za T.A.P.A. zimesaidia,” 230

Notes to Pages 135–139

Ngurumo, January 24, 1966. This practice continued into the postcolonial period and put parents in a position of vulnerability to scams, according to a court case from 1966 reported in “Kortini kwa kuwadanganya wanafunzi,” Ngurumo, February 9, 1966. 39. Ngurumo, August 23, 1960, TNA 540/DC 1/68. 40. Ngurumo, August 23, 1960, TNA 540/DC 1/68. 41. Mwafrika, August 31, 1960, TNA 540/DC 1/68. 42. Mwafrika, August 23, 1960, TNA 540/DC 1/68. It is unclear why Abedi thought Italians ­were a separate race. Abedi was an Ahmadiyya Muslim missionary and a poet, and became Dar es Salaam’s first African mayor. See Iliffe, A Modern History of Tanganyika, 551. 43. Mr. M. K. S. Bantu, Mwafrika, November 5, 1960, TNA 540/DC 1/68. 44. Mwafrika, September 10, 1960, TNA 540/DC 1/68. 45. Ngurumo, October 28, 1960, TNA 540/DC 1/68. 46. Mwami Shangillah, Dar es Salaam, Mwafrika, October 13, 1960, TNA 540/DC 1/68. 47. Mwafrika, December 10, 1960, TNA 540/DC 1/68. 48. Mwafrika, December 11, 1960, TNA 540/DC 1/68. 49. Ngurumo, December 7, 1960, TNA 540/DC 1/68. 50. Ngurumo, December 22, 1960, TNA 540/DC 1/68. 51. From “President’s Inaugural Address,” December 10, 1962, in Nyerere, Free­ dom and Unity, 179. Nyerere was officially elected president in November 1962, as the TANU candidate—­receiving 97 ­percent of the vote (open to all adults)—­trounced the ANC candidate. See ibid., 177. 52. Morrison lists the organizations as the Tanganyika Episcopal Conference (the former Catholic Welfare Society), the Christian Council of Tanganyika, the Tanganyika African Parents Association (aligned with TANU), the East African Muslim Welfare Society, and the Education Department of His Highness the Aga Khan. This situation lasted ­until the full nationalization of schools in 1969. Morrison, Education and Politics in Africa, 96. 53. Cameron and Dodd, Society, Schools and Progress in Tanzania, 175. 54. See ibid., 175–176. Government reduced fees in former Eu­ro­pean schools to twenty-­one pounds and raised them in Swahili-­medium ones, with former Indian schools’ fees remaining unchanged. 55. Incidents occurred most frequently in Moshi, but also in Dar es Salaam, Mwanza, Bukoba, and other urban areas. See Morrison, Education and Politics in Af­ rica, 200–205, for a description of these crises. 56. See Pratt, The Critical Phase in Tanzania, 223, for a description of the incident described in the text. Some of the parents’ anger might be attributable to the fact that from 1958 to 1961 African candidates in form four examinations passed at higher rates than Indian students. African schools, due to a shortage of places in relation to their population numbers, ­were far more selective in their admissions policy—­more Indian students, in fact, took the exam in 1961 than African students (937 versus 573). U.N. Economic and Social Council, “Report of UNESCO Educational Planning Mission for Tanganyika.” 231

Notes to Pages 139–142

57. “Mikutano mikuu ya TAPA,” Ngurumo, January 9, 1966. 58. “Rais Nyerere asema: Matatizo yetu ya elimu ni ya mafanikio sio kushindwa; ‘Tusilalamike,’ ” Ngurumo, January 10, 1966. 59. The English-­language newspaper the Standard printed this warning; quoted in Morrison, Education and Politics in Africa, 203. 60. “Watoto wa shule wasio raia,” Ngurumo, October 11, 1966. 61. Letter to the editor signed “Zanzibari” in the Tanganyika Standard, April 10, 1964. 62. S. Ndefuto, Mwanza, to the editor of the Tanganyika Standard, June 5, 1964. 63. Janet Mwangupi Mwabukusi, from Malangali, letter to the editor of the Tang­ anyika Standard, April 17, 1964. 64. “Headmaster hopes pupils will show tolerance,” Tanganyika Standard, December 9, 1964. 65. Interview with Mrs. Njawa on March 19, 2003, at the Olimpio Primary School in Dar es Salaam. 66. “President bans discrimination: Equal opportunity for all citizens,” Tangan­ yika Standard, January 8, 1964. 67. An editorial in the Tanganyika Standard on January 8, 1964, called Nyerere’s declaration “timely and welcome,” and the extract above appeared on January 16, 1964, in the Tanganyika Standard. 68. See, for example,  H.  R. Dharani, letter to the editor titled “Positive policy needed by trade u ­ nions,” Tanganyika Standard, January 20, 1964, and V. P. Babla, letter to the editor, “Mwalimu’s speech dispels doubts,” Tanganyika Standard, February 6, 1964. 69. Husein Mohamedtak, letter to the editor, “President ends those doubts,” Tan­ ganyika Standard, February 12, 1964. 70. “Ban slated by ­unions: Africanisation hit,” Tanganyika Standard, January 9, 1964. 71. “Directive criticised: Unions seek explanation,” in the Tanganyika Standard, January 11, 1964. Even more threatening to President Nyerere’s rule than the criticism of the ­labor ­unions was the army mutiny of January 1964, in which African soldiers, upset at the slow pace of promoting them into British-­held officer positions, briefly seized strategic locations across the country before being disarmed by British troops hastily dispatched by the United Kingdom upon receiving Nyerere’s frantic appeal for assistance. See Parsons, The 1964 Army Mutinies and the Making of Modern East Africa. 72. “Asians urged to ‘join in’: Self-­help at Tabora,” Tanganyika Standard, February 20, 1964. This was not an isolated call. See “Asians urged to integrate at Songea,” Tanganyika Standard, July 1, 1964; “Non-­A fricans ‘must attend’ [public meetings],” Tanganyika Standard, July 21, 1964; and “Songambele warning to Asian groups,” Tang­ anyika Standard, December 15, 1964. 73. “Res­pect leaders, Asians told,” Tanganyika Standard, June 25, 1964. 74. As reported in “Jamal spurs Asians: Integrate,” Tanganyika Standard, June 30, 1964. 75. “Youth scheme,” Tanganyika Standard, December 17, 1964. 232

Notes to Pages 142–144

76. See the following letters to the editor: H. R. Dharani, “Integration by using threats ‘must fail,’ ” Tanganyika Standard, July 6, 1964;  V.  R. Boal, “Jamal’s broadcast,” Tanganyika Standard, August  17, 1964; and  M.  R. Jain, “Asians: Facts ‘which cannot be altered,’ ” Tanganyika Standard, December 21, 1964. 77. For example, see J. S. Warioba’s letter to the editor, rebutting M. R. Jain’s position (cited above), “Dogmatic statements made on Asian role,” Tanganyika Standard, December 22, 1964. 78. “Afrikanezesheni manispaa ya Tanga,” Ngurumo, April 19, 1966. 79. Editorial titled “City kuna nini?” Ngurumo, April 6, 1966. 80. “Majumba ya Aga-­K han yapangishwa wananchi,” Ngurumo, July 19, 1966, and “Majumba ya Waasia,” Ngurumo, August 4, 1966. 81. His letter was titled “Ubaguzi Dar” (Discrimination in Dar), Ngurumo, February 16, 1966. 82. Editorial, “Waasia na mikutano,” Ngurumo, July 22, 1966. 83. “Waasia na mikutano,” Ngurumo, August 6, 1966. 84. See Morrison, Education and Politics in Africa, 166–167, for a description of this exchange program. 85. Ibid. Morrison surveyed forty Indian and an unnamed number of African teachers in 1966 about the exchange program and the f­uture of education in the country. 86. Interview with Mrs. Njawa on March 19, 2003, and interview with Rehema Panda, March 17, 2003, both conducted at the Olimpio Primary School in Dar es Salaam. 87. “Education vote nearly £6m.: Highest in bud­get,” Tanganyika Standard, June 27, 1964. 88. See, for example, a glowing newspaper editorial calling the progress “incredible”: “Advance in learning,” Tanganyika Standard, June 27, 1964. 89. Racially mixed classrooms w ­ ere found mainly in Dar es Salaam and other major cities because South Asians lived predominantly in urban areas. According to the 1957 census, 68.6 ­percent of non-­A fricans lived in the thirty-­three gazetted towns. See U.N. Economic and Social Council, “Educational Planning Mission for Tanganyika.” 90. For example, in the former Aga Khan and Mawenzi Indian secondary schools in Iringa and Moshi, respectively, the percentage of African pupils reached 63 and 61 ­percent by 1966. See Morrison, Education and Politics in Africa, 167–168. 91. In the late 1960s, by which time it had an African majority student body, the government nationalized  D.  A. Girls’ School (Devkunwar Arya Kanya Shala) and changed its name to Kisutu Girls’ School. Interview with Manjula Buhecha, Upanga, Dar es Salaam, September 4, 2001. 92. Dolan, Transition from Colonialism to Self-­Reliance in Tanzanian Education, 147–148. 93. See “Pupils must be taught what nation is d ­ oing,” Tanganyika Standard, September 7, 1964; “Elimu sikupata kazi” (Education is not to get you a job), Ngurumo, October 19, 1966; and “Watoto wafundishwa kupenda taifa tangu mapema—­S. N. Eliufoo” (Children should be taught from early on to love the nation), Ngurumo, November 29, 1966. 233

Notes to Pages 144–148

94. Pratt, The Critical Phase in Tanzania, 222. 95. Nyerere, Education for Self-­Reliance. 96. Nyerere, Education for Self-­Reliance, 28. 97. See Morrison, Education and Politics in Africa, 216–219, for a discussion of this topic. The quote is on 218. 98. The member of the National Assembly was Richard Wambura. Quoted in Morrison, Education and Politics in Africa, 216. 99. Nyerere, Education for Self-­Reliance, 19–20. See also “Education team set up: Policy switch to be phased in,” Tanganyika Standard, March 11, 1967. 100. “Traders ordered to cultivate shambas,” Tanganyika Standard, February 20, 1967. 101. “Elimu ya kujitegemea: Mpango wa shule za Dar kulima Ruvu unaridhisha?” Nchi Yetu, June 1977. 102. From the Daily News, quoted in Cooksey, Court, and Makau, “Education for Self-­Reliance and Harambee,” in Barkan, ed., Beyond Capitalism and Socialism in ­Kenya and Tanzania, 219. 103. Meister, East Africa, 232. 104. See Cooksey et  al., “Education for Self-­Reliance and Harambee,” 217, and Buchert, Education in the Development of Tanzania, 104. 105. For enrollment numbers, see Buchert, Education in the Development of Tanza­ nia, 110. For a cautionary experience with expenditure amounts and enrollment statistics, see Samoff, “The Façade of Precision in Education Data and Statistics.” 106. United Republic of Tanzania, Statistical Abstract 1973–1979, 369. 107. Buchert, Education in the Development of Tanzania, 113. 108. Samoff, “ ‘Modernizing’ a Socialist Vision,” in Carnoy and Samoff, Education and Social Transition in the Third World, 249. 109. Nyerere quoted in ibid., 251. 110. Cooksey et al., “Education for Self-­Reliance and Harambee,” 218. 111. The number of Africans earning between shs 500 and 999 per month jumped from 7,269 to 25,910 between 1964 and 1970, and those earning over shs 1000 grew from 2,246 to 11,597 in the same period. See Pratt, The Critical Phase in Tanzania, 220, for a t­ able on higher African incomes. 112. Interview with Hilda Mwakilasa on March  19, 2003, at Olimpio Primary School, Dar es Salaam. 113. United Republic of Tanzania, Statistical Abstract 1973–1979, 344. The government did not keep statistics for racial groups, preferring only a distinction of “citizen” and “non-­citizen.” 114. See tables on 114 and 321–322 of United Republic of Tanzania, Statistical Ab­ stract 1973–1979. 115. Herrick et al., Area Handbook for Tanzania, 102–103. 116. Hazelwood, Education, Work, and Pay in East Africa. For this survey, see the chapter titled “Educational Attainment and the Urban Labour-­Market in Tanzania,” 162–220. 117. Ibid., 175.

234

Notes to Pages 148–149

118. Pratt, The Critical Phase in Tanzania, 226. 119. See “Revolution in education: New policy is set out by president,” Tanganyika Standard, March 10, 1967. 120. “Revolution in education vital—­K awawa,” Tanganyika Standard, April 11, 1967. 121. Mustafa, The Tanganyika Way, 82–83. For an analy­sis of Mustafa’s writing, as part of a larger consideration of how Asians in East Africa partnered with Nyerere in nation building, see chapter six of Desai, Commerce with the Universe. 122. “Kauli yetu: Makupe na mirija katika hazina za halmashauri za wilaya,” Kion­ gozi, May 1, 1968. 123. “Confiscation warning to businessmen,” Tanganyika Standard, January  14, 1967. Joseph Nyerere was the regional commissioner for Mwanza. 124. See, for examples, an editorial, “Wild words,” Tanganyika Standard, January 16, 1967; a letter to the editor, “Unpalatable words,” by anonymous, Tanganyika Standard, February 1, 1967; and a letter to the editor, “Mob oratory,” by E. K. Lwamgira, Tanganyika Standard, January 25, 1967. 125. For examples, see Edward Kumalija, “Exploiters,” letter to the editor, Tang­ anyika Standard, March 4, 1967; letter to the editor signed “Disgusted” and titled “Exploiters,” Tanganyika Standard, February 7, 1967; and Juma Khamis, “Civil servants,” letter to the editor, Tanganyika Standard, March 19, 1967. For more on “Nation Building, Racial Distance, and the Indian Caricature,” see Brennan, Taifa, 176–181. 126. S. B. Kimbokota, “Straws,” letter to the editor, Tanganyika Standard, March 22, 1967. 127. “Black Resentment for the Asians,” Time, February 24, 1967. 128. Newspaper articles estimated that more than five hundred Indians received ­orders to quit Tanzania within two months ­a fter less than a month of wide-­scale residency permit checks, although an unreported number appealed and ­were allowed to stay a­ fter filing citizenship applications. Many letters to the editor appeared in support of and opposition to the citizenship sweeps. See “Total soars to 161 as permit check goes on,” Tanganyika Standard, January 26, 1967; “Arusha permit check widens: 81 told to go,” Tanganyika Standard, January  30, 1967; and “Review likely of expulsion ­orders,” Tanganyika Standard, February 12, 1967. 129. “Police stop mob attack on shops,” Tanganyika Standard, January 27, 1967. Many other dealers closed their shops and fled a­ fter twenty men demanded money from them, and the situation returned to normal only ­after the Field Force Unit arrived. According to an American magazine article (fuelled by the Cold War atmosphere), “Asians have been cursed, reviled and threatened during frenzied street demonstrations in Dar es Salaam by emerald-­shirted black youths dubbed ‘the Green Guards’ by Socialist Nyerere, who so admires Red China that he last week proclaimed the observance of the Chinese New Year in Tanzania.” “Black resentment for the Asians,” Time, February 24, 1967. 130. “ ‘ We will take only citizens’ warns India,” Tanganyika Standard, January 31, 1967.

235

Notes to Pages 149–152

131. “Asians told: Adjust to African ways,” Tanganyika Standard, April 24, 1967. 132. See Samoff, “ ‘Modernizing’ a Socialist Vision,” 246, for the statistics on private secondary schools, while the other numbers in the text, u ­ nless other­w ise attributed, are based on Buchert, Education in the Development of Tanzania, 110. 133. United Republic of Tanzania, Statistical Abstract 1973–1979, 368. 134. Interview with Mathilda Temba, Olimpio Primary School, Dar es Salaam, March 17, 2003. 135. Samoff, “ ‘Modernizing’ a Socialist Vision,” 245. 136. The Ministry of Education claimed that the number of Tanganyikans studying abroad leapt to 1,200 in 1964 from only 80 in 1959. “1,200 young Tanganyikans studying overseas,” Tanganyika Standard, April 16, 1964. 137. Interview with Manjula Buhecha, Dar es Salaam, September 4, 2001. 138. “1,712 study overseas,” Tanganyika Standard, May 15, 1964. 139. For more on students from Africa studying in India, see Bertz, “Indian Ocean World Travellers,” in Basu, ed., Journeys and Dwellings, 42–44. The scheme began with five scholarships offered to East African students in 1947, and had expanded to forty-­five scholarships by 1960. Pakistan had a similar scheme. Such educational exchanges between East Africa and India began early, with the Sultan of Zanzibar requesting admission for his son to the elite Mayo College in Ajmer in 1919. 140. Bertz, “Indian Ocean World Travellers,” 44. 141. Ismailis w ­ ere also successful in pre-­primary education in Dar es Salaam and elsewhere as this sector was outside the reach of the Ministry of Education. In primary schooling, the government’s main area of interest, the Aga Khan was less successful. See Kaiser, Culture, Transnationalism, and Civil Society, 81–82 and 86–92. 142. Interview with Mr. Thind, headmaster of the Aga Khan Mzizima Secondary School, Upanga, Dar es Salaam, August 20, 2001. 143. Kaiser, Culture, Transnationalism, and Civil Society, 91–92. 144. Ibid., 92. 145. Mathew, “Shaaban Robert Secondary School,” unpublished history of the school (2001), 10–12. Much of the information in this section is from this draft history of SRSS written by the then-­headmaster, Thomas Mathew, an Indian citizen who also lived for many years in West Africa as a school headmaster. Many thanks to Mr. Mathew for sharing this document. 146. Mathew, “Shaaban Robert Secondary School,” 15–16. 147. Interview with Thomas Mathew, conducted in the headmaster’s office, Shaaban Robert Secondary School, Upanga, Dar es Salaam, September 10, 2001. 148. Mathew, “Shaaban Robert Secondary School,” 15. It appears that the gender imbalance was worse in private schools. Educational observers indicate that the gender gap got steadily smaller over time, but did not close completely. These views are based on the interview with Thomas Mathew, September 10, 2001, and the interview with Mr.  Thind, headmaster of AKMSS, August  20, 2001. Thind reported a 2001 enrollment of 521 boys and 408 girls. In public primary schools in 1979, girls made up only 41 ­percent of students in standard eight. United Republic of Tanzania, Statistical Abstract 1973–1979, 369.

236

Notes to Pages 152–154

149. See Mathew, “Shaaban Robert Secondary School,” 6 and 16, for early fee information. The Ministry ordered the fees to be raised by 50 ­percent in 1968, although up to 5 ­percent of the student body received tuition remission on a need basis. The school also provided ­free instructional materials up to the 1970s before instituting a charge. Mathew, “Shaaban Robert Secondary School,” 42. 150. Ibid, 14. 151. Interview with Thomas Mathew, September 11, 2001. See also Mathew, “Shaaban Robert Secondary School,” 18. 152. For the growth of SRSS detailed in the first half of this text paragraph, see the time line in Mathew, “Shaaban Robert Secondary School,” 6–7. 153. Ibid., 43. 154. For primary school enrollment and education’s share of the bud­get in this text paragraph, see Buchert, Education in the Development of Tanzania, 148. 155. Lugalla, “Structural Adjustment Policies and Education in Africa,” in Gibbon, ed., Social Change and Economic Reform in Africa, 200–203. 156. See Cooksey et al., “Education for Self-­Reliance and Harambee,” 221. 157. Samoff, “ ‘Modernizing’ a Socialist Vision,” 246. 158. Kaiser, Culture, Transnationalism, and Civil Society, 38. 159. Interview with Mr. Thind, August 20, 2001. While “tuition” was not allowed to pass 105,000 shillings, “fees” ­were uncapped for ser­v ices such as libraries and computers. Nonetheless, the African percentage of the student body remained relatively constant throughout the school’s history (36.3 ­percent in 2001), as a significant African m ­ iddle class developed during liberalization. Due to preferential admission standards for Ismailis, and because Ismailis sent their children almost exclusively to AKMSS, they formed a large proportion of the student body in 2001 (over 24 ­percent). While non-­A fricans ­were in the majority, all but one student was a Tanzanian citizen, indicating that the Indian pupils w ­ ere not children of expatriates. 160. Interview with Mr. Thind, August 20, 2001. The University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) historically has had a very small student body for a premier national university. In 1974, UDSM’s enrollment was 1,894, and it ­rose to 2,980 in 1984. See Cooksey et  al., “Education for Self-­Reliance and Harambee,” 218. For rapidly rising enrollments ­a fter 2000, see United Republic of Tanzania, “Dar es Salaam City Profile,” United Republic of Tanzania, November 2004, http://­w ww​ .­k inondonimunicipality​ .­g o​ .­t z​ /­e nglish2​ /­d ownload​ /­D ar%20es%20Salaam%20 City%20Profile%20Nov​-­2004 ​.­pdf, accessed June 2008, and United Republic of Tanzania, “Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology,” United Republic of Tanzania, http://­w ww​.­msthe​.­go​.­tz​/­statistics​/­summary2 ​.­pdf, accessed June 2008. 161. Interview with Mr. Kingu, Aga Khan Mzizima Secondary School, Dar es Salaam, October 1, 2001. 162. Ibid. While his AKMSS salary was lower than what he received at the public Jangwani Secondary School, Kingu shifted schools for the combination of better facilities, more committed teachers, and (perhaps most importantly) the opportunity to conduct lucrative extra lessons outside of class for ­middle-­class students whose parents could afford them.

237

Notes to Pages 155–159

163. Interviews with J. Silas, August 7, 2001; Joseph Nchimbi, August 16, 2001; and Musa J. E. Ludeng’hemya, August 20, 2001, all conducted in their shared office at SRSS, Upanga, Dar es Salaam. 164. Interview with Joseph Nchimbi, August 16, 2001. 165. The wealthiest students pay private school teachers high rates for extra tuition sessions, enhancing their chances of success on competitive exams, as revealed in a series of interviews between 2000 and 2003 with Nutan Mehta, Dar es Salaam. Mehta was the headmistress and a teacher at Shree Hindu Mandal Primary School and continues in this position at pre­sent. 166. Interview with Joseph Nchimbi, August 16, 2001. 167. Ibid. Interestingly, Nchimbi is originally from Uganda. 168. Interview with Musa J. E. Ludeng’hemya, August 20, 2001. 169. While the idea of Indian mobility as antinational appeared frequently in conversations with secondary school teachers, none mentioned the growing number of wealthier African Tanzanians who moved abroad to pursue higher education or a  ­career. The Tanzanian African diaspora has become better or­ga­nized in recent years; see Mercer, Page, and Evans, Development and the African Diaspora. 170. Mathew, “Shaaban Robert Secondary School,” 49. 171. Ibid., 33–34. 172. Interview with Thomas Mathew, September 10, 2001. 173. Interview with Joseph Nchimbi, August 16, 2001. 174. Interviews with J. Silas, August 7, 2001, and Musa J. E. Ludeng’hemya, August 20, 2001. 175. Interview with Musa J. E. Ludeng’hemya, August 20, 2001. 176. “Sponsorship by Shaaban Robert casts doubt,” the Guardian, July 19, 2001. All errors in original. 177. An anonymous letter to the editor printed in the Guardian on July 23 rebutted the accusations. When I visited SRSS many times throughout August, the episode was the talk of the school. 178. “Sponsorship by Shaaban Robert casts doubt,” the Guardian, July 19, 2001. All errors in original. 179. Interview with Musa J. E. Ludeng’hemya, August 20, 2001. 180. Kaiser, Culture, Transnationalism, and Civil Society, 38. 181. For the story of the eventual opening of a primary school in Dar es Salaam run by the Aga Khan Educational Society, Tanzania, see Kaiser, Culture, Transna­ tionalism, and Civil Society, 90–91. 182. Interview with Thomas Mathew, September 10, 2001. Tanzania’s public secondary schools used En­glish as the primary medium of instruction. 183. Kaiser, Culture, Transnationalism, and Civil Society, 91. In 1993, the autonomous Institute for Curriculum Development reverted to a parastatal with its old name, Tanzania Institute for Education, u ­ nder the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training. 184. The registration fee could be lower, depending on the entrance standard of the student. Interview with Anupama Asthana, then headmistress of the school, Kijitonyama, Dar es Salaam, August 14, 2001. 185. For another account that also uses OPS as a case study, see Roy, “Schools.” 238

Notes to Pages 159–167

186. Interview with the head teacher, Mrs. Mzee, Upanga, Dar es Salaam, March 11, 2003. She graciously provided all the information in this paragraph on the history of OPS. Mzee joined the school in 1986. 187. A ­ fter Mwinyi’s two terms expired, Mkapa won the first multiparty elections in Tanzania in 1995 and was reelected in 2000. 188. Interview with Mrs. Mzee, March 11, 2003. 189. Interview with Mathilda Temba, March 17, 2003. 190. Interview with Mrs. Njawa, March 19, 2003. 191. Interview with Hilda Mwakilasa, March 19, 2003. 192. Interview with Rehema Panda, March 17, 2003. 193. Ibid. 194. See Cooksey et al., “Education for Self-­Reliance and Harambee,” 224. The government nationalized church-­owned secondary schools in 1974. Religious groups subsequently opened new private schools as permitted by the government. 195. Ibid. The authors claim that the objection of BALUKTA, a “local Muslim cultural or­ga­ni­za­tion,” caused Mwinyi, himself a Muslim, to retract his initiative. 196. Ibid., 225. 197. Pendo Mashulano, “Muslims urged to invest more in education,” the African, September 10, 2001. 198. The academic quoted in ibid. was Professor Zubeida Tumbo-­Masabo from the University of Dar es Salaam. 199. Interview with Anupama Asthana, August 14, 2001. 200. Interview with Binita Bakrania, Hindu Mandal, Kisutu Street, Dar es Salaam, January 26, 2001.

CHAPTER 5: TRANSNATIONAL FILMS IN NATIONAL CINEMA HALLS 1. For the gala opening of Alexandra Hall Welfare Centre and its cinema, see “Kufunguliwa centre nyingine Dar es Salaam,” Mambo Leo, October 1949. For references to the other cinemas in the 1950s, see TNA 540/27/38/A, “Township and Minor Settlements—­Town Planning Committee, 1954,” and TNA 540/27/55, vol. 1, “Municipal Council of Dar es Salaam—­Town Planning Committee, 1955–58.” 2. TNA 540/6/45, “Trade and Industry—­Correspondence: Clubs Hotels, Bar ­etc., 1943–53.” 3. TNA 540/27/38/A, 46. 4. TNA 540/27/38/A, 57 and 65. 5. TNA 540/27/55, vol. 1, 1. 6. TNA 540/27/55, vol. 1, 9 for the Odeon, 3 for the Avalon. 7. TNA 540/27/55, vol. 2, 4 and 10. The New Chox’s A/C sign went up in September 1959. 8. Interview with B. K. Tanna, August 21, 2001, Dar es Salaam. 9. See, for example, Brennan, “South Asian Nationalism in an East African Context,” 25, where he writes, “Few Asians in Tanganyika ­were unaware of po­liti­cal conditions and events in India.” 239

Notes to Pages 168–173

10. NAI 123–124, Education, Health & Lands (Overseas B), December 1930, “Memo of the Indian Association Dar es Salaam, to Permanent Mandate Commission on position of Indians in Tanganyika,” 5–6. The IA president, D. K. Patel, signed the memo on October 20, 1930. 11. A rec­ord of the mass meeting is held in NAI 123–124, Education, Health & Lands (Overseas B), December 1930, including a clipping from the Tanganyika Opin­ ion, May 9, 1930, titled “Rec­ord Gathering Pays Homage: About Shgs. 6,000 Subscribed for Congress: Dar es Salaam Prays for Success of Gandhi Movement.” 12. Ibid. All errors in original. 13. TNA 13038, vol. 2, “Cinematograph Films Censorship of Display,” 317. 14. Chowdhry, in Colonial India and the Making of Empire Cinema, has a long discussion on the reception to The Drum in India, 57–130. Jaikumar analyzes the text of the movie at several places in Cinema at the End of Empire. See also Brennan, “Demo­ cratizing Cinema and Censorship in Tanzania,” 495–496, for a brief discussion of the film in Tanganyika. 15. TNA 13038, vol. 6, 3, contains the letter sent by “B. Believer” to the Tanganyika Standard, September 13, 1940. 16. TNA 13038, vol. 6, 20, letter from Secretary, Cinematograph Censorship Board, Dar es Salaam, to the Provincial Commissioner, Tanga, and the Chief Secretary, Dar es Salaam, December 9, 1942. 17. TNA 13038, vol. 6, 20, letter from the Provincial Commissioner, Tanga, to the Chief Secretary, Dar es Salaam, December 11, 1942. 18. Iliffe, A Modern History of Tanganyika, 304. 19. NAI 25–36/46-­OS-­I, Overseas I (CRD), “Press cuttings on communal problems in East Africa, 1946.” 20. NAI 25–36/46-­OS-­I, Overseas I (CRD), 3, from a report by the Ministry of External Affairs and Commonwealth Relations, C.R. Wing. 21. NAI 25–36/46-­OS-­I, Overseas I (CRD). The clipping was from January 23, 1947. 22. Brennan, “Demo­cratizing Cinema and Censorship in Tanzania,” 496–497. 23. Jaikumar, Cinema at the End of Empire, 30–31. 24. TNA 540/27/37, “Cinema and Films, 1952–1958,” 47. This page is a list of films rejected by government censors from the start of 1949 to the early part of 1954. 25. Iliffe, A Modern History of Tanganyika, 507. See 507–513 for the TAA’s campaigns before the 1954 formation of TANU, to which the TAA was a precursor. 26. “Tanzia kubwa India” (Huge Death Announcement in India), Mambo Leo, March 1948. See also Jhaveri, Marching with Nyerere, 230–231. 27. See Iliffe, A Modern History of Tanganyika, 379. African nationalists continued to invoke Gandhi’s name throughout the strug­gle for Tanganyikan in­de­pen­dence. See, for example, TNA 540/DC1/68, “Summary of the Vernacular Press, 1960–61,” which contains the following translated quote from the Swahili newspaper Mwafrika: “Mr. Bantu speaking at the cele­bration of the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi said that he considered three men truly great: Christ, Mohamed, and Gandhi. The latter had lived a life of honesty, peace and renunciation of force: these principles would serve TGA well in dealing with racial problems within and without the country.” October 7, 1960. 240

Notes to Pages 173–175

28. The film was Majboor (1948). See Kaul, Cinema and the Indian Freedom Strug­ gle, 137. 29. For a description of the uprising and the lasting influence of Bankimchandra Chatterjee’s novel Anandmath, see Masselos, Indian Nationalism, 107–108. 30. See Rajadhyaksha and Willemen, Encyclopedia of Indian Cinema, 304, for this quote and a description of the movie version of Anandmath. 31. For the censorship board’s listing of banned films in 1952, see TNA 540/27/37, 47. For the subsequent correspondence on the subject, see 18–19. 32. TNA 540/27/37, 18, letter from Managing Director, Indo-­A frican Theatres Limited, Dar es Salaam, to the Chairman, Dar es Salaam Cinematograph Censorship Board, c.c. to Tanganyika Police, Dar es Salaam, June 18, 1953. Indo-­A frican operated the Avalon and was affiliated with the Azania in Dar es Salaam. 33. TNA 540/27/37, 19, Chairman, Cinematograph Censorship Board, Dar es Salaam, to Managing Director, Indo-­A frican Theatres Limited, Dar es Salaam, June 19, 1953. 34. TNA 540/27/37, Chairman, Cinematograph Censorship Board, Dar es Salaam, to Se­nior Superintendent of Police, Dar es Salaam, June 19, 1953. 35. Interview with B. K. Tanna, August 21, 2001, Dar es Salaam. 36. For a wider context on British efforts at social engineering in late colonial Dar es Salaam, including projects involving leisure in the city, see Burton, “Townsmen in the Making.” For a take on the relationship between African nationalist leaders and dancehalls in the 1950s, see Callaci, “Dancehall Politics.” 37. This idea was not new, having been preceded by unsuccessful ventures like the Bantu Educational Kinema Experiment and the Colonial Film Unit (CFU). The CFU continued to bring films to Dar es Salaam via a mobile cinema unit into the 1950s, although its focus was on rural areas. “Habari za film (sinema) hiyo watoto wa leo,” Mambo Leo, March 1950. For a study of the Central African Film Unit, see Burns, Flickering Shadows, 60–149. 38. TNA 35999, vol. 2, “Film Production by Colonial Film Unit,” 453. Commissioner for Social Development to Member for Local Government, Dar es Salaam, February 28, 1952. Such “mass education” at rural film screenings included, for example, the singing of “God Save the King.” “Mobile cinema Minaki,” Mambo Leo, May 1948. 39. Officials also considered “Films for Indians . . . ​Local in Origin” for production in Dar es Salaam. TNA 41128, “Scenarios for Production of Films.” Another colonial scheme to produce racially targeted movies involved training a handful of select young Africans in film direction and production, an initiative the Swahili newspaper Mambo Leo followed with pride in 1949 and 1950. 40. TNA 35999, vol. 2, 453, Commissioner for Social Development to Member for Local Government, Dar es Salaam, February 28, 1952. For more on the work of the AFP, see Ssali, “The Development and Role of an African Film Industry in East ­A frica,” 89–97. 41. “Muhogomchungu,” Mambo Leo, June 1952. The film featured Kawawa as a rural youth who arrived in the city for the first time. Another AFP production was a children’s movie called Chalo Amerudi. “Chalo Amerudi,” Mambo Leo, April 1954. 241

Notes to Pages 176–177

42. See Ivaska, Cultured States, 11–15, for a discussion of Zonk! 43. The officer’s six-­page report is contained in TNA 41128, 12a, August 26, 1950. The quotes below in the text paragraph come from this report. Norman Spurr, a former director with the CFU, stayed on in Tanganyika as the Films Research Officer. TNA 41857, “Appointment of Films Research Officers,” Memorandum 58, A. L. Pennington, for Member for Local Government, to Chief Secretary, Dar es Salaam, April 2, 1951. 44. See Ssali, “The Development and Role of an African Film Industry in East Africa,” 97, for the end of the AFP. His source is Mark Leveri, “Prospects in Developing a V ­ iable Film Industry: a ‘close-up’ of a de­cade’s production per­for­mance of the audio visual institute of Dar es Salaam and the Tanzania Film Com­pany Limited (1973–1983),” MBA thesis, University of Dar es Salaam, 1983. 45. Geiger refers to similar strategies for colonial control as social engineering in TANU ­Women, 27–31. See also Tsuruta, “Pop­u­lar ­Music, Sports, and Politics.” 46. The colonial government originally planned Mnazi Mmoja as a buffer between the African zone and the Indian-­dominated Central Business District of Dar es Salaam. See Burton, African Underclass, 50. For a discussion of community centers in Britain and its colonies, including a discussion of the Arnautoglu Centre in Dar es Salaam, see Burton, “Townsmen in the Making,” 347–358. 47. TNA 540/27/6, vol. 1, “Township—­Community Center and Cinema Shows, 1957, Arnautoglu Community Centre,” 71a. See Iliffe, A Modern History of Tangan­ yika, 264, for details on Arnautoglu. For his donation, see Eckert, “Regulating the Social.” 48. TNA 540/27/6, vol. 1, 4. 49. The sweeping trend t­ oward multiracialism evened out the racial balance of the ACC’s board of directors. TNA 540/27/6, vol. 1, 1, from a resolution in the minutes of the board meeting of February 2, 1953. 50. “Kufunguliwa community centre mjini Dar es Salaam: Bwana George Arnautoglu kueleza hali zilivyosogea,” Mambo Leo, January 1953. 51. TNA 540/27/6, vol. 1, 1. 52. S. H. Mkesso Gama, “Arnautoglu Community Centre,” Mambo Leo, November 1953. 53. One example of the stuffy films that played at the Centre was “The State Visit of Their Highnesses the Sultan and Sultana of Zanzibar to Dar es Salaam,” which made its Tanganyikan debut on December 21, 1953. TNA 540/27/6, vol. 1, 1. 54. TNA 540/27/6, vol. 2, 7. 55. TNA 540/27/6, vol. 1, see 21 (dancing), 28 (­music and dance), and 28 (library). The income statements in vols. 1 and 2 indicate that the bar almost always topped the revenue charts, usually by at least a two-­to-­one margin over the dance receipts, both of which ­were tens of times greater than the revenue generated from the cinema. 56. Kigamboni was one such targeted area. TNA 540/27/6, vol. 1, 207, S. W. Fraser-­ Smith, District Commissioner, Dar es Salaam, to Se­nior Social Development Officer, Arnautoglu Community Centre, October 9, 1957.

242

Notes to Pages 177–180

57. TNA 540/27/6, vol. 1, 80, for Princess Margaret’s visit. TNA 540/20, “Mass General Meetings,” notes the use of the ACC by African po­liti­cal parties between 1958 and 1962. A ­ fter in­de­pen­dence in December 1961 the new government took over the building for official functions, and it still h ­ ouses government offices ­today. 58. See Brennan, “Demo­cratizing Cinema and Censorship in Tanzania,” 502, for a discussion of the conference and other nationalist interventions in 1954 and 1959 to prevent such ste­reo­t ypes from hitting the screen in Tanganyika. 59. This development carried on an earlier tradition of using cinema halls as public venues for speeches. For example, the mayor of Dar es Salaam, Mr. Percy Everett, once gave a speech at the Avalon Cinema to a mixed-­race crowd of five hundred ­people on many issues, including claims of working to develop Dar es Salaam without racial or ethnic segregation. “Sherehe ya mayor wa Dar es Salaam,” Mambo Leo, March 1949. 60. TNA 540/DC1/68, from Mwafrika, August 16, 1960. 61. For details of this event, including quotes from the Tanganyika Standard on July 13, 1957, see Jhaveri, Marching with Nyerere, 18–19. 62. ­A fter the Indian Association crumbled u ­ nder infighting surrounding the partition of India, the Asian Association became one of its successors, a party largely comprising young Indian men who supported TANU. See Iliffe, A Modern History of Tanganyika, 478 and 522. 63. TNA 540/DC1/68, Mwafrika, October 6, 1960. 64. TNA 540/DC1/68, Ngurumo, October 25, 1960. 65. TNA 540/DC1/68, Mwafrika, November  19, 1960. The last quote mocks the way South Asians spoke Swahili and suggests the hy­poc­risy of Indians who w ­ ere fond of saying “We’re all bro­th­ers” in an imminently African-­r uled country. The “children of God” comment refers to Eu­ro­pe­ans (a frequent invocation of “The Porcupine” in other editorials), indicating that the Indian-­owned Avalon or­ga­nized the event and allowed other Indians to scalp tickets to Eu­ro­pe­ans, in the pro­cess staining the reputation of Tanganyikan Africans. 66. TNA 540/DC1/68, Ngurumo, October  25, 1960. For another account, see Jhaveri, Marching with Nyerere, 1–3. He reports that the crowd was “totally defiant” and “consisted [of] mostly youngsters of vari­ous [Indian] communities—­Hindus-­ Isnatheries [sic]-­Bohoras-­Ismailis-­Sikhs.” However, Ngurumo newspaper had a headline on October 22, 1960, that read, “Mr. Nyerere calms Hindu mob.” See TNA 540/DC1/68. 67. Held in TNA 540/DC1/68. Shenzi is an Anglicization of the Kiswahili word for an uncivilized person, while taka taka means trash. 68. “Jamal spurs Asians: Integrate,” Tanganyika Standard, June 30, 1964. 69. For an account of the relationship between nation building and film in Tanzania, with a focus on state efforts, see Mwakalinga, “The Po­liti­cal Economy of the Film Industry in Tanzania,” especially chapter two, “The New Nation: Consolidation, Nation Building, and Film.” 70. Shortly ­after in­de­pen­dence, vari­ous government entities began producing short films full of nation-­building content. For example, in 1966, the New Chox

243

Notes to Pages 180–183

screened two Swahili films produced by the Ministry of News and Tourism to an audience that included President Nyerere. The two movies—­hailed by the nationalist newspaper as two hours of riveting cinema—­were designed to publicize positive changes in Tanzania since in­de­pen­dence. “Rais aona picha za sinema za Tanzania,” Ngurumo, May 13, 1966. 71. “Utamaduni na juhudi ya Mwafrika katika picha,” Nchi Yetu, June 1973, 18–19. 72. “Wacheza sinema,” Nchi Yetu, May 1972, 31. 73. “Utamaduni na juhudi ya Mwafrika katika picha,” Nchi Yetu, June 1973. 74. For some titles of films made in the l­ ater 1960s, see TNA 540/CDD/33, “Community Development Division.” See also Smyth, “The Feature Film in Tanzania,” 392. 75. Smyth, “The Feature Film in Tanzania,” 392–394. 76. Ssali, “The Development and Role of an African Film Industry in East Africa,” 117. 77. Smyth, “The Feature Film in Tanzania,” 394. 78. Ibid., 395. 79. Herrick et al., Area Handbook for Tanzania, 259. 80. See “Film Men Charged,” Tanganyika Standard, April 8, 1964, and “Cinema men acquitted,” Tanganyika Standard, April  18, 1964. Incidentally, one of the men was Shabir Karimbhai Jariwalla, who was carry­ing on the Jariwalla f­ amily business as the managing director of the Azania Cinema in Dar es Salaam. 81. For example, a newspaper editorial complained that, due to the ticket tax, attending ­wholesome and potentially informative movies at the cinema hall now would cost more than drinking beer, ostensibly a much more socially disruptive activity. Mfanyakazi, November 17, 1973, 2. 82. See Smyth, “The Feature Film in Tanzania,” 392–393 for a description of this episode. A compromise solution allowed importers and distributors to sell or lease films to the Tanzania Film Com­pany, but left the TFC as the sole distributor within the country. 83. Ibid., 392. 84. TNA 540/DC1/68, Ngurumo, August 29, 1960. The censorship board formed ­after national self-­government but before in­de­pen­dence. 85. For press coverage of the case, see “Dar cinema staff plead not guilty,” Tang­ anyika Standard, June 3, 1964; “Censor tells court film ‘cuts’ ­were shown to public,” Tanganyika Standard, July  24, 1964; and “Cinema ruling t­oday,” Tanganyika Stan­ dard, September 1, 1964. A similar case occurred at the Odeon in April 1967; see “Cinema m ­ anager not guilty,” Tanganyika Standard, April 26, 1967. 86. Quote from the letter of Richard Peter, Tanganyika Standard, April 12, 1967. 87. P. B. Noble, Tanganyika Standard, April 7, 1967. 88. “Outraged,” Tanganyika Standard, April 12, 1967. 89. James Kakoye, Tanganyika Standard, April 12, ­1967. 90. “Two-­way traffic,” Tanganyika Standard, December 6, 1964. 91. See Ssali, “The Development and Role of an African Film Industry in East Africa,” on the price of imports, 146. 92. Kaungamno, “Mass Media in Tanzania,” 9. The box office take of the two films was shs 82,037/-­and 42,842/-­, respectively. 244

Notes to Pages 183–184

93. From a letter written by Clement Nsherenguzi, managing director of the TFC, printed in the Standard on January 21, 1972, cited by Brennan, “Demo­cratizing Cinema and Censorship in Tanzania,” ftn. 157, 508. Brennan also writes that Indian films provided 60 ­percent of the nation’s share of revenues from cinema taxes. 94. “Utamaduni na juhudi ya Mwafrika katika picha,” Nchi Yetu, June 1973. The article also notes that the TFC earned foreign currency by distributing films to Somalia, Burundi, Zambia, and Malawi, and was in the pro­cess of extending its reach into Mauritius, Madagascar, and Ethiopia. 95. For example, a Rus­sian film called Tales of Rustam attracted only 142 ­people (grossing six hundred shillings) in the early 1970s. Kaungamno, “Mass Media in Tanzania,” 9. 96. For support of this point, see Brennan, “Demo­cratizing Cinema and Censorship in Tanzania,” 509, and Smyth, “The Feature Film in Tanzania,” 392. 97. Quoted in Kaungamno, “Mass Media in Tanzania,” 9. The government’s income from the film industry was not insignificant. In 1973, the entertainment tax alone reaped five million shillings for the Tanzanian trea­sury, while between 1979 and 1982 the trea­sury collected eighty-­five million shillings from cinema taxes (see Smyth, “The Feature Film in Tanzania,” 394). Eigh­teen ­percent of revenue generated by a film went to the state at this time, with 42 ­percent to foreign distributors and 40 ­percent claimed by cinema halls. See Ng’wanakilala, Mass Communication and De­ velopment of Socialism in Tanzania, 71. 98. Ssali, “The Development and Role of an African Film Industry in East Africa,” 147, citing TFC statistics. 99. See Mwakalinga, “The Po­liti­cal Economy of the Film Industry in Tanzania,” especially 34–37. 100. The Zanzibar revolution, sparked by the Afro-­Shirazi Party, occurred in January 1964 and put in place an African nationalist government, leading to the ­union with Tanganyika a few months l­ ater. 101. Zanzibar News Ser­v ice, June 22, 1964, quoted in Burgess, “Cinema, Bell Bottoms, and Mini­skirts,” 295. 102. Interview with Firoz Hussein, ­manager of Cine Afrique in Zanzibar and the Avalon in Dar es Salaam, as well as the ­manager of a Tanzanian film distribution com­pany, July 29, 1997, inside his office in Cine Afrique. For more on the history of cinema in Zanzibar, see Reinwald, “ ‘To­night at the Empire’ ”; Fair, “Hollywood Hegemony?”; and Fair, “Making Love in the Indian Ocean,” in Cole and Thomas, eds., Love in Africa. 103. Burgess, “Cinema, Bell Bottoms, and Mini­skirts,” 288. For a further discussion which largely confirms Burgess’ findings, see Reinwald, “ ‘To­night at the Empire.’ ” 104. Reinwald, “ ‘To­night at the Empire,’ ” 91; and interview with Mitu Jr., outside Cine Afrique, Zanzibar, July 29, 1997. Arabs w ­ ere the primary target of revolutionary vio­lence when Zanzibaris overthrew the Sultan. 105. See Burgess, “Cinema, Bell Bottoms, and Mini­skirts,” 294 for a discussion of this event. 106. Petterson, Revolution in Zanzibar, 217. Petterson was the American vice-­ consul at the t­ ime. 245

Notes to Pages 184–186

107. “Afro-­Shirazi youths urge cinemas take-­over,” Tanganyika Standard, December 14, 1964. 108. For an essay that makes a related point through a case study of how Zanzibaris in the 1950s and 1960s considered ideas about romance through watching and discussing Indian cinema, see Fair, “Making Love in the Indian Ocean.” 109. For a summary of these eras in Hindi cinema, see Joshi, ed., Bollywood, ­3 4–50. 110. See Brennan, “Demo­cratizing Cinema and Censorship in Tanzania,” 508. This statement came in a TANU National Executive Committee declaration calling for an indigenous film industry. 111. See, for example, “Vipi dada zetu?” Nchi Yetu, January 1973, 13, a critical article about the dress habits of w ­ omen who frequented these nightspots. 112. See, for example, “Maisha gani haya jijini DSM,” Nchi Yetu, April 1975, 22. 113. “Ujanja wa kutorosha mali ya magendo mpakani umezidi,” Nchi Yetu, November 1975, 20. 114. Smyth, “The Feature Film in Tanzania,” 392, quoting Leveri, “Prospects in Developing a ­Viable Film Industry,” viii. 115. “Censors catch another spy,” Tanganyika Standard, April 6, 1967, and “From—­ with love,” Tanganyika Standard, January 29, 1967. See also Petterson, Revolution in Zanzibar, 218, and Ssali, “The Development and Role of an African Film Industry in East Africa,” 138–141. 116. “Utamaduni na juhudi ya Mwafrika katika picha,” Nchi Yetu, June 1973. The director also mentioned a plan to reduce the importation of ideologically unappealing movies over the next c­ ouple of years by looking for films from socialist and other allied countries. 117. Across the 1960s, the Tanganyika Standard reserved at least two pages in its Sunday magazine for columns on Indian and Western movies. Every day, about one-­ third of a broadsheet page contained illustrated ads for films currently r­ unning in Dar es Salaam. For a sample of letters to the editor with the complaints about cinema halls noted above, see “Smoking without pleasure—­For other cinemagoers,” Tanganyika Standard, June 1, 1964; “Two-­way traffic,” Tanganyika Standard, December 6, 1964; “Cinema rowdies spoil our prestige,” Tanganyika Standard, May 7, 1964; and “Cinema toilets,” Tanganyika Standard, April 26, 1967. 118. “First drive-in cinema for Dar,” Tanganyika Standard, August 18, 1964, and “Unaona picha ukiwa ndani ya motokaa! Drive-­In-­Cinema ya Dar yafunguliwa leo,” Ngurumo, May 11, 1966. 119. For an analy­sis of socialism, modernity, and leisure in Tanzania as read through a history of the Drive-­In, see Fair, “Drive-­In Socialism.” 120. “Unaona picha ukiwa ndani ya motokaa! Drive-­In-­Cinema ya Dar yafunguliwa leo,” Ngurumo, May 11, 1966. 121. “City of Dar es Salaam, Map and Guide,” published by the Surveys and Mapping Division, Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development, United Republic of Tanzania, 1978. This map listed the Dar cinemas as the Avalon, Cameo, Drive-­In, Empire, Empress, New Chox, and Odeon. The total of thirty-­six cinemas is my estimate a­ fter considering the numbers provided by Ssali (who lists thirty-­one not 246

Notes to Pages 186–188

counting the islands, “The Development and Role of an African Film Industry in East Africa,” 125), Smyth (who lists thirty-­five, “The Feature Film in Tanzania,” 391), and the interview with B. K. Tanna, November 2, 2001. 122. A cinema hall in Mbeya and one in Mwanza w ­ ere both reportedly owned by Africans. Ssali, “The Development and Role of an African Film Industry in East Africa,” 127. 123. Interview with B. K. Tanna, November 2, 2001. Tanna joined an accounting firm in the early 1970s and inherited several cinemas as clients, including the Avalon, Empress, New Chox, Drive-­In, and ­others. 124. Cinema halls seated two to five hundred p ­ eople on average even in the smaller urban centers, with higher capacities in towns. The Drive-­In accommodated six hundred cars and two hundred sitting customers; the Empress had 793 seats; the Avalon, 746; and Cine Afrique, in Zanzibar, 605. For Cine Afrique, interview with Mitu Jr., July  29, 1997. For the Drive-­In, see “First drive-in cinema for Dar,” Tanganyika Standard, August  18, 1964, and “Unaona picha ukiwa ndani ya motokaa! Drive-­In-­ Cinema ya Dar yafunguliwa leo,” Ngurumo, May 11, 1966. For all the other mainland theaters’ capacities, see Ssali, “The Development and Role of an African Film Industry in East Africa,” 126–127. 125. Ssali, “The Development and Role of an African Film Industry in East Africa,” 108, citing an unpublished study by J. Sicoloff and M. Leveri, “Film Comprehension Among Rural Audience in Tanzania, Audio-­Visual Institute of Dar es Salaam, 1978,” 10. On the urban-­rural divide, see also Ng’wanakilala, Mass Communication and Devel­ ­ ere 3.5 to five opment of Socialism in Tanzania, 69. He estimated in 1981 that there w million cinemagoers annually. For the 1980s, Smyth calculated that Tanzanian theaters sold 3.5 million tickets a year (“The Feature Film in Tanzania,” 392). 126. Brennan bookends his text with a description of this event; see Taifa, 3–5 and 191–194. 127. For a good introduction to lit­erature on this topic, see the special issue of Africa ­Today on youth, especially Burgess, “Introduction to Youth and Citizenship in East Africa.” Also see Burgess, “Cinema, Bell Bottoms, and Mini­skirts,” and Ivaska, “ ‘Anti-­Mini Militants Meet Modern Misses.’ ” 128. See Joseph, Nomadic Identities, especially chapter four titled “Kung Fu Cinema and Frugality,” 49–68. Ssali also writes about the popularity of these two genres (“The Development and Role of an African Film Industry in East Africa,” 137–141). 129. On fashion trends, see Joseph, Nomadic Identities, 4. The quote is from Ssali, “The Development and Role of an African Film Industry in East Africa,” 142. 130. Ng’wanakilala, Mass Communication and Development of Socialism in Tanza­ nia, 69. 131. Joseph, Nomadic Identities, 53–54. She also connects kung fu to “Bollywood fight sequences,” 67. For another analy­sis of the popularity of kung fu situated amid other elements of historical Afro-­A sian solidarity, see Prashad, Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting. 132. Ng’wanakilala, Mass Communication and Development of Socialism in Tanza­ nia, 69–70. 133. B. M. Masanja, “Kuhesibiwa ndani ya cinema,” Ngurumo, October 29, 1966. 247

Notes to Pages 188–191

134. The chief police investigator was quoted in the article, saying he was aware that these punishable illegal actions went on in general, but confessing that he did not know about the specific allegations at the Chox. “Magendo makubwa sinema,” Mfanyakazi, December 18, 1974. 135. “Tukoeni na hawa waovu,” Nchi Yetu, July/August 1977, 40. 136. Chama cha Mapinduzi, the “party of the revolution” in the one-­party Tanzanian state, was formed from a merger between TANU and ASP in 1977. 137. See Brennan, “Demo­cratizing Cinema and Censorship in Tanzania,” 509. Some researchers have found recent entrepreneurs who are “delayed dubbing” pirated DVDs of Indian, American, and other films. See Englert with Mereto, “Inserting Voice.” 138. Ssali remarks that “­p eople who do not understand the dialog often attend the shows,” “The Development and Role of an African Film Industry in East Africa,” 148. 139. “Jumamosi ya Dar,” Nchi Yetu, February 1973, 13 and 20. 140. For examples, see Nchi Yetu issues from December 1974 (20), April 1975 (32), and December 1975 (32). The majority (eleven out of twenty) of African correspondents listed cinema as a hobby in this small sample size, even though several did not list a hobby at all. 141. For higher estimates, interview with Firoz Hussein, July 29, 1997, and interview with B. K. Tanna, August 21, 2001. Kaungamno, 9, has the low estimate. 142. From the Daily News of April 27, 1976, cited in Brennan, “Demo­cratizing Cinema and Censorship in Tanzania,” 508. 143. The National Development Corporation raised ticket prices in the late 1960s to bolster revenues. See Brennan, “Demo­cratizing Cinema and Censorship in Tanzania,” 506. 144. “Time for action,” Tanganyika Standard, April 9, 1967. 145. For examples of letters to the editor complaining about ticket prices, see N. H. V. Dhanani, “Cinema prices,” Tanganyika Standard, March 17, 1967; Prana, “Cinema prices,” Tanganyika Standard, April 6, 1967; and the letters by F. Bhoja and “Cine-­Goer,” Tanganyika Standard, April 16, 1967. 146. Mwakalinga, “The Po­liti­cal Economy of the Film Industry in Tanzania,” 70–71. 147. See Smyth, “The Feature Film in Tanzania,” 392–393. 148. Ibid., 393, citing a 1985 TFC report. In the “other” category, there is evidence of Pakistani and Arabic language films coming to Tanzania in the 1960s. See the film ad for the Arabic film “Ayoum Bila Gadin,” Tanganyika Standard, February 13, 1967, and the article “Pakistan film at Drive-­In,” Tanganyika Standard, January 27, 1967. 149. Mwakalinga, “The Po­liti­cal Economy of the Film Industry in Tanzania,” 70. 150. One Zanzibari video store proprietor in 1997 charged two hundred shillings (less than thirty-­five US cents) for a rental of one of his three thousand films, far cheaper than a night out at Cine Afrique, where tickets cost shs 1500/-­and up. Interview with Ismail A. I. Garana, video store proprietor on Sokomuhogo Street, Zanzibar, July 30, 1997. 248

Notes to Pages 192–199

151. For an account that blames the decline of African interest in Indian movies on the changing nature of Bombay cinema ­a fter liberalization, see Barlet, “Bollywood/Africa.” 152. Interview with B. K. Tanna, November 2, 2001. 153. Ibid., for this and all the cinema closures quoted in text u ­ nless other­w ise cited. 154. A restaurant adjacent to the Avalon continued the cinema’s name (if only informally) by opening a nightclub in which imported Indian w ­ omen danced to Hindi film tunes. 155. Observations from research in Tanzania in 2005. 156. Interview with Firoz Hussein, m ­ anager of Cine Afrique and the Avalon, and ­manager of a film distribution network, Zanzibar, July 29, 1997. 157. Reinwald, “ ‘To­night at the Empire,’ ” 91. 158. Interview with Firoz Hussein, July 29, 1997. Reduced competition increased Cine Afrique’s share of attendance, so when Firoz Hussein, the ­manager since 1983, obtained a new Bollywood blockbuster in the 1990s, the hall relived its former golden days in front of sold-­out audiences, roughly two-­thirds African and one-­third Indian. One prob­lem, however, was obtaining such blockbusters: in order to acquire a hit film, the Indian distributor would force Hussein to purchase a dud film as well. 159. Of Cine Afrique’s total gross receipts (shs 17,134,600.10/-­, roughly US$28,000) for the year 1996, over 10.5 ­percent immediately entered the Zanzibari trea­sury in the form of entertainment and special taxes on each ticket sale. From Cine Afrique’s income and expenditure account for the year ending December 31, 1996, provided to me by the ­manager, Firoz Hussein. 160. The exact loss was 1,872,282.90 shillings. If Cine Afrique had turned a profit in these years, half of it would be paid in a revenue tax to the government of Zanzibar. Interview with Firoz Hussein, July 29, 1997. 161. Ibid. 162. Throughout the years of decline for cinema halls, and starting even earlier in rural areas, entrepreneurs or­ga­nized affordable video and l­ ater satellite movie screenings in informal spaces. A direct-­to-­DVD movie industry also has recently arisen in Tanzania, modelled on Nigeria’s Nollywood and occasionally dubbed “Bongowood”—­a play on the Swahili word “bongo,” meaning brain, which one must use to survive on Dar es Salaam’s tough streets. See the last half of Mwakalinga, “The Po­liti­cal Economy of the Film Industry in Tanzania,” and Englert, “In Need of Connection.” 163. Two more—­and more modern—­multiplexes have opened up in Dar in recent years, both superseding the New World Cinemas in popularity. 164. Interview with Firoz Hussein, December 1997. 165. Bose, A Hundred Horizons, and Metcalf, Imperial Connections.

CONCLUSION 1. Ngurumo, October 6, 1960, TNA 540/DC 1/68, “Summary of the Vernacular Press, 1960–61,” as discussed in chapter four, ftn. 37. 2. Colonial minute of June  27, 1951, quoting the “Stanner Report.” TNA 18950, vol. 3, “So­cio­log­i­cal Survey of African Population in Dar-­es-­Salaam Township.” 249

Notes to Pages 200–202

3. IPP Media website homepage, www​.­ippmedia​.­com, accessed February  26, 2001. 4. Tabili, “Race Is a Relationship, and Not a Thing,” 126. 5. Iddi Simba, “Dhana ya Uzawa” (The Concept of Indigeneity). 6. For an article that argues that government leaders shifted the uzawa debate away from “racial issues and Asian control of the economy t­oward issues of f­ree trade, foreign investment, and foreign economic domination,” (1) see Aminzade, “From Race to Citizenship.” 7. This aligns with Harvey’s argument in Social Justice and the City that capitalism annihilates city space to assure its own reproduction. 8. Female dancers at Hindu temples and royal courts, and ­later the famous nautch girls of Mughal and British times, have a deep history in India. One overview is Nevile, Nautch Girls of India. For more on the circulation of the bar girls around the Indian Ocean world, see Bertz, “Indian Ocean World Travellers,” in Basu, ed., Journeys and Dwellings, especially 48–50. 9. For a report on the mujra “bust,” see “Illicit Mujra Cracked,” The Express, February 7, 2002. 10. Vassanji, “All Worlds are Possi­ble Now,” in Uhuru Street, 130. Vassanji, an Ismaili born in Nairobi and raised in Dar es Salaam, is the leading literary documenter of the Indian experience in East Africa. For one analy­sis of his writing, see chapter seven of Desai, Commerce with the Universe, 172–204. 11. For a rich analy­sis of Tanzanian cultural history through a study of the Drive­In, see Fair, “Drive-­In Socialism.” 12. As observed in Bertz, “Race, Urban Space, and Nationalism in Indian Ocean World History,” 275.

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Index

Abedi, Sheik Amri, 135, 231n.42 Acacia Avenue, Dar es Salaam, 166 Acquisition of Buildings Act of 1971, 19, 47 African Association (AA), 108–110, 113, 118, 120 African Film Productions (AFP) Ltd., 175–176, 182, 241nn.40–41, 242n.44 Africanization, 3, 28, 200; of civil service, 19, 144; of cinema industry, 179–180; of education curriculum, 144–145, 148; of postcolonial government policy, 3, 19, 28, 130, 141–142 Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP), 39, 41, 184, 245n.100 Aga Khan, 70, 79, 83–84, 178, 220n.121, 233n.80; educational grants, 71–72, 83; Central Council of Education for Africa, 74, 210n.55, 216n.55; Department of Education, 79, 231n.52; and primary schooling, 159, 236n.141, 238n.181 Aga Khan Schools: Aga Khan Boys’ School, Zanzibar, 217n.76; Aga Khan Girls’ School, Zanzibar, 217n.76; Aga Khan Mzizima Secondary School (AKMSS), 151, 154–155; Aga Khan

School, Dar es Salaam, 64; Aga Khan School, Iringa, 233n.90 Ahmadiyya communities, 84, 220n.121, 229n.13, 231n.42 Aiyar, Sana, 50 Alliance Secondary School, Dodoma, 63 All Muslim National Union of Tanganyika, 133 Alloo, Ashrafbai M. M., 42–44 Al Madressa fii Sabillillah, Dar es Salaam, 86, 220n.132 Alpers, Edward, 24, 208n.88, 209n.103, 209n.113 Amana Cinema, Dar es Salaam, 94, 165–166, 178, 222n.24 Amin, Idi, 13, 19, 44 Aminzade, Ronald, 203n.5, 207n.74, 250n.6 Anandmath (Bankimchandra Chatterjee), 173, 241n.29 apartheid, 140, 176 Appadurai, Arjun, 23 Arabic (language), 85, 87, 121–122, 228n.136, 248n.148 Arabs, in East Africa, 3, 245n.104. See also Oman area studies, 8, 21 Armstrong, Louis, 178, 189, 192 Arnautoglu, G. N., 176, 242n.47 267

Index

Arnautoglu Community Centre (ACC), Dar es Salaam, 176–177, 242n.46, 242n.53, 242n.55 Arusha, 41, 65, 94, 140, 148, 193, 235n.128 Arusha Declaration, 19, 47, 125, 144–145, 186, 200; and education, 148, 153; egalitarianism, 150, 153, 161, 163, 199; mixed results, 147, 163; self-reliant socialism, 164, 180 Asian Association, 128, 178, 229– 230n.17, 243n.62 Assimilation. See integration Avalon Cinema, Dar es Salaam, 94, 165, 241n.32, 245n.102, 246n.121, 247nn.123–124, 249n.154; advertising, 121, 228n.135; censorship at, 121, 173, 228n.133; closing, 192–193; exclusion of Africans from, 178–179, 189; Hindi films at, 121; Indian ownership, 186; public meetings at, 178, 243n.59; renovation, 166; scalping of tickets at, 243n.65 Bagamoyo, 66, 206n.59 Bajuma, Sulemani, 114, 118, 189, 222n.21, 227n.107 Bantu Educational Kinema Experiment (BEKE), 221n.5, 228n.122, 228n.124, 241n.37 Barnewall, Captain R., 31 Baroda, Gujarat, 15 Belafonte, Harry, 180, 182 Bharuch, Gujarat, 15 Bhatia (caste), 38, 40 Bhavnagar, Gujarat, 34, 44, 47 Blaxploitation films, 187 Boal, V. R., 213n.74 Bollywood, 190, 192–193, 201, 221n.6, 247n.131, 249n.151, 249n.158 Bombay, 5–7, 16, 53, 74, 169, 190, 201; in Indian Ocean circulations, 41–42, 45–48 Bombay Chronicle, 74 Bombay cinema. See Hindi films 268

Bombay Presidency, 16, 206n.53, 215n.50 Bongowood films, 249n.162 Bose, Subhas Chandra, 50, 52 Bose, Sugata, 22, 49–50, 52, 195, 208n.94 Braudel, Fernand, 21–22 Brennan, James R., 21, 203n.5, 204n.21, 206n.59, 206nn.61–62, 207n.77, 207n.82, 208n.87 British colonial government, 1, 25–26, 51, 56, 67–69, 92–93, 95, 122; Colonial Office, London, 126, 222n.31 British East African Protectorate, 14 British East India Company, 15, 31, 76, 173–174, 216n.69 British Raj in India, 6, 170, 173 Brown v. Board of Education, 128 Buddhist communities, 102–105, 107, 224n.64 Bukoba, 71, 94, 231n.55 Burundi, 14, 200, 245n.94 censorship: colonial policies, 90, 93; due to religious sensitivities, 101–108; of nationalist content, 164, 170–175; postindependence policies, 180–182, 187, 223n.42, 224n.58, 224n.66; on racial basis, 95–100, 108–113, 115–117, 119–123. See also Cinematograph Censorship Board; Colonial Films Committee (CFC), London Central Society of Tanganyika Muslims, 133, 228n.135 Chake Chake, Pemba, 6, 40–42 Chalo Amerudi, 241n.41 Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), 189, 248n.136 Chitale, M. P., 99, 168 Christian communities, 62–63, 102, 105, 140, 161–162; education of, 65–66, 85, 87–88, 133, 215n.32, 220n.125. See also missionaries Chunya, 63–64, 94 Cine Afrique, Zanzibar, 184, 193–194, 245n.102, 247n.124, 248n.150, 249nn.158–160

Index

Cinematograph Censorship Board, 97–102, 115, 117, 119, 223n.42, 223–224n.50, 224n.58, 227nn.111–112; and nationalism, 121, 170–172, 174; and racial bar to attendance, 110, 113, 116, 227n.116; and religious sensitivities, 101–107, 224n.66; Zanzibar, 45 circulation, 1, 30, 33; of bar girls, 250n.8; of films, 92, 94, 100, 122, 173, 185–186, 191, 193–194, 221n.7; of migrants, 37–38, 40, 42, 47, 194, 198, 210n.13; of teachers, 73–74 citizenship, 18, 30, 46, 60; education for, 126; and identity, 123; imperial, 51–52, 57; Indian, 149, 213n.76, 235n.128; global, 155; languages of, 40, 135, 149; nationalist discourses of, 51, 135, 195, 198, 210n.6; nonracial, 128; Tanganyikan, 134, 139; territorial, 134–135, 165 class, 3, 20, 30, 33, 43–44, 49, 92, 154; divides within communities, 109, 113, 121, 148; divides to education, 81, 125, 154, 158–165, 237nn.159–162; middle class, 139, 144, 146, 152, 156, 194, 200, 215n.32, 207n.82; segregation, 123, 125; solidarities, 52–53, 55–56; working class, 165, 215n.32 Cold War, 50, 183, 185 Colonial Films Committee (CFC), London, 94–96 Colonial Film Unit (CFU), 182, 221n.5, 242n.43 Committee on Indian Education, Tanganyika, 71–73, 76–78 communal tensions, 84, 133, 171–173 Congo, 230n.26; Belgian Congo, 43–44 Congress. See Indian National Congress cosmopolitanism, 22–23, 29–30, 39, 42, 101, 149, 197, 208n.87, 208–209n.100; anti-colonial, 50, 52, 55–56; Indian Ocean, 59, 67, 92, 106, 184, 190, 195, 197–200; in education, 140, 155–156; of cinema audiences, 176, 187, 202

cotton, 14–15, 53 Cowasjee Dinshaw & Bros., Mssrs., 74, 216n.52 daily life, 3, 11, 90, 139, 196, 206n.62 Dar es Salaam Television (DTV), 192 Dariya Dev, 36 Dave, Mayashanker L., 72–73, 215n.49, 216n.51 Desai, Gaurav, 23, 203n.3, 235n.121, 250n.10 de Vere Allen, James, 22 dhows, 8, 35–37, 39–40, 210n.17 Die Luchte Asiens. See The Light of Asia Diwali, 179 Dodoma, 63, 94, 214n.9 Doshi, Naresh, 40–42 Dover, Cedric, 57, 212n.69 Drive-In Cinema, Dar es Salaam, 94, 186, 192, 202, 246nn.118–121, 247nn.123–124, 248n.148, 250n.11 drought, 15–16 DuBois, W. E. B., 57 East African House, London, 64 East African Indian National Congress (EAINC), 50–51, 55–57, 211n.36, 211n.39 East African Muslim Welfare Society, 83, 231n.52 elections, 8, 130–131, 153, 194, 229n.13, 230n.27, 239n.187 El-Hussanain School, Dar es Salaam, 83 emigration, 16–17, 30, 35, 38, 41, 59, 74, 210n.9 Empire Cinema, Dar es Salaam, 93–94, 102, 104–106, 111, 114, 121, 164, 166, 193 Empress Cinema, Dar es Salaam, 94, 165–166, 178, 192, 246n.121, 247nn.123–124 English (language), 65, 76, 138, 141, 158–159 epidemic diseases, 15–16, 194 269

Index

famine, 15–16 Fidel Castro Secondary School, Zanzibar, 6 Freund, Bill, 12–13, 205n.25 Gandhi, Indira, 39 Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand, 30, 211n.33, 226n.101, 240n.27; assassination of, 173; nationalism of, 52, 58; noncooperation campaigns, 51, 70, 112; political organization in Africa, 52; portrait on cinema slide, 170–171; salt march, 56, 167–168; in South Africa, 50 gender, 30, 33, 43–44, 66, 92, 155, 204n.17, 236n.148 German East Africa, 14–15, 17, 66–69, 206n.59, 214n.26 Germany, 14, 35–36, 102, 224n.65 Ghosh, Amitav, 2, 203n.3 Glassman, Jonathon, 10, 204n.21, 207n.70 globalization, 9, 26, 47, 92, 185, 187, 195 Government Film Unit (GFU), Tanzania, 180, 221n.5 Government Indian Primary School, Dar es Salaam, 137 Government Indian Secondary School, Dar es Salaam, 64, 79, 137 Greater India, 50, 52, 55–56, 58, 213n.77 Green Goddess, The, 111–112, 226n.98 Gregory, Robert G., 32–33, 35, 207n.84, 211n.36, 216n.58 Gujarat, 5, 7, 205n.39, 206n.53, 210n.5; emigration, 14–17, 30–46; salt march of Gandhi in, 167; textile exports, 205n.46 Gujarati (language), 64–65, 75–76, 138, 162, 206n.58, 211n.26, 226n.100 Gujaratis, 15–17, 59, 74, 167, 210n.13, 211n.30, 216n.56, 216n.58 Hindi films, 7, 45, 91–93, 163, 221n.6; anticolonial sentiments in, 170–174; music, 191, 249n.154; popularity, 270

121–122, 183; profitability, 182–184, 187, 192–193; transnationalism of, 184–185, 187, 190 Hindu Council of Tanzania, 46 Hindu Mandal: Chake Chake, 40; Dar es Salaam, 46, 83, 159, 162 Hindu Mandal Primary School, Dar es Salaam, 159, 162, 238n.165 Hindu Sports Club, Zanzibar, 45 Hollywood cinema, 25, 94–95, 120, 248n.137; competition with British film industry, 222n.32; cultural imperialism, 184–185, 187; import and distribution costs, 182, 191–192; influence on African films, 119; popularity, 121–122 Ilala, Dar es Salaam, 83, 165, 178, 220n.121, 222n.24 Ilala Muslim School, Dar es Salaam, 165 Iliffe, John, 82, 117, 130, 215nn.32–33, 220n.125, 226n.99, 229n.2, 229n.17, 230n.27, 230n.33 Independence. See Uhuru Indian Association: Dar es Salaam, 99–101, 103–104, 112, 128, 167, 240n.10; Nairobi, 55; Tanga, 99; Tanganyika Territory, 56, 223n.50, 224n.62, 226n.101, 243n.62 Indian Central School, Dar es Salaam, 71, 75, 216n.57 Indian Merchants’ Chamber, 46 Indian National Congress, 53, 57, 112, 167, 170, 211n.33, 213n.74; All India Congress Committee (AICC), 30, 49–51, 58, 213n.74; Foreign Department, 55, 58–59 Indian Ocean: frame, 2–3, 20–21, 24–25, 28, 50, 56, 62, 93, 195; historiography, 4, 13, 15, 20–21, 50, 195, 203n.6; networks (see networks); scale, 2, 27, 30, 37–38, 48, 50, 56, 59–60, 93, 158, 163, 190; trade, 5–6, 14–17, 19, 23–24, 38, 47, 58 Indian Public School, Arusha, 65, 73

Index

indigeneity, 24, 68, 180, 186–187, 246n.110; uzawa, 200, 250n.6 influenza, 16 integration, 4, 9, 21, 27, 142; of movie theaters, 179–180, 190; of schools, 143–144, 148–149, 178, 188 internationalism, 51, 57, 229 Iringa, 63–64, 94, 214n.12, 233n.90 Isherwood, A. A. M., 84, 215n.48, 220n.122 Islamic schools. See Muslim schools Ismaili communities, 63–65, 67–68, 103, 220n.121; schools, colonial period, 70, 79, 84, 216n.55; schools, postcolonial period, 151, 158–159, 178, 236n.141, 237n.159, 237n.162; separatist tendencies of, 71–72, 84, 88, 142–143; and Vassanji, M. G., 250n.10. See also Aga Khan Ithna’sheri communities, 44, 105, 159, 217n.76 Jaikumar, Priya, 172 Jamal, Amir, 46, 142, 180 Jangwani, Dar es Salaam, 86, 220n.133, 237n.162 Jariwalla, H. A., 93–94 Jariwalla Theatres Ltd., 166, 244n.80. See also Empire Cinema, Dar es Salaam Jhansi ki Rani, 173–174 Jhaveri, K. L., 7–8, 204nn.15–16, 243n.66 Jhaveri, Urmila, 35–37, 204n.15 Joseph, May, 187, 247n.131 Kahama, Clement, 46 Kalavad, Gujarat, 76 Kampala, 54–55, 70 kanga, 205n.46 Karachi, 5, 43 Kariakoo, Dar es Salaam, 17, 40, 86, 143, 165, 222n.24 Karume, Abeid, 45–46, 186 Kathiawar, Gujarat, 16, 30–32, 37, 40, 44, 47, 73, 205n.39, 210n.8, 215–216n.50

Kawawa, Rashidi, 148, 175, 182, 241n.41 Kenya, 13, 32, 40, 103, 141, 176; East African Indian National Congress in, 50, 57; in Indian Ocean circulations, 42; in Greater India, 52–53; Indian communities, 55, 83, 95 Khoja communities, 45, 105 Kingu, Mr., 62–63, 88, 154, 214n.7, 237n.162 Kiswahili, 8, 65, 136, 176, 179, 204n.19, 205n.29, 229n.2, 243n.67; film subtitles, 92, 190; Indian pronunciation of, 188–189, 219n.99, 243n.65; as medium of instruction, 64–66, 77, 138–139, 158; as national language, 135; newspapers, 12, 46, 80, 114, 134, 176, 185; poetry, 173, 177; teaching of, 65, 134, 143, 145, 151, 159; use in account books, 226n.100 Kresse, Kai, 22, 208n.97 kung fu, 187, 191, 247n.128, 247n.131 Kutch, Gujarat, 5, 36–38, 40, 42–44, 203n.6, 205n.39 Kutchi (language), 29 Lahore, 200 Lahore Resolution, 84 Latham, G. K., 228n.122 League of Nations mandate, Tanganyika Territory, 14, 16, 67, 71, 79, 110, 113, 115–116, 215n.37 Lefebvre, Henri, 10, 204n.23 Legislative Council, Tanganyika, 98–99, 126, 130, 132, 136, 148, 229n.13 leisure, 4; colonial regulation, 26; industry, 180, 192; places of, 9, 93, 96, 114, 120, 163, 166, 186, 191, 201; social engineering, 241n.36; socialism, modernity, and, 246n.119 liberalization, 4, 9, 19–21, 26; era, 48–50, 144, 201–202; and Hindi cinema, 92, 249n.151; impact on cinema halls, 181, 190–195, 202; impact on schools, 125, 150–165, 237n.159 Light of Asia, The, 102–107, 224nn.64–65 271

Index

Lindi, 43–44, 222n.30 Liwali (Muslim headman), Dar es Salaam, 80, 84, 86–87, 218n.93 Lohana (caste), 64 Lohia, Rammanohar, 57–58 Lokmanya Tilak School, Dar es Salaam, 71 Lumumba Street, Dar es Salaam, 83 Mahuva, Gujarat, 44–45 Makerere University, Kampala, 70, 126, 128, 229n.6 Makunduchi, Zanzibar, 6 Mambo Leo: on African nationalism, 219n.105; on the Arnautoglu Community Center, 177; on Indians, 219nn.98–99; on Ismailis, 220n.121; on schools, 80–81, 84, 217n.82, 218n.93, 218n.96, 219nn.98–99, 219n.105, 222n.21, 239n.1, 241n.39, 243n.59 Mandvi, Kutch, 5, 38, 40 Mangeshkar, Kishor Kanji Lalji, 65, 88, 214n.16 Manjapra, Kris, 208n.100 Marathas, 15 Maratha Sports Club, Dar es Salaam, 102–103 Markovits, Claude, 210n.13 Mawadia, Pramod P., 42–43 McPherson, Kenneth, 22 Metcalf, Thomas, 50, 58, 195, 209n.110 Mfanyakazi, 12, 188, 205n.29, 244n.81 migration, South Asian, 16–17, 30, 33, 35, 37–38, 41, 59, 74, 206n.48 missionaries, 63, 65–68, 84–85, 87, 115, 214n.18, 229n.3; Holy Ghost Fathers (Spiritans), 66 Mohamed, Bibi Titi, 8 Mohamed, Fatma Rashid, 6–8, 204n.14 Mombasa, 14, 40–41, 43–44 Morogoro Road, Dar es Salaam, 48, 86 Moshi, 71–73, 94, 135, 222n.28, 231n.55, 233n.90 Msimbazi Creek, Dar es Salaam, 86 272

Mtemvu, Zuberi, 130–131, 230n.27 Mtwara, 46 Muhogomchungu, 175, 241n.41 mujra bars, 201, 249n.154, 250n.9 multiracialism, 88, 90, 115, 123, 126–127, 175, 242n.49 Mundra, Kutch, 5, 37, 42–44 Muslim Association of Tanganyika (Al Jammiyyatul Islamiyyah Bi Tanganyika), 83–84 Muslim League, 84, 171 Muslims, Indian, 15, 64, 83–84 Muslim schools, 62, 66, 84–88, 220n.136; Koranic schools, 85, 220n.132. See also Ilala Muslim School, Dar es Salaam; Tanganyikan Muslim Schools Organization Mustafa, Sophia, 148–149, 229n.13 Mwafrika, 134–137, 178 Mwakilasa, Hilda, 63, 88, 160 Mwinyi, Ali Hassan, 7, 153–154, 160–161, 239n.187, 239n.195 Mysore, University of, 7 Mzinga & Sons Muslim School, 87 Nagar, Richa, 20 Naidu, Sarojini, 55 Nairobi, 41, 52, 55, 65, 172, 222n.20, 250n.10 National Censorship Board (NCB), Tanzania, 175, 181–182 nationalism, African, 18–19, 140–141, 163–167, 172–179, 184, 190, 199, 208n.87; and educational inequality, 66, 69–70, 123–124, 163; and Indian diasporas, 26, 28, 47–48, 56, 60; racialism of, 129–130, 134; and segregation of cinema halls, 91, 114, 117, 194 nationalism, anti-colonial, 24, 29, 239n.9 nationalism, Indian, 49–50, 52, 54–55, 58, 170–171; and cinema in East Africa, 164, 172–173; spread to East Africa, 76, 111. See also noncooperation movement in India

Index

nationalism, mass, 4, 25, 61, 80, 82, 130, 164, 166, 199 nationalism, Tanzanian, 1, 9, 12, 20, 125, 155, 185 nationalism, territorial, 29–30; and citizenship, 134; and colonial order, 198; and diaspora, 60, 148; and Greater India, 55–56, 58; and Indian Ocean scale, 50 nationalization: of banks, 145, 147; of film importation and distribution, 180–181, 183; of industries and assets, 19, 46–47, 145; of rental properties, 8, 19, 186; of schools, 65, 138, 140, 151–152, 158–159, 161, 231n.52, 233n.91, 239n.194; of theaters, 184, 186 National Times Ltd., Tanzania, 46 Native Town, Dar es Salaam, 18 Nazerali, V. M., 74 Nchi Yetu, 188, 190, 234n.101, 244nn.71–73, 245n.94, 246nn.111–113, 246n.116, 248n.135, 248nn.139–140 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 50–55, 59–60, 131, 167 Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi, 49 networks, 2; anticolonial, 48, 58–59, 171; commercial, 38, 180; diasporic, 25, 29, 38, 56, 59, 62, 197; imperial, 31, 57, 62, 75, 169, 198; Indian Ocean, 6, 14, 23–26, 37–38, 60, 62, 64, 67, 73, 92, 122, 165, 182, 195, 198 New Chox Cinema, Dar es Salaam, 94, 165–166, 182, 188, 192, 239n.7, 243–244n.70, 246n.121, 247n.123, 248n.134 New Cinema Hall, Dar es Salaam, 168 New Delhi, 6, 49, 51, 149, 172, 204n.14 New Street, Dar es Salaam, 83 Ngurumo, 134–135, 137, 143, 178–179, 188, 230n.26, 230n.37 Njawa, Mrs., 63, 88, 140, 160 Nollywood, 249n.162 Non-Aligned Movement, 60, 211n.32 noncooperation movement in India, 51, 56, 70, 112

nostalgia, 5, 39 Nyamabengo Primary School, Dar es Salaam, 63 Nyamwezi Street, Dar es Salaam, 86 Nyasa, Lake, 63 Nyerere, Joseph, 149, 235n.123 Nyerere, Julius, 8, 12, 19, 180, 205n.29, 220n.125, 231n.51; African socialism, 145; army mutiny against, 232n.71; at cinema halls, 177–179, 243–244n.70; education policies, 125, 128, 132–133, 135–139, 145–146, 230n.29, 232n.58; nonracial nationalism, 124, 127–133, 135, 140–142, 148, 163, 165, 199, 230n.26, 230n.29; representation of, in Time magazine, 235n.129; resignation, 153 Ocean Road, Zanzibar, 45 Odeon Cinema, Dar es Salaam, 166, 173, 178–179, 192, 239n.6, 244n.85, 246n.121 Olimpio Primary School (OPS), Dar es Salaam, 63, 159–160 Oman, 14–15 Oonk, Gijsbert, 21, 208n.86, 209n.2, 211n.26 Oza, U. K., 52–55, 213n.74 Pakistan, 5, 37, 133, 200, 220n.121, 236n.139, 248n.148 Panda, Rehema, 85, 161 Parsees. See Cowasjee Dinshaw & Bros., Mssrs. partition of India, 5, 37, 50, 75, 84, 133, 171–172, 243n.62 passports, 30–35, 37, 40–42, 47, 132, 210n.7, 210n.15, 210n.17 Patel, Sardar Vallabhai, 167 Patel, Sheth Alidina Datu, 168 Pearson, Michael, 14–15, 22–24, 209nn.112–113 plague, 16 Poitier, Sidney, 180, 182 Porbandar, Gujarat, 30–32, 34, 42–43 273

Index

Portugal, in Indian Ocean, 14 Portuguese East Africa, 103 Prem Sanyas. See The Light of Asia princely states, 16, 30–34, 37, 40, 44, 174 Pune, 151, 204n.13; University of, 6 Punja, Habib, 84, 219n.119 Quit India movement, 170–171 racial categories, 12, 21, 25, 28, 38, 54; in cinema halls, 101, 106–110, 112–113, 123–125, 141, 162–163, 204n.19; in schools, 61, 65–66, 69, 88, 90, 96, 98, 139–141 racialization: of cinemas, 98–99; of schools, 66, 162, 166; of urban space, 4, 25, 28, 65, 114, 123–124, 200 racial zoning, Dar es Salaam, 17, 69, 94, 114, 222n.24, 242n.46 Rajkot, Gujarat, 7, 30–35, 40–42 Ranavav, Gujarat, 42–43 Rangoon, 44 Rawalpindi, 55 religious instruction, 65, 85–86, 162, 219n.109 Robert, Shaaban, 173 Rodney, Walter, 82 Rungwe, 63 Rupia, John, 178 Ruvu, 86, 234n.101 Ruvuma Region, 63 Rwanda, 14 Saurashtra, Gujarat. See Kathiawar, Gujarat scalping, of cinema tickets, 166, 178, 188 Self-Reliance, Education for (ESR), 125, 145–146, 148, 152 Shaaban Robert Secondary School (SRSS), 152, 155–158, 236n.145, 236n.148, 237n.149 Shah, Dwarkadas Morarji, 44–46 Shah, Harkisan Das, 44–48, 211n.30 Shah, Hiralaxmi, 45, 47 Shah, Sayad Ayatullah, 168 274

Shia Muslims, 31, 70, 162 Shivji, Jairam, 5, 203n.8 Sikh communities, 65, 107, 243n.66 Simba, Iddi, 200, 250n.5 Simpson, Edward, 22, 203n.6, 205n.39, 208n.97 Singida, 62–63, 214n.8, 222n.30 Sir Euan Smith Madressa, Zanzibar, 38, 45, 217n.76 socialism, 9; anti-colonial, 57; cinema during period of, 26; and cinema policy, 180, 183, 185, 190; contribution of Tanzanian scholars, 19–20; and egalitarianism, 40, 155; and history writing, 207n.80; and kung-fu, 187; and private schools, 150, 152, 161; of Tanzanian government, 47, 125, 235n.129, 246n.116, 246n.119 Stone Town, Zanzibar, 38, 45, 184 Sunni Muslims, 162 Surat, Gujarat, 15 Sutchu, Cassam, 84 Swahili (language). See Kiswahili Swahili coast, 1, 13–16, 42–44 Swali, Tulsidas N., 5–6, 8, 37, 203n.8 Tabili, Laura, 11, 204n.22 Tabora, 32, 71, 84, 94, 130, 142, 220n.121, 232n.72 Tanga, 42, 142; cinema halls, 94, 188, 222n.28; effects of urbanization in, 199; film censorship board, 98–99, 121, 224n.54, 224n.66; government school, 66; Nyerere speech in, 177; screening of Gandhi portrait on cinema slide, 170–171; screening of The Light of Asia, 103 Tanganyika African Association (TAA), 126, 172, 178, 240n.25 Tanganyika African National Union (TANU), 4, 8; and African cinema, 176–178; and educational reform, 138, 229n.3; electoral success, 130–136, 229n.13; on influence of foreign

Index

cinema, 185; and multiracialism, 125–128; national socialist plan, 26; non-racialism, 19, 140, 230n.26 Tanganyikan African Muslim Union, 133 Tanganyikan Muslim Schools Organization, 86, 220n.131 Tanganyika Standard: on film censorship, 100, 182; on Indian diasporas, 142, 211n.25; movie ads printed by, 228n.135; on multiracial nationalism, 140; on Nyerere’s speech on the Congo crisis, 230n.26; on segregation of cinema halls, 120; on taxation of cinema industry, 191 Tanna, B. K., 63–65, 88, 247n.123 Tanzania Film Company (TFC), 180–181, 183, 185–186, 193, 244n.82, 245nn.93–94, 245n.98, 248n.148 Temeke, Dar es Salaam, 165 textiles, 14–15, 41, 53. See also kanga The Drum, 169 Thompson, E. P., 11 Times of India, 74 Toussaint, Auguste, 21 Udeshi, Harshad L., 38–41 ugali, 6 Uganda, 13, 19, 32, 53, 103,, 135, 176, 216n.56, 216n.58 Uhuru, 64, 92, 131, 133, 138, 179 ujamaa, 145, 181, 183 United Nations (UN), 126–128, 140, 211n.32, 229n.5

United States (US), 47, 125, 128, 149, 183–184, 202, 230n.29, 235n.129, 245n.106; African Americans, 57, 176, 212n.69, 215n.32; Embassy in Dar es Salaam, 202. See also Hollywood cinema Upanga, Dar es Salaam, 47–48, 152, 159 Urdu, 75–76, 138, 221n.6 Vakil, Rasiklal, 168 Vassanji, M. G., 201, 250n.10 Wahindi, 204n.19 Wazaramo Union, 81, 219n.98 Wink, Andre, 208n.97 World War One, 14, 24, 37, 49, 67–68, 195 World War Two, 35, 37, 57, 80, 170–171, 206n.60, 210n.16, 227n.117 youth: Afro-Shirazi, 184, 246n.107; exploitation of, 81, 219n.99; Green Guards, 235n.129; influence of cinema on, 112, 182–184, 188–189; influence of education on, 139; nation-building responsibility, 144; national identity, 155; South Asian, 142, 179 Yusuf Zulikha, 106–107 Zanzibar Revolution, 40–41, 149, 164, 245n.100 Zonk!, 176, 242n.42

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About the Author

N E D BE R T Z is an associate professor in the Department of History at the University of Hawai‘i–­Mānoa. He received his PhD from the University of Iowa in 2008, with training in modern African and South Asian history. In 2013–2014 he was a visiting faculty member at Ambedkar University Delhi.

Production Notes for Bertz | Diaspora and Nation in the Indian Ocean Jacket design by Mardee Melton Composition by Westchester Publishing Ser­v ices with display and text in Freight Text Book Printing and binding by Maple Press Printed on 60 lb. White Offset, 444 ppi.