Claiming Kabale: racial thought and urban governance in Uganda

Abstract

As Uganda's postcolonial leaders Milton Obote and Idi Amin sought to pin down Asians as legal and discursive subjects between 1969 and 1972, they invoked a contested administrative, political and social history to promote Africanisation initiatives. Traders targeted by the 1969 Trade Licensing Act in small towns such as Kabale reshaped malleable racial and legal categories in local administrative struggles over the control of urban space that did not map neatly onto policy-makers’ visions. Nevertheless, the perceived decisiveness of Milton Obote's legislation and of Idi Amin's subsequent expulsion decrees has obscured from subsequent narratives the messy politics of Uganda's urban spaces. This article draws attention to the opportunities and limits of legal claim-making at the intersection of racial thought and urban governmentality during the Trade Licensing Act's uneven implementation.

Keywords:

• Uganda
• Kabale
• Uganda Asians
• governmentality
• urban history
• racial thought

Acknowledgements

Research for this article has been made possible by support from the Social Science Research Council's International Dissertation Research Fellowship with funds provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, as well as assistance for earlier research from the African Studies Center, the Department of African and Afro-American Studies, and the Rackham Graduate School at the University of Michigan. Many thanks for helpful comments on earlier drafts to the participants of the ‘Uganda in the 1970s’ conference in Ann Arbor and to an anonymous JEAS reviewer.

Notes

1. On August 19, Amin told a rally in Kigezi “that all the 23,000 Asians who hold Ugandan citizenship will also have to leave the country,” but he quickly reversed course, instead using the mandatory verification of all “Asians and half-castes” to revoke many of their Ugandan citizenship claims. “Some Will Stay, Some Will Go,” Uganda Argus, August 10, 1972, 1; “All Asians Must Go,” Uganda Argus, August 21, 1972, 1; “These Asians Can Stay,” Uganda Argus, August 23, 1972, 1.

2. Interview with Pravin Nathwani and Kish Nathwani, Watford, United Kingdom, June 30, 2012; KDA, Resettlement of Asians, Box 87, File “Confidential Flimsies”; KDA, Mr Pravin Kumar Popatlal Jeram Nathwani, March 26, 1973, File “Immigration,” 281.

3. The foundational Marxist literature on the expulsion largely conflated race and class, and thus explained Asian behaviour and sociality solely in a functional relationship to the market. For example, Mamdani, “Class Struggles,” 33.

4. Pravin Nathwani's success in retaining his citizenship illustrates that Amin's action did not entirely erase claim-making. Indeed, as Anneeth Kaur Hundle demonstrates in this special issue, many Asians who carried on residing in Uganda continued to successfully negotiate their legal claims to property and citizenship and to claim and remake specifically Asian spaces throughout the 1970s.

5. KDA, 2nd Grade Magistrate's Court, Kigezi, Criminal Case No. 35/70, February 20, 1970, File “Kigezi District Intelligence Committee.”

6. Mamdani, “Class Struggles”; Sathyamurthy, The Political Development of Uganda, 467–657.

7. Feierman, “African Histories,” 167–212.

8. KDA, Quarterly report of DC Kigezi, April 20, 1920, File “Kigezi District: Report for 1921–3”; KDA, “Annual Report Kigezi 1954,” n.d.; KDA, Police Message DC to COMPOL KLA, October 13, 1971, Box 124, File “Asian Census,” 22.

9. Carswell, Cultivating Success, 24–48.

10. Peterson, Ethnic Patriotism, ch 3.

11. Carswell, Cultivating Success.

12. Rutanga, “A Historical Analysis,” 66–71.

13. Morris, “Communal Rivalry,” 306–17.

14. Morris, “Communal Rivalry,” 306–17; Morris, The Indians in Uganda, chs 3 and 8.

15. Each Protectorate census (1911, 1921, 1931, 1948 and 1959) enumerated numbers of Asians identified as Hindus, Mohammedans or Muslims, and Sikhs, while the 1948 report introduced further distinctions within a “Non-Native” census that included Europeans. KDA, “Annual Reports by District Commissioner on Kigezi District for the Year 1931,” January 30, 1932, File “Annual Report – 1930, 1931 & 1932,” 72; UNA A46 1701: 55, PC Eastern Province to CS, 6 November 1919.

16. West, Land Policy in Buganda, 135–8.

17. The Uganda Cotton Ordinance, 1908 Ordinance No. 5 or 1908; The Uganda Cotton Ordinance Rules, 1909 (No.1 and 2) (January 18, 1909 and December 30, 1909); The Uganda Cotton Rules, 1918 (November 27, 1918), p. 124; Native Produce Marketing Ordinance, 1932, Ordinance No. 20 of 1932 (August 31, 1932), sections 4–5, 11; Mamdani, Politics and Class Formation, 72–9.

18. Acting Chief Secretary of the Legislative Council P.W. Perryman in “Legislative Council – Minutes of Meeting,” The Official Gazette of the Uganda Protectorate (November 15, 1929): 546; Motani, “The Ugandan Civil Service,” 103.

19. Hall, “Foreword: Some Notes on the Economic Development of Uganda,” iii–iv.

20. Trading Ordinance, 1938, Ordinance No. 19 of 1938 (October 20, 1938), section 5.

21. For example, Report of the Commissioners for Africanisation, 2–3.

22. This applied to “British protected persons” and the newly created category “citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies.” Paul, Whitewashing Britain, 23; British Nationality Act, 1948 Part II.

23. Commonwealth Immigrants Act, 1962. Part I Section II.

24. Constitution of Uganda, 1962, Articles 7, 8.

25. Mamdani, “When Does a Settler Become a Native?”

26. Government of Uganda, Report of the Committee on Africanisation, 3.

27. Government of Uganda, Report of the Committee on Africanisation, 15, 3–4.

28. Government of Uganda, Report of the Committee on Africanisation, 11.

29. Mamdani, “Class Struggles,” 46–53; Brett, “The Political Economy of General Amin,” 17–18.

30. Sathyamurthy, “The Social Base of the Uganda Peoples’ Congress,” 456.

31. Ivaska, Cultures States; Brennan, Taifa.

32. Obote, “His Excellency the President's Communication from the Chair of the National Assembly on 20th April 1970,” in Proposals for Document No. 1 on “The Move to the Left,” 24, 34.

33. Mazrui, “Casualties of an Underdeveloped Class Structure,” 262–74.

34. On official rhetorical approaches to urban spaces in the 1970s see Decker, “Idi Amin's Dirty War,” 489–513.

35. The Trade (Licensing) Act, 1969, Act No. 14 of 1969 (March 20, 1969), sections 1, 2b, 4a; Trading Ordinance, 1938, Ordinance No. 19 of 1938 (October 20, 1938), section 5.

36. KDA. “Trade (Licensing) Act – Declaration of Restricted Areas.” 28 July 1969. Box 175. File “Trade and Commerce,” 81.

37. KDA, “Notes Taken at a Meeting of Trade Licensing Authorities,” December 11, 1969. Box 175, File “Trade and Commerce,” 96.

38. Government of Uganda, Report of the Committee on Africanisation, 10.

39. KDA, “Notes Taken at a Meeting of Trade Licensing Authorities,” December 11, 1969, Box 175, File “Trade and Commerce,” 96.

40. Jamal, “Asians in Uganda, 1880–1972,” 611–12.

41. “Contribution of the Asian Community in the Economic Development of Uganda” in “Asian Makes Bridge Building Plea,” Uganda Argus (December 8, 1971): 7; Ramchandani, Uganda Asians.

42. Interview with Manzoor Moghul, Leicester, UK, June 11, 2012.

43. E.g. UNA, C Series Box 9, C.569 1919 File “Native Affairs: Young Baganda Association.” For newspapers in Kenya, Frederiksen, “Print, Newspapers and Audiences in Colonial Kenya,” 155–72.

44. Bose, A Hundred Horizons.

45. Metcalf, Imperial Connections, 204. See also Brennan, Taifa, 6–8.

46. Peterson and Macola, Recasting the Past.

47. Maini, “Asians and Politics,” 112–24.

48. Twaddle, “Was the Expulsion Inevitable?,” 2.

49. Government of Uganda, Report on the Census of the Non-Native Population, table I, table XXXI and p. 69.

50. Mamdani, From Citizen to Refugee, 15; Mamdani, Politics and Class Formation, 213.

51. Gregory, South Asians in East Africa.

52. Tripp, “Women's Mobilization in Uganda,” 543–64.

53. Thompson, Governing Uganda, 204–18.

54. For example, G.R. Kizza, “Antipathy to Asians, 1946,” in Low, The Mind of Buganda, 131–3.

55. “Asians Confer on Common Roll,” Uganda Argus (April 14, 1959): 1; Thompson, “The Ismailis in Uganda,” 39–40.

56. “Minority Safeguards Not Needed, Says Action Group,” Uganda Argus (April 15, 1959): 1; “U.A.G. ‘Not a Political Party’,” Uganda Argus (April 23, 1959): 4; Thompson, “The Ismailis in Uganda, 40–1; Maini, “Asians and Politics,” 117; Mamdani, Politics and Class Formation, 84.

57. Mamdani, “Beyond Settler and Native,” 654.

58. KDA, “Kigezi District Annual Report for 1923,” January 27, 1924; KDA, Quarterly report of DC Kigezi, April 4, 1923, File “Kigezi District Report for 1921–3,” 18.

59. KDA, Annual Reports by District Commissioner on Kigezi District for the Year 1931, January 20, 1932, File “Annual Report 1930, 1931 & 1932.”

60. KDA, “Annual Report Kigezi District, 1948,” February 18, 1949, File Kigezi Annual Report 1949 & 1948; Uganda Protectorate, Non-African Population Census, 1959.

61. KDA, Kabale Town Council, Report of the General Purposes Committee Meeting, 78/70 Kabale Master Plan (a) Boundaries and Population.

62. KDA, “Annual Report Kigezi District 1956,” n.d., 28.

63. KDA, DC to District Medical Officer, November 20, 1951, File “Temporary Occupation Plots in Townships,” 203; KDA, “Annual Report Kigezi District 1956,” 28.

64. KDA, DC to Mr Rama Ghela, December 29,1950, File “Application for Stores in the New Market,” 95.

65. KDA, “Annual Report Kigezi District 1956,” 23.

66. Ethnographic details in this and the following paragraph come from interviews in Kabale and London, April–June 2012.

67. Interview with Leos Batuma, Kabale, Uganda, April 27, 2011.

68. KDA, DC to District Medical Officer, November 20, 1951, File “Temporary Occupation Plots in Townships,” 203; KDA, “Annual Report Kigezi District 1956,” 28.

69. Fallers, Bantu Bureaucracy, 44.

70. Morris, “Communal Rivalry,” 306–17.

71. Morris, The Indians in Uganda, 15–16; Morris, “Indians in East Africa,” 203.

72. KDA, Appendix to “Trade Licensing Act – Declaration of Restricted Areas,” July 28, 1969, Box 175, File “Trade and Commerce,” 81. “Main Street” was also referred to as “Kabale Road” in other correspondence. KDA, Town clerk to Kigezi DC, September 3, 1969, Box 175, File “Trade and Commerce,” 82.

73. KDA, Town clerk to Kigezi DC, September 3, 1969, Box 175, File “Trade and Commerce,” 82.

74. See “Uganda's Case for Expelling Asians” in Government of Uganda, Uganda's Economic War, 17–22.

75. Gregory, Quest for Equality, 86; Morris, “Indians in East Africa,” 208.

76. Moghal, Idi Amin, 75–6.

77. Maini, “Asians and Politics,” 117.

78. UNA, Office of the President 4: 8. “Report on Citizenship Submitted by Research Secretariat Office,” 1970; “Asian Makes Bridge Building Plea,” Uganda Argus, December 8, 1971: 8; “Memorandum of the Asian Leaders to His Excellency the President of the Second Republic of Uganda General Idi Amin Dada, in response to His Excellency's speech dated 8th December, 1971” in O'Brien, Brown Britons, 40–2.

79. The original letter was forwarded to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry and no original copy survives in the Kabale District Archive. District Commissioner Malinga reported the contents in KDA, DC to PS Ministry of Commerce, December 17, 1969, Box 175, File “Trade and Commerce,” 93.

80. KDA, PS Ministry of Commerce to DC, December 23, 1969, Box 175, File “Trade and Commerce,” 97.

81. KDA, “Hon. W.W. Kalema's Tour of the Western Region Meeting Held at Kabale, on Tuesday 20th January 1970,” Box 175, File “Trade and Commerce,” 120.

82. KDA, “Trade Licensing Arrangements for 1970,” December 22, 1969, Box 175, File “Trade and Commerce,” 100A.

83. KDA, “Hon. W.W. Kalema's tour of the Western Region: Meeting with District Team and Planning in Kabale on 20th January, 1970,” Box 175, File “Trade and Commerce,” 120.

84. KDA, “Petition” to Minister of Commerce, January 25, 1970, Box 175, File “Trade and Commerce,” 109.

85. KDA, DC to PS, Ministry of Commerce, February 2, 1970, Box 175, File “Trade and Commerce,” 117.

86. KDA, DC on Hon. W.W. Kalema Tour, January 23, 1970, Box 175, File “Trade and Commerce,” 108A.

87. KDA, Petition to DC, January 19, 1970, Box 175, File “Trade and Commerce,” 103; KDA, DC to Town Clerk, January 22, 1970, Box 175, File “Trade and Commerce,” 105.

88. KDA, Town Clerk to PS, Ministry of Commerce, February 9, 1970, Box 175, File “Trade and Commerce,” 122.

89. KDA, “Implementation of the New Trade (Licensing) Act, 1969,” February 12, 1970, Box 175, File “Trade and Commerce,” 129.

90. KDA, W.W. Kalema's Meeting with District Team, January 20, 1970, Box 175, File “Trade and Commerce,” 131; KDA, PS Ministry of Internal Affairs to IGP, March 25, 1970, Box 175, File “Trade and Commerce,” 145; KDA. Kagaba & Co to Karmali Kharamshi, February 16, 1970, Box 175, File “Trade and Commerce,” 131.

91. KDA, W.W. Kalema Meeting Held at Kabale, January 20, 1970, Box 175, File “Trade and Commerce,” 120.

92. KDA, Report of the General Purposes Committee Meeting, 80/70 Health Inspector's Monthly Report, November 17, 1970, File “Kabale Town Council Minutes”; KDA, W.W. Kalema Meeting Held at Kabale, January 20, 1970, Box 175, File “Trade and Commerce,” 120.

93. Interview with Pravin Nathwani and Kish Nathwani, Watford, United Kingdom, June 30, 2012.

94. KDA, Shah, Patel & Co to Minister of Commerce, January 17, 1970, Box 175, File “Trade and Commerce,” 106; KDA, PS Ministry of Commerce to Shah Patel & Co., February 13, 1970, Box 175, File “Trade and Commerce,” 132.

95. KDA, 2nd Grade Magistrate's Court, Kigezi, Criminal Case No. 35/70, February 20, 1970, File “Kigezi District Intelligence Committee.”

96. KDA, PS Katagyira to President's Office, March 13, 1970, Box 175, File “Trade and Commerce,” 142; KDA, DC Malinga to TC, March 25, 1970. Box 175, File “Trade and Commerce,” 144.

97. KDA, PS Ministry of Commerce to DC Kigezi, August 26, 1970, Box 175, File “Trade and Commerce,” 148.

98. Interview with Pravin Nathwani and Kish Nathwani, Watford, United Kingdom, June 30, 2012.

99. The Immigration (Amendment) Decree, Decree No. 30 of 1972 (October 25, 1972), section 1. The latter section was added to The Immigration Decree, Decree No. 17 of 1972 (August 9, 1972).

100. Patel, “General Amin and the Indian Exodus,” 12.

101. Mamdani, From Citizen to Refugee, 12.

102. Adams, “A Look at Uganda and Expulsion,” 238.

103. O'Brien, “General Amin and the Uganda Asians,” 91.

104. Katono, “Western Newspapers’ Coverage of Idi Amin.”

105. Mamdani, Politics and Class Formation, 304.

106. O'Brien, Brown Britons, 10; Kabwegyere, The Politics of State Formation and Destruction, 127–8; Tandon, “Asians’ Role in East Africa,” 6.

107. Jørgensen, Uganda A Modern History, 271.

108. KDA, File “Trading Ordinance Policy & Processing of Licenses.”