Anna Greenwood and Harshad Topiwala, Indian Doctors in Kenya, 1895–1940

Challenging the dearth of studies into non-European doctors in colonial Africa, Anna Greenwood and Harshad Topiwala set out to detail the complex position of western-trained Indian doctors in Kenya from the late nineteenth century to 1940. Topiwala, who grew up in colonial Kenya with an Indian doctor as a father, initiated the research for the book when he realised that no studies recognised the presence of Indian doctors in the region. While it is well known that thousands of Indians migrated as indentured railroad labourers, traders and sepoys into East Africa, few scholars acknowledge the existence of Indian doctors. Greenwood and Topiwala estimate that there were initially only thirty Indian doctors working in the region at the turn of the century, but this number rose to approximately 200 by 1940 (p. 38). This was approximately a third of all the medical immigrants (p. 173). The British Colonial Medical Department initially enthusiastically pursued Indian medical doctors for service in Kenya up to 1922, yet, as Greenwood points out, few scholars, including herself, acknowledged this policy. This book therefore offers an important addition to existing studies of colonial medicine personnel in the region

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