East Africa

Indian traders had long been landing on the East African coast when the British Protectorate in the area decided that they needed Indian workers to build a railway into inland Uganda. They recruited primarily from the Punjab, and those workers soon joined with the Gujarati traders to establish a prosperous Indian community. Each of the Gujarati caste communities involved in the trade had built community centers for their people in the urban areas, and the Punjabis also followed that pattern. As a result all the Hindu temples, as well as the various mosques and gurudwaras of the Muslims and Sikhs, are closed caste‐based institutions. Although the Indians were represented in the legislative councils before independence, they have found it difficult to establish a place for themselves in the new democratic system and are now largely confined to the economic domain.

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