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In Search of the Good Life: Life‐History of a Kenyan Indian Settler. A Sartrean Approach to Biography and History

2009; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 20; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/02757200903272067

1477-2612

Aneesa Kassam,

North African History and Literature

Abstract This article recounts how a young Shi'a Muslim Indian born in north‐west India migrated to Kenya in the early twentieth century in the context of the evolving trade linking the two continents, and rose to become a successful merchant and respected member of the community. It portrays the struggles that he undertook with fellow Kenyan Indians against British colonial policies of racial discrimination and political marginalization, and shows some of the unintended consequences of these actions for the group in the post‐colonial period. Through the application of Jean‐Paul's Sartre's concepts of project, situation, seriality and dialectical totalization, the article attempts to capture some of the historical processes that took place during the period at four interconnected levels: individual; communal; regional; and global. Keywords: Jean‐Paul Sartre (1905–1980)Western Indian Ocean Trade NetworksEast AfricaIndian DiasporasLife‐Histories Acknowledgements I would like to thank all those friends and members of my family who assisted in this reconstruction of my Grandfather's life‐history. An earlier version of this article was published in Outre‐Mers, Revue d'Histoire (2008 vol. 2, 63–90), in the special issue on the "Africa of the Indians", guest‐edited by Professor Nicole Khouri (Institut d'Etudes du Développement Economique et Social, University of Paris I). Notes [1] Throughout this paper, I will refer to my grandfather as Indian, rather than Asian, which was used after the partition of India in 1947, and includes Pakistanis. [2] Whilst numerous early writers on the region and colonial administrators acknowledged the role played by the Indians, many later officials tended to denigrate it. Nor was it in the interest of later African leaders to promote it. As part of their strategy of "self‐effacement", Indians themselves have also traditionally tended, for political, economic, cultural or religious reasons, to be reticent about their family histories (Bhacker 1992 Bhacker, M. R. 1992. Trade and Empire in Muscat and Zanzibar. Roots of British Domination, London: Routledge. [Google Scholar]: 11). [3] On this debate, see Abel (1970 Abel, L. 1970. "Sartre vs Lévi‐Strauss". In Claude Lévi‐Strauss: The Anthropologist as Hero, Edited by: Hayes, E. Nelson and Hayes, Tanya. 235–246. Cambridge, MA: MIT. [Google Scholar]); Caws (1992 Caws, P. 1992. "Sartrean Structuralism?". In Cambridge Companion to Sartre, Edited by: Howells, C. 293–317. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]); and Young (1990 Young, R. 1990. White Mythologies. Writing History and the West, London: Routledge. [Google Scholar]). [4] See Sartre (1966 Sartre, J.‐P. 1966. "Jean‐Paul Sartre Répond". L'Arc, : 91–92. [Google Scholar]). Caws (1992 Caws, P. 1992. "Sartrean Structuralism?". In Cambridge Companion to Sartre, Edited by: Howells, C. 293–317. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) also discusses the responses that Sartre made on the topic. [5] Sartre's translator defines the practico‐inert as "the external world, including both the material environment and human structures—the formal rules of a language, public opinion as moulded by news media, any 'worked‐over matter'—which modifies my conduct by the mere fact of its being there" (1968 Sartre, J.‐P. 1968 [1957]. Search for a Method, Edited by: Barnes, H. E. New York: Vintage Books. [Google Scholar]: 173). [6] Sartre's biographical methods are not described in full in any of the studies in English that I consulted. In outlining these methods, I have drawn, in addition to Sartre's own writings, on Craib (1976 Craib, I. 1976. Existentialism and Sociology. A Study of Jean‐Paul Sartre, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Google Scholar]), Dobson (1993 Dobson, A. 1993. Jean‐Paul Sartre and the Politics of Reason. A Theory of History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Google Scholar]), McBride (1991 McBride, W. L. 1991. Sartre's Political Theory, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. [Google Scholar]) and Scriven (1984 Scriven, M. 1984. Sartre's Existential Biographies, London: Macmillan Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). [7] In order not to encumber the text with both pronouns, since I deal with a male subject, I will use the male pronoun throughout this article. [8] "'Praxis' as used by Sartre has a complex of meanings: most simply, it is man's action on the world at any level of complexity, including both thought and physical activity as moments; it is productive work—labour in the Marxist sense; and it is action in the Weberian sense of purposeful action, but with the deepening of Weber's classification implied by Sartre's earlier work which includes emotional activity and apparently 'irrational' behaviour as action which is purposeful and therefore understandable" (Craib 1976 Craib, I. 1976. Existentialism and Sociology. A Study of Jean‐Paul Sartre, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Google Scholar]: 108). [9] The primary biographical data were generated electronically using a questionnaire and through telephone and face‐to‐face conversations held intermittently in 2008 with members of my immediate and extended family living in diaspora. This reconstruction also draws on the testimonies of friends, of a political acquaintance, and other documentary evidence (primarily photographic), and uses secondary historical sources to contextualize these factual data. [10] The section draws on Meherally (1991 Meherally, A. 1991. A History of the Agakhani Ismailis, Burnaby, , Canada: A. M. Trust. [Google Scholar]). The Ismaili religion was allegedly founded by 'Abd Allah ibn Maymun al‐Qaddah (also known as 'Ubayd Allah), progenitor of the Fatimid dynasty (909–1171 AD), which claimed descent from the Prophet through his daughter Fatima. The Ismailis split off from other Shi'a Muslims when they recognized the Imam Ismail as their seventh temporal and spiritual leader in the first half of the eighth century. They also differ from other Shi'as in that they believe in an "Imam of the Time" (Imam e‐Zaman), who is said to incarnate the "Light" (nur) of his holy ancestors, through which he provides guidance on all matters pertaining to the welfare of the community. In a further schism, the Ismailis broke off from the Fatimids in 1094, when they recognized Abu Mansur Nizar's claims to the imamate. Ismailism has undergone several doctrinal and constitutional reforms from the time of its inception. Its religious beliefs and practices are a syncretization of Islam, Sufism and Hinduism, and still bear the imprints of these influences in their rituals to the present day. [11] The way the present Aga Khan IV manages the affairs of the eighteen million or so Ismailis scattered in twenty‐five countries of the world continues to follow the model of the rulers of the former Indian princely states. The Ismaili religious diaspora can be seen as a "non‐state nation", or a nation without a state. [12] Lloyd‐Jones and Lewis (2000 Lloyd‐Jones, R. and Lewis, M. J. 2000. Raleigh and the British Bicycle Industry. An Economic and Business History, 1870–1960, Aldershot, , UK: Ashgate Publishers. [Google Scholar]: 55) indicate that from 1893, the Raleigh bicycle, manufactured in Manchester, was being exported through its company's agents to India, which represented one of its most important colonial markets. [13] Note of a conversation with Jagdish Sondhi recorded in his personal diary. Sondhi served on the executive committee of the Indian Association in Mombasa from the mid‐1950s to the early 1960s, during which time, and beyond, he kept journals intermittently on Indian affairs. [14] Bhacker (1992 Bhacker, M. R. 1992. Trade and Empire in Muscat and Zanzibar. Roots of British Domination, London: Routledge. [Google Scholar]: xxiv). This information, based on archaeological evidence, may push back the date for the beginnings of this trade, which is usually cited as the first century AD. [15] This and the following sections draw on Mangat (1969 Mangat, J. S. 1969. A History of the Asians in East Africa, c. 1886–1945, London: Clarendon Press. [Google Scholar]), Sheriff (1987 Sheriff, A. 1987. Slaves, Spices and Ivory in Zanzibar, London: James Currey. [Google Scholar]) and Bhacker (1992 Bhacker, M. R. 1992. Trade and Empire in Muscat and Zanzibar. Roots of British Domination, London: Routledge. [Google Scholar]). Following those South‐east Asian scholars who have been inspired by Braudel's studies of the Mediterranean world, many contemporary writers currently view the western Indian Ocean as a "totality", the geographical units of which and the linkages between which are seen as having varied at different periods of its long history. [16] In his report on the alleged complicity of Indians in the slave trade, in 1873 Sir Bartle Frere noted that: 'The Slave Trade generally is in the hands of Arabs, or men of mixed Arab and African descent. Beyond furnishing the capital for it, I do not think that the Indian or other foreign traders are often directly implicated in it" (cited in Mangat 1969 Mangat, J. S. 1969. A History of the Asians in East Africa, c. 1886–1945, London: Clarendon Press. [Google Scholar]: 23). The reality may have been a great deal more complex. [17] These Indian merchants were usually referred to by British agents and consular officials collectively as "Banyan" (Banyani), regardless of their religious affiliations. In the strict sense of the term, derived from the Hindu varna (Gujarati vanya) system of socio‐economic classification, it designated a caste of traders. Its looser usage apparently developed during the Portuguese‐dominated period in the Indian Ocean trade, during which time it also acquired the connotation of broker or agent of Europeans (Curtin 1984 Curtin, P.D. 1984. Cross‐Cultural Trade in World History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]: 174–175). [18] This network was based on both kinship and religion. During the East African period, Ismailis generally constituted an endogamous group and almost all of them were related to each other in some way or other. Like the joint family system of the Hindus, this network served an economic function, but had a more diffuse and latent value. It still functions to some extent today, but has been weakened by the dispersal of its members. Like other aspects of this article, it merits further research. [19] Personal communications (May 2008) Basheer Mauladad, a close Punjabi Muslim friend of Kassam Kanji and a fellow Mason, and A. B. Shah, former Grand Master of the District Lodge of East Africa. [20] Also see Mangat (1969 Mangat, J. S. 1969. A History of the Asians in East Africa, c. 1886–1945, London: Clarendon Press. [Google Scholar]: 97–131) and Murray‐Brown (1972 Murray‐Brown, J. 1972. Kenyatta, London: George Allen and Unwin. [Google Scholar]: 76–89). [21] In the minutes of a meeting of the Colonialists' Association held in 1905, one administrator, John Ainsworth, who was sympathetic to the Indians, observed: "the Indians are an important factor in the country and own a very considerable part of the trading and other capital (possibly 60 to 70%)". Similarly, another official, C. W. Hobley, estimated that the Indians contributed "no less than 25% of the total Municipal rates at Nairobi, where the European settler only contributes 6½%" (cited by Mangat 1969 Mangat, J. S. 1969. A History of the Asians in East Africa, c. 1886–1945, London: Clarendon Press. [Google Scholar]: 101). [22] See photograph in Salvadori (1996 Salvadori, C. 1996. We Came in Dhows,, 2nd edn, 3 vols, Nairobi: Paperchase. [Google Scholar]: III, 105). On Menon's report on these anti‐Indian colonial government policies, see Mangat (1969 Mangat, J. S. 1969. A History of the Asians in East Africa, c. 1886–1945, London: Clarendon Press. [Google Scholar]: 157). [23] During World War II, the military commandeered Kassam Kanji's house, forcing his family to live above his business premises until he could make other arrangements. The house was eventually returned to him, but in a deplorable condition. [24] See Sartre (1976 Sartre, J.‐P. 1976) [1960]. Critique of Dialectical Reason, vol 1, Theory of Practical Ensembles, Edited by: Sheridan‐Smith, A. London: New Left Books. [Google Scholar]: 52) on knowledge as a form of totalization. [25] It is not my intention to completely exonerate my fellow East African Asians, many of whom continue to display racist attitudes to Africans.