{"id":25380,"date":"2016-05-16T00:51:00","date_gmt":"2016-05-16T00:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/years-after-exile-ugandan-indians-regain-status\/"},"modified":"2016-05-16T00:50:43","modified_gmt":"2016-05-16T00:50:43","slug":"years-after-exile-ugandan-indians-regain-status","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/years-after-exile-ugandan-indians-regain-status\/","title":{"rendered":"Years after exile, Ugandan Indians regain status of economic pillars"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Many citizens more worried about the treatment they get from the Chinese.}<\/p>\n

Drop by an upmarket hotel, cafe or restaurant in Uganda\u2019s capital, Kampala, and the chances are the owner will be an Asian from the Indian sub-continent.<\/p>\n

From running banks, farms, supermarkets and shopping malls, Ugandan Asians have regained their prominent role in the country\u2019s economy, following their expulsion more than four decades ago.<\/p>\n

About 50,000 Asians were made to leave the country in 1972, on the orders of military ruler Idi Amin, who accused them of \u201cmilking the economy\u201d.<\/p>\n

At the time, they ran 90 per cent of the country\u2019s businesses and accounted for 90 per cent of tax revenues.<\/p>\n

Since their return to the country in the 1980s and 1990s, Asians have once again become a pillar of the country\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n

After they were forced to leave, a large, prosperous community of Ugandan Asians found itself scattered across the globe, many having lost businesses they spent years working on.<\/p>\n

In the years which followed, Uganda\u2019s economy slumped.<\/p>\n

But when President Yoweri Museveni \u2014 who won a fifth term in office in February \u2014 seized power in January 1986, he encouraged the exiles to return.<\/p>\n

Now, despite making up less than one per cent of the population, they are estimated to contribute up to 65 per cent of Uganda\u2019s tax revenues.<\/p>\n

Sudhir Ruperalia was one of those who came back. He is now the country\u2019s richest man with an estimated value of $800 million.<\/p>\n

He spent time in Britain in the 1970s, where he says he worked a series of menial jobs before saving enough to return to Uganda.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started my business from scratch with $25,000 and since then, we have built up into seven different sectors. We employ more than 8,000 people,\u201d Ruperalia said.<\/p>\n

The Ruperalia Group is in banking, insurance, hospitality, real estate, education, broadcasting and floriculture.<\/p>\n

On the whole, Asian business ownership is more diverse than it was in the 1970s.<\/p>\n

Ali Shah Jivraj, the 28-year-old founder and CEO of Royal Electronics, says while his parents and grandparents were in farming, his business is in consumer goods, electronics and real estate.<\/p>\n

He says black Ugandans are involved in farm ownership and shop-keeping, which in the past had been almost solely Asian.<\/p>\n

Racial tensions linked to Asians\u2019 economic dominance still exist and have occasionally spilled over into violence in the years since their return.<\/p>\n

But overall, blacks are mainly positive about employment created by Asians.<\/p>\n

Among their main complaints were the special incentives offered to foreigners to do business in Ugandan, which they believed disadvantaged locals.<\/p>\n

There is also a concern over labour exploitation, given that there is no official minimum wage in Uganda.<\/p>\n

According to Chris Musiime, a campaigner, many Ugandans are more worried about the Chinese, who are heavily involved in infrastructure projects than South Asians.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome Ugandans complain that the Chinese bring in their workforce rather than employ and train locals,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Others, who have worked for the Chinese in unskilled capacity, speak of poor treatment and communication problems.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey complain that some Chinese treat Africans much worse than the Indians ever did in the 1960s and 1970s,\u201d Mr Musiime added.<\/p>\n

So, have Ugandan Asians developed more compassion and respect for their fellow citizens, having been accused of marginalising and even mistreating them in the past?<\/p>\n

The owner of Garden Earth Organic Farm, Nizar Sayani, thinks so. He says he understands the problems of locals better than he used to.<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand how they live. We need to do that so that so we can join hands and move forward,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But there is still a need for more integration, according to Paul Lakuma from Uganda\u2019s Economic Policy Research Centre.<\/p>\n

He says Asian and black communities should cooperate in commerce and social integration, including marriage. <\/p>\n

\"The<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Many citizens more worried about the treatment they get from the Chinese.} Drop by an upmarket hotel, cafe or restaurant in Uganda\u2019s capital, Kampala, and the chances are the owner will be an Asian from the Indian sub-continent. From running banks, farms, supermarkets and shopping malls, Ugandan Asians have regained their prominent role in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-25380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25380\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25380"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=25380"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=25380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}