Go to AfricaBib home

Go to AfricaBib home AfricaBib Go to database home

bibliographic database
Line
Previous page New search

The free AfricaBib App for Android is available here

Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:The 'Asian question' in East Africa: the continuing controversy on the role of Indian capitalists in accumulation and development in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania
Author:Himbara, DavidISNI
Year:1997
Periodical:African Studies
Volume:56
Issue:1
Pages:1-18
Language:English
Geographic terms:East Africa
Kenya
Uganda
Tanzania
Subjects:Indians
bourgeoisie
economic development
Ethnic and Race Relations
Economics and Trade
Development and Technology
External link:https://doi.org/10.1080/00020189708707857
Abstract:This paper examines the interplay between private enterprise and the State in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, focusing on the role of Indian capitalists in accumulation and development. It starts with a discussion of the concept of the 'Asian question' in East African thinking, and an outline of the realities of 'Asian capital' in colonial East Africa, emphasizing the official recognition of the importance of the East African Indian bourgeoisie in the period 1940-1963. In the postindependence period, Africanization of the public and private sectors in East Africa targeted these very critical economic forces, resulting in the seizure of Indian properties and, in Uganda, the mass expulsion of resident Indians. But the expropriation of the Indian bourgeoisie and the accompanying Africanization failed to lay the basis for accumulation in the East African countries. By the 1990s, East Africa found itself in a dismal economic position, after decades of, among other things, hindrance to domestic accumulation, arbitrary policy regimes, and a spectacular decline of national infrastructures. Solutions imposed by the World Bank and IMF in the 1990s specifically mentioned the Asian question. A donor-imposed 'market friendly' environment has meant that Indian economic activity is once again flourishing. Ref.
Views
Cover