Hinduism in Uganda

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Hinduism in Uganda
Shree Sanatan Dharma Mandal temple (Kampala) 05.JPG
Shree Sanatan Dharma Mandal temple in Kampala
Total population
355,497 (2020)Increase2.svg; 0.8%–0.9% of total population
Regions with significant populations
All Over Uganda
Religions
Hinduism
Related ethnic groups
Indians in Uganda and Hindus

Uganda Location Uganda AU Africa.svg
Uganda

Hinduism in Uganda arrived when the colonial British Empire brought Hindus along with other Indian workers to its East African colonies in late 19th and early 20th centuries. [1] [2] The largest arrival of Hindu immigrants to Uganda, some educated and skilled but mostly poor and struggling from the famine-prone areas of Punjab and Gujarat, was to help construct the Kenya-Uganda Railway connecting landlocked parts of Uganda and Kenya with the port city of Mombasa. [3] [4] The largest departure of Hindus from Uganda occurred when General Idi Amin expelled them and seized their properties in 1972. [3] [4] [5]

Contents

In addition to building major infrastructure projects, Hindus were a part of a global movement of workers to parts of British East Africa, aimed at helping the British government to establish services, retail markets and administrative support. [1] [2] [6] The British invited Indian laborers as local skilled labor was unavailable. At the peak of the infrastructure projects in Uganda-Kenya, 32,000 people were brought in from India. [7] Nearly 2,500 workers died because of difficult and unsafe working conditions during these projects. After the project ended, nearly 70% of the workers returned to India, while some 6,000 were absorbed in railway and other British operations such as retail and administration. [7] [8] Those who remained included Hindus, Muslims, Jains and Sikhs. Many from this ethnic group became financially successful. [3]

Demographics

According to ARDA, there were about 355,497 (0.93%) Hindus in Uganda in 2015 [9] In 2020, ARDA figures showed that Hindus made up 0.8% of the population. [10]

YearPercentIncrease
19700.69%–
20150.93%+0.24%

Expulsion of Hindus and other Asians by Idi Amin

General Idi Amin expelled all Hindus and other Asians in 1972 from Uganda. Twenty years later, Uganda reversed that law. Idi Amin -Archives New Zealand AAWV 23583, KIRK1, 5(B), R23930288.jpg
General Idi Amin expelled all Hindus and other Asians in 1972 from Uganda. Twenty years later, Uganda reversed that law.
Historical Population
YearPop.±%
197065,000—    
2015355,497+446.9%
Source: [11] [12]

After colonialism ended, Hindus (along with Jains and Sikhs) were discriminated against in East Africa including Uganda. This was a part of the policies of various East African governments in their promotion of Africanization based on laws and policies under which commercial and professional sectors of the economy had to be owned by indigenous Africans. [13] [14] The Hindus, along with Jains, Sikhs, Jews and other religious groups, were affected during this period of xenophobic targeting of Asians and Europeans by African leaders. [15] [16] [17]

When General Idi Amin came to power by overthrowing an elected government in Uganda, he adopted a policy of religious and ethnic cleansing against people of Asian religions. Himself a Muslim, he announced that he had a dream, where "Allah told him that the Asians, exploiters who did not want to integrate with the Africans, had to go". [18] [19] [20] In 1972, he selectively expelled the Hindus along with other Asians from Uganda, and seized their properties. [21] Most of those expelled were second or third generation Hindus, many with dual Ugandan and British citizenship. While he expelled Hindus and people of other religions with origins in India, Idi Amin did not expel Christians of British or French origins living in Uganda. [21]

According to Kim Knott, professor of Religious and Secular Studies at Lancaster University, there were 65,000 Hindus in Uganda in 1970, but all were expelled by Idi Amin. [22] The expelled Hindus mass migrated to other countries during this period, [1] [3] particularly the United Kingdom (28,000 refugees [note 1] ), India (15,000 refugees), Canada (8,000 refugees), the United States (1,500 refugees) and in smaller numbers to other countries such as Australia. [4] [23] The expulsion removed most of Uganda's "industrialists, traders, artisans and civil servants", states Christopher Senyonjo, and their properties were re-allocated to civilians and Ugandan Army officials who supported Idi Amin. [25] Uganda faced a shortage of skilled professionals such as doctors, bankers, nurses and teachers. It triggered a financial crisis and a collapse of businesses, including cement and sugar production, causing long-term economic devastation in Uganda. [26]

Post-Idi Amin conditions

Twenty years after the Idi Amin expulsion, Uganda reversed its laws selectively targeting Hindus and other Indian religions. [3] This policy, offered in cooperation with the World Bank, included a return of properties seized by Idi Amin's government, such as empty and unused factories, back to the families if they returned and recreated employment. [5]

Hindus are a tiny minority in the total Ugandan population of about 27 million. The official demographics lists Christians and Muslims separately, but includes Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, Buddhists and traditional African religions as others. Approximately 65% of the South Asians living in Uganda are Hindus. [3] There is a Swaminarayan temple in Kampala. [27]

Notes

  1. ↑ These numbers are total, and include non-Hindus from Asia who were expelled, such as Sikhs. [23] [24]

Related Research Articles

Hinduism is an Indian religion or dharma, a religious and universal order by which its followers abide. The word Hindu is an exonym, and while Hinduism has been called the oldest religion in the world, it has also been described as sanātana dharma, a modern usage, based on the belief that its origins lie beyond human history, as revealed in the Hindu texts. Another endonym for Hinduism is Vaidika dharma.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hindus</span> Adherents of the religion of Hinduism

Hindus are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism, also known by its endonym Sanātana Dharma. Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for people living in the Indian subcontinent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indian religions</span> Religions that originated on the Indian subcontinent

Indian religions, sometimes also termed Dharmic religions or Indic religions, are the religions that originated in the Indian subcontinent. These religions, which include Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism, are also classified as Eastern religions. Although Indian religions are connected through the history of India, they constitute a wide range of religious communities, and are not confined to the Indian subcontinent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Idi Amin</span> President of Uganda from 1971 to 1979

Idi Amin Dada Oumee was a Ugandan military officer and politician who served as the third president of Uganda from 1971 to 1979. He ruled as a military dictator and is considered one of the most brutal despots in modern world history.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Hinduism:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bhajan</span> Singing of poems or hymns in Indian traditions

Bhajan refers to any devotional song with a religious theme or spiritual ideas, specifically among Dharmic religions, in any language. The term bhajanam means reverence and originates from the root word bhaj, which means to revere, as in 'Bhaja Govindam' . The term bhajana also means sharing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Second Republic of Uganda</span> Military dictatorship of Idi Amin (1971–1979)

The Second Republic of Uganda existed from 1971 to 1979, when Uganda was ruled by Idi Amin's military dictatorship. Amin's rule formally came to an end with the Uganda-Tanzania War, which ended with Tanzania occupying Uganda and Amin fleeing into exile.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eastern religions</span> Religions that originated in East, South and Southeast Asia

The Eastern religions are the religions which originated in East, South and Southeast Asia and thus have dissimilarities with Western, African and Iranian religions. Eastern religions include:

Sampradaya, in Indian origin religions, namely Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism, can be translated as 'tradition', 'spiritual lineage', 'sect', or 'religious system'. To ensure continuity and transmission of dharma, various sampradayas have the Guru-shishya parampara in which parampara or lineage of successive gurus (masters) and shishyas (disciples) serves as a spiritual channel and provides a reliable network of relationships that lends stability to a religious identity. Shramana is vedic term for seeker or shishya. Identification with and followership of sampradayas is not static, as sampradayas allows flexibility where one can leave one sampradaya and enter another or practice religious syncretism by simultaneously following more than one sampradaya. Samparda is a punjabi language term, used in Sikhism, for sampradayas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hinduism in the United States</span>

Hinduism is the fourth-largest religion in the United States, comprising 1% of the population, the same as Buddhism and Islam. The majority of American Hindus are immigrants, mainly from India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and the Caribbean, with a minority from Bhutan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Canada, Africa, Europe, Oceania, and other countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hinduism in the United Kingdom</span>

Hinduism is the third-largest religious group in the United Kingdom, after Christianity and Islam; the religion is followed by over one million people representing around 1.6% of the total population. According to the 2021 United Kingdom census Hindus are primarily concentrated in England, particularly in Greater London and the South East, with just under 50,000 Hindus residing in the three other nations of the United Kingdom. Hindus have had a presence in the United Kingdom since the early 19th century, as at the time India was part of the British Empire. Many Indians in the British Indian Army settled in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Refugees in India</span> Overview of legally registered refugees residing in India

Since its independence in 1947, India has accepted various groups of refugees from neighbouring countries, including partition refugees from former British Indian territories that now constitute Pakistan and Bangladesh, Tibetan refugees that arrived in 1959, Chakma refugees from present day Bangladesh in early 1960s, other Bangladeshi refugees in 1965 and 1971, Sri Lankan Tamil refugees from the 1980s and most recently Rohingya refugees from Myanmar. In 1992, India was seen to be hosting 400,000 refugees from eight countries. According to records with the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, as on January 1,2021, there were 58,843 Sri Lankan refugees staying in 108 refugee camps in Tamil Nadu and 54 in Odisha and 72,312 Tibetan refugees have been living in India.

The Gujarati people, or Gujaratis, are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group who reside in or can trace their ancestry or heritage to a region of the Indian subcontinent primarily centered in the present-day western Indian state of Gujarat. They primarily speak Gujarati, an Indo-Aryan language. While Gujaratis mainly inhabit Gujarat, they have a diaspora worldwide. Many notable independence activists were Gujarati, including Mahatma Gandhi, Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Vallabhbhai Patel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hinduism in Zimbabwe</span>

Hinduism is a minority faith in Zimbabwe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Communal violence</span> Violence between ethnic or other communal groups

Communal violence is a form of violence that is perpetrated across ethnic or communal lines, where the violent parties feel solidarity for their respective groups and victims are chosen based upon group membership. The term includes conflicts, riots and other forms of violence between communities of different religious faith or ethnic origins.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hinduism in Malawi</span>

Hinduism in Malawi arrived when Indian colonists and mercantilists were brought by the colonial British administrators in the late 19th and early 20th-century in what was then known as British Central Africa and later Nyasaland. They were a part of a global movement of workers to parts of East Africa, to help build infrastructure projects, establish services, retail markets and for administrative support. The immigrants, some educated and skilled but mostly poor and struggling in famine prone areas of Punjab, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal, helped construct the first railway line between Malawi and Mozambique.

In early August 1972, the President of Uganda Idi Amin ordered the expulsion of his country's Indian minority, giving them 90 days to leave the country. At the time, South Asians in East Africa were simply known as "Asians". They had come to dominate trade under British colonial policies.

There is a sizable community of the Indian diaspora and people of Indian descent in Uganda. In 2003, there were an estimated 15,000 people of Asian descent living in Uganda. At its peak, this community stood at between 80,000 to 100,000 people in the 1960s. However, in 1972, Ugandan dictator Idi Amin issued an order to expel all South Asians from the country amidst a backdrop of anti-Indian sentiment and Black supremacy. In response to the exodus, India, the United Kingdom, and several other countries severed diplomatic ties with Uganda.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hinduism in Wales</span>

Hinduism is a minority religion in Wales constituting 0.4% of its population. Under half of Welsh Hindus settled there in the second half of the 20th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jainism in Africa</span> Ethnic group

The history of Jainism in Africa is relatively short when compared with the histories of Judaism, Christianity and Islam on the same continent. There are about 20,000 Jains and around 10 Jain organizations in Africa.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Sushil Mittal; Gene Thursby (2009). Studying Hinduism: Key Concepts and Methods. Routledge. pp. 87–88. ISBN   978-1-134-41829-9.
  2. 1 2 Kim Knott (2016). Hinduism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. pp. 91–92. ISBN   978-0-19-874554-9.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Constance Jones; James D. Ryan (2006). Encyclopedia of Hinduism. Infobase Publishing. pp. 10–11. ISBN   978-0-8160-7564-5.
  4. 1 2 3 Malory Nye (2013). A Place for Our Gods: The Construction of an Edinburgh Hindu Temple Community. Routledge. pp. 48–50. ISBN   978-1-136-78504-7.
  5. 1 2 David S. Fick (2002). Entrepreneurship in Africa: A Study of Successes. Greenwood Publishing. p. 199. ISBN   978-1-56720-536-7.
  6. ↑ David Levinson; Karen Christensen (2003). Encyclopedia of Community: From the Village to the Virtual World. Sage Publications. p. 592. ISBN   978-0-7619-2598-9.
  7. 1 2 Wolmar, Christian (2009). Blood, Iron & Gold: How the Railways Transformed the World. London: Atlantic. pp. 182–183.
  8. ↑ Otte, T. G.; Neilson, Keith, eds. (2012). Railways and International Politics: Paths of Empire, 1848–1945. Military History and Policy. London: Routledge. pp. 8–9. ISBN   9780415651318.
  9. ↑ "Uganda, Religion And Social Profile". thearda.com. Archived from the original on 2021-08-26. Retrieved 2021-08-29.
  10. ↑ The ARDA website, retrieved 2023-08-08
  11. ↑ Kim Knott (2016). Hinduism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. p. 114. ISBN   978-0-19-106271-1.
  12. ↑ "Uganda, Religion And Social Profile". thearda.com. Archived from the original on 2021-08-26. Retrieved 2021-08-29.
  13. ↑ Steven Vertovec (2013). "Chapter 4". The Hindu Diaspora: Comparative Patterns. Taylor & Francis. pp. 87–89. ISBN   978-1-136-36712-0.
  14. ↑ Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo J.; Ndhlovu, Finex (2013). Nationalism and National Projects in Southern Africa: New Critical Reflections. Africa Institute of South Africa. pp. 62–74. ISBN   978-0-7983-0395-8.
  15. ↑ Ronald Aminzade (2013). Race, Nation, and Citizenship in Postcolonial Africa: The Case of Tanzania. Cambridge University Press. pp. 89–90. ISBN   978-1-107-43605-3.
  16. ↑ John E. Roemer; Woojin Lee; Karine van der Straeten (2007). Racism, Xenophobia, and Distribution: Multi-issue Politics in Advanced Democracies. Harvard University Press. pp. 147–148. ISBN   978-0-674-02495-3.
  17. ↑ Harold G. Coward; John R. Hinnells; Raymond Brady Williams (2012). The South Asian Religious Diaspora in Britain, Canada, and the United States. State University of New York Press. pp. 80–81. ISBN   978-0-7914-9302-1.
  18. ↑ M.G. Vassanji (2012). No New Land. McClelland & Stewart. p. 25. ISBN   978-1-55199-707-0.
  19. ↑ John S. Pobee (1976). Religion in a Pluralistic Society. BRILL Academic. pp. 40–41. ISBN   90-04-04556-2.
  20. ↑ E. Khiddu-Makubuya, Victoria Miriam Mwaka and P. Godfrey Okoth (1994). Uganda, thirty years of independence, 1962–1992. Makerere University Press. p. 243.
  21. 1 2 Jean-Marie Henckaerts (1995). Mass Expulsion in Modern International Law and Practice. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. pp. 22–25. ISBN   90-411-0072-5.
  22. ↑ Kim Knott (2016). Hinduism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. p. 114. ISBN   978-0-19-106271-1.
  23. 1 2 P. Panayi; P. Virdee (2011). Refugees and the End of Empire: Imperial Collapse and Forced Migration in the Twentieth Century. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 42–43. ISBN   978-0-230-30570-0.
  24. ↑ Pashaura Singh; Louis E. Fenech (2014). The Oxford Handbook of Sikh Studies. Oxford University Press. pp. 499–500. ISBN   978-0-19-100411-7.
  25. ↑ Christopher Senyonjo (2016). In Defense of All God's Children: The Life and Ministry of Bishop Christopher Senyonjo. Church Publishing. p. 42. ISBN   978-0-8192-3244-1.
  26. ↑ C. Davis (2013). Creating Postcolonial Literature: African Writers and British Publishers. Springer. p. 56. ISBN   978-1-137-32838-0.
  27. ↑ BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha, Africa

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