Expulsion as Decolonization

Despite more than a hundred years in Uganda, ethnic Indian Ugandans have struggled to integrate into a space historically renowned for naturalizing visitors. As the Mabira Forest Protests of 2007 demonstrated, Indian-Ugandans have sustained the image of a ‘loathed exploitative settler’ among their native compatriots. Despite this image having a specific colonial history, this article contends that the persistence of anti-Indian sentiments—and the ire and violence—is not simply a “legacy of colonialism” or evidence of natives’ xenophobia. It is rather a product of closed Indian cultural practices, and state sanctioned economic privileging of Indian-Asian businessmen, which combine to effectively alienate the entire community from other Ugandans. If the 1972 Indian expulsion was understood through the lens of decolonization, the abundance of the conditions that led to 1972, renders another expulsion possible. To make these contentions, this article provides context on the nature and scale of anti-Asian public sentiments in Uganda by drawing on sources from the mainstream and popular media that narrate and analyze the often-suspicious economic dealings of prominent Indian-Ugandans. Prominent among others is the subject of “repossession” of expropriated Indian properties. The article revisits the 2007 Mabira Forest protests to demonstrate controversies, connections, and possibilities of re-expulsion as the ingredients of 1972 abound.