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Garma
Garam More |
Heritage |
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The Asian African Heritage - 2 IDENTITY
THE
THREE THEMES OF THE EXHIBITION
THE
LABOUR HERITAGE
Labour, not trade, is the foundation of the Asian African heritage in East Africa. The work of the railway builders, masons, wheelwrights, master craftsmen, platelayers, artisans, carpenters, tailors, nurses, dhobis, clerks and teachers was the bedrock on which later endeavours came to be based. One of the earliest examples of this was the labour of the masons from India who shared in the building of Fort Jesus between 1593 and 1596. They were brought in by the Portuguese from their colonies on India’s west coast. (6) In succeeding centuries and particularly from 1820 onwards, wooden doors, ornamentation and furniture carved and crafted by artists and master carpenters from Gujarat in western India crossed the Indian Ocean to adorn palaces and houses from Pate, Lamu and Mombasa to Kilwa and to Zanzibar, the mercantile capital than of the entire eastern seaboard of Africa. (7) In addition, their Customs departments and their merchants used the wooden chests fashioned by other Gujarati craftsmen. (8) From 1896 to 1901, labourers were brought on contract from the Punjab in what are now India and Pakistan, and from Gujarat, by the British to build the railway from Mombasa to Kisumu (then called the Uganda Railway). In these six years, these labourers and artisans through difficult terrain laid 582 miles (931 kilometres) of railway. They built the Salisbury Bridge, over 1200 feet long, joining Mombasa Island to the mainland, 35 viaducts in the Rift Valley, and 1280 smaller bridges and culverts. All this was done by hand. No machines were available to them in these massive and technical tasks. 31983 workers came from India during these years on these contracts. 2493 died in the construction. That is, 4 workers died for each mile of line laid; more than 38 dying every month during the entire six years. A further 6454 workers became invalid. (9)
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