Indians of Zanzibar
The financiers of the clove and ivory economy — Gujarati, Kutchi and Bohra merchant families who bankrolled the Omani sultanate, built the stone town's finest houses, and largely left within a decade of the 1964 revolution.
Identity
Population: Perhaps 15,000 to 20,000 before 1964; a few thousand today
Location: Stone Town, Zanzibar, with related communities on Pemba and along the mainland coast
Language: Gujarati, Kutchi and Konkani at home; Swahili in trade; English in schooling
Language family: Indo-European → Indo-Aryan (Gujarati, Kutchi); Niger-Congo → Bantu (Swahili)
Traditional governance: Caste and sectarian associations, temple and jamaat khana committees; the community held no political standing and did not seek any.
Clans, Sections & Sub-groups (3)
Most African peoples are federations of named sub-groups — clans, sections, chiefdoms or sub-tribes — each with its own dialect, territory and traditions.
Bhatia and Hindu Gujarati traders
Wholesale merchants and the earliest substantial community.
Ismailis and Bohras
Shia communities with strong institutional structures and their own jamaat khanas.
Goan Catholics
A distinct community of clerks, cooks and musicians in colonial service.
Culture
Clothing: Indian dress at home and at festival; the Ismaili and Bohra communities each have their own distinctive dress; Swahili dress adopted for public occasions.
Food: Gujarati vegetarian cooking maintained precisely; the Zanzibari kitchen's Indian debts — the pilau spicing, the mishkaki, the urojo soup — are considerable and rarely credited.
Ceremonies: Diwali and Navratri; Muharram among the Shia communities; Goan feast days; the Hindu temple and the Ismaili jamaat khana were the community's institutional centres.
Marriage customs: Strict endogamy by caste and sect, with spouses sought in Kutch, Gujarat and across the Indian Ocean network from Aden to Bombay to Durban.
Initiation rites: Apprenticeship in the family firm; schooling at the community's own institutions, several of which were the best on the island.
Stories & Oral Literature
Who Financed the ClovesEconomic history
Zanzibar's clove plantations and the ivory caravans into the interior ran on credit, and Indian merchant houses supplied it. Jairam Sewji's firm held the sultanate's customs farm for decades, effectively running the island's revenue. The system made a few families very wealthy and tied them to an economy built on plantation slavery, a connection historians have examined and the community's own accounts tend to pass over.
January 1964Historical account
The Zanzibar Revolution overthrew the sultanate and the Arab-dominated government in days. Thousands of Arabs and South Asians were killed and many more fled; property was nationalised in the years that followed. Within a decade most of the Indian community had gone, to Britain, Canada, India and Oman. Their houses stand in Stone Town with the carved doors still on them.
Proverbs
“The clove is picked by one hand and weighed by another.”
The division between growing and financing.
“A door tells you who built the house.”
The Gujarati doors of Stone Town, distinguishable from the Omani ones.
“We came for a season and stayed a century, then left in a week.”
1964, as the diaspora tells it.
Mythology & Spiritual Beliefs
Creation: Hindu cosmology among the Gujarati families; Shia Ismaili and Bohra Islamic tradition; Goan Catholicism; three distinct religious worlds in one small community.
Beliefs: Vaishnav and Jain Hinduism; Nizari Ismaili and Dawoodi Bohra Islam; Roman Catholicism among the Goans; each with its own building in Stone Town.
Ancestors: Families trace descent to specific towns in Kutch, Saurashtra and Goa; the diaspora keeps these genealogies carefully across four continents.
Gods, Goddesses & Spirits
Krishna and Vishnu
Worshipped in the Hindu temples of Stone Town
The Aga Khan
Imam of the Nizari Ismailis, whose community was institutionally the strongest
Lakshmi
Honoured at Diwali, which for merchant families opened the accounting year
Architecture
Traditional settlements: Stone Town's tall merchant houses with interior courtyards, carved doors and long balconies; the temples and jamaat khanas of the community's quarters.
Building techniques: Coral rag and lime construction with Indian carpentry; the square-framed Gujarati door with lotus and chain motifs, distinct from the arched Omani form; balcony and fretwork joinery.
Village layout: Warehouse and shop at ground level, family above, courtyard within; the quarters clustered near the port and the customs house.
Artifacts
Gujarati carved doors
Craft
Square-framed doors with lotus and chain motifs, distinguishable from Omani arched forms.
Old Dispensary (Ithnashiri Dispensary)
Heritage site
Built by Tharia Topan in the 1890s, the most ornate building in Stone Town.
Hindu temples of Stone Town
Heritage site
Working temples in the heart of a Muslim city.
Customs and credit ledgers
Archive
Records of the firms that financed the clove and ivory economy.
Historical Timeline
1700s–1830s
Indian merchant houses establish themselves on Zanzibar; Omani rule moves its capital there in 1840.
1840s–1890s
Indian firms hold the customs farm and finance the clove and ivory trades.
1890–1963
British protectorate; the community expands in commerce, medicine and schooling.
January 1964
The Zanzibar Revolution; thousands are killed and most of the Indian community leaves.
1964–1970s
Property nationalisation completes the departure; the buildings remain and are now UNESCO-listed.
Sources & Further Reading
Open sources
- UNESCO: Stone Town of ZanzibarUNESCO
- Britannica: ZanzibarEncyclopaedia Britannica
Premium & scholarly sources