Chapter 8: Contribution of the Indian Community to Uganda’s Development

In the period between World War I and II, enterprising Indians laid the foundation of the 20th century industrial empires starting with agricultural processing of sugar, tea, coffee and cotton ginning and expanding into basic manufacturing. One of the reasons Idi Amin gave for expelling the Asian Community from Uganda was that, “they were milking the cow without feeding it.” By the time he expelled the over 80,000 strong Ugandan Asian Community that predominantly controlled Uganda’s commerce and industry, some members of this community had offered distinguished service to the people of Uganda and the East African Region. The most industrious of them all was the Madhvani Group, an Indian family enterprise, based in Kakira, in Eastern Uganda.

Chapter 8 Looks at the contribution of the Indian Community to Uganda’s development as seen from how one family built a business empire in the country and the region.