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| TROUBLE LOOMS: Idi Amin rides into Kampala and from then on Uganda isn’t safe for Indians any more |
MARCHING ORDERS: In 1972, Amin gives 75,000 Ugandans of Asian descent 90 days to leave the country |
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| UPHEAVAL AND TURMOIL:
It was a bad time for Indians who had only two choices: exile or face Amin’s goons |
EXODUS: Most Ugandan Indians left for Britain while the rest settled in Canada, the US and other places in Europe |
In her 1991 film Mississippi Masala, acclaimed filmmaker Mira Nair tells the story of Jay and Kinnu, an Indian couple in Uganda that leaves after dictator Idi Amin Dada orders Asians out of the country in 1972. The couple land up in Mississippi in the deep south of America. But Jay eventually returns to the country of his birth, like thousands of other Indians who had been forced to go away. As Minister for Internal Affairs Ruhukana Rugunda (who visited India on a goodwill mission on behalf of President Museveni) says, “The Indians who left were lucky, they at least escaped with their lives. But thousands of Ugandans disappeared, we know what happened to them. To all Indians who returned, we welcome them with open arms.”
That should put a lot of anxiety to rest.
—From the India Empire archives, published in May 2007
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