‘Undesirable’ Indians, Residential Segregation and the Ill-Fated Rise of the White ‘Housing Covenanters’ in Bulawayo, Colonial Zimbabwe, 1930–1973

Abstract

Legislated zoning as a strategy to enforce racial residential segregation in colonial Zimbabwe failed to prevent Indians from buying properties in white suburbs. This was because of the ambiguous colonial law that classified Indians as citizens yet, practically, they were blocked from enjoying privileges enjoyed by the white residents. For example, when Indians attempted to buy properties in European areas, they met stiff resistance, accused of being “uncivilised’, low class and filthy and of infiltrating European areas to depreciate property values. Yet, since 1930, they were expelled from African residential areas but were not allocated their own residential area then. When MPs failed to craft a Bill that would have legislated the segregation of Indians, in 1973, and as a desperate measure, they unsuccessfully attempted to introduce race restrictive white housing covenants. Based on archival research, council minutes, newspapers and magazines, and through oral history interviews, this article highlights the ambiguous position that Indians occupied within Zimbabwe's colonial hierarchies. It also highlights how some Indians resorted to the racist and segregationist language of the colonial state to try and circumvent their ambiguous position. The article seeks to add to the urban Zimbabwe's scholarship on colonial segregation policies, now specifically focusing on racial residential segregation faced by the Indian minority in Bulawayo.