From Kings Cross to Kew: following the history of Zambia's Indian community through British imperial archives

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Periodical article

Title:	From Kings Cross to Kew: following the history of Zambia's Indian community through British imperial archives
Author:	Haig, Joan M.
Year:	2007
Periodical:	History in Africa
Volume:	34
Pages:	55-66
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	Zambia Great Britain
Subjects:	Indians immigrants archives colonial administration
External link:	http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/history_in_africa/v034/34.1haig.pdf
Abstract:	The pages that make up the official history of Indians' arrival in Northern Rhodesia (present-day Zambia) can be found in the India Office Records in the Oriental and India Office Collection (OIOC) of the British Library at Kings Cross. However, when India achieved sovereignty in 1947 the India Office was closed and matters relating to the Indian diaspora were transferred to the Commonwealth Relations Office and the Dominion and Colonial Offices, whose records are presently held in the National Archives in Kew. The distance between the archives is not merely of geographical significance for the researcher: the two sites also mark the two phases of Indian immigration into Northern Rhodesia. The shift in administrative offices after 1947 resulted in a distancing of diplomatic relations that is evidenced in the volume, character, and tone of official correspondence relating to Indian immigrants in central Africa; this distancing and the wider changes in both Indian and central African politics signalled the unravelling of the British Empire. Notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract]