Ajit Singh Hoogan: The Sikh Architect of East Africa
An introduction into Ajit Singh Hoogan's influence and works around East Africa, particularly Zanzibar and Malawi.
Ajit Singh Hoogan was born in Ferozepur, Punjab and belonged to a Ramgharia family, which were historically associated with carpenters and blacksmiths. As a result, he had a certain familiarity with artisanry. As an alumnus of Khalsa College Amritsar, he was undoubtedly influenced by the works of previous Sikh architects such as Bhai Ram Singh, who had designed the college itself. 1
At some point, the British started encouraging migration of the Ramgharia community to the British East Africa. Similarly, many Jatts moved to British-occupied ports like Shanghai and Hong Kong and many Khatris moved to British Malaya. Many Ramgharia craftsmen were recruited by a Sindhi contractor, Jeevanjee, to facilitate the construction of a railway line between Kenya and Uganda, which was completed in 1901.2
Ajit Singh Hoogan was encouraged to migrate to Zanzibar by his older brother-in-law Narain Singh, who had migrated to Mombasa as a mechanical engineer and then later moved to Zanzibar.3
Life in Zanzibar
Since the Sultanate of Zanzibar was originally founded by the Omani Empire, the demographics of Zanzibar were quite mixed, having a large Indian and Arab minority alongside the majority African Shirazi population. The majority of Indians that lived on Zanzibar were quite wealthy, being descended from a Gujarati merchant population that inhabited coastal areas along the Indian Ocean; most of them would live in their own ethnic enclaves.
However, Sikhs were never populous on Zanzibar despite having large populations in Kenya, Uganda and mainland Tanzania. A gurudwara existed in Zanzibar for the few families that existed scattered throughout the islands; this building was later nationalised under the African socialist government after the Zanzibar revolution.4
Ajit Singh Hoogan himself lived in the African quarter of the Zanzibar city known as Ng’ambo, which would be considered atypical for British civil servants in the rest of East Africa.5 When arriving in Zanzibar, he worked as a draftsman and then was thusly promoted to being the de facto chief of building design, working with a British civil servant called Eric Dutton. Both were interested in the creation of a unique Zanzibar architecture, involving Indo-Saracenic architecture and indigenous African building styles.6
Dutton and Hoogan both undertook a massive architecture project in Zanzibar, helping create and beautify much of Zanzibar city. Hoogan himself helped create the plans for four schools, the main hospital in Zanzibar, a civic centre, the National Science Museum and the National Archives, alongside spearheading the Ng’ambo housing redevelopment.7
“I often think, such is the vanity of man, that if I could have been another five years in Zanzibar we could have transformed the place. We did alter it a lot, didn’t we?”
In December 1961, the British formally gave independence to mainland Tanzania as Tanganyika. Simultaneously, the neighbouring Zanzibar sultanate was absolved of its protectorate status and became an independent Sultanate. A few years later, the Zanzibar revolution occurred under the guidance of the native Afro-Shirazi socialist revolutionaries rebelling against the Sultan.8 In the ensuing chaos, many of the Arab and South Asian minorities were killed whilst the rest were deported. Tanganyika and Zanzibar were both merged and the name Tanzania was coined from the merger of both.
Ajit Singh Hoogan remained relatively politically unaffiliated and was one of the bureaucrats who managed who keep his position with the new Afro-Shirazi socialist regime; he served the Tanzanian cabinet until 1966. As Tanzania became independent, it found affinity with socialist nations like the USSR, East Germany and China. East Germany would aid Zanzibar in rebuilding in the aftermath of the revolution and offered to aid in the construction of a high-rise project. Hoogan would voice his concerns about this to the vice-President of Tanzania, Abeid Karume. After this incident, he resigned and with the help of Dutton, he gained employment as a government architect in Malawi.9
Life in Malawi
True, there is a drive against long hair for men, but not against we Sikhs! The drive is against hippies and other undesirables.
- Ajit Singh Hoogan on the prime minister’s drive against long hair, 1972
Malawi was administrated as a British protectorate called Nyasaland and after as the federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, where Nyasaland broke off to become the successor state of Malawi and Rhodesia became self-governing under the leadership of Ian Smith. Unlike Tanzania, Malawi was staunchly anti-communist and the prime minister, Hastings Banda, retained full diplomatic relations with apartheid South Africa and independent Rhodesia.10
In 1964, when Malawi gained independence, Lilongwe was proposed to be the new capital city of the new state. As a result, many white consultants from South Africa were hired alongside Hoogan to create the plan for the city. Hoogan was one of the handful of South Asians that lived in Malawi, who were thusly removed from rural areas and moved them to urban areas so they could further develop Malawi.11
Ajit Singh Hoogan would be relegated to a minor role in comparison to the other consultants and would reminisce of his time in Zanzibar often. The South African consultants’ plans were considered before his plans, adopting quite a similar style to Herbert Baker’s South African architecture. Although Hoogan would find them unimaginative, he would still contribute to the plans. He found Lilongwe to have an unconducive environment for building a city compared to the old capital city of Zomba.12
He devoted whatever little spare time he had to his community. Earlier on, he mostly lived in Zomba, from where he would visit the Limbe town gurudwara, where most the Sikh community of Malawi resided, which at the time had 200 practicing members.13
However, once he moved from Zomba to Lilongwe, he found himself lacking a Sikh community and was forced to create a makeshift gurudwara with another Sikh at the mandir. Due to this and disaffection with his architecture work, he later moved back to Zanzibar.14
Later life
Later on, he moved back to Zanzibar and lived out his life there. His maternal grandson, Parmukh Singh Hoogan, would later serve as the MP for Zanzibar between 2000 and 2010, where they would be the only Sikh family remaining after the revolution.15 He would lead conservation efforts to preserve his grandfather’s Zanzibari architecture as he stood against the Darajani school, designed by his grandfather, being turned into a market.16
I.E. Issak, A Zanzibar architect’s unsung legacy: The story of Ajit Singh Hoogan, 2023
The Oxford Handbook of Sikh Studies, 2014
I.E. Issak, A Zanzibar architect’s unsung legacy: The story of Ajit Singh Hoogan, 2023
I.E. Issak, A Zanzibar architect’s unsung legacy: The story of Ajit Singh Hoogan, 2023
G.A. Myers, Verandahs of Power: Colonialism and Space in Urban Africa, 2003
G.A. Myers, Verandahs of Power: Colonialism and Space in Urban Africa, 2003
G.A. Myers, Verandahs of Power: Colonialism and Space in Urban Africa, 2003
G.A. Myers, Verandahs of Power: Colonialism and Space in Urban Africa, 2003
G.A. Myers, Verandahs of Power: Colonialism and Space in Urban Africa, 2003
G.A. Myers, Verandahs of Power: Colonialism and Space in Urban Africa, 2003