Kassum Sunderji Samji
- WALJI
- Shirin Remtulla
- A HISTORY OF THE ISMAILI COMMUNITY IN TANZANIA The University of Wisconsin
- Ph
- D. 1974
- Merchant
- Parents
- Siblings
- Children
- Al Noor Kassum 1924Sakarkhanu Mohamedali Bhaloo Jivan 1915–2002Roshan Kassum 1929–1986
Kassum Sunderji Samji went to a German Administrative school where Swahili was used for all educational purposes. The curriculum included knowledge of local geography and history, and a working knowledge of the German language. Opened to Indians and Africans both, the schools served primarily to train clerks.
Another short-lived Indian newspaper, the Ismaili Khoja-owned Africa Sentinel, had been launched in 1940 amidst these tensions. Kassum Sunderji Samji, the leading Ismaili figure in Tanganyika, explained that ‘the patriotic and pro-British sentiment of the Khoja community found no proper representation in the local Indian Press, and that the community wished for this to be rectified’. Letter to A.C.S., 19 June 1940, TNA 28798 f.2.
Africa Sentinel was succeeded by another Ismaili-owned Anglo-Gujarati paper, Young Africa, which remained in print into the 1950s, though few copies survive.
Capital accumulated through profit-making ventures and investments, as well as successful diversification of capital, worked, however, towards the economic advancement of only a very few. In spite of the world depression and the disruption of the trading pattern created as a result of World War II, some Ismaili traders were, then, able to survive and take advantage of the changes. A few "new" families were also able to attain economic power as witnessed in the successes of Habib Punja, Jivraj Chachra, Bhatia Bros., Kassum Sunderji Samji, and Hussein Nasser Shariff, to mention just a few. But the changes also meant significant failures for other large businesses. Some of those so affected include Jaffer Haji and Co., Kanji Nanji, and Alarakhia Kheraj. [1]
- ↑ WALJI, Shirin Remtulla, A HISTORY OF THE ISMAILI COMMUNITY IN TANZANIA The University of Wisconsin, PhD. Thesis 1974
