Mehta, Makrand. “Gujarati Business Communities in East African Diaspora: Major Historical Trends.” Economic and Political Weekly 36, no. 20 (2001): 1738–47.

Gujarati emigrants to East Africa were central to the economic development of that region both before and during European colonial rule. Not the undifferentiated mass of' Indians' or 'Asians' recorded by the colonial powers, the Gujaratis were both internally divided by caste, community, and religion, and bound together by common ties of language an orientation towards business. It was those ties, and the carefully maintained kinship and community networks, which the various communities utilised to build their economic fortunes in their new lands. Thus it is to those networks that attention must be turned to understand both the foundations of Gujarati success in East Africa as well as their continuing links back to Gujarat.

Source: Article's abstract