233 © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. O. Abidde, E. K. Matambo (eds.), Xenophobia, Nativism and Pan-Africanism in 21st Century Africa, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82056-5_13 Chapter 13 Three Times a State, Never a Nation: Indians in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe Trishula Patel Introduction In July 2000, the Zimbabwean government announced a “fast track” land resettle- ment program, which would involve the redistribution of more than six million hect- ares of agricultural land, much of which was still owned by white farmers. 1 During the 2002 presidential election, ZANU-PF’s “liberation rhetoric” was accompanied by the production of flms, documentaries, and music by the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Company that celebrated Robert Mugabe and condemned whites in the country as “foreigners.” One of the songs that came out of this “Third Chimurenga” series of albums was a song by Taurai Mteki called Mwana WeVhu, or “son of the soil,” which propagated the message that “the Country is ours/ Zimbabwe is for Black People.” 2 On February 19, 2017, a ZANU-PF politician called for the expulsion of Indians from the country. “Firstly, they don’t bank their money,” he said. “Secondly, they don’t develop their estates, and thirdly, they don’t want to marry our sisters, fourthly, before independence, they used to be given special treatment as compared 1 Grasian Mkodzongi and Peter Lawrence, “The fast-track land reform and agrarian change in Zimbabwe,” Review of African Political Economy 46, no.159 (2019): 1–13. 2 Brian Raftopoulos, “Nation, race and history in Zimbabwean politics” in Zimbabwe: Injustice and Political Reconciliation, eds. Brian Raftopoulos and Tyrone Savage (Harare: Weaver Press, 2005), 168. T. Patel (*) University of Denver, Denver, CO, USA Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA