Short answers, pulled from the story.
Gujarati people are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group native to the Indian state of Gujarat on the western coast of India. They speak Gujarati and are estimated to constitute around 33% of the Indian diaspora worldwide, with communities in 129 of the 190 nations recognized by the United Nations.
Gujaratis are estimated to constitute around 33% of the Indian diaspora worldwide and can be found in 129 of 190 United Nations-recognized countries. The largest overseas Gujarati community is in Pakistan, estimated at 3.5 million people living almost entirely in Karachi.
Gujarati merchants exported Indian cotton to Southeast Asia and received spices from the islands in exchange, which they then sold onward to Persia. On East African routes, they traded cotton and glass beads from India for gold, ivory, and enslaved people from Africa. Estimates from the period place roughly one thousand Gujarati merchants living in Malacca alone, with a thousand more operating across the Bay of Bengal.
Idi Amin, who came to power in Uganda in 1971, led a campaign of expulsion and ethnic cleansing against the country's Indian minority, including Gujaratis. His propaganda labeled Indian merchants "dukawallas" and accused them of being "greedy, conniving" people with no racial loyalty. Most expelled Gujaratis resettled in the United Kingdom, while Khoja Nizari Ismaili refugees were offered asylum in Canada through the efforts of the Aga Khan.
The Mahajan is a traditional Gujarati guild assembly that regulated mercantile affairs across multi-ethnic, multi-religious communities. It operated alongside the Nagarsheth, the head of the guild, and its formal structure dates to the sixteenth century under Mughal authority. The system enabled Hindus, Jains, Muslims, and Parsis to participate in shared trade networks while maintaining religious interdependence.
Gujarati Muslim merchants in Natal, South Africa, faced discriminatory colonial legislation and hired a young lawyer named Mahatma Gandhi to represent the case of a Memon businessman. That engagement contributed to the founding of the South African Indian Congress, whose first president was Umar Hajee Ahmed Jhaveri.