Modest houses are stuck close to each other. This one is lined by the baraza, a long stone bench, along the outside walls to socialise on or use as an elevated sidewalk if the heavy rains make the streets impracticable

As an anti-trafficking activist, I was surprised to see how small and decrepit one of the world’s best-known anti-slavery sites was. Bagamoyo, which means, ‘give up all hope’ in Swahili, was the eastern trading port for slaves from the African interior on their way to Zanzibar and then the Indian Ocean.

Bagamoyo is also the spot where the first mission was set up in East Africa in 1868 to house children who were rescued from slavery. Its importance is so great that the great abolitionist Dr David Livingstone’s body was brought to rest in the mission tower here on its way out of Africa.

Ruchira with students from different colleges in the US who went to Zanzibar on a study tour of modern-day slavery and human trafficking

As I walked through this world heritage site –– the modest dusty church, the shabby fish market and the few restaurants and bars, which marked a turning point in ending slavery in Africa –– I felt reassured. I realised that only history proves what acts are big or small and not the size of structures!

In Dar es Salaam I found that all the Khangas were designed, printed and imported from Gujarat. These two-piece colourful cotton wraps, with their bold African designs, are the traditional dress of all women in Tanzania and played as important a role in Tanzania’s independence struggle as chapattis had played in our 1857 resistance to the British. Independence messages, printed on the Khangas, spread like wildfire across the country. When the British discovered this, they took over the Khanga factories and tried to replace the messages with Christian sayings from the Bible and comments by Winston Churchill.

Strips of sand that emerge as the tides ebb in the Indian Ocean

Gandhiji passing through Zanzibar found a way out. He introduced the Tanzanian independence fighters to textile makers in Gujarat, who began to design and print the underground Khangas there. Women began to boycott the British-made Khangas. Till today Khangas are ‘Made in India’.

One of the old Indian merchant houses that has been turned into a hotel

Across the Indian Ocean, from Goa, is the island of Zanzibar. Its old Stone Town has a mix of Indian, Persian and African architecture. Modest houses stuck close to each other, with Gujarati and Persian doors, end with bigger trading houses on the water where the merchants waited for the ships to come in. In one corner, I found the ghost of Indira Gandhi, who stayed with her sons at the Arya Samaj Temple. A friend who played with the children then, says she remembers how Indira would come to the balcony at noon, calling, ‘Sanju khana lag gaya, Raju khana khao…’

A dhow sailing on the Indian Ocean

On the night that the 23-year-old medical student who had been brutally raped in Delhi died, I went for dinner with Pan-African feminist, Fatma Aloo. We spoke about the course on modern-day slavery that I was teaching a group of American law students in Zanzibar. I meant to discuss the rape in class the next day to highlight how gender inequalities lead to female trafficking. “Talk about the rape, but also show them Insaf Ka Tarazu in which Zeenat Aman kills her rapist,” Fatma urged, “American students must learn how strong Indian women are.”

Tailpiece: 2012 ended watching the sunset from our private sandbar — a little strip of sand in the middle of the Indian Ocean. As we sailed there on a dhow, I saw Black Africans and White Europeans swimming together along the coast, and thought, the world does change for the better!