A new chapter of Indian emigration to South Africa began in May 1893 when Mohandas
Karamchand Gandhi, a young Indian barrister from Porbander, arrived in Durban. Abdul Karim
Jhaveri of Dada Abdullah & Co. had secured his services in a £40,000 legal suit against a rival
Indian firm in Pretoria. The young Gandhi?s arrival coincided with the determination of the
Whites to put an end to ?the Indian merchant menace?. This campaign had been directed against the ex-indentured labourers who had started working in other sectors of the economy, and especially against the more prosperous ?passenger Indians? who had become the principal rivals of the Whites in trade and commerce. In addition to the restrictions and prohibitions already enumerated above, the entire Indian community was also being subjected to a long list of petty indignities to humiliate them. They were not allowed to sit on ?European? benches in public parks or bathe in beaches reserved for Europeans. Nor could they enter a restaurant, tearoom, barber?s shop or a hotel as they did not have the ?uniform of a white skin?. Instead of admiring the energy and productivity of the Indian immigrants, which had brought prosperity to their colony, the White settlers were outraged by their very presence in their midst. They resented the far-sighted perseverance and skill of the Indians, their economic lifestyle, their food habits, their pride in their customs and traditions, and their attention to the education of their children - all of which had ensured that the Indian community would continue to prosper.
With his legal training, Gandhi insisted that the colonial government should strictly implement
Queen Victoria?s Proclamation of 1858 in which she had promised her Indian subjects equality
with all her other subjects throughout the Empire. Accordingly, his fight for non-discriminatory
treatment was waged only on behalf of the Indians. He apparently felt that the native Blacks
would want to fight their own battles. Despite his youth, with his newly minted philosophy of
non-violence and satyagraha, Gandhi was able to provide the Indian community the leadership
and inspiration that was needed to resist the racist policies of the Whites. He started the Indian
Opinion, a weekly newspaper, to give expression to the feelings and aspirations of his fellow
Indians, and as an instrument to guide them in their struggle for equality and fair play. He also
set up the Phoenix Settlement near Durban and, later on, the Tolstoy .arm outside Johannesburg, to provide shelter for the families of those who followed his advice and peacefully courted arrest and detention. It was during his sojourn in South Africa that the Natal Indian Congress was established on 22 May 1894, and later also the forerunner of the Transvaal Indian Congress. A mass movement of labourers, traders and industrial workers followed him in his courageous fight against the discriminatory laws that restricted even their movements. They could not, for instance, cross from Natal into the Transvaal, the new British colony where gold had recently been discovered. Nor had the White administration shown any respect for Indian customs and traditions.
By the time Gandhi finally left South Africa in 1914, this exemplary Pravasi Bharatiya had obtained some concessions from the Premier, .ield Marshal Jan Smuts. They included frustrating and delaying the Government?s efforts to register Indians in the Transvaal; abolition of the £3 poll tax; and formal recognition of Hindu, Muslim and Parsi marriages. But the future Mahatma?s real legacy to succeeding generations of resistance workers in South Africa, and that included also the majority Blacks, was to rid them of their fear of imprisonment and torture. Though most of the restrictive legislative measures against Indians remained when Gandhi finally left South Africa on 18 July 1914, he had sown the seeds for future generations to fight courageously against injustice and racial discrimination in South Africa. But .ield Marshal Jan Smuts, who had come to admire greatly Gandhi?s courage and ideals, did not really care much for his policies. In the event, racism continued to rear its ugly head in the country with increasing viciousness for a long time after that.
The economic disparity separating the Indians from the Blacks may have been an important
factor in the resentment felt against them by the indigenous people of South Africa. It is true that ?Millionaires Rows? abound in various Indian townships ? like Winchester Drive in Durban
Reservoir Hills; Mbeni Heights in Chatsworth, near Durban; and Seal Crescent in Lenasia, not far
from Johannesburg. But they do not reflect the correct overall picture of the Indian community
as there are still many places like Malagazi near Isipingo and Hill Heads Estate outside Verulam,
where thousands of Indians live in wood and iron shacks without plumbing, without electricity,
and without sewage disposal. In fact, when the High Level Committee visited South Africa in
January this year, prominent members of the local Indian Diaspora informed it that 65 to 70% of
the PIOs are still living under the poverty line. The unemployment rate is also high in the
community. According to some estimates, one to two percent of Indians (between 10,000 to
20,000) has tested HIV positive. But in spite of the grim reality of their general poverty, there
have been frequent instances of violence directed against the community, as indeed also against
the Whites.
The HLC found ample evidence in South Africa to corroborate the fact that the PIOs in this
country are South Africans, first and foremost. The fact that they look like us, very often eat the
same kind of food, and have many of the cultural values that we cherish, does not make them a
little more Indian than South African. A century and a half of existence in an alien land, and four
or five generations of acculteration in a dominant White society, has diluted their Indianness. Ms.
Ela Gandhi, MP (ANC) and a granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi, clearly summed up her Indian
South African identity when she said: ?I am a South African; a very proud South African. The
Indianness comes in at the level of culture, the way we eat, the kind of things we eat, the kind of
things we appreciate - like music, drama, the language we speak. We only enrich our country by
having all these different tastes and habits. What I am basically saying is that that is where the
Indianness stops?. And it is only right and proper that this sentiment should be generally recognised
and respected.
The Indian Diaspora in South Africa numbers at least a million people. More than 75% of them
live in KwazuluNatal. Durban, the capital of this province, accounts for a considerable part of the
largely urbanised Indian population in this country. In its meeting with representatives of the
Indian community in Johannesburg and Durban, the HLC was informed that the remaining 25%
of the ISAs are dispersed in the rest of the country, with the old Transvaal accounting for most of
them. The South African Indians represent a variety of Indian characteristics. This is not surprising
because of the miscellany of languages, religions, costumes, food habits, and other traits that
they have inherited from their Indian ancestors who had migrated to South Africa from different
regions and communities of India. Accordingly, they reflect the rich and diverse texture of the
land of their origin.
During the tallying operations for the 1990 census, as many as 94.93% of the ISAs had declared
English as their ?home language?. Among all the Indian languages, it is only Gujarati that is still
generally spoken, and that too among themselves, by persons whose ancestors had come from
Gujarat. But it is said that many children of Gujarati families are known to resent having to spend time at Sunday schools learning a language that they consider of little use to them in their daily lives.
Interestingly, a little over 39% of the community had declared in 1999 that their religion was
Hindu. But then it was a form of Hinduism that was being practised by people who had rid
themselves of traditions and customs like jaati and sati, gotra and sutra, kutum, endogamy and
dowry. The ruthless ironing out of mutual differences during the indenture years, when their
ancestors had been forced into co-existing with people from whom caste or tradition would have
kept them apart in their earlier Indian environment, had resulted in forging for their descendants a new identity.
Various Christian sects, and particularly the Pentecostal Church, appear to have made some inroads into the Hindu community, with the result that there are now almost 13% of the ISAs who belong to one or other of the Christian groups. And as a reaction to this development, various Hindu sects have activated themselves, such as the Arya Samaj, the Divine Life Society, the Ramakrishna Mission, Sai Baba Samitis and the ISKCON. The last of them organises a very popular rath jatra, pulled by jeeps, along the Durban sea front every year, to coincide with the festival in Puri.
Muslim ISAs constitute around 20% of the ISA population. The Central Islamic Trust is very
active in South Africa. The destruction of the Babri Masjid in December 1992 had a ripple effect
in the fire-bombing of the Shree Pretoria Hindu Seva Samaj Temple at Laudium near Pretoria.
But all the local Muslim leaders publicly apologised to the Hindu community, ascribing the
vandalism to the thoughtless act of criminal elements or agents provocateurs. The President of the Islamic Council of South Africa even went to the extent of saying that both communities should display restraint and caution and not allow the inter-religious strife in India to destroy the harmonious relationship between them in South Africa. Inter-caste marriages are quite common among Hindus and Muslims, though not inter-communal ones between the two communities.
Western influence is predominant in social, cultural and familial relationships. But it is important
to note that there is wide consensus among the ISAs for increased cultural interaction with India.
In common with other large, long-established overseas Indian communities, the Indians in South
Africa have a deep emotional bond with the culture of their ?mother country?. Our classical dance
and music continue to evince widespread interest in them. There are a number of local cultural
groups that are trying to attract PIOs to attend classes conducted by them. At the same time,
Bollywood stars are quite popular. A radio station relays Hindi and Tamil filmi ganas round the
clock, together with a lot of pop music. The opening of Indian Cultural Centres in Durban and
Johannesburg was enthusiastically welcomed as a meaningful response to the interest displayed
by local PIOs to preserve and develop their cultural heritage. Some among them would even like
to see the establishment here of the kind of institutions that have been set up in Mauritius,
namely, the Mahatma Gandhi Institute and the Indira Gandhi Centre for Indian Culture. Such an
initiative, they feel, would showcase our culture to all the races in South Africa and thus enhance
the Indian community?s standing in the country. They would also welcome the organisation in
this country of a ?.estival of India? as such an event would be able to present their ?mother
country? in a proper perspective and thus disabuse their Black compatriots of their distorted and
derogatory perception of India.
Recently, the Diaspora?s feelings towards India were clearly exhibited when they contributed a
large amount of money and material for the relief of victims of the Gujarat Earthquake. But
unlike the PIOs in North America and Western Europe, there is no interest in South Africa in
acquiring dual citizenship. In fact, there is a fear that gaining such a status might only prejudice
their local position with the Black majority who would then be able to accuse them of divided
loyalties.
The Committee found ample evidence of the cardinal truth that the PIOs in South Africa are a
class by themselves, totally different from their counterparts in other countries. Unlike the large
number of persons in the Diasporas in North America and the UK, the PIOs in South Africa are
not generally prosperous. Unlike the situation in the Caribbean or Mauritius, here they have to
contend with the rights and expectations of an indigenous population that does not easily condone any kind of superior social status of immigrants. And unlike the Indian .ijians who have faced an almost identical situation, the Indians of South Africa have been able successfully to resist the onslaught of an alien administration that treated them with scant regard. Here they made common cause with the indigenous people. Along with them, they bore tremendous hardships and suffering in the fight against apartheid and shared their triumph when it was finally routed. But now they face another challenge - of finding their feet once again in a difficult environment.
