Melancholia of Freedom: Social Life in an Indian Township in South Africa

Chapter 1: Ethnicity by Fiat: The Remaking of Indian Life in South Africa

C H A P T E R 1 Ethnicity by Fiat THE REMAKING OF INDIAN LIFE IN SOUTH AFRICA “Why can’t you just call yourself african indians?” asked then presidentelect Thabo mbeki in may 1999 at a large meeting with self-styled community leaders drawn from the indian community in durban. mbeki’s entourage consisted of a high-powered group of anC ministers and advisers, many of indian origin. anC leaders hoped that the meeting could broker an electoral breakthrough among the resourceful indians in the city, a group that had largely turned its back on the anC since the early 1990s. after listening to what his advisers dismissed as “perceptions, not rooted in facts,” mbeki lost his patience with what he saw as a privileged group of people who wanted unambiguous public recognition in the postapartheid order, but only as indians. mbeki continued, “if you called yourself african indians it would make a major difference in how you are perceived. in this way you’d say to your fellow South africans , ‘This is my country, i am an african first, but i am also an indian because my forefathers came here to work.’ . . . after all, what is wrong with being an african?” mbeki’s remarks were clearly informed by the broader project of an “african renaissance,” which he had made his trademark through highprofile conferences and nebulous rhetoric.1 The remarks also sought to define the terms of incorporation of people of indian origin into the new political order in South africa. The imperative of putting “african” first signified the overriding emphasis on autochthonous origin as a crucial defining feature of the true citizens of the new South africa. The struggle against the illegitimacy of white, culturally alien minority rule and privilege meant that the antiapartheid movement constructed the true, sovereign people of South africa as the black, autochthonous, and poor majority.2 The perception of indians as a culturally alien, unreliable , and opportunistic minority has a long history among both white and african communities in South africa. The accompanying desire to either deport or properly domesticate the range of communities origi- Ethnicity by Fiat • 27 nating in the Indian subcontinent has a long history of Durban and in what today is the province of KwaZulu-Natal. The asiatic Question indians came to South africa in two ways. The vast majority came between 1860 and 1890 as indentured laborers to work in the sugarcane plantations in the fertile coastal land of natal. most laborers belonged to lower-caste communities from the northern districts of present-day tamil nadu, the southern districts of contemporary andhra pradesh, Indian Ocean Durban CBD Durban Harbor ! ! Chatsworth Inanda Umlazi KwaMashu Bluff Clairwood Cato Manor Riverside ! ! ! Phoenix Isipingo Reservoir Hills Merebank Clare Estate Overport ! ! " " " Durban Cape Town Johannesburg South Africa Namibia Botswana Zimbabwe Lesotho Swaziland Indian Ocean Atlantic Ocean Durban Metropolitan Boundary (1994-2000) Historically Indian Areas Indian Areas from 1960 Onwards Chatsworth African Townships Miles Kilometers 0 5 10 0 10 20 N map 1. durban 28 • Chapter 1 and the Bhojpuri region in northern India. These heterogeneous groups of people spoke tamil, telugu, Bhojpuri, hindi, urdu, and Bengali (ebr.-Vally 2001). after terminating their indenture contract, many laborers bought or leased small patches of land and began farming or market gardening in and around durban and along the coast. By the 1940s, most of their descendants had moved to durban and other cities . This period saw the formation of large indian working-class neighborhoods with a rich popular culture in durban. during the 1940s, a decade of political unrest and mass mobilization across South africa, this indian working class was at the forefront of labor organization and the struggle against the new racist legislation that culminated in the apartheid policies from 1948 onward (Freund 1995, 54–63). The numerically much smaller group of so-called passenger indians (around 15 percent of the total indian population in the country) arrived during the 1880s from gujarat and north india in search of trade and business opportunities. The majority were gujarati-speaking muslims (memons and Surtees), as well as north indian and gujarati hindus. This resourceful group established the entire grey Street commercial area in durban and quickly spread into the interior, particularly to the towns and villages in the transvaal province and around the goldfields in Johannesburg. The indian commercial elite was incessantly in conflict with white settlers and businesspeople, particularly in...