Indian South Africans

Indian South Africans are people of Indian descent living in South Africa and mostly live in and around the city of Durban, making it 'the largest 'Indian' city outside India'^[3]. Most Indians in South Africa are descendents of migrants from colonial India (South Asia) during late 19th-century through early 20th-century. At other times Indians were subsumed in the broader geographical category "Asians", including persons originating in present-day Iran and parts of the small Chinese community.^[4]

There remains a cultural, religious and racial overlap for "Asians" and "Indian South Africans". During the most intense period of segregation and apartheid, "Indian", "Asian", "Coloured", and "Malay" group identities defined where a classified person was permitted to live under the Group Areas Act.^[5]

During ideological apartheid from 1948 to 1994, Indians were called, and often voluntarily accepted, terms that ranged from "Black" to "Asians" to "Indians." Some citizens believed that these terms were improvements on the negatively defined identity of "Non-White", which was their previous status. Politically conscious and nationalistic Indian South Africans wanted to show both their heritage and their local roots. Increasingly they self-identified as "African", "Black", "South African" and, when necessary, "Indian South Africans".

Nonetheless, the spread of democratic elections has sometimes heightened ethnic loyalties. Politicians and groups have looked for means to mobilize power in the competitive parliamentary democracy which South Africa has become since 1994.^[6]

Religion

Almost all South African Indians are either Muslim, Hindu or Christian.^[7] There are also small groups of Parsis, Zoroastrians, Sikhs and Buddhists.^[8] Sources for the Religion of South African Indians vary, such as one report stating that 60% are Hindu, while 40% are Christian.^[9] However, others claim a Muslim majority and Hindu minority.^[10] As of 2009, approximately 43% or 551,669 of the total Indian population of 1,279,100 identify themselves as Hindu and 51% or 654,064 identified as Muslim.^[10][11]

Languages

English is the first language of most Indian South Africans. A minority, especially older people, still speak some Indian languages as a first language. But English is the predominant first language, and in younger people, the only language spoken. Many South African Indians still understand a variety of Indian languages to varying extents, often as a result of promotion by cultural organisations.^[12]

Significant communities of Pashtuns from British India's Northwest Frontier settled in South Africa as part of the subcontinental Muslim population. They have been mostly absorbed into the mainstream Indian Muslim community, along with the other ethnicities, most of whom speak Urdu. Pashto is no longer spoken by their descendants.

Media and entertainment

Although Indian languages are seldom spoken or understood by younger Indians, English-subtitled Bollywood films and television programmes remain popular among South African Indians. These are broadcast both by the South African Broadcasting Corporation's SABC 2 television channel for a few hours each week (Eastern Mosaic on Sundays), and by the DStv satellite television service, which carries Zee TV, B4U, NDTV and a Hindi-language Sony channel. In addition, Tamil–language channels, Sun TV and KTV, were introduced in 2004.

DVD and video versions of Bollywood films are widely available. Large movie theatre chains like Ster-Kinekor increasingly show Bollywood films. Indian culture in South Africa has some similarities to the worldwide Desi subculture, although the term Desi is almost unknown in South Africa. South African Indians developed a distinctive musical and literary culture of their own, which has to some extent been eclipsed by the global Bollywood/Desi culture in the 1990's and 2000's.^[13]

The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) also has an Indian-oriented radio service called Lotus FM, launched during the apartheid era. The Sunday Times has a supplement distributed in Indian areas called the Extra, and the Sunday Tribune publishes a similar supplement, called the Herald. A Bollywood section, 'Bollyworld' is published by the Daily News on Mondays.

History

Dutch slavery in the Cape

A significant proportion of slaves imported into the Cape were from India (including modern Bangladesh) ^[14], however these slaves quickly integrated with the rest of the Cape population, being subsumed into the wider "Cape Coloured" and Cape Malay identities.^[15] White Afrikaners also may have some Indian slave ancestry^[14], an example of this being former State President F.W. de Klerk, who revealed in his autobiography that one of his ancestors was a female Indian slave ^[16].

An early Indian to settle in South Africa was Kalaga Prabhu, a Goud Saraswat Brahmin merchant from Cochin. He was the foremost among the Konkani merchants in Cochin. As punishment for conspiring with the Mysorean king Hyder Ali to overthrow the king of Cochin, Kalaga Prabhu and his son Chorda Prabhu were arrested by the Dutch and exiled with their families for life to the Cape of Good Hope in 1771.^[17]

Indentured labourers and passenger Indians

The modern South African Indian community is largely descended from Indians who arrived in South Africa from 1860 onwards. The first 342 of these came on board the Truro from Madras,^[18][19] followed by the Belvedere from Calcutta.^[19] They were transported as indentured labourers to work on the sugarcane plantations of Natal Colony, and, in total, approximately 150 000 Indians arrived as indentured labourers over a period of 5 decades,^[19][20] later also as indentured coal miners and railway construction workers.^[21] The indentured labourers tended to speak Tamil, Telugu and Hindi,^[12] and the majority were Hindu with Christians and Muslims among them.^[19] Indians were imported as it was found by colonial authorities that local black Africans were economically self-sufficient, and thus unwilling to subject themselves to employment by colonial farmers, while other colonial authorities believed that the "hunting and warrior" African culture of the time was incompatible with a sudden shift to employed labour. The Mercury newspaper favoured the importation of labour, although other Natal newspapers were against the idea. In general, the importation of labour was not viewed as politically important by colonists when it was proposed, and the importation of Indian labour was driven by lobbying by a relatively small group of sugar planters, and the long-term consequences of Indian immigration (the establishment of a permanent Indian population in Natal) were not taken into account.^[22] (by 1904, Indians outnumbered whites in Natal^[23]). It should be noted that although 1860 is dated as the beginning of Indian settlement in Natal, a farmer called ER Rathbone was the first to introduce Indian labour to the colony in 1849.^{[18] [24]}

The remaining Indian immigration was from passenger Indians: traders, and others who migrated to South Africa shortly after the indentured labourers,^[18] paid for their own fares and travelled as British Subjects. The majority of passenger Indians were Muslims, from Gujarat (including Memons and Surtis),^[25] later joined by Kokanis, and Urdu speakers from Uttar Pradesh.^[26] These Muslims played an important part in the establishment of Islam in the areas where they settled. There was also a significant number of Gujarati Hindus in this group. Passenger Indian traders were often referred to as "Arab traders" because of their dress, and because the majority were Muslims.^[25]

Indentured labourers on sugar plantations were frequently mistreated, and lived in unsanitary conditions. However, formerly indentured labourers quickly established themselves as an important general labour force in Natal particularly as industrial and railway workers, with others engaging in market gardening, growing most of the vegetables consumed by the white population.^[26] A large percentage of indentured labourers returned to India following the expiry of their terms, and some of those who returned alerted authorities in India to abuses taking place in Natal, which led to new safeguards being put in place before further recruiting of indentured labourers was allowed to take place.^[21]

Passenger Indians, who initially operated in Durban, expanded inland, to the South African Republic (Transvaal), establishing communities in settlements on the main road between Johannesburg and Durban. Natal's Indian traders rapidly displaced small white shop owners in trade with other Indians, and with black Africans, causing resentment among white businesses.

Researchers have made efforts to collect and make available shipping lists of Indian immigrants.^[27]

Early discrimination

Indians faced discrimination to varying degrees in all the parts of South Africa.

Natal

Indians began facing repressive legislation in Natal as well. They were forced to carry passes in 1888.^[18]

In 1893, Mohandas Gandhi, arrived in South Africa to represent an Indian businessman in a legal dispute. Following his arrival in South Africa, Gandhi experienced racial discrimination, and, following the proposal of legislation to restrict Indian voting rights in Natal, he helped organise resistance, leading to the formation of the Natal Indian Congress.^[18][20] This organised resistance led to the unification of disparate groups of South African Indians for the first time.^[28] Although the bill was defeated, it was successfully reintroduced in 1896.^[18]

Transvaal

The South African Republic government first instituted discriminatory legislation against Indians in 1885,^[18] which led to protests from the British authorities, as the Indians were British Subjects, and was used as one of the justifications for the Anglo-Boer War.^[26]

Indians were banned from working in the mining industry, and areas were set aside for coolie locations in various towns in the Transvaal. Persons of colour could also not walk on sidewalks in the Transvaal.^[18]

Following the end of the second Anglo-Boer War, the new British government of the Transvaal Colony continued discriminatory practices against Indians.^[29]

Cape Colony

Passenger Indians who moved to the Cape Colony, although facing petty discrimination, were generally well treated, could own property, could vote, and could trade freely. The Muslim men in this group married Cape Malay women, and thus integrated into the existing community.^[26]

Orange Free State

Indians were prohibited by an 1891^[18] statute from living in the Orange Free State, then an independent Boer Republic, and this led to the almost total absence of Indians from the area, a situation that persisted into the apartheid era. ^[30]

Apartheid

Discriminated against by apartheid legislation, such as the Group Areas Act, applied in 1950, Indians were forcibly moved into Indian townships, and had their movements restricted. They were not allowed to reside in the Orange Free State Province, and needed special permission to enter that province. They were also, as a matter of state policy, given an inferior education compared to white South Africans. The Asiatic Land Tenure and the Indian Representative Act of 1946 were repealed.

In 1961, Indians were officially recognised as permanent part of the South African population,^[31] the Department of Indian Affairs was established, with a white minister in charge. In 1968, the South African Indian Council came into being, serving as a link between the government and the Indian people.

The University of Durban-Westville (now part of the University of KwaZulu-Natal) was built with a Rand-for-Rand contribution from Indian South Africans and the government in the 1970s. Before that, Indian students had to take a ferry to Salisbury Island's abandoned prison, which served as their university.

Casual racist expressions were used during the years of apartheid. Indians in South Africa were (and sometimes still are) referred to by the racial epithet coolie.

In 1968, the South African Indian Council (not to be confused with the anti-apartheid South African Indian Congress which had the same initials) was created by the government, and in 1974, the council was reconstituted to allow for 50% of its members to be elected by Indians. The Council did not enjoy much support, for example, in 1981, only 6% of eligible voters participated in elections for the council.[1]

In 1983, the Constitution was reformed to allow the Coloured and Indian minorities a limited participation in separate and subordinate Houses of a Tricameral Parliament, a development which enjoyed limited support and very low voter turnouts[2]. The Indian house was called the House of Delegates. Some aspects of Indian life were regulated by this house, including education. The theory was that the Indian minority could be allowed limited rights, but the Black majority were to become citizens of independent homelands. These separate arrangements were removed by the negotiations which took place from 1990 on to provide all South Africans with the vote.

Post-apartheid

Post-apartheid politics

Many Indians played an important role in the anti-apartheid struggle and some occupied positions of power in post-apartheid South Africa. In post-apartheid South Africa, many Indians, particularly the poor, began to support formerly white parties such as the Democratic Alliance and New National Party, as they felt threatened by the policies of the ruling African National Congress , although this changed in later elections . In addition, Amichand Rajbansi's Minority Front (formerly the National People's Party) retained some support in its strongholds.

Indians who were citizens before 1994, and thus discriminated against by apartheid, are considered black for the purposes of Employment Equity, that is, they are classified as having been disadvantaged under apartheid. They are thus eligible for affirmative action. They are also eligible for Black Economic Empowerment. Despite this, some Indians complain that they are discriminated against for "not being black enough".

Renewed South Asian immigration

Following the end of apartheid, a new wave of South Asian immigration commenced from both India, and Pakistan, paralleling the movement of Africans from the diaspora and neighboring African countries to the new South Africa. Some of the immigrants were illegal, or obtained their residency by dubious means, while other post-apartheid immigrants from India have managed to acquire vast political and economic influence in a short time.^{[32][33][34][35]}

See also

• Asians in Africa
• Tamil South Africans
• Tamil diaspora
• Memons in South Africa

References

• Indian Diaspora in South Africa
• The South African Hindu

External links