THE DEVI RAJAB COLUMN
Indian South Africans, imbued with a sense of pride in their ancient culture, far from developing feelings of inferiority have cultivated their own brand of ethnocentrism.
Life in Durban must be a quaint experience for Harsh Shringla, Durban’s new Indian Consul General who has recently arrived from the high life of a United Nations posting in New York. The unique combination of Sir Benjamin Durban’s find, in colonial African setting still lingers on despite the massive transformation of the new SA. In a richly cultural tossed salad of Zulu, Indian and English traditions, Durban is a great location for the consular corps of any country. Although Shringla is wise in saying that his mission is not only to serve Indians but people who fall into the jurisdiction of his consul, his presence here will no doubt kindle nostalgia from the local Indians for the mother country. He recently observed that the local Indian community was “calcified and its people were wedded to a culture no longer relevant in India”.
Though few South Africans of Indian origin realize it, the doors are now being open for a fresh introspective look at themselves: Who are they? How have they coped? How have they changed and what is still unique in their constructed cultural frame of reality that distinguishes them from Indians in the Diaspora?
Indian South Africans constitute a regionally significant middle group. Juxtaposition between whites and blacks, Indians have in the past been socially and politically singled out as a marginal group with little historical claim to indigenous rights. Recently with the emergence of the 5th generation, exclusively born in SA with little or no ties with India, claims that they have indigenous status as South Africans are being acknowledged by the new government’s Constitution.
In Natal where 78% of the Indian community reside, totalling at present 1 007 300 and comprising 3% of the country’s population of approximately 40 million, their numbers exceed that of whites. Indians are the most urbanised of South Africans with a relatively intact family structure. Contemporary Indians today are not a homogeneous group. They range in profession and privilege from street sweepers, waiters and market gardeners to accountants, doctors and ministers in government yet the perception is that they are all wealthy and belong to the business class. The reality is that in comparison to the other Indians in the Diaspora especially the NRIs in the UK and the USA, their financial status is unimpressive.
Indians in the Diaspora essentially left the mother country in search of greener pastures either as immigrants or temporary sojourners. They ranged in status from indentured labourers to professionals, merchants and traders. By and large wherever they settled in the world they seemed to have fared well, contributing significantly, in relation to their numbers to the GDP of their host country or the country of their adoption. In SA, both indentured and trader alike contributed to the welfare and economic growth of Natal in terms of labour, goodwill and economic expertise for the general good of the entire South African community.
In terms of their cultural assimilation in the land of their adoption they have made some interesting modifications in the creation of a vibrant hybrid culture that is both unique and uniform. The people of the Diaspora share things in common with each other and yet there are differences that characterize their uniqueness. Fijians, Mauritians and South Africans have much in common as they provided the source of indentured labour to the sugar cane industry and many still after 4or 5 generations remain trapped below the poverty datum line. Today, 140 years later it is significant that Ashwin Desai in his book “The Poors of Chatsworth” highlights the sad plight of the children of indenture where ‘class and race, the old chestnuts’ still loom large. Their stories of their hardship strangely appear to be worse than that of their original reasons for having left their country of birth. The question arises “was it worth leaving India for a struggle in Africa?”
In a recently published journal article on the dynamics of oppression, Professor Josephine Naidoo and I posed this as a research question to 100 families and the answer was an unequivocal “Yes”.
South Africa is our home. We are South African first and Indians after. When asked “What does it mean to be a South African Indian?” the responses spanned a post modernist impression of dual continents - the smells and tastes, sights and sounds of these worlds merge into a kaleidoscopic fusion of one’s cultural identity. For South African Indians, India remains as a place of cultural renewal, probing roots and going on holidays or pilgrimage. There is a great Sai Baba movement in SA today. Indian films, music and film actors are great draw cards of the youth. Saris, dress, pots and pans and objects d’art are highly sought after. There is no interest in Indian politics or history however. Identity and allegiance is proudly linked to South Africa. There appears to be a very clear definition of a South African Indian. According to Meer this constructed identity has “imbued Indian South Africans with a sense of pride in their ancient culture so that far from developing feelings of inferiority they cultivated their own brand of ethnocentrism.”
While the older generations may still nurture cultural links with India, a new breed of 4th generation youth born exclusively in the republic of SA have no ties with India other than adopting a popular a la Radio Lotus culture through song and dance.
It is the innovative food style in the creation of the “bunny chow” and curried samp and beans that no Indian national can recognise. It is the special sense of humour in the Reich cabaret of local artists. It is the special lingo that only “charows” understand. It is the music like the bangra that is played at popular Indian nightclubs. Collectively it is the portrait painted with 140years of brush strokes on the canvas of an African nation. As colourful specks they are here to stay. Harsh Shingla will no doubt discover that South African Indians are more African than Indian in the months and years to follow and that the calcification that he talks about is really a construction of a new and emergent Afro Indian culture unique to South Africa.
Dr.Devi Rajab, a leading South African journalist, can be reached at: rajab@cybertek.co.za
