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Indian Identity in South Africa 5 Kathryn Pillay

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Indian Identity in South Africa 5 Kathryn Pillay Indian Identity in South Africa 5 Kathryn Pillay Contents Introduction ....................................................................................... 78 Community and Belonging ....................................................................... 80 Isolation and Exclusiveness ...................................................................... 82 Fixed Identity ..................................................................................... 86 Conclusion ........................................................................................ 87 Cross-References ................................................................................. 90 References ........................................................................................ 90 Abstract After the first democratic election took place in 1994, a commitment was made, by the ANC led government, to “nonracialism” based on a Constitution, adopted in 1996, which was inclusive of all who lived in the country. This chapter argues that even though the democratic state acknowledges South Africans of Indian descent as part of the national discourse, it nevertheless still perpetuates the notion of essential “differences” between “peoples” which originated in colonial- ism was entrenched further after the formation of the Union and legitimized through various policies during apartheid. This continuation of such “race” classification in legislated and bureaucratic form, conflates race and ethnicity, and ensures racialization and “race thinking,” which is evident in self-perceptions and the perceptions of “others.” The argument is demonstrated by examining the role of the South African state historically in the maintenance of racial categories which in turn allow “Indians” to be stereotyped, homogenized, and labeled as a separate and distinct group. This formal process ultimately results in the con- firmed perception of them as “a people” or “community” with fixed and essen- tialized identities and ultimately “belonging” to another country, to which they K. Pillay (*) University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019 77 S. Ratuva (ed.), The Palgrave Handbook of Ethnicity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2898-5_9 78 K. Pillay could easily “return,” as evidenced by calls to “go home” echoed at various points in time during the post-1994 democratic era. Processes of othering and anti- “Indian” sentiment, reminiscent of the political eras prior to democracy, persist therefore in public and popular discourse in contemporary South African society and are exposed at various junctures. Keywords Indian · Race · South Africa · Classification · Xenophobia · Identity Introduction Indians were initially brought to southern Africa to work as indentured laborers in the colony of Natal in 1860. However a “second stream of migrants” followed after under the colony’s ordinary immigration laws (Mesthrie 1997, 100). Although they were mainly Muslim and Hindu traders predominantly from the Gujarat area, there were some Christian Indians, including teachers, interpreters, catechists, and traders who also migrated to southern Africa (Mesthrie 1997, 100). This second wave of migrants were referred to as “passenger Indians” as they paid for their own journey to South Africa. Just over half of the Indian laborers that travelled aboard the Truro (the first ship to transport indentured laborers from India to Natal in 1860) stayed on in South Africa after they had served out their indenture, while the rest boarded the Red Riding Hood, which was the first ship to carry repatriated Indians back to India in 1871 (Motwani et al. 1993). The Indian repatriates aboard this ship carried with them stories of misery, as they complained of beatings and unfair treatment by their “colonial masters.” This resulted in the tightening of immigration control laws by the British Government of India (Ebr.-Vally 2001). The colonial authorities in Natal, and thereafter the South African government (after 1910), frequently used the threat of repatriation as a form of intimidation, and to create insecurity among the inden- tured laborers, as they were reminded of their constant impermanence in the country. This system of indentured labor, however, continued until 1911 when a resolution was passed in India, preventing the further recruitment of indentured labor for Natal, and the last sailing vessel, the Umlazi, arrived in Natal in July 1911 carrying the final group of indentured laborers. With the arrival of these indentured laborers, a new era of racialization began in southern Africa, as until the beginning of the twentieth century all people who were not considered to be “European” or “black” were regarded as “colored” (Christopher 2002, 2009; Erasmus 2007; Maré 2011). By as late as 1950, the National Party (NP) was still hopeful that the descendants of these Indian immigrants who had been born in South Africa would “return” to India, and so they were still classified as “col- oreds” for the purposes of population enumeration. According to Christopher (2002, 405), the classification “colored” was a broad umbrella category which included “Indian, Chinese, Cape Malay and Griqua subgroups in addition to the basic Cape Coloured group.” At that stage the NP together with its supporters attempted actively 5 Indian Identity in South Africa 79 to demonstrate why “Indians” could not be integrated into South Africa or become South African citizens (Ebr.-Vally 2001). According to Klotz (1997), the debates on inclusion in the country focused on “Indians” as consensus on the exclusion of “black” people was already reached, as one of the policies of apartheid, developed in the 1930s and 1940s and implemented in 1948 by the National Party government of South Africa, was to create “home- lands” for “black” people and thereby exclude them politically, economically and socially from mainstream South African society. Unlike the Australian government which in 1918 granted full citizenship rights to Indians who had arrived in the country in the nineteenth century (Yarwood 1964), the South African government continued with anti-“Indian” legislation, dating back from 1885. For example, the Union Nationality and Flags Act, No. 40 of 1927 denied “Indians” the right to become citizens by naturalization (Maasdorp and Pillay 1977; Davenport 1991). Other restrictions included the prohibition of “Indians” in the Orange Free State from engaging in agriculture, trading, or ownership of property. They were also not allowed to travel freely between provinces until 1975. In addition the Asiatic Land Tenure and Indian Representation Act No. 28 of 1946, also referred to as the “Ghetto Act,” was devised to restrict “Indian” property ownership in “white” areas in Natal (Maasdorp and Pillay 1977; Davenport 1991). There were plans designed to persuade “Indians” to willfully return to India and taxes were levied against indentured laborers, and their descendants thereafter, who refused to do so. In addition expensive repatriation strategies were implemented by the Department of the Interior to tempt “Indians” to go back to India. The NP together with those who opposed immigration also argued that “Indians” would not be able to integrate culturally; an example of this was the deliberations around whether or not non-Christian marriages could be considered legal. “Indians” only became a permanent population, in the eyes of the governing authorities, in 1961 when these many plans to “repatriate” them had failed. This was not due to any kindness on the part of the South African government but was done so that the Indian government would no longer interfere in South African affairs, especially regarding the treatment of “Indians.” India, it should be noted, was the first country to impose sanctions on South Africa. This was initially done to publicly express their disapproval with the discriminatory laws against “Indians” in South Africa. It was later extended to show support for all those suffering under the oppressive regime. In addition to this, in 1946, Indian officials made representation to the United Nations about the racist practices in South Africa generally and the treatment of “Indians” in particular. The political context of South Africa at that point in time seemed to mirror what was happening in India where freedom from oppressive rule was being fought for. Indeed, for a period of almost 100 years after the arrival of the first indentured laborers, the impermanent status of Indians and people of Indian descent continued. It is against this political backdrop that this chapter aims to trace the construction of an “Indian” identity in South Africa. The word “Indian” is placed within inverted commas to denote the category assigned to people of Indian descent in South Africa, which was legitimized by the former apartheid government. This classification was 80 K. Pillay based on physical external appearance and the initial unproblematic combination of group arrival and hence bureaucratic labelling (Erasmus 2007). However, this category is still employed in contemporary South Africa as it is regarded as an “official” racial category by the state. The inverted commas signify in the first instance that the category “Indian” is not accepted as a biologically meaningful category but nevertheless as a very real social construct. Secondly it is used in this chapter, without quotation marks, to create a distinction between South Africans of Indian
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