THE RESETTLEMENT OF INDIANS IN JOHANNESBURG D. A. HILL and M. W. CLUVER Mrs. Hill is National Treasurer and Mrs. Ctuver National Vice-President of the Black Sash. This paper was presented to National Conference in Durban.
WHEN THE INDIANS first came to Johannesburg in the 1880's President Kruger had set aside the nCoolie Location'1 — the present Vrededorp and Pageview — in which they believed they would live in perpetuity. There are to-day certain areas in the city where there are large numbers of Indian Traders: Vre dedorp and Pageview, with its well known 14th Street, patronised by many white customers; West Market Street and its vicinity where there are big wholesalers of dry goods and small shops; Dia gonal Street where the fruit and vegetable shops are all Indian owned. Fordsburg has numbers of Indian shops and many of the wealthier Indians have their homes here. There are also Indian shops and houses in many other areas. It is the policy of the present government thority" and on the other incorporation by that all Johannesburg's Indian people the Johannesburg City Council. must move to Lenasia 22 miles to the south In Lenasia the township control comes un west of the city hall. Many have already der the Peri Urban board — a white bodv. moved and about 20,000 remain waiting; to The residents may attend meetings of the hear their fate. board. A local committee of Lenasian In For the past ten years, Johannesburg In dians has an advisory function. dians have fostered the hope that if Group There are now approximately 35,000 Areas and residential segregation have to he people living in Lenasia. imposed on them the government would agree to the establishment of an area for Indians Lenasia: within the present Municipal boundaries and Lenasia is a bleak, flat area of country they have been supported in this by the City without trees and exposed to the cold south Council. But the government has been winds of winter. Lenz railway station is on adamant that Lenasia shall be the only town* the outskirts of Lenasia to the west. A weekly sliip for Indians, and have asked the City return ticket from Lenz to Johannesburg Council of Johannesburg to incorporate Lena* costs R2.00. fiia within its jurisdiction. They did not. No comprehensive town plan was drawn however, explain why the chosen area should up making provision for social amenities and he so far away in the first place nor did they services. The township is divided into four clarify the apparent contradiction of aiming sections: on the one hand at " a full fledged local au 1. Township Area. About 300 houses where
The Black Sash, February* 1969. 20 Die Swart Serpt Februarie, 1969. land can be bought freehold and houses without breakfast. School feeding is not al are owner built. lowed. 2. Rainbow Valley. Houses cost approximately The High School was amongst the first R4,000.00 to build and can be bought on public buildings to be erected in Lenasia. As Hire Purchase over 25 years at R42.00 soon as it was completed Indian children were per month. In addition rates, taxes and no longer allowed to attend High School in water must be paid. Johannesburg itself. Parents had the choice of moving to Lenasia or making their child 3. Greyvitle. Each house consists of two ren travel 22 miles to and from school. rooms plus a kitchen and a bathroom with sewerage. Electricity can he laid on Primary schools in the Johannesburg area by arrangement, and each house has a are being closed down towards the end of small plot of land. The rent is R12.00 tins year. Thousands of pupils will be at per month. tempting to enrol in the already full schools 4. Thomsville. Sub Economic Housing. Two in Lenasia. room units, semi-detached, 8 or 4 in a group. Front room about 10' x 8\ back Medical Services: one smaller. There are no ceilings, no Coronation hospital, roughly 18 mile* stove, no chimney, no electricity and no away in Newclare, serves the township. This running water in the house. Houses are hospital runs a daily clinic in Lenasia from arranged in rows with a 30 yard area be 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. No service is provided for tween the backs of the houses where those ill in bed and unable to attend the communal waterborn latrines (one per clinic. The Coronation ambulance serves four units) and water taps (one per four clinic patients only. units) arc located. The rent per unit is R1.84 cents per month. Two units can So great is the consciousness of the need for an ambulance to serve all in the township be hired by one family, when a hole is that Indians themselves have raised R5,000 knocked between the two back rooms. and bought an ambulance. There are private There are no bathrooms in the entire nurses and doctors in the district. area, the streets arc not tarred, and there The average size of a family is 7. A family are no street lights. clinic run by the Indian Social Welfare As The majority of people in Lenasia live in sociation was opened six months ago and 700 this area. people have attended it. Schooling: With no hospital at Lcnz, and the realisa The schools were prefabricated buildings tion by the Indian Community of this neces when Lenasia started 13 years ago. No per sity, the Indians themselves have collected manent structures have yet been built. There R40,000 towards a maternity wing when and are two High and 3 Primary Schools designed if the government builds a hospital at Lena to take roughly 500 children each but there sia. arc over 1000 children in each school. Whenever pleas are made by the commun Schooling is not compulsory and many child ity for services the answer is that there is no ren have been turned away for lack of ac money available. The Indians themselves commodation. are attempting to provide these services but There are 50 children per class and two there seem* to be a reluctance on the part of sessions per day to cope with the numbers. the authorities to accept them. The schools were formerly under the Trans vaal Education Department, but are now un Socia! Amenities: der the Department of Indian Affairs. Up There is a civic centre with one hall where to Standard VIII, all requirements and young people can congregate, and one cine schooling are free. Above Standard VIII ma. The only real recreation that people only set books are provided and other books have is walking the streets and visiting. When must be paid for. The system of Rand for the Olympic Committee visited South Africa Rand contributions for improvements has an area was fenced in and stands put up for been done away with for the Transvaal and a sports field. No sports field has actually anv amenities must be provided by parents. been laid out. Because parents leave home so early for In the freehold area and in Rainbow Val work, children frequently arrive at school ley gardens have been and are being esta-
The Bhick Sash, February, 1969, 21 Vie Swart Serp, Februarie, 1969. Mished. This applies to a more limited ex a bazaar with 132 stands and a market with tent in Greyville. In ThomsviUe a minute 102 stands all to be rented by Indians. All area in front of each unit can be enclosed the present traders will have to be accommod and used but the majority of land is com ated in the "bazaar"' or will have to trade munal, bare vsld - - mostly dust. in Lenasia. This must mean a change in em* No African servants may be employed in ployment for many and economic ruin for the township. Kurd- are carried out to see many more. that this is enforced. ThomsviUe residents were living in slum condition? in back yards in Pageview, but Trading in Lenasia: tbeir move to ThomsviUe has not improved The shops are grouped at on, end of the their situation* The squalor of ThomsviUe township near the Railway station — at lea*t has to be seen to be believed. We talked to a mile away from some; of the bouses. one woman living there. She is better off The shops arc not well supported by the than most, the family rents two units for population of Lenasia, most ol whom find R3.68 per month, the husband earns R19.00 it easier to shop near their jjliice of work. per week and pays R9.00 per month for his White people in the vicinity patronise some railway ticket. He leaves home to work in of the shops. There are few shops but a Johannesburg at 5.30 a.m. and returns at fi new block of about six shops is being cons p.m. Their thvee children must play in the tructed to accommodate the displace'! dusty and sordid back yard between the businessmen of Johannesburg. No hawkers houses. licences are issued. Garages look prosperous. There arc many good Indian owned houses There are two factories in the area, a ^mall in Pageview and Fordsburg and compensa one making candles, employs 20-30 people tion is to be paid for them, but it is fre while another employs about 500 people quently only half what has been spent on the making small tools for the mines. The area house. surrounding Lenasia, apart from a Military Martinda!e: camp across the railway line, is open veld. There arc no other opportunities for employ- Before removals started there was 1.750 Indians still in Johannesburg: licenced Indian dealers in Martindale. Most traders have been removed from tins area Many Indians are still living in Johannes and the few that remain are expecting daily burg mainly in Pageview, Vrededorp and notice that they must go. A few shops are Fordsburg. These are mostly traders. There being built for them in Lenasia. which is are 600 traders in Page view alone and all already over traded. A spokesman, worried are due for removal. The Pagevicw traders out of his wits, could not .see how they would live in small villas in the vicinity but will make a living. His only suggestion was that be moved to Lenasia within the next three Lenasia should become a trading area for cus months. The residential move was scheduled tomers of all races. There is no doubt that most to take place nine months ago into Greyville of the traders will be ruined. This will have type houses. The traders, who are reason far-reaching consequences for all, as the In ably well off at present, refused to move to dian Social Welfare depends for its funds on this type of house and houses are now being the traders. built in Rainbow Valley for them. There is tremendous uncertainty about when they The consequences of the Group Areas will have to leave their trading sites. Page proclamations for the Indian people vicw will become completely '"white" in the of Johannesburg: near future. At the moment there are some empty shops in Fordsburg (the last area to Means of Livelihood. Indians first came to be moved) which are available for Page view live in Johannesburg in the 1880V They traders. settled down as smaU traders, hawkers, Eventually there will be small shops available labourers, market gardeners and hotel work in the "Asiatic Bazaar*1 in Fordsburg. Pro ers. visional approval has Keen given for a loan They have become a prosperous commun of 12 million Rand to the City Council for ity. There is no doubt that the credit they the building of this complex of sixty shops. gave saved many an embarrassed white person
Tit* Black Saxh, February, 1969. 22 Die Swart Serp, Febntaric, 1969. in lime of drought and difficulty. They have ways depend on Johannesburg for a living contributed generously towards social welfare for its people. and relief to all races. The standard of living of the Indian com* For many years they have paid rates and inunity must inevitably fall. Those who are taxes in Johannesburg, but have no say in buying houses, as in the Rainbow Valley local government. Scheme, naturally face the future with trepi The Plight of the Traders, dation as they fear they will not he able to continue their Hire Purchase payments. Indian >hops in Johannesburg are patron People will have to seek new ways of earn ised bv all races. In future traders will have • ing their living — in many cases not as lucra* the choice of trading in Lenasia, almost ex live as before. clusively amongst their own people* or in the projected Asiatic bazaar for the tourist trade, Change in Social Patterns as a consequence of or to find other means of employment* It removals was very evident to us that the traders still remaining in the Johannesburg area live with For most Indians the father is the wage fear for the future and a dreadful feeling of earner and entirely responsible for the upkeep inreenritj. and conduct of his family. In the old days They realise that the chances of being aide the family lived, sometimes in squalor, above to continue as traders and make a living are or behind the family business. This made very small. Many of them are no longer for close family life and strong parental in young:. Thcv face a certain future of com- fluence. This has been affected in two ways plete impoverishment. One trader we spoke by the move to Lenasia. to. a man of some influence among his people, Firstly the father is forced to leave home was filled with a deep resignation, with no very early and come back late at night from hope for the future — merely hoping to be his work- and consequently the children see allowed to trade where he was as long as very little of him. Secondly, what he earns possible before his order to move was served is now not sufficient, with increased trans on him. It may he a question of months. port and other costs to keep his family, and or at most a few years. the teenage children have to work. This It i- estimated that three quarters of Indian makes them independent and undermines the Trader* will no longer be able to trade when father's influence, and as may be imagined, tin* removals are completed in five or six much unhappiness and dissension results. yeata* What will these people do? There are Delinquency and illegitimacy have in no facilities in the Transvaal for the techni creased. The old pattern of arranged mar cal training of Indians, so it appears that the riages is disappearing. These are perhaps nnlv employment open tn them will be un inevitable changes, but they have come about skilled labour. too suddenly, largely owing to the new con ditions under which the people are living. Waiters: Mam Indians are employed as waiters in The Influence of Isolation hotels and clubs, hut are gradually being re The Indian Community of Lenasia faces placed by Africans, as employers find them a future of isolation in accordance with the inconvenient to employ because of the limita dictates of separate development. Thev are tions imposed by hours, transport- and di*>- removed from the mixed urban life which tance. Waiters themselves cannot cope with they enjoy. The educated section fear and the cost of transport to Lenasia. hate this isolation because of the cutting off of wider horizons in their own lives and also Labourers: for the consequences they foresee in the In The cost of transport is here a serious dif dian community as a whole. There is likely ficulty. When these people are out of work to be an increase in sectionalism and inter thcv cannot afford cost of transport in order racial quarrels. to find another job. They already live in slum We visited a wealth) Indian family. living conditions in Thomsville and have no hope in a beautiful house they had built for them of employment in or around Lenasia- selves at a cost of some R60.000.00. They It is quite apparent that Lenasia will never were not happy, cut off from their contacts in he a >elf-supporting community, and will al Johannesburg, and were deepl) resentful of
The Blade Sasht February, 1969, 23 Die Stcart Serp9 Febrttarie, 1969. the fact that they had had no choice but had Canada* Educated people of this type fear been forced lo move to Lenasia. In common the stultifying effect of Apartheid, and with many other Indians, living in Lenasia, neighbouring Black States are willing to pay these are cultivated people forced to live well for professional immigrants. where there aie no cultural facilities what Apartheid is destroying a community soever. There is increasing emigration of which was making a real contribution to teachers, lawyers and doctors to countries like South Africa.