The "Old" Global Indians of South Africa

The only thing constant to the concept of a "Global Indian" may be the fact that being "global" to many Indians may be hardly new.

South African Indians are living testament to the timelessness of the Indian diaspora. Despite the fact that many Indian indentured labourers were brought to South Africa during the Dutch colonial era in the 17th century, the period between August and October 2010 is set to officially mark 150 years since the ships carrying Indian indentured labourers touched the shores of Durban. “Shared Histories” is a celebration across three cities that commemorates this milestone, with a melange of back-to-your-roots culture and cuisine extravaganzas that promise to titillate the senses and twist the tongue.

South African Indians that celebrate this momentous arrival mostly hail from Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu—an origin that is betrayed by the creolisation of South Indian names that is likely the handiwork of a lacklustre immigration official –“Govenders,” “Moodleys” and “Chetty’s” bear a suspicious similarity to the South Indian caste names of “Gounder,” “Mudaliyar” and “Chettiar.” These migrants were so abruptly severed from their cultural ties that few amongst these immigrants from South India claim a “village” back in India to which they trace ancestry. This forced migration was the manifestation of the cruel ebbs and flows of a voracious British empire, which institution quickly realised that one way to constructively exploit Natal’s abundant sugarcane fields and cotton fields was to import cheap labour from a society already familiar with indentured servitude.

While this month celebrates their arrival in hordes, South Africa, like any other location in the world, has been home to Indian immigrants from all over the country, and at different periods in time--the most famous of all of course, being MK Gandhi, who arrived in South Africa as a young lawyer and eventually volunteered in the Indian Ambulance Corps during the Boer War. Tangible evidence of global nature of Indian identity is the fact that Indian civil disobedience as we know it, was famously born on foreign shores. Everyone is familiar with the old anecdote of Gandhi being manhandled off a South African train at Pietermaritzburg, for refusing to move from a first class compartment even while holding a valid first class ticket. His subsequent response would give rise to one of the most prominent global social movements in history.

South African Indians, however, have capitalised on being both “Indian” and “global” – creating a truly creole identity, ranging from the fanciful concoctions of names that represent musical variations on traditional themes—try your hand at Kerishnie, Primarishi, and Thavashan--to an entire cuisine that would seem unfamiliar to an immigrant with a more recent footprint on the subcontinent.

“Bunny chow” is a most delicious quarter-or half-loaf of bread, beheaded and stuffed with veg. and non-veg. curry, "sambals" are an assortment of chutneys and sauces, and “samoosas” are the two-dimensional versions of the subcontinent’s favourite snack.

The influence of Indian cuisine on the Indian palate must be epic, if despite involuntary deportation, limited freedoms, and a completely different geographic setting—the taste of curry leaves and chopped cumin remains.

Culinary creolisation notwithstanding, the Indians in South Africa have carved a unique role for themselves in the country’s history, and still occupy a rather interesting position. The Group Areas Act of 1974 witnessed the creation of massive Indian townships alongside black and coloured ones. Several Indians rose to prominence in the fight against apartheid—global Indians can count amongst their luminaries such stars as Ahmed Kathrada, Frene Ginwala, Mac Maharaj, and Fathima Meer, pioneers in the campaign for South African civil rights.

On an imaginary Richter scale of cultural upheavals, then, South African Indians have experienced changes of seismic proportions. If the recent proliferation of angst-ridden post-colonial writing on the Indian diaspora hints at the deep emotional and psychological trauma experience by recent immigrants, just imagine then the countless memoirs of colonial angst that could be written of the involuntary uprooting, transportation, subsequent servitude, and exposure to forced segregation?

Despite this unique patchouli of experiences, the events that mark the milestone of Indian arrival on South African shores seem to have essentialised being Indian into the relatively discrete and globally representative categories of what constitutes Indianness--Food, Classical Dance and Music, Yoga, and Bollywood. How odd, it seems, that despite the unique histories that Indian migrants have carved for themselves throughout the world—from Suriname to Nairobi, Trinidad to Manila, we hang on to manifestations of what the world perceives as Indian?

In the next few weeks I’ll be blogging about the events in Shared Histories and the collective experience of the events' attendees.