What is so Special About South African Indians?

DID YOU KNOW?


 

·        In 1860, 330 South Indians bit the bullet and embarked on a voyage over Kalapani.  They had heard of fields of gold and riches awaiting them at the end of the Rainbow in South Africa.   While some wanted to escape the caste system, others wanted to escape the establishment-remember the Brits had tightened their clutches after the 1857 Sepoy Mutiny.  There may have been many other reasons - one thing for sure they left India in the quest for a better life.

·        There were two types of people who left India  at this time.  Some left as indentured labour(contracted out to work in the sugar plantations of Natal)  and others went as passenger Indians (they paid for their passage).  

·        The end of the Rainbow as found more than 4 generations later when South Africa became a democracy. Only 16 years ago the country of South Africa finally shrugged the yokel of Apartheid. We Indians benefited from their travails.  How? Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi arrived in South Africa in the 1890s –he went there an ordinary person –full of contradications and flaws like you and me!-he came out a from South Africa as a Mahatama.  In his time there he mobilized public opinion, created a political party, shepherded a political movement spearheaded by Satygraha: all to improve the lives of Indian immigrants in South Africa.  We Indians benefited from the lessons Gandhi learnt in South Africa.   As all the different struggled movements in India coalesced towards Gandhis efforts 1914 onwards until we became independent in 1947.

·        Between 1860 and 1994 what the Coolies (Indians aka Samy and Mary) and the Kaffirs (indigenous Africans) experienced was no party.  The Coolies/Indians were not accepted as South Africans until 1961.  Until 1921 the Damocles sword of repatriation hung over their heads. Ghettoized with out access to effective education (The indigenous Africans were educated only to become good domestics and service providers) ..  Trussed and limited by more than 53 laws between 1860-and 1960 forcing the majority of Africans to become cacti subsisting and growing around what little access they had to education, healthcare, sports and trade.  Clinging to their human dignity.

·        1960 onwards saw the Africans : Indigenous, South African Indians and liberal whites to start the process that lead to a slow march to Freedom.in yes,1994.   They struggled, they suffered but in the end they succeeded.  What a saga!  Today we see how beautifully they have rooted and blossomed in the land those first 330 South Indians went to.

·        The period between 2010 and 2011 marks 150 years of Indians in South Africa.  Come let us acknowledge them and their travails by voting to make, "Freedom Walk," a postage stamp.