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Country profile: South Africa
The Indian Diaspora in South Africa numbers around a million. Indians started arriving in South Africa in 1653, when Dutch merchants sold Indians as slaves in the then Dutch Cape Colony.
The Indian Diaspora in South Africa numbers around a million. Indians started arriving in South Africa in 1653, when Dutch merchants sold Indians as slaves in the then Dutch Cape Colony. The pattern of emigration in the 19th century was similar to that in other parts of Africa and indeed the world, following the banning of slavery throughout the British Empire in 1833/4.
The indentured labourers on the plantations were mainly from Bihar, Eastern UP, Tamil Nadu and Andhra, to be followed later by Gujarati traders who went as 'free passengers'. Indian labour was also deployed in the railways, dockyards, coal-mines and municipal services and as domestic employment.
The conditions under which they worked were akin to slavery but their hard labour transformed the economy. As a section attained increasing prosperity and became the principal rivals of the whites in trade and commerce, the colonial administration enacted discriminatory laws to curtail their progress and inflict petty humiliations on them.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi's arrival in 1893 heralded the beginning of a long struggle for equality and dignity by the Indian community and led to the establishment of the Natal Indian Congress (NIC) in 1894, and the forerunner of the Transvaal Indian Congress (TIC). A mass movement of labourers, traders and industrial workers followed him in his fight against racial discrimination.
Gandhiji's legacy of struggle against injustice and racial discrimination inspired succeeding generations in South Africa. Second generation members of the Natal and Transvaal Indian Congresses (NIC & TIC) launched a prolonged multi-racial joint struggle of all the oppressed people of South Africa, culminating in the 'Three Doctors Pact' in 1947 between the Presidents of the ANC, the TIC and the NIC, courting brutal reprisals by the authorities.
Later, the apartheid regime switched to other tactics and Grafted a policy of differential treatment of the three racial groups. Under the new policy, more opportunities for economic prosperity opened up for the Indian community and the gulf between it and the indigenous African community widened.
Some members of the Indian community were co-opted by the system following the establishment in the 1980s of the Tricameral Parliament with separate chambers for Whites, Coloureds and Indians. Though the NIC and the TIC were completely opposed to such collaboration, and vigorously participated in which dates back to at least the late 15th century, was reinforced by emigration from Goa under Portuguese rule.
Indian nationals were however subjected to considerable persecution following the Government of India's liberation of Goa, Daman and Diu from Portuguese rule in 1961, which came to an end only after the fall of the Portuguese dictatorship.
