Docking in Durban

Encountering Indians and their lookalikes at every other street corner, who may or may not want to acknowledge their Indian roots, can flummox a visitor from 8216;home.8217; Durban, a sub-tropical city, is home to the largest concentration of people of Indian descent in South Africa, touching a million. In 1860, the first indentured labourers arrived to work in the cane-fields. Then came the merchants followed by the most famous of them all 8212; Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who arrived in 1893.

In the 8216;8216;new, free South Africa,8217;8217; the Indian community is trying to forge a new identity in a fast-changing socio-economic landscape. And for a people who have no links with India, they are now turning to religion, the simplest and most common way to re-assert their Indian roots.

But there is a certain tremulousness in the air. If you drive through the upscale Verulum area, the first Indian settlement built by the Afrikaaners on the basis colour, every house has an electric fence and a rapid alert system board nailed firmly on it. Increasing crime is a malaise spread all over the state but Indians claim they are being specifically targeted by the Africans. The anti-India song composed by African pop singer Mbungeni Ngema this year, has also made these people nervous and despondent.

Draw them into a conversation on Grey Street, which was once an upmarket Indian area but now has more resident Blacks, and the Indians begin to tell you why there is this need to re-invent themselves. 8216;8216;When the Whites wanted us to work as labourers, they got us here. When the Blacks needed us to fight for independence, they were friendly. Now they tell us to leave this country?8217;8217; asks a shopkeeper in Grey Street with remorse.

It is common to see armed guards posted outside shops and most of them have iron grills and close circuit cameras. 8216;8216;We cannot afford to take chances,8217;8217; says Anand Govardhan, another shopkeeper. 8216;8216;Every other day, we hear of some shopkeeper not just robbed but also being shot dead point-blank.8217;8217; Media reports suggest there have been at least 20 such incidents in the last two months where Indians have been killed.

Bhima, a taxi driver, also of Indian origin, says despite all these attacks, he relates completely to South Africa as he has no connections with India. His entire family including second and third cousins live in Durban. According to him, the reason for Indian anger is that Blacks are now questioning the only home they have known for generations. For instance, he says, he has visited India which he fell in love with, but his country is South Africa, he adds emphatically.

But there is a resentment brewing under the surface against Black South Africans. The reason for their unhappiness is straightforward 8212; the Indian executive I meet on Durban8217;s six-mile beach says he works in a media organisation. What upsets him is not that his boss is a black man but the fact that he is not qualified. In fact, Indians are just about learning to grapple with affirmative action by which every organisation is supposed to hire people according to the percentage of population. In apartheid Durban, Indians had the best jobs because they were more educated than the other coloured population.

Bansi says his prime motive is to 8216;8216;wean the Indian from the whites,8217;8217; a premise which the Indian 8216;8216;intelligentsia8217;8217; rejects. According to him, the biggest mistake Indians committed was to ally themselves with the whites during the last election. 8216;8216;We have taken part in the freedom struggle with the Blacks at the cost of our personal safety and career, it is incorrect to say that we are with the whites,8217;8217; says an aghast Jerry Coovadia, who belongs to the Natal Indian Congress and is head of pediatrics in the Nelson Mandela School of Medicine.

At the Phoenix Mall, Indians, some of them now newly unemployed sit around actually reminiscing about the apartheid days. They go to the extent of suggesting that things were better during Afrikaaner rule when race segregation was ingrained in the law of the land and lawlessness of any kind was not tolerated.

It is evident Indians identify with the whites minority rather than the majority black community. After 1994, the white National Party became a minority party and Indians believed it was better to vote for a party that would represent minority interest. In the 1999 election, they supported the white liberal Democratic Party snubbing Nelson Mandela8217;s African National Congress and the Zulu Inkatha Freedom Party. The Minority Front, the only Indian party floated by Raj Bansi emerged as the second largest party.

Between the Whites and the Blacks, it seems, the Indians are pushing their identity like never before. Therefore, it is not surprising that even though 90 per cent of them do not speak Hindi, the only two all-Hindi radio channels, Hindvani and Lotus, are popular hits. Both came up in the last three years.

Hindi films are also the only window to India and there are at least three to four of them playing at any given time in the town. Talk to any parent and they say they are grateful to Hindi films for teaching their kids Hindi. There are also Bollywood dance schools.

Some even call it a 8216;Hindu Renaissance8217; in South Africa. The 8216;8216;intelligentsia8217;8217; is trying to find its roots 8212; making that trip to India to trace their roots. Like Subry Govender8217;s family who came to India last year to try and trace his ancestors.

There is also a section that is fighting for the revival of Hindi 8212; they have effectively lobbied with the government to make Hindi the seventh language in the country. The Swadeshi Jagran Manch is also attempting to open Hindi schools in Durban. Life seems to have come a full circle for these people of Indian origin when a fifth generation P Govender, who does not speak Tamil himself, wants to teach his son Tamil.