South African and Guyanese parallels 

Today marks the 165th anniversary of the arrival of indentured Indians to South Africa, specifically the then colony of Natal. As we in Guyana continue to grapple with our own national question, the South African experience possibly offers some lessons.
As with us, a demand for labour on sugar plantations (and later mines) fuelled Indian indentureship, which had been initiated in 1834 in Mauritius and here from 1838. Between 1860 and 1911, 152,184 Indian indentured workers went to Natal, and only 26.85 per cent returned to India after their contract ended. British Guiana received 239,000, and a similar percentage returned. Yet today, there are almost 1.3 million descendants of indentured Indians in South Africa compared to our estimated 250,000 as of 2022 – a testament to the political and economic push factors fuelling emigration from the 1970s.
One major difference with South Africa was a significant number of “passenger Indians” who went of their own volition and expense to establish businesses. They were mainly Gujarati Muslims and were dubbed “Arabs” by the Whites. Another difference was that while Guyanese indentured workers came mainly from North India (96 per cent) and only four per cent also from the Madras Presidency, in South Africa the proportion was reversed: 101 468, or 66.6 per cent, were South Indians embarking from the port city of Madras.
As in Guyana, the indentured Indians in Natal were thrown into a racialised cauldron between Whites and Blacks. The latter were Zulus, a proud warrior people who had migrated into Natal over hundreds of years. They refused to work on the plantations – similar to the position of our newly freed Africans. Their secluded Indigenous peoples were also Black but had their own traditions and culture. The British only defeated the Zulu army in 1879, after the arrival of indentured Indians, and they have maintained their militant legacy into the present.
In South Africa, most Indians did not re-indenture but followed the example of the passenger Indians and went into businesses of their own – albeit at a much lesser scale and reach than Whites, who controlled the reins of industry. Huckstering and small stores were their forte, as with the Portuguese and Chinese here. But they did set the base for a comparative prosperity through their unremitting labour and thrift that still distinguishes their community.
Their prosperity added to the deep antagonism from the Whites, initially driven by the latter’s scorn for the indentured labourers’ lifestyle and language. This scorn was extended to the “Passenger Indians” who were as wealthy and educated as them. It was this scorn that led to the lawyer Gandhi – who was invited to South Africa to plead a case for one of the “Arab” businessmen – being kicked off a train’s first-class carriage in 1894. His subsequent efforts and that of the Indian Congress Party to end indentureship had more to do with not wanting to be lumped with “coolies” by the British than with the indentureship’s oppression. Indentureship in South Africa ended seven years before ours because of the Whites’ fear of being swamped by Indians, who had surpassed their population by 1900.
The Indians of South Africa also precipitated envy from the African majority for their economic success – even though they were also forcibly removed to designated settlements by Whites. The latter’s “divide and rule” strategy to designate Indians separate from Blacks and Coloureds after apartheid was introduced in 1948 exploded into one of the most violent riots in South Africa a year later. Africans killed 142 Indians and injured over one thousand; 268 homes were looted and completely burnt while women were raped. This was to be repeated in 1985 even though the SA Indian Congress was supportive of the ANC and Nelson Mandela and backed the struggle to end apartheid. As late as 2021, the anti-Indian sentiment was shown not to have dissipated when riots against Indians – mainly in the settlement of Phoenix founded by Gandhi – were orchestrated by partisans of Zulu leader Zuma, who had been detained by the central Government. Once again, the Indian community was used as a scapegoat.
In a comparative context in Guyana, the Portuguese merchant community was attacked, looted and burnt in 1848, 1856 and 1905 primarily by Africans of Georgetown, who felt they were economically bypassed. These attacks continued, with a political flavour, against the Indian business community in the 1960s and between 1998 and 2008.
The inflammatory rhetoric of PNC MP David Hinds in the present dispensation risks a repetition at this time.