South Africa’s million-plus people of Indian origin complain that a controversial scheme to uplift people marginalised under apartheid is working against them.
The bone of contention for this relatively small but economically and politically important group is the black economic empowerment (BEE) programme, which they say is leading to a new form of discrimination, 10 years after the end of apartheid.
Ironically, many whites in post-apartheid South Africa also say the same thing.
Fatima Meer, a leading anti-apartheid activist and a close friend of Nelson Mandela, said ”Indians have never been more secure in this country”, since the first multiracial elections in 1994.
However, BEE ”discriminates against non-Africans”, she said.
”All other things being equal, if there is an Indian candidate and an African candidate for a job or a seat in university, even if the Indian is better qualified, the African candidate is chosen,” Meer said.
The vast majority of South African Indians are descendants of indentured labourers brought in to work on sugar farms. Later traders from India came paying their own passage, earning the appellation ”passenger Indians”.
The Indians have a rich history leading anti-racial movements in South Africa.
India’s independence hero Mahatma Gandhi, who worked as a lawyer in South Africa between 1893 and 1914, successfully campaigned against racist laws and forged his famous campaign of non-violent resistance in South Africa, which he used to end British rule in his homeland in 1947.
The community, which forms about 2,5% of South Africa’s population, generally had better education facilities than the blacks, setting up their own schools — which under the new laws are now open to all.
Amichand Rajbansi (62), the leader of the tiny Minority Front party, which has a predominantly Indian following, made BEE one of his party’s main issues in the run-up to the April 14 elections — the country’s third multiracial ballot.
”Indians were divided during apartheid. But now we are united because of the unfair application of affirmative action and due to issues like crime and safety,” he said.
The Minority Front won two seats in the 400-member national Parliament in the April 14 elections and bagged 2,61% of the vote in the eastern KwaZulu-Natal province, where about 90% of South African Indians live.
But Meer explained that BEE is necessary as Africans are more oppressed than Indians under apartheid and were at the lowest rung as far as any facilities were concerned.
The dilemma for Indians, who denounce the scheme, is that nobody has a solution as to how the programme could be revamped to their satisfaction. They rule out quotas for racial groups, saying that was tried during apartheid but was not fair.
There are some other grouses that the community voices.
Eshana Harichand, a 25-year-old executive at Chatsworth, a Indian suburb of the eastern port city of Durban, said the state-run South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) ignores the needs of the Indian community.
”SABC television has news bulletins in African languages and in Afrikaans. There are also daily programmes. But for us there is only Eastern Mosaic,” she said, referring to a one-hour weekly programme in English on Indian films and culture aired on Sundays.
”Our culture is being ignored,” Harichand said.
State-run radio also has a 24-hour station called Lotus FM, which plays Indian songs and carries news and items, also in English, about India and Indians.
Under apartheid, Indians were deported to areas outside the main cities and towns and their businesses often confiscated with little, if any, compensation paid.
Loganayagee Naidoo, an ageing vendor on Durban’s beachfront, said things have got worse for her in the past 10 years.
”Okay, I couldn’t sell my things here earlier because this was a whites-only area,” she said, speaking at the city’s bustling North Beach.
”But I have been robbed twice, and once I lost goods worth R50 000 rand,” she said.
”There is no safety now, and the police don’t do anything to catch the criminals. Prices are also very expensive,” she said.
Although Indians and Africans joined hands in the anti-apartheid struggle, there were bloody race riots in 1949 in Durban. Tensions between the two communities resurfaced in 2002 over a controversial song called Amandiya, which means Indians.
In that song the lyricist, Zulu musician Mbongeni Ngema, said Indians own businesses and oppress black people and still ”keep coming” to South Africa. — Sapa-AFP