INDIAN RESEARCH AND PUBLICATION ON SOUTH AFRICA (1)
by E.S. Reddy
India has had a fascination with South Africa, especially since Gandhiji led the satyagraha of Indian South Africans from 1906 to 1914. It took great pride in its support to the freedom struggle in that country since 1946, and now looks forward, with great hope, to a special relationship with South Africa and a rapid development of political, economic, cultural and other relations.
How have these sentiments and desires been translated into research and publication to analyse, strengthen and broaden the relations? While some significant publications have come out in India over the years, there are enormous gaps in research and the quality of publications leaves much to be desired.
Part of the reason for this state of affairs was certainly the apartheid system and India's sanctions which encompassed cultural relations. Many of the books and articles published in South Africa, even on Gandhiji and on Indians in South Africa, are not available in India and those published in India are not available in South Africa. Very few South Africans have conducted research in the archives and libraries in India and I believe no Indian has spent time at South African archives. The government, universities and research institutions in India have been remiss in promoting essential research on South Africa and our scholars have not been blameless.
I would like, in this article, briefly to recall some Indian publications on South Africa, point to the gaps and inadequacies, and suggest some urgent action.
Gandhiji and the Indian Problem in South Africa
Many books, pamphlets and articles on South Africa have been published in India since 1909 when H.S.L. Polak was sent by Gandhiji to India to publicise the cause of Indians in South Africa. G.A. Natesan of Madras published Polak's pamphlets on The Indians in South Africa: Helots within the Empire (1909) and M.K. Gandhi: a Sketch of his Life and Work (1910), and reprinted J.J. Doke's MK. Gandhi. an Indian Patriot in South Africa (1909), within months of its publication in London.
In the 1920s Gandhiji himself wrote Satyagraha in South Africa and My Experiments with Truth. The former was not a definitive history of the struggle and the latter was not strictly an autobiography. They were both meant to educate his followers on the doctrine of satyagraha. Coming from the leader of a great movement, they were of historic significance. They were also an invitation to other scholars to follow up.
In subsequent years, Indian scholars produced some studies on the emigration of Indians to South Africa, the humiliations and disabilities they were subjected to and their appeals for justice. For instance: Sir Shafaat Ahmad Khan, The Indian in South Africa (1946); Iqbal Narain, The Politics of Racialism: a Study of the Indian Minority in South Africa down to the Gandhi-Smuts Agreement (1952); and S.B. Mukherji, Indian Minority in South Africa (1959). Narain and Mukherji were able to utilise the mass of documentation in Indian archives while Sir Shafaat had served as High Commissioner in South Africa.
Significant studies of the subject by South African Indian scholars were also published in India: P.S. Aiyar's Stateless Indians in South Africa (1942), and P.S. Joshi's Verdict on South Africa (1945) and The Struggle for Equality (1951). I make special mention of these books also because none of the recent studies by Indian South Africans - such as the excellent dissertations by Frene Ginwala, Essop Pahad and Uma Mesthrie - have been published in India.
On Gandhiji's life in South Africa and the satyagraha he led, Indian scholarship has been most unsatisfactory. No Indian scholar undertook research in South Africa, or made a serious study of Indian Opinion or interviewed the many satyagrahis who had returned to India.
Three of the associates of Gandhiji in South Africa wrote valuable reminiscences, but they were not available in English for a long time. Only an abridged version of Prabhudas Gandhi's My Childhood with Gandhiji was published by Navajivan in 1957. An "adaptation" of Raojibhai Patel's Gandhiji ni sadhana was published in 1990, with numerous errors, while his autobiography is not yet available in English. I have not been able to find Bhawani Dayal's reminiscences of the satyagraha or his autobiography in English.
Thus, until the publication of Pyarelal's Mahatma Gandhi: The Early Phase in four volumes (the last edited by Sushila Nayyar), between 1965 and 1989, Indian scholars have contributed little to the study of Gandhiji in South Africa and the evolution of satyagraha.
Even now, no Indian scholar seems to have made use of Gandhiji's correspondence with Kallenbach and Polak which the Indian Government purchased at an enormous cost.
On the other hand, significant studies on Gandhiji in South Africa, based on primary sources, have been produced by non-Indian scholars. For instance: Robert A. Huttenbach's Gandhi in South Africa (1971); Maureen Swan's Gandhi, the South African Experience (1985); and James D. Hunt's Gandhi and the Nonconformists: Encounters in South Africa (1989). The lack of serious research by Indian scholars explains why Swan's tendentious account came as a surprise and remains unanswered.
The Liberation Struggle
The situation in South Africa changed from the late 1930s when a young and radical leadership emerged in the Indian community advocating unity with the African majority in a struggle to end racist domination.
The Indian community launched a great passive resistance struggle in 1946 - under the leadership of Dr. Yusuf Dadoo and Dr. G.M. Naicker - and obtained the support of the African National Congress. In 1952, the ANC and the South African Indian Congress jointly launched the Campaign of Defiance of Unjust Laws and out of it emerged the multiracial "Congress Alliance" and later the "United Democratic Front". The Indian community and its leaders played a key role, far beyond their numbers, in the liberation struggle.
India lent full support to this struggle at great sacrifice, earning the hostility not only of South Africa but of its allies.
Yet no study of the South African struggle or of India's contribution was published in India until the late 1980s, except for a short pamphlet on the defiance campaign in 1952.
With the closing of the Indian High Commission in South Africa in 1954, and especially after the tightening of Indian sanctions against South Africa in 1963, there was an interruption in communications between the two countries.
For two decades, the only Indian publications on South Africa were pamphlets by the government or organisations, which were almost wholly concerned with support for the liberation struggle in South Africa. I have in mind, for instance, the pamphlets of Hari Sharan Chhabra, Anirudha Gupta and Shanti Sadiq Ali for the Indian National Committee for the Observance of the International Anti-Apartheid Year (1978-79), and pamphlets by the African National Congress and the African diplomatic missions.
The authors depended for their sources mainly on publications of the African National Congress, statements of the government of India, and press reports by Western news agencies. No effort was made to obtain documentation from South Africa. The deficiencies in scholarship were made up by strength of feeling.
In 1982, at the request of the United Nations Centre against Apartheid, the Ministry of External Affairs published a collection of speeches and documents under the title India Condemns Apartheid. The Ministry was perhaps still under the influence of the "state of emergency"; it omitted any reference to Mrs. Vijayalakshmi Pandit and V.K. Krishna Menon, the most prominent spokespersons of India on this matter in the United Nations. Authors of other publications, who depended on government purchases or subsidies, presumably had to toe this line for several years.
From the mid-1980s, with the upsurge of the struggle in South Africa and the initiatives of Rajiv Gandhi against apartheid, books on the South African struggle and India's support began to be published in India. Several books written or edited by me were published from 1986, as were books by Hari Sharan Chhabra and T.G. Ramamurthi. The Lok Sabha Secretariat issued a well-edited collection of documents on South Africa and Apartheid in 1987. The government and the Indian Youth Congress published several pamphlets in 1986-87, and a series of worthwhile papers were presented to the Namedia Seminar on "Media and the Struggle against Apartheid" (New Delhi, May 1987).
In the absence of research in South Africa or collaboration with South African scholars, or even the availability of South African studies, none of these books and pamphlets published in India during this whole period dealt with the changes which took place in the status and attitudes of the Indian community in South Africa.
It was during this period that the South African regime proceeded with the forced segregation of racial groups and resorted to ever increasing repression against the anti-apartheid forces. At the same time, it made active efforts to coopt "moderate" Indians into the apartheid structures. It set up an Indian Council and later a "House of Delegates", a segregated Indian Chamber of Parliament.
While the Indian community boycotted the elections to these institutions, and denounced segregation in other fields, it was forced to make use of the only available facilities. The community built schools, religious institutions and other amenities in the segregated Indian areas such as Lenasia in Johannesburg and Laudium in Pretoria. Indian students enrolled in the University of Durban-Westville and other segregated institutions.
Many Indians prospered by utilising the economic and educational opportunities provided under the apartheid regime. But the forced separation from other racial groups, the repression and the cooption of "collaborators" had serious effects on the Indian community, and fissures began to develop along religious and linguistic lines.
Public opinion in India was unaware of these changes and was not prepared for the desecration of the Phoenix Settlement in 1985 or the resurgence of insecurity and fear in the Indian community after 1990.
Transition to Democracy in South Africa
After the unbanning of the ANC in 1990, it became possible for Indians to travel to South Africa and all restrictions on people-to-people contacts were abolished in 1993. Many journalists and writers visited South Africa and some books have appeared - e.g. Hari Sharan Chhabra's South Africa, One Year after Mandela's Release (1991) and New South Africa, Problems of Democratic Transition (1994); S.C. Saxena's Walking the Last Mile (1992); and J.R. Hiremath's Summering in South Africa (1993).
T.G. Ramamurthi was not able to visit South Africa but his Non-violence and Nationalism: A Study of Gandhian Mass Resistance in South Africa (1993) and Apartheid and Indian South Africans (1995) are based on extensive research in Indian archives, as well as American and British libraries which have far more information on Indian South Africans since 1954 than Indian institutions.
Three collections of papers deserve notice: Gandhi and South Africa edited by Shanti Sadiq Ali and India and South Africa, a Fresh Start edited by Ankush B. Savant, both published in 1994, from papers submitted to seminars subsidised by the government; and South Africa, Retrospect and Prospect (1996), edited by Uma Shankar Jha. They are, as may be expected, of uneven quality. The second, in particular, has numerous errors, and some of the contributors reflect a cynicism alien to India's traditional friendship with the people of South Africa. Unless the editors and publishers are much more diligent in rejecting sloppy papers and avoiding factual errors and printing mistakes, the reputation of Indian publications would be disastrous.
Because of the high printing costs in other countries, some South African scholars have arranged to have their books "published" in India. Promilla & Co., of New Delhi, for instance, has published Indentured Indian Emigrants to Natal, 1860-1912 and Essays on Indentured Indians in Natal by Prof. Surendra Bhana of South Africa; Gandhi's Editor: the Letters of M.H. Nazar, 1902-1903 by Bhana and Prof. James Hunt of the United States; and The Indentured Indian in Natal (1860-1917) by Dr. C.G. Henning of South Africa. These books are important scholarly contributions but have not received the attention they deserve in India.
Gaps in Research
As indicated earlier, there are serious gaps in Indian research on South Africa.
Relations between India and South Africa did not begin with Gandhiji's arrival in Natal a century ago or even the arrival of the indentured labourers in 1860. They have a long history.
Researches on slavery in South Africa have shown that ever since the Dutch established a settlement at the Cape in 1652, Indians were taken there and sold into slavery. This trade continued until late in the 18th century. Millions of Afrikaners and Coloured people in South Africa have Indian ancestors. This slave trade deserves study by Indian scholars and is likely to unearth information on the sale of Indians in other parts of the world.
The numerous contacts between the two countries when they were both under British colonial rule have not been looked into by any scholars. The participation of 7,000 Indians in the Anglo-Boer War in South Africa - many of them settled in South Africa - and the reception of almost ten thousand Boer prisoners of war in India are an example. I understand that Mr. Ramamurthi is working on a monograph on India and the Anglo-Boer War.
The creative writing of Indian South Africans is hardly known in India. Nor is the evolution of language, caste and social customs among Indians in South Africa.
But most important is a study of the possibilities for co-operation between the two countries in the future.The two governments have signed agreements for multifaceted co-operation and there are tremendous prospects for co-operation and collaboration not only in trade and investment but in many other fields. Above all, the heritage of the national movements of the two countries enables them jointly to make an immense contribution toward a democratic and progressive international order. The fulfilment of these possibilities requires extensive contribution by scholars and scholarly institutions.
Some Suggestions
I would hope that the government, scholarly institutions and individual scholars would give urgent attention to several matters in order to encourage research to promote closer relations between India and South Africa and joint action at regional and international levels.
They should ensure that Indian publications are distributed in South Africa and South African publications in India. In this connection, I am glad that Professor Vijay Gupta of JNU is producing a bibliography of publications in both countries on Indian-South African relations.
Arrangements should be made for South African scholars to visit all the Indian archives which have documentation on South African history and vice versa.
There should be co-operation between scholarly institutions and scholars in the two countries on research and publication.
The Indian government should provide adequate travel grants for scholars to visit South Africa, negotiate facilities at South African institutions and provide assistance for publication of results of research. Similar programmes by South Africa should be encouraged. The two countries should agree on an exchange of professors and plan conferences of scholars in different fields.
It would seem to me that these matters deserve to be taken up in the India-South Africa Joint Commission in the near future.
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