PART IV

Chairman of the Inquiry: "If the Natives were incensed by bus drivers and traders, why did they pick on waiters, laundry and others of sort".

African witness who participated in the riots:

"If word goes round that certain nation is being attacked, one does not discriminate".

In our attempt at presenting a portrait of the rioters we must examine their 'motives'

- a task which will involve us in a attempt at description of the popular attitudes and opinions of Durban's African. To facilitate our analysis I have grouped the 'motives' round roughly three headings:

(a) Indian and Africans tended to interact with each other in situations where roles were defined in competitive or conflict-laden terms.

A process which seemed to give daily confirmation of the African stereotype of 'the Indian' in hostile terms. This interaction took place in four main areas; firstly most the shopkeepers in the black were Indians and during the riots the Indian shops were focal point of attack, while African stores were left untouched. Much was made of the fact that Indians were believed to be overcharging. Palmer, for instance, wrote "Prices WERE and rising and the Africans found that the Indian storekeepers with whom they dealt were demanding greatly increased prices for the flour, mealie meal, sugar, condensed milk, etc. so important in their diet" 36. Of course, as with all marginal trading groups in search of profit, 'over-charging' takes place, especially when there is a commodity shortage. 1948, 64 Europeans, 162 Indians, 21 and 3 Chinese were convicted under the Price Control Regulations Act. While the attacks on Indian shops were obviously 'anti-attacks their response was more complicated than a simple explanation would indicate. In the first instance, as the Economics Department at Natal University concluded in a Survey, "The Native usually patronises the Indian in preference to the European store. In the former he feels at home and he also finds the goods often lower in quality and price. He can also indulge more readily in bargaining" 37. Furthermore accusations of exploitation have to be seen against the background rising cost of living and relatively static wages.

The second area of interaction between Indians and Africans was at bus stops and on buses. Next to Indian shops, Indian buses were the focal point of attack during the riots Owing to Municipal neglect, Indians were well established in Black areas in Durban at the time of the riots - 58% of all the buses in Durban catering for 86% of Black transport. During the riots extensive damage was done to buses and many were totally destroyed. Buses became a target - as they had in the boycott on the Rand in 1944 - for the frustration of the urban African; the buses overcrowded, there were no bus-shelters and they seemed to have to spend an inordinate length of time in them as most of them lived far out of town. In its annual report, the Durban Local Transport Board described the main non-white terminus as follows: "The main European bus rank in Durban is situated in Victoria Street. Thousands of Indians and Native passengers congregate there daily to board buses; 274 buses operate to and from the rank on an uneven patch of ground where there are no facilities for passengers such as shelters 38. Is it surprising that the riots had their beginning near this rank at its busiest- time on a hot afternoon? The Commission reported "There is a widespread feeling among Natives that they are being badly treated in the Indian owned buses; that Indian passengers are given preference in regard to seats; that Native passengers are robbed by conductors who withhold their change; that Natives are bundled or thrown out of moving buses when they dare complain; that Natives are frequently assaulted by Indian officials on the buses".

The third area of interaction between Indians Africans was landlord-tenant role at the locations where much of the land on which the shacks had been built was Indian owned and Indians were perceived as exploiting landlords. In the Native Housing Survey in 1950 it was reported that about half of Durban's Native population were illegally housed in shack slums on Indian-owned ground. Nearly one quarter lived in the Booth Road area of Cato Manor - 10,500 Africans living in 2,660 rooms 39.

Again the existence of these slums is the result of municipal neglect, and, given the fact that there was a demand for land and shacks which happened to be Indian owned because they were there first and were permitted to own land, it is not surprising that some Indians found it more profitable to become 'shack farmers rather than banana farmers'. And, of course, the conditions were appalling as the Natal Housing Board found in a Survey conducted in 1947 when it reported that some 8,000 families lived as sub-tennants or in temporary shacks, of which 4,820 should be condemned 40. The Indian who owned the land and lived in a relatively comfortable end of the property was the obvious scapegoat when frustrations were allowed to come to the surface that weekend. However, it made clear here that the major conflict over residential land was between Indians and Whites as Whites were trying to restrict the purchase of land by Indians. (see Part V).

Fourthly, Indians and Africans interacted and competed for jobs in their work situations. During the 1930s and 1940s there had been a rapid drift of Africans and secondary industry in Durban and it was in the manufacturing industries where the main and significant arena of competition between the different racial group?

The main area of African employment was unskilled manual labour where it was believed they were better suited because of greater strength and stamina for heavy work.

The following table gives a few examples of industries in which African labour predominated:

Percentage of Total Employees

Because Indians tended to be more 'westernized' developed better skills due to continuous wage employment in industry, they tended to dominate in the skilled and supervisory jobs - a further factor that could confirm hostile stereotypes. What seemed to be happening that with the development of opportunities in the better paid semi-skilled and the growing competition from Africans in the field of unskilled labour, the- occupations a shift of Indian employment away from heavy unskilled labour toward skilled and supervisory jobs. In a sense there was preferential treatment given to the Indian as a 'colonial stereotype' often operated whereby it was automatically assumed that the African was only capable of manual work and that the African was better at clerical or the supervisory jobs. This would create resentment among the African workers who saw an Indian being arbitarily given the better job even when Africans may have been working at the manual job for years. One African witness expressed this preferential treatment in these terms:

"I am employed by a certain concern. Then an Indian comes along and does the same work; but it does not take long before a foreman over me at a greater course, there may have been good reasons for the Indian being promoted but it is assumed that the Indian was preferred because he was an Indian.

(b) Indians were envied because it was popularly believed that they receive treatment

Indians received preferential statutory treatment in four areas: they could own although this privilege had been severely restricted since 1943 and more comprehensively since 1946. African land ownership was, except for a few exempted areas the Reserves in terms of the 1913 Land Act. They were able to purchase 'European liquor', while Africans were restricted purchase of "kaffir beer' or the clandestine consumption of liquor in shebeens. Indians were thus exempted from the liquor created such bitter resentment among Africans - it was, it may be recalled, the liquor raids, that precipitated the killing of nine policemen in 1959 in Cator Manor. Thirdly, Indian were exempted from the pass laws as the Urban Areas Act applied to Africans only. Resentment against the pass laws is deep-seated, as numerous examples of African protest would demonstrate. Moreover the monthly registration of African workers was further discrimination against group of workers.

Finally the Industrial Conciliation Act favours the Indian worker by allowing him trade unions while debarring the African from doing so, Hence industrial legislation places the Indian on a little better footing than the African. This piece of discriminating legislation becomes more irksome as more Africans become permanent industrial workers.

Since the late 1930's unionization of Indians had proceeded rapidly and by 1949 this constituted 30% of trade union members in Natal. In three of the registered unions (Garment Worker Furniture, Liquor and Catering) Indians constituted a least 80% of the members. Although Africans constituted almost as high a proportion of trade union membership their unions could not be registered and they were unable to benefit from formal collective bargaining. (I've moved too quickly over this important area as I am at present investigating unions in this period in Durban and my evidence is still incomplete).

Indians were also believed to receive preferential treatment in the issue of trading and transport licences. The Commission argued that the emerging African trading class felt that their advancement was blocked by Indians because whenever they applied for a licence the application would be opposed by an Indian. Clearly those Indians who were already established would be keen to protect their position from competition and when an African applied for a trading licence nearby, the Indian storekeeper would oppose it - the African being invariably new at trade would often be operating from "unhygienic" premises, a technical legal objection, and his application would be refused. In the words of the Commission: "When the Indian storekeeper - usually through council - very naturally, raises objections on this ground (that the shop is unhygienic) to the acquisition of trading rights by his potential competitor, the Native regards this as further evidence of the Indian's callidity and obstructive tactics". In the case of transport licences the Motor Carrier Transportation Act tended to operate in favour of those who were already established in business as the law lays down that no new licence may be granted if transportation facilities are already in existence in the area.

The law was designed to protect the state-owned railways from competition from private owned buses and it was quickly amended after the riots to allow licences to be removed if it was in the 'public interest'. To quote from the Commission "when a Native applicant desires to make an inroad into an area which is already served by an Indian service.... The Indian protects the rights vested in him by Statute by protesting to the Board concerned against the issue of a certificate to the Native applicant. The Native does not understand the policy of the law. All that he understands is that he is obstructed by the Indian, and his blood pressure goes up. His impression is that the Boards - or the Government gives the Indian preferential treatment, and that the Indian secures this by bribery and corruption".

The explanation of why Indians were well established in Durban as traders is largely and cultural one. Many of the wealthier Indians in Durban were the descendants of the Passenger Indians who arrived with capital and played the role of a kind of secondary colonized, pioneering trading activities in Black areas at time when most Africans were still subsistence farmers. However, most Indians had come to South Africa as indenture labourers in conditions not far removed from higher paid employment when their contracts expired. Having no land in the Reserves they were forced to adapt permanently to the competitive life of the city or to enter small commercial farming as market gardeners. Thus an explanation of the structurally superior position of many Indians must be analysed over time if the deferential response to urbanization is to be understood.

One contentious 'explanatory' point suggested by the Commission was that the political activities of NIC and particularly the Defiance Campaign of 1946-48 had 'set a bad example' to the African in Durban.

But the implication that the Campaign was a contributing cause to the riot because it set 'bad example" seems unlikely. However, it was true that Indians were in a special position as they had access to the Indian Government through representative in South Africa. This was a period of great enthusiasm and political optimism as the treatment of Indian in South Africa had been raised at the first Assembly of the newly formed United Nations. The treatment of Indians had become a matter of both national and international debate and although South African whites had responded to the Indian trade boycott of South Africa by reviving the boycotts of Indian stores in platteland of the Transvaal and parts of the Cape the Indian people became more confident that their grievances would be alleviated. At the same time as the U.N. Assembly annually debated the question of Indian South Africans, the struggle for Indian independence was reaching a climax.

Finally, the Commissioners made much of the alleged resentment by Africans of miscegenation between Indian men and African women. The Commission recorded the resentment in these words:"the Indians have motor-cars and money; we, on the other hand, are poor. With his blandishments, motor rides and offers of finery and money, the Indian seduces our women, who give birth to Indian children. The seducer usually denies paternity and the duty of maintaining the duped girl as well as the bastard fall upon her family" It is extremely difficult to speak about inter-racial sex as the subject is surrounded with fantasies and there are no statistics of Indo-African children. Impressionistic accounts record that liaisons did that marriage was rare, so that the offspring would certainly create a "social problem especially in such a race conscious society. Of course the objective facts are less important when looking at motives than the subjective perception - and clearly some witnesses appeared to feel very strongly about a situation where they felt Indian men were taking of their "privileged position". (41) How representative of African feeling these were, or indeed, why they chose to give evidence to the Inquiry at all, is not yet clear to me.

(c) A belief was widespread at the time of the riots that because of the Indian vulnerable position and the openly hostile attitude taken by Europeans to Indians, that the Indians could be attacked with impunity they had, in effect, become licenced scapegoats.

Brookes said: "I honestly believe the impression has been created among the Natives that the government would be glad to have the Indians driven away, and that they would not interfered with if they attacked them. ... I am sure that this impression was prevalent amongst the Natives, and that many of them were surprised when they discovered that the police and the troops meant business". Government speeches and actions created the framework for the Indian to be perceived as a licensed scapegoat. Campaigning for the general election of 1948, Dr. Malan, soon to become Prime Minister, stated that "The party holds the view that Indians are a foreign and outlandish element which is unassimable. They can never become part of the country and must, therefore, be treated as an immigrant community. The party accepts as an basis of its policy the repatriation of as many Indians as possible and proposes a proper investigation into practicality of such a policy on a larger scale in co-operation with India and other countries".42

Official speeches are not, of course, read by the participants in the riots, but official attitudes filter through into popular consciousness and set the limits within which men feel permitted to act, Lowen described it as follows: Statements made during the recent campaigning for elections to the Senate had created the strained relations. The withdrawal of family allowances and pensions of Indians and the pensions of Indians and the continued and deliberate stigmatising of Indians by such allegations that they were an undesirable element and that they should be repatriated had created conditions which led to the attack. The boycott movement against the Indians in the Transvaal had only one intention-to breed hatred against the Indians.

Speeches by Government Ministers such as Schoemann, Swart, Jansen and Malan propagated hatred against the Indians by the Europeans and the Native and greatly enhanced the likelihood of such an explosion" 43.

The United Party M.P. Stuart put it equally bluntly:

"When you spend the whole of the last year talking about going to deport all the Indians, and how the Indian is going to be eliminated, how he is going to be wiped out... the impression must necessary arise among the less educated that as the Indian is going wiped out it is a pleasure to help wherever the opportunity occurs. That is the first fruits of loose talking on race relations".

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