Books related to Indian history in South Africa

The Story of PR Pather, the grand old man of Indian politics in South Africa by Riashnee Pather My decision to examine the life of PR Pather was for the most part motivated by the fact that he was family - my grandfather's brother, and my interest in him was further stroked by a research project that I did on him for my History 3 class in 1997...read more

Passive Resistance of 1946: Selection of Documents - by E.S. Reddy and F. Meer | Passive Resistance 1946 - A Selection of Documents, is a record of the second resistance movements waged by Indians in the country; the first was waged by Gandhi at the beginning of the century...read more

A documentary history of South African Indians - by Surendra Bhana and Bridglal Pachai | It is common knowledge that Indians came to South Africa in two categories, namely as indentured Indians and as 'free' or 'passenger' Indians. The former came as a result of a triangular pact among three governments...read more

Black student politics - by Saleem Badat | It is generally recognised that mass popular struggles during the 1970s and 1980s played a pivotal role in eroding apartheid and creating the conditions for the transition to democracy in South Africa. However, few works on political resistance...read more

A digest of the Fagan ReportPrepared - by Maurice Webb | The Native Laws Commission under the chairmanship of Mr. Justice H.A. Fagan, was appointed by the Government in August, 1946m with the following terms of reference...read more

The South African Indian Helot or Citizen? - Issued by Indians Overseas Association | Introduction by Hy. S. L. Polak, Hon. Secretary, Indians Overseas Association...read more

From Survival to Defiance 1940-1980: Indian Hawkers in Johannesburg - by Coco Cachalia | Indians came to South Africa is 1860 to work as indentured labourers on the sugar plantations in Natal. They were then amongst the poorest section of the Natal population. ...read more

A.I. Kajee: His work for SAIC - by G. H. Calpin | I first met Abdulla Kajee on the quay at Durban in July 1929, when I stepped off a British India steamer at the end of a long journey. Fresh from the rural life of northern India, South African Indians...read more

South Africa's freedom struggle by E.S. Reddy | Dr. Yusuf Mohamed Dadoo played an outstanding role in the South African liberation movement for over half a century - in persuading the Indian community to link its destiny with that of the African majority, in building the unity...read more

Le Rona Re Batho - by Phyllis Naidoo After the raid into Lesotho on Thursday, 9 December 1982, I started writing about my comrades and the raid generally. When we sought help for our traumatised comrades, we found minimal medical help that would suit politicos....read more

Memoirs of Sita Gandhi - by Uma Dhupelia-Mesthrie | When I was in Std. VIII my father and mother were discussing taking me to India. My heart was heavy with the thought of leaving my friends and my family on the Settlement. ...read more

The Congress of the People and Freedom Charter Campaign - by Ismail Vadi | This is a study of the campaign for the Congress of the People and the Freedom Charter which was initiated by the African National Congress (ANC), the South African Indian Congress (SAIC), the South African Coloured People's Organisation (SACPO)...read more

History of Muslims in South Africa: A Chronology - by Ebrahim Mahomed Mahida | This book, History of Muslims in South Africa: A Chronology, probably the first of its kind to be published, covers almost the entire history of Muslims in South Africa - from 1652 onwards - since the time of their arrival at the Cape of Good Hope and their struggle...read more

Young, Gifted and Black - by Carmel T. M. Chetty | Oral Histories of Young Activists in Cape Town and Durban in the early 1970s...read more

Shadhan Naidoo, 1961-1989Today at about 9.30pm, a month ago, my son Shadhan and Moss Mthunzi were shot by TEX, a co-worker, and self-confessed agent, in the process of being rehabilitated, obviously far from complete...read more

South Africa Defies United Nations, what next? - by Sorabjee Rustomjee, Ashwin Choudree and A.I. Meer | At the 1946 sessions of the United Nations Assembly, the Government of India submitted a complaint regarding the treatment of Indians settled in the Union of South Africa...read more

Indian Life and Labour in Natal - by Prof. Raymond Burrows | Sugar-producing colonies in the early years of the last century were temporarily hit by the aboliyion of slavery. Several attempts were made to introduce alternative labour...read more

Indian South Africans by Frene Ginwala | South Africans of Indian origin who first came to Natal in 1860 from the largest and oldest group of Indian settlers in Africa and the largest outside Asia. They differ in their composition...read more

Indian people in Natal by Hilda Kuper (source: http://scnc.ukzn.ac.za) In Durban, the population consists of roughly equal numbers of Europeans (Whites, Africans (natives of Africa) and Asians (Mainly Indians), and a much smaller group of Coloureds...read more

The Indentured Indian In Natal 1860-1917 - by C. G Henning | A selection of pages from the book, including documents, letters articles, etc...read more

The History of the Indians in Natal - by Mabel Palmer (source: http://scnc.ukzn.ac.za) The Indian problem in Natal is in one sense a small matter; it concerns about a quarter of a million persons set in a large and under-populated country...read more

Growing up in a divided society by Sandra Burman and Pamela Reynolds The context of childhood in South Africa: page 93-113  page 122-123 page 184-207 page 208-225 page 226-247 page 248-261

Theses related to Indian history in South Africa

Wash Me Black Again’: African Nationalism, the Indian Diaspora, and Kwa-Zulu Natal, 1944-1960  - by Jon Soske | A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of History University of Toronto]My dissertation combines a critical history of the Indian diaspora's political and intellectual impact on the development of African nationalism in South Africa with an analysis of African/Indian racial dynamics in Natal...read more

Afrindian Fictions: Diaspora, Race, and National Desire in South Africa - by Pallavi Rastogi | In January 2003, the Indian government sponsored a convention of expatriates from the Indian diaspora. Sixty-three countries were represented.Participants included heads of state from Mauritius and Fiji, Nobel laureates V. S. Naipaul and Amartya Sen, as well as diasporics of Indian origin from Malaysia, the United Kingdom, the United States, the Caribbean, and South Africa...read more

A preliminary study of the first decade of The Leader with particular reference to it's stance on the passive resistance campaign of 1946 - by Prashanta Maharaj | In November 1991 The Leader newspaper celebrated its 50th anniversary. This was no small feat for a newspaper that was launched singled handedly...read more

The Development of Indian Political Movements in South Africa, 1924-1946 - by Essop Pahad | After 1652 when the colonisation and subjugation of the indigenous population began, and later with the emergence of the coloured population and the introduction of indentured Indian labourers, South Africa assumed the characteristics of a complex multi-racial society. That is not to say that South Africa had no history before the white man arrived. This falsification and distortion is effectively destroyed by Monica Wilson and Leonard Thompson, who are critical of those historians who assume that South African history began with the discovery of the Cape by the Portuguese, or more commonly with the arrival of the Dutch colonials in 1652...read more

Education Feature - from Frene Ginwala's Thesis | Originally no provision was made for the education of Indians. The Reverend Stott of the Wesleyan Mission established a school for Indian labourers in 1868 and four years later advised the Coolie Commission that he knew ?of nothing more likely to keep Coolies on estates and satisfied than the establishment of schools?...read more

The Leader - by Prashanta Maharaj | A preliminary study of the first decade of The Leader with particular reference to it's stance on the Passive Resistance Campaign of 1946...read more

National Liberation, Non-Racialism and ?Indianness? the 1947 visit of Dadoo and Naicker to India - by Goolam Vahed and Ashwin Desai | This paper focuses on a trip that the leaders of the Transvaal Indian Congress (TIC) and the Natal Indian Congress (NIC), Yusuf Dadoo and Monty Naicker, made to India from March to May 1947. The trip is used as a lens through which to attempt to understand the relationship between the South African Indian Congresses and the Indian National Congress (INC), and the local issues that Dadoo was grappling with - Indo-African relations (race), national liberation (nationalism), and place of the Communist Party (class) in the struggle against white minority rule...read more

Articles related to Indian history in South Africa

150th Anniversary; Anxieties of Commemoration ? Towards a National Dialogue - by Omar Badsha and Jon Soske | During the latter half of 2010, a series of events commemorating the 150th Anniversary of the first Indian indentured laborers in Natal will take place across South Africa. The preparations have already inspired wide-spread debate; individuals from a variety of communities and political perspectives have raised similar questions: to what extent does celebrating ?Indian contributions? to South African history falsely isolate...read more

  The Coolies Here - from the Natal Mercury, Thursday, November 22, 1860 | The past week will long be memorable amongst Anglo Natalians. At last, after the discussion of years and the extinction of hopes innumerable, the planters' pet project has been realised . There has been so much said in certain quarters against the immigration of Coolies, as a piece of national policy, and so many difficulties have arisen during the negotiations which have preceded the final settlement...read more

Language Shift, Cultural Change and Identity Retention: Indian South Africans in the 1960s and Beyond - by Rajend Mesthrie | Language shift is not a new phenomenon in South Africa: the most significant shifts in the last few centuries have been from Khoe-San languages and Malay to Afrikaans in the Western Cape?s Coloured communities and from Indian languages to English among the KwaZulu-Natal Indian communities. This article will focus on the latter, documenting the fate of Indian languages over their 147-year history...read more

125 years - the arrival of indians in South Africa - by Joy B. Brian | November 1985 marks the one hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary of the arrival of the first indentured Indians, an event that was to have far-reaching results for the Colony of Natal...read more

The Gandhi You May not Know - by Rajmohan Gandhi | In 1942, shortly before Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi launched the Quit India Movement, I was present in Sevagram as a six-and-a-half-year-old child. My memories also include a visit with my parents and siblings to the Aga Khan Detention Centre in Pune where Gandhi was detained along with my dying grandmother, Ba...read more

Participation or Boycott | The Government's decision to have elections for the South African Indian Congress in November this year has set before the Indian community the problem (which has dogged Black politics for years) of boycott have argued that...read more

My case against SAIC participation | If the future of South Africa is to be determined by the majority people of this country then the time has come for the Black people to begin to think and act correctly. it is encumbent upon the intellectual and radical...read more

Segregation and the emergence of a left-wing grouping within the Transvaal and Natal Indian Congress | This initial concept of seperate residential areas for Europeans and Coloured, including Indian, residents of South Africa became apparent in the experimental planning of a servitude scheme in February 1939...read more

The Indian War Memorial: National Memory and Selective Forgetting - by Eric Itzkin | Forgotten men of the Indian Army left their imprint in Observatory, Johannesburg, during the early 1900s. Although their story has been largely forgotten and lost to public memory, a monument at the summit of Observatory Ridge1 honours their memory....read more

Bamboo Square - Documentary Narrative of the 'Indian and Native Cantonment' at the Point, 1873 to 1903 - by Brian Kearney | The urban poor and their condition has not been a specially popular theme in local history. This is surprising given that they were in so many ways the direct result of other significant events...read more

Labouring under the Law: Exploring the Agency of Indian Women under Indenture in Colonial Natal, 1860 ? 1911 - by Nafisa Essop Sheik | This paper is intended as the beginnings of an introduction to a Master?s thesis that will look at discourses around Indian women and gender under indenture in Colonial Natal from 1860 to 1911. I attempt to highlight what I consider to be the main aspects of my arguments about Indian immigrant women who came to Natal under the indentured labour system...read more

Street market - by Goolam vahed | Prior to 1890 Indian market gardeners had difficulty selling their produce because of the problems that they encountered at the fresh produce market held by the Durban Town Council (DTC). These included the high fee ...read more

Is there an Indian Question in Post-Apartheid South Africa? - by Rehana Ebr.Vally | The Indian vote and its underlying Indian question was at the centre of the debate during the 1999 South African general elections campaign...read more

The Role of Indian Women in the Passive Resistance Campaign 1946-1948 - by Kalpana Hiralal | The Passive Resistance movement of 1946-48 is well documented. yet, in the vast corpus of historical literature the role of women as a viablepolitical constituency has not been fully examined...read more

The Indian War Memorial: National Memory and Selective Forgetting - by Eric Itzkin | Forgotten men of the Indian Army left their imprint in Observatory, Johannesburg, during the early 1900s. Although their story has been largely forgotten and lost to public memory, a monument at the summit of Observatory Ridge1 honours their memory...read more

The Place of India in South African History: Academic Scholarship, Past, Present and Future - by Uma Dhupelia-Mesthrie | In 1971 Robert E. Gregory wrote a book titled India and East Africa deftly covering some 555 pages even though his narrative took him only up to 1939. Though the title of my survey is as far-reaching as his, I do not have the luxury of Gregory's space so I shall not even attempt a Gregory...read more

A short history of Indian education - by C. Kuppusami | At the behest of the then Natal Government, Indians were brought to this country in 1860 to help develop the newly-established sugar industry...read more

India and South Africa - A Collection of Papers - by E.S. Reddy | The contribution made by Indians to the struggle against apartheid does not only derive from historic links that go back to the second half of the nineteenth century when the first Indian indentured labourers arrived in Natal. These papers by E.S. Reddy demonstrate that India's role must be located within a broader international movement of struggle against racial discrimination and the apartheid policies of successive South African governments. Furthermore, it was deeply rooted in India's own struggle for freedom from British rule...read more

Premier Ndebele pays tribute to 148 years since the arrival of Indians in South Africa - 16 November 2008

I Remember - by I. C. MEER | Reminiscences of the Struggle for Liberation and the Role of Indian South Africans, 1924-1958...read more

A historical overview of madressa education - by A. Akhalwaya, I. Waja, A.H. Gabru, A.K. Dockrat, S. Pandor and E. Garda. | Madressa education does not exist in isolation but is part of the practice of the religion and grew and spread with the religion. Its primary objective has been to transmit knowledge of religious requirements...read more

Associations in 'Indian' Schools in the Transvaal - Case Studies to consider the role of Teacher Associations in the maintenance of, and resistance against, authority - by Y. I. Eshak (1982) ...read more

Class, Consciousness and Organisation: Indian Political Resistance in Durban, South Africa, 1979 - 1996 - by Kumi Naidoo | Resistance to the apartheid system, led by the African National Congress (ANC) and its allies dominated South Africa's political landscape in the 1980s. This study deals with political resistance amongst South Africans of Indian descent in the city of Durban...read more

Commemorating the centenary of phoenix settlement 1904 - 2004 | The Gandhi Development Trust recognises on this important occasion of the centenary of Phoenix Settlement, the outstanding contribution, dedication and devoted service rendered by the following individuals to the building of an egalitarian society based on the principles of non-violence...read more

Indian Passive Resistance in South Africa, 1946-1948 - by E.S. Reddy | [On June 13, 1996, President Nelson Mandela inaugurated a year-long observance of the 1946 Indian passive resistance in South Africa. Speaking at the University of Natal in Durban, he described the campaign as "an epic of our struggle for liberation" and paid tribute to Dr. G.M. Naicker, Dr. Yusuf Dadoo and other leaders of resistance...read more

The first martyrs of Satyagraha - by E. S. Reddy | Gandhiji often stressed that satyagraha is not mere jail-going. He warned, during the first satyagraha in South Africa, as early as 1909: "A satyagrahi must be afraid neither of imprisonment nor of deportation. He must neither mind being reduced to poverty, nor be frightened, if it comes to that, of being mashed into pulp with a mortar and pestle."...read more

Gandhiji and the struggle for liberation in South Africa - source: anc.org.za | As important as the fortieth anniversary of the assassination of Gandhiji which is observed on January 30, 1988, is the eightieth anniversary of his first imprisonment in South Africa in January 1908, which was a turning point in his life. Gandhiji always considered himself an Indian and a South African...read more

Some remarkable European women who helped Gandhiji in South Africa - source: anc.org.za | Gandhiji led a seven-year long struggle in South Africa from 1907 to 1914 for the security and dignity of the Indian settlers in that country who were subjected to humiliations by the white rulers. In his account of that struggle, Satyagraha in South Africa, he makes special mention of three European women who "never missed an opportunity of doing a good turn to the Indians" - Emily Hobhouse, Olive Schreiner and Elizabeth Molteno....read more

Report of the Joint Planning Council of the ANC and the South African Indian Congress, November 8, 1951 | To the President-General and members of the Executive Committee of the African National Congress and the President and Councillors of the South African Indian Congress:...read more

African and Indian in Durban - by Fatima Meer | The following article was written just before the Emergency, having been commissioned by the Editor to commemorate one hundred years of Indian settlement in South Africa. The large number of Indians detained under the Emergency underlines many of the main conclusions in the study, reflecting the growth in joint Afro-Indian resistance to the doctrine and practice of white supremacy. Mrs. Meer is a sociologist attached to the University of Natal. Her husband, a prominent Indian lawyer and Congress official, is at present in indeterminate detention under the Emergency Regulations...read more

Nana Sita: Last of the Gandhians in South African | Nanabhai, as he was affectionately known, came into prominence during the Indian passive resistance movement of 1946-48 and helped build the alliance with the African majority. He continued non-violent defiance of apartheid until his death in 1969, long after most militants of the liberation movement had become convinced that underground and armed resistance to apartheid had become imperative....read more

"Opening Address" at Annual Conference of the South African Indian Congress - by Dr. S. M. Molema, January 25, 1952 | I am deeply conscious of the signal honour it is to be asked to open this 20th conference of the South African Indian Congress, and I wish to thank you for the gesture. The Congress meets today at the zero hour of our national life as the black and despised inhabitants of this subcontinen...read more

Indian South Africans In The Struggle For National Liberation The evidence of Molvi I. A. Cachalia during the South African treason trial in 1960 constitutes a valuable source for the study of the struggle of the small Indian community in South Africa for its elementary rights, and its contribution to the national liberation movement in the country. But it has rarely been used by scholars and students as the record of the trial is not easily accessible and contains numerous errors of transcription and much irrelevance in cross-examination by the prosecutor....read more

Journal of Natal and Zulu history,Volume XIThe Journal consists of six articles by David Lincoln, Gordon Pirie, Baruch Hirson, Julian Cobbing, Dave Evarett and Shula Marks

• An Ascendant Sugarocracy: Natal's Millers-cum-Planters, 1905-1939by David Lincoln
• Racially Segregated Transport in Durban: The Formative Years, 1905-1927by Gordon Pirie
• Trade Union Organizer in Durban: M B Yengwa, 1943-1944 by Baruch Hirson
• A Tainted Well, The Objectives, Historical Fantasies and Working Methods of James Stuart, with Counter Argument by Julian Cobbing

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