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There is a significant overlap in the grounds covered by the two books under review as they both study the historic transoceanic connections between India and South Africa during the British Raj through, inter alia, migration of Indians—both indentured labourers and free passengers— to South Africa. The first segment of both the volumes traces the archetypal and tumultuous colonial historiographies of indentured labour from India and covers a vast array of themes related to movements across the Western Indian Ocean; of Goans, British, African and Asian seamen (lascars) in the steam age, the linkages between port cities along the routes and issues of identity.
In addition to focusing on the links across the Indian Ocean, Hofmeyer and Williams also put emphasis on the fault lines therein and the intertwined relationship of the “empire and Diaspora” (2011: 10). The co-editors also dwell on the overall cumulative cultural transnationalism and issues of identity of the Indian Diaspora in South Africa (Pamela Gupta in Chapter 4 and Jonathan Hyslop in Chapter 2 of Hofmeyer and Williams’ book). The most notable aspect of the two volumes is that the contributors shift from the “one way problem” that characterized older historiography on the subject and therefore did not offer an explanation on the impact of migration in the sending context that is in India.
These volumes make a significant contribution in rectifying the above stated shortcoming by highlighting how the
indentured Diaspora “feeds back into the debates in Indian nationalism” and that their ill-treatment in South Africa is understood as a “transgression of the nation” (Hofmeyer and Williams: 5). Several scholars in Hofmeyer and Williams, position their work within the broader framework of transnationalism, exchanges and lateral linkages in the early Indian Ocean world (Section 1). They underscore the “cosmopolitanism of the older Disaporic networks that offers a counterpoint to the modern day nation–state system” (pp 8–9). Further, Hofmeyer’s viewpoint (Chapter 1) that M K Gandhi, a pravasi who spent a good 21 years of his life (1893–1914) in colonial South Africa, has been the intersecting point between India and South Africa through his printing press and readership is noteworthy. The anthologies under review complement each other and fi ll in a gap on the historiography of India and South Africa.
A Two-Way Relation
The second part of the both the compilations offer comparative insights on sociopolitical evaluations and contradictions in contemporary South Africa and India. The articles in this segment deal with aspects such as, contestations around and lacunae in democratic transitions, social systems, educational framework and the policies for urban renewal in India and South Africa and the perceptible absence of a pro-poor developmental agenda. A noteworthy observation made by the contributors is the shrinking space for civil society and people’s movements in the two countries under study.
Debates on the above identified issues are positioned within the neo-liberal agendas pursued by India and South Africa. Contributors have also offered viewpoints on the dissimilarities in the constitutional patterns in the two countries.
Further, the penultimate part of Patel and Uys’s book has articles on the foreign policy and bilateral relations between India and South Africa that underscore their role in furthering the agenda of Southern multilateralism. Both the compendiums are outcomes of research initiatives that have originated at the Centre for Indian Studies in Africa (CISA), University of Witwatersrand, South Africa.
The first segments of “Contemporary India and South Africa” (2012) and “South Africa and India” (2011) are entitled, “Migration, Indenture and Identities: Being Indian in South Africa” and “Historical Connections,” respectively. Chapters in this part are set against the historical backdrop of the outmigration of indentured labourers from India, from the 1860s until 1911, and their experiences in the British-owned sugar plantations in the province of KwaZulu–Natal, South Africa. Scholars in “Contemporary India and South Africa” offer narratives about this subaltern constituency.
They offer poignant reconstructions of their life stories, including women’s lived experiences and their struggles against multiple oppressions such as sexual violence and insights into individual acts of resistance against indenture by these oppressed women (Desai and Vahed (Chapter 2), Mariam Seedat–Khan (Chapter 3), V Geetha (Chapter 4) in Patel and Uys 2012).
Through references to the discrimination meted out to labourers from Tamil Nadu Geetha foregrounds the “South African question” that was a subject and a part of the nationalist project in India more so after Gandhi’s entry into South African political life (2012: 49). Further, she refers to Pandit Iyothee Thass’ writing and states that returnees “…came back with money and bought (themselves) a small house or a piece of land, a situation far better than (that of) a half starving coolie in India” (2012: 54).
An important contribution of the volumes is that they offer a “two way” understanding of the history of indenture as evinced by their focus on the social landscape in the sending context of India as well. The reciprocal link between India and South Africa are flagged in Goolam Vahed’s article (Chapter 5: 2011).
It details the continued influence of Gandhi’s novel philosophy of social change through truth and nonviolence (Satya graha) and its legacies in the Natal Indian politics where Monty Naicker (a South African political activist) drew upon Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru for “propagating non-violent forms of resistance and feeding ideas between India and African nationalist thinking” (2011: 11).
Stark Binaries
Alongside, Hofmeyer and Williams also showcase the uneasy historiography between South Africa and India that suggests a “stark binary.” On the one hand narratives are related to solidarity in the anti-apartheid struggle and the non-aligned movement and on the other,
Africa is viewed in India as a “dark continent” that “ranks India’s civilization above that of Africa” (2011: 4). Hofmeyer (see Chapter 1) also notes the pejorative comments made by Gandhi on Africans in her chapter entitled “Gandhi’s Printing Press: Indian Ocean Print Cultures and Cosmopolitanism.” It draws attention on the cosmopolitanism of the Indian Ocean through Gandhi’s printing press and textual migrations across the seas and how it played out in South Africa.
The author presents divergent facets of Gandhi; one, the universally acknowledged version of Gandhi that understands him as an apostle of the ideals of non-violence and Satyagraha and second, of Gandhi as the acculturated Englishman of moderate stance in politics who made ambiguous appeals to the Empire that were neither pro- nor anti-empire and his mental erasure of the Africans.
Like the Zulu women erased from Gandhi’s account of the press, however, Africans were never to be numbered among the fraternity of Gandhi’s cosmopolitanism (2011: 37).
In particular Gandhi’s assumptions about African society and women seemed to have arisen from his own positioning, of the Indian as superior to the South African Blacks. There are thus layered readings and interpretations of Gandhi’s ideologies in the chapters that continues to spark several debates and offers unsettling accounts of him to the reader (see also Crain Soudien, Chapter 6, 2011: 126–49).
Other chapters in the fi rst part of “Contemporary India and South Africa” take a counter position to the general understanding of the concept of “Diaspora” by highlighting the controversies, dissensions and a lack of homogeneity among the Indian community there. By reaffirming that the links between the South African Indians with their homeland is merely culturally symbolic, the contributors interrogate the diasporic quotient or the “Indianness” of the South African Indians (RehanaVally, Brij Maharaj and Lubna Nadvi 2012).
Brij Maharaj and Nadvi also throw light on the rise of a new minority elite who have benefited from the neo- liberal agenda in post-apartheid South Africa.
The authors highlight the lack of adherence to the Gandhian principles of social justice and equity, that is manifested, for instance, in the contestations around attempts to displace informal traders at the early morning market, that comprise descendants of indentured workers, and utilise the vacated space for building malls Chapters 6 and 7: 2012). The promotion of the capitalist as well as the neo-liberal agenda in South Africa has obvious parallels in India and is highlighted in the latter part of both the volumes.
Democracy and Development
The second segment of both the books focuses on the emerging contemporary viewpoints on India and South Africa from a comparative perspective. Currently, the spotlight is on the economic synergies and alliances between the two partners from the global South. Trade and investments between the two ascendant powers, their rising bilateral and trilateral linkages through the India–Brazil– South Africa (IBSA) forum of 2003 are initiatives to further Southern multilateralism and bolster their growing relationship (2011: 2; 2011: 274–75).
While the two countries are rising in the international comity of nations, scholars have conveyed their concerns about the mounting political, economic and social tensions, income and social inequities, corruption, bureaucratic authoritarianism, violence against women in both.
Taking a cue from Gandhi’s principle of equality, Patrick Heller critiques the vicissitudes of electoral democracy and fault lines therein in his article entitled, “Democratic Deepening in India and South Africa,” wherein he refers to deep-seated inequalities of not only income and property, but cultural and social capital that permeate social practices and govern social interactions (2011: 159).
A key point that emerges in the two anthologies is the subject of social and economic stratification that somehow seems inevitable while discussing state/ civil politics. Padma Velaskar, Anita Rampal and Derek van der Merwe (2012) and Patrick Heller (2011) offer a critical analysis of the educational systems in India and South Africa that skewed in favour of the elites. However, Heller’s argument (2011: 160) that power politics is only ascribed to elite groups is not entirely valid. This can be illustrated for instance with case studies from India where over the past decades the country has seen people from very modest backgrounds (and at times with little or no formal education) carve a space for themselves in mainstream politics and emerge as leaders, as exemplified by the overwhelming victory of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the May 2014 general elections.
The centrality of the issue of social inequity, the urban question, participatory local democracy, space for civic movements and arguments around these issues are acknowledged by scholars such Kalpana Sharma, Claire Bénit-Gbaffou and Stéphanie Tawa Lama Rewal (Chapter 15, 2012: 232; Chapter 8 in 2011). Sharma makes a strong statement about the top–down approach of policy planners in India and the lack of a participatory pro-poor urban policy to deal with the shortage of low cost urban housing in India (2012: 232), while Gbaffou and Rewal offer nuanced insights into struggles at the local level in cities in the two countries under study. They rightly suggest the need for increased decentralisation and representative local governments that allow people’s participation and thus address inequities from the past and from institutional structures of the state and thus bring about social transformation and “democratic egalitarianism” (2011: 183). This subsection would have benefited greatly from a critical assessment of the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), the South African government’s socio-economic plan launched in 1994, to enable comparable insights between urban policymaking in South Africa and India.
Carrying forward the argument on the need for an empowered civil society, Mahesh Rangarajan expresses reservations about India’s development model that “exacerbates conflicts between rival uses for the land and waterscapes” (2012: 242). The author cites a case of collective empowerment of tribals from the Niyamgiri Hills in Odisha where the gram sabha drew upon the Forest Act of 2006, and thus enabled the local populace to successfully stall the exploitative agenda of multinational bauxite mining companies in their area of habitat. It might be of interest for the reader to know if there are similar success stories of people’s struggles in South Africa despite the narrow space available for civil society movements in the country.
Conclusions
The publication of both volumes commemorates the historic year 1860 and the completion of 150 years of the Indian presence in South Africa in 2010. The writings in both volumes raise genuine concerns about the exacerbation of social inequities and the need to reverse this trend in the both the democracies of the global South.
Contributors in both volumes call attention to the limitations and vicissitudes of electoral democracy and deficits in social justice for creating a modern developmental state in South Africa and India.
Both books bring out new perspectives on transitional societies and the fault lines of electoral democracy. However, further insights on urban policies and the contestations between the state and civil society in South Africa for instance, could have added value. Both volumes are of value to students and teachers of comparative politics and also serve as relevant inputs for government officials and policymakers.
Renu Modi ([email protected])teaches at the Centre for African Studies,University of Mumbai.