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. Beginning in the 1940s, tumultuous debates among black intellectuals over the place of the Indian diaspora in Africa played a central role in the emergence of new and antagonistic conceptualizations of a South African nation. The writings of Indian political figures (particularly Gandhi and Nehru) and the Indian independence struggle had enormous influence on a generation of African nationalists, but this impact was mediated in complex ways by the race and class dynamics of Natal. During the 1930s and 40s, rapid and large-scale urbanization generated a series of racially-mixed shantytowns surrounding Durban in which a largely Gujarati and Hindi merchant and landlord class provided the ersatz urban infrastructure utilized by both Tamil-speaking workers and Zulu migrants. In Indian-owned buses, stores, and movie theatres, a racial hierarchy of Indian over African developed based on the social grammars of property, relationship with land, family structure, and different gender roles. In such circumstances, practices integral to maintaining diasporic identities—such as religious festivals, marriage, caste (jati), language, and even dress and food—became signifiers of ranked status and perceived exclusion. Despite the destruction of this urban landscape by forced removals beginning in the late 1950s, these social relationships powerfully shaped African and Indian identities in Natal, the popular memory of different communities, and the later politics of the anti-apartheid struggle. Although a few recent publications have attempted to break down the bifurcation that characterizes Natal’s historiography, the majority of academic writing on the province employs a race-based framework that focuses on either Indians or Zulu-speaking Africans. As a result, Natal’s African/Indian racial dynamic plays, at most, a secondary role in most scholarship on the region. In turn, Natal itself generally appears in histories of the anti-apartheid struggle as either an exception or a momentary interruption to a “national” narrative overwhelmingly centered on events, organizations, and individuals in the Transvaal. Rejecting a “race relations” approach that hypostatizes coherent racial groups, my dissertation examines how segregationist policies, African and Indian political organizations, and everyday social practices continuously reproduced an “African/Indian divide” despite both the enormous heterogeneity of each group and the quotidian intimacies of urban life. At the same time, it explores the ways in which this division shaped the development of the anti-apartheid struggle in Natal and the consequences of Natal’s politics for South Africa as a whole.

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. Beginning in the 1940s, tumultuous debates among black intellectuals over the place of the Indian diaspora in Africa played a central role in the emergence of new and antagonistic conceptualizations of a South African nation. The writings of Indian political figures (particularly Gandhi and Nehru) and the Indian independence struggle had enormous influence on a generation of African nationalists, but this impact was mediated in complex ways by the race and class dynamics of Natal. During the 1930s and 40s, rapid and large-scale urbanization generated a series of racially-mixed shantytowns surrounding Durban in which a largely Gujarati and Hindi merchant and landlord class provided the ersatz urban infrastructure utilized by both Tamil-speaking workers and Zulu migrants. In Indian-owned buses, stores, and movie theatres, a racial hierarchy of Indian over African developed based on the social grammars of property, relationship with land, family structure, and different gender roles. In such circumstances, practices integral to maintaining diasporic identities—such as religious festivals, marriage, caste (jati), language, and even dress and food—became signifiers of ranked status and perceived exclusion. Despite the destruction of this urban landscape by forced removals beginning in the late 1950s, these social relationships powerfully shaped African and Indian identities in Natal, the popular memory of different communities, and the later politics of the anti-apartheid struggle. Although a few recent publications have attempted to break down the bifurcation that characterizes Natal’s historiography, the majority of academic writing on the province employs a race-based framework that focuses on either Indians or Zulu-speaking Africans. As a result, Natal’s African/Indian racial dynamic plays, at most, a secondary role in most scholarship on the region. In turn, Natal itself generally appears in histories of the anti-apartheid struggle as either an exception or a momentary interruption to a “national” narrative overwhelmingly centered on events, organizations, and individuals in the Transvaal. Rejecting a “race relations” approach that hypostatizes coherent racial groups, my dissertation examines how segregationist policies, African and Indian political organizations, and everyday social practices continuously reproduced an “African/Indian divide” despite both the enormous heterogeneity of each group and the quotidian intimacies of urban life. At the same time, it explores the ways in which this division shaped the development of the anti-apartheid struggle in Natal and the consequences of Natal’s politics for South Africa as a whole.

Ethnicity and culture are increasingly considered in the study of travel behaviour given the global movement of people. Historically during apartheid in South Africa, there was not much leisure travel amongst the Black, Coloured and Indian population groups. This discrepancy became a focus of the National Department of Tourism’s (NDT) domestic policy after 1994 to encourage all South Africans to travel, explore and experience all facets of our beautiful rainbow country in real time. This study focuses on South African Indians (SAI) as there is limited knowledge of the drivers of travel behaviour amongst such minority populations. Pragmatic mixed methods are used to collect qualitative (focus groups) and quantitative (survey) data amongst SAI living in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng provinces. Findings suggest that there is already established domestic travel amongst the population. SAI have strong ethnic and cultural (Indian) identities that form a significant part of their decision-making; though not specifically having bearing on inter-provincial travel decisions. Of note is strong familial bonds extending beyond the nuclear family to their extended family members, influencing their travel behaviour. Other aspects include value for money, cuisine, safety and service. The study provides layered information presenting opportunities for future research. It also presents a profile of the market’s travel behaviour that can be useful for destination marketing authorities and travel trade in efforts to attract the SAI market. / Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2020. / Tourism Management / MSc / Unrestricted

This thesis examined how the perceptions of South Africans of Indian descent as foreign, by fellow South African citizens, have changed or the extent to which they have remained the same from the time of the first arrival of indentured labourers from India in 1860 to the present. In so doing the study also revealed how those classified as ‘Indian’ in South Africa have constructed their identities in relation to, and because of, differing social, political and economic contexts. In order to achieve the aims of this research, the study was periodised based on the key political transitions over the last 150 years. As a result, the constructions and perceptions of ‘Indians’ by others were explored from the period of indenture under colonialism (1860-1910), through to the formation of Union (1910-1948), into apartheid (1948-1994) and ultimately through to democracy (1994-present). The data collection methods included documentary sources, oral histories, and semi-structured interviews. The main documentary sources collected included articles from The Mercury and Ilanga newspapers, spanning 150 years but taken from the key periods as discussed above. In addition it was deemed equally important to conduct in-depth interviews with South African families of Indian descent. The trajectories of five such families, and of the individuals within these family units, were explored, covering the period from the arrival of the first immigrant from India to South Africa, to the present day. The findings reveal that the perceptions of ‘Indians’ as foreign have endured more than it has altered in the psyche of fellow South Africans through each of the political dispensations and because the dominant racial discourse has persisted throughout the various periods albeit through varying mechanisms and diverse narratives justifying it at different times. Although democracy brought with it hope for a more inclusive South Africa with the African National Congress-dominated parliament adopting a constitution based on shared citizenship, the basis of the policies that followed however represent the antithesis of inclusion by entrenching existing notions of difference through the perpetuation of ‘race’ categories that were previously reproduced and legitimised by the repealed apartheid-era Population Registration Act. Blatant xenophobic discourse against South Africans of Indian descent are indeed still apparent, with the latest expressions centering around notions of autochthony which imply that ‘Indians’ are not indigenes of South Africa and hence should have no claim to its resources. / Ph.D. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 2014.

At the United Nations Conference on International Organization in April 1945 South Africa affirmed the principle of respect for human rights in a Preamble it proposed for inclusion in the Charter of the United Nations. The proposal was approved and the Preamble was accorded binding force. While South Africa participated in the earliest attempts of the United Nations to draft a bill of rights, it abstained on the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights because its municipal legislation was incompatible with some articles. Similarly, South Africa did not become a party to the international human rights instruments the declaration inspired, and avoided an active role in their elaboration. Subsidiary organs of the General Assembly undertook several studies on discrimination in the field of human rights. They provided evidence that racial discrimination in South Africa intensified after the National Party came to power in May 1948 on the platform of apartheid and diverged from global trends in humanitarian law. The gap between the Union and the United Nations widened. At the first General Assembly in 1946, India successfully asked that the treatment of persons of Indian origin in South Africa be inscribed on the agenda. The Indian question was later subsumed in the charge that South Africa's racial policies violated the Charter and in 1952 the General Assembly began to discuss apartheid. South Africa protested that these actions contravened Charter Article 2(7), which prohibited intervention in matters of domestic jurisdiction, and were ultra vires. Criticism of the Union increased in intensity, until in 1960 it culminated in calls for economic and diplomatic sanctions. Research shows that South Africa was the main architect of its growing isolation, since it refused to modify domestic policies that alienated even its potential allies. Moreover, it maintained a low profile in United Nations debates on human rights issues, abstaining on all substantive clauses in the two draft covenants on human rights. These actions were interpreted as lack of interest in global humanitarian affairs. South Africa had little influence on the development of customary international law in the field of human rights but was a catalyst in the evolution of international machinery to protect them. / Jurisprudence / (LL.D)

At the United Nations Conference on International Organization in April 1945 South Africa affirmed the principle of respect for human rights in a Preamble it proposed for inclusion in the Charter of the United Nations. The proposal was approved and the Preamble was accorded binding force. While South Africa participated in the earliest attempts of the United Nations to draft a bill of rights, it abstained on the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights because its municipal legislation was incompatible with some articles. Similarly, South Africa did not become a party to the international human rights instruments the declaration inspired, and avoided an active role in their elaboration. Subsidiary organs of the General Assembly undertook several studies on discrimination in the field of human rights. They provided evidence that racial discrimination in South Africa intensified after the National Party came to power in May 1948 on the platform of apartheid and diverged from global trends in humanitarian law. The gap between the Union and the United Nations widened. At the first General Assembly in 1946, India successfully asked that the treatment of persons of Indian origin in South Africa be inscribed on the agenda. The Indian question was later subsumed in the charge that South Africa's racial policies violated the Charter and in 1952 the General Assembly began to discuss apartheid. South Africa protested that these actions contravened Charter Article 2(7), which prohibited intervention in matters of domestic jurisdiction, and were ultra vires. Criticism of the Union increased in intensity, until in 1960 it culminated in calls for economic and diplomatic sanctions. Research shows that South Africa was the main architect of its growing isolation, since it refused to modify domestic policies that alienated even its potential allies. Moreover, it maintained a low profile in United Nations debates on human rights issues, abstaining on all substantive clauses in the two draft covenants on human rights. These actions were interpreted as lack of interest in global humanitarian affairs. South Africa had little influence on the development of customary international law in the field of human rights but was a catalyst in the evolution of international machinery to protect them. / Jurisprudence / (LL.D)