Paying the price for misunderstandings
ADMITTEDLY, the vast majority of indentured Indians were from Uttar Pradesh and Madras, and the majority of passenger Indians from Gujarat.
However, my brief research reveals this not to be absolutely exclusive, because it immediately gives the impression that there were no people in Uttar Pradesh, Madras, Konkan and elsewhere in India who were not attracted by possible economic opportunities and could not afford their own passage to the promised land of gold, milk and honey, and sugar-coated cane juice.
My letter did not point to any exclusivity of the Gujarati involvement in the freedom Struggle, but was in reply to another writer who claimed that the Gujarati community did not figure at all in the Struggle.
No part of any of my thousands of letters written to Independent Media over the past 50 years ever sides with any particular Indian community, but rather attempts at some sort of commonness, a little understanding, between the different religious groups.
Research reveals lots of grey areas in our origins, with names being changed, families split, intermarriage, migration between provinces by people whose names were replaced by mere slave-registration numbers, and other issues. What does all that matter now?
It’s utterly disappointing that my initial, lone letter that tried to reconcile differences by encouraging joining together on our Indian celebrations has been met only with nit-picking and discovering flaws in my admittedly weak appeal for a greater social friendliness.
Perhaps their gross negativity is part of the price we ultimately pay for past misunderstandings. Their attitude also seals our future in a country in which we are an absolute minority and political attitudes do not look too rosy. EBRAHIM ESSA
Durban