Public urged to submit monument designs

IT IS BACK to the drawing board for members of the 1860 Organising Committee, who have yet to find a worthy artistic design that best encapsulates Indian indenture in South Africa.

Previous professional submissions, procured via a private consultant, were rejected as they had not met expectations.

Despite this, a sod-turning ceremony took place at Durban’s south beach near uShaka Marine World on November 15, a day before the event marking the arrival of indentured Indians in South Africa in 1860.

The committee, eager to get the project off the ground, is now encouraging members of the public, including children, to submit their designs for the monument that commemorates such a pivotal moment in the history of the community.

Committee member Seelan Achary said the city would hold a press briefing within the next few weeks to lay down the requirements, including insight into the building guidelines and timeframes.

“We are now inviting fresh proposals in terms of what the community would like to see. Any member of the public is invited (to submit impressions) even school children.”

Previous submissions, he said, did not meet the requirements.

“They did not meet expectations. The images we saw before were abstract. You would ask ‘where does this line go?’, ‘what is this part supposed to be?’”

A chary would not be drawn on questions about how much the professional artists were paid for their services.

He agreed there had been many delays in getting the monument project going and believed the best way forward was via community participation.

Seven years ago, former KZN premier Zweli Mkhize allocated R10 million to erect 1860 monuments and plaques around the province.

While plaques have reportedly been placed in towns and cities, including Newcastle, Ladysmith, Dundee, Pietermaritzburg, Port Shepstone and Richards Bay over the years, the monument that was supposed to mark this significant arrival in KZN remains up in the air.

News of the artists’ designs being turned down last year created concern for some, who feared the R4.8m that remained from the R10m allocation would be eroded.

In a debate in the KZN Legislature last April, Minority Front leader Shameen Thakur Rajbansi said delays to the project were an insult to the Indian community.

The monument will be built near uShaka beach which is where the indentured Indian labourers disembarked when they arrived in Durban.