Generational legacy lives on

THIS story is one of my pleasing childhood memories. I remember my paternal grandmother telling me this story at bedtime by heart.

Due to the indenture period, many Indians had very low-level education so they found it difficult to read or write English hence this story has a mixture of English and Hindi.

From the ground-breaking book, The Indian Africans (2023), by Paul David, Ranjith Choonilall, Kiru Naidoo and Selvan Naidoo, I quote, David, P. et al, Page 195, “The provision of quality education for indentured workers was almost non-existent for thirty years from 1869 to 1899 with only limited primary schooling on offer at a fee.

“The census of 1904 shows that only 5211 (5%) of 100918 of the Natal Indians were literate in English. In the same year, there were only 40 Indian schools in Natal, ten were privately run ‘Muslim’ schools and one ‘Tamil’ school”.

Despite the tribulations encountered in education, Indians excelled in many fields such as business and also sports. My family’s history in South Africa is not as indentured labourers, but as ‘Passenger Indians’ also known as ‘Free Indians’.

The main reason for these passenger Indians to leave India was to escape the poverty of rural villages.

When they came to South Africa, they brought their castebased trades that had been part of their family lineages such as laundry men, salt merchants and shepherds. My paternal great-grandfather, Rajpaul Soobran, was a ‘colonial-born Indian’ who inherited his business skills from his father Jugmohun (Indenture No 13715) from Mehan Village, Azimgurh District, India.

These business skills have been inherited by myself, the great-grandson, who is employed in the business field as an administration clerk at Oriental Shipping.

This letter is my bit in propagating generational legacy for my family.

VITESH MOTILAL

Isipingo Hills