“A rich and proud history”
FIFTY-FIVE years after the last of the peace-loving agrarian families were forcibly uprooted from their banana farms and market gardens by a racist Durban Corporation, Chatsworth is today a bustling neighbourhood for more than 500 000 people.
The area continues to have a predominantly middle-class Indian population punctuated by pockets of extreme poverty and havens of wealth and affluence.
Unlike the under-developed conditions of five decades ago, when settled Indian families throughout Durban were rounded up in the name of the white-favouring Group Areas Act and dumped in a ghetto-like environment, Chatsworth today boasts industrial growth, infrastructure expansion and a thriving commercial sector.
The people of what was once Durban’s food basket, thanks to the industry and productivity of a humble farming community, are today voluntarily exploited at the altar of commercialism and material greed.
Gramophones and valve radios, considered an indulgence in farming Chatsworth, have been replaced by a forest of television antennae and satellite dishes connected to widescreen high definition plasma flat screens.
Cement block dwellings converted into palatial homes, the latest model cars parked in driveways, trendy fashions, shopping malls and other trappings of affluence bear testimony to the upward economic mobility of the descendants of indentured labourers who arrived in South Africa 150 years ago.
Nobody can begrudge the Indian community, possessing a good education, entrepreneurial flair, capital and a work ethic, its contribution to myriad facets of everyday life in South Africa.
Indians in Chatsworth, like Indians elsewhere in South Africa, have progressed from peasantry to privilege; have risen from the ranks of struggling tenants to wealthy landlords; from being unskilled to proficient.
Major corporates and government departments in KwaZulu-Natal and the rest of the country are manned by highly experienced and qualified Indians, many of whom hail from Chatsworth.
Sadly, however, the economic and social advancement of the community has also seen the downward mobility of some sections of the people of Chatsworth in terms of values and norms.
A mass housing scheme with poverty and unemployment is a breeding ground for social ills – drug taking is common among youth from dysfunctional families; teenage pregnancies are on the increase; family violence and the divorce rate are soaring; alcoholism is rife and HIV/Aids is taking its toll.
The immorality afflicting Chatsworth today is a gloomy reflection of the proud legacy left by the God-fearing founding fathers who tilled the soil from dawn to dusk for a better life for their children.
But all is not lost. Chatsworth has too rich and proud a history to be allowed to self-destruct. And there are many peace-loving, progressive men and women who are loyal to this town.
Since its establishment as a housing scheme in the early 1960s, Chatsworth has produced hundreds of sons and daughters of the highest calibre in all walks of life.
Today countless wellmeaning citizens willingly give of their time and energies to take care of the poor, sick and infirm. Religious and cultural organisations provide spiritual sustenance.
The majority of the people of Chatsworth are honest and law-abiding, frown upon acts of crime and disorderliness and crave nothing more than to live in simple harmony.
There was a time when people eked a living out of the soil of Chatsworth. Now is the time to plough back life’s decent ideals into that selfsame ground.
Every resident of Chatsworth must take pride in the rich history of this district and do everything possible to uphold the glorious heritage of the founding fathers.