Why black South Africa has betrayed the Indian community

THE accident of my birth dictated that I be classified “Indian” before being called a South African.

The pestilent National Party of the apartheid regime ensured my pariah status, with many of the relics of yore, who cemented such pestilence, still alive today.

However much I challenge that little voice within me to pacify a recalcitrant anger against such a heinous government, I am comforted in the thought that it is no more.

And then we all became alive to a new hope – a new dream – and a new country, metaphorically speaking.

It was on a glorious mid-autumn day in 1994 that the umbilical cord of despotism was severed, in anticipation of all things new.

Without flinching, and like all those who cherished a free and democratic country, I embraced the land of my birth with the verve and tenacity of a real patriot for the very first time.

It was a day of jubilant celebration and pride – the heaves and sighs of relief and joy were palpable. The burdened shoulders were no more. We were free – at last.

What was to follow damningly reduced that glorious day into the abyss we find ourselves in today.

I recall, as if it were yesterday, when, as an impressionable university student, I became entwined in a fight appropriately termed “The Struggle”.

Quite unlike my black compatriots, whose “struggle” was of a much graver nature, where oppression and discrimination relegated them deeper into a world that was frowned upon with great derision and disdain. I must admit that while I enjoyed fair comfort, without great material elevation or wealth, that impressionable mind began its rudimentary questioning of a rather decrepit system destined for doom.

Having joined organisations at a university that was at the coalface of the liberation movement, my understanding and knowledge become clearer of the road ahead, as the fight intensified.

Of course, the emotion and passion that carried this fight were always noticeable at rallies, marches, and clandestine late-night meetings in dark and dank rooms, cleverly hidden away from the security branch felons who smelt blood at every opportunity.

Being groomed for this fight for a decent humanity brought me only weeks away from being recruited into the military wing of the ANC, Umkhonto we Sizwe, while still a student.

That it did not happen can only be ascribed to fate.

From throwing rocks at the Casspirs and Buffels, laden with men from the apartheid military, to hurling petrol bombs at the same enemy, with the sole intention to do as much harm as was intended upon those that dared, my transformation and belief that this was a just cause, was complete.

For me, South Africa was one country, one people.

No race, religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation defined our horizon. Only that of common humanity, sharing a space and time of absolute equality and opportunity.

That was the mould that was crafted into me believing that 1994 was the watershed that was going to be the utopia we all so desired.

That is as far as where the story really went.

The Indian community at large, passive and stoic at best, played a major role in the Struggle, despite some level of favouritism from the masters of the time.

Yet, many Indian stalwarts of a bygone era sacrificed more than you and me, with some paying the ultimate price for their fundamental belief that we are all equal and that South Africa was also their country.

They fearlessly stood side-by-side with their black compatriots, facing adversity, untold violence and possible death as they held sway against a just fight for every single citizen of this country.

The Indian community toiled and struggled against many odds, and while migrant to this country, never faltered in contributing to the continual development thereto, in every sphere of South African life.

Of course, like in all communities, there were those few who unscrupulously climbed onto the bandwagon of favour and enrichment, while their fellow compatriots suffered, as they enamoured themselves to the bosses of the day, who ruled the roost.

A tradition that sadly lingers on to this day.

The dilemma that now confronts the Indian community is no longer the role played by their forebears as willing allies in the just fight for liberation, but the harsh reality and irony is that they are no more the equal brothers and sisters that were once needed and cajoled to portray a united front.

From employment equity plans, quota systems to B-BBEE and the like, the colour of discrimination has changed.

Despite apparent constitutional protections against discrimination, the race card assumes greater magnitude and gravitas now than we will ever know. Inequality and unfairness have become foes of justice and unity as black becomes blacker and Indian becomes a distant second class.

Arguably, while our black compatriots are in the majority and have borne the brunt of all things evil more than any other, the perception, if not the reality of privilege, has shifted from white to black – reverse racism as it was – as every echelon of bureaucracy is being supplanted by black citizens – worthy or capable being irrelevant concepts in a fair number of appointments – colour being replaced for merit and fairness. Does this suggest that the Indian citizen, or any other citizen for that matter, is more capable for some or other reason?

Certainly not.

But what it does is that it betrays that once unified fight for freedom that led us to this point, where Indian compatriots saw the fight for liberation as theirs as well – that truly, “an injury to one was indeed an injury to all”. It betrays the universal truth that is constitutionally enshrined – “We, the people… “

It makes a mockery of what should be and not what is.

It diminishes the precept of all things fair, just and democratic.

There is a dangerous hubris among a growing band of black compatriots, government included, that there is a sense of entitlement beyond that of competence, capability or worthiness, and merit – only because of the colour of their skin, or because of past recriminations.

The future of South Africa does not need radical economic transformation as much as it needs a radical paradigm shift of mindset – that we are all equal citizens, where opportunity lies not with pigmentation – or the lack of it – but with the inherent and unconquerable belief that this is a country of people, free of racial bias or superiority or even entitlement.

The Indian community have been disparaged, denigrated and demonised for curious reasons and not for the want of using the race card, but sadly I must, this community cannot and will not stop to take their rightful place in a South Africa that is fast being disabled and betrayed by the very people who wanted it otherwise.

The desideratum, that demands equity and fairness on all fronts and at all times cannot be denied lest the truism that “all men are created equal, but some men are more equal than others” will forever haunt us.

Inequality and unfairness have become foes of justice and unity as black becomes blacker and Indian becomes a distant second class. NARENDH GANESH