Abstract
Colonialism, as well as the apartheid classificatory system entrenched notions of the (internal) ‘other’ in South Africa, and 23 years after the democratic transition, questions of citizenship and belonging are still at the forefront of contemporary struggles in South African society. Xenophobia expressed towards refugees and immigrants from the African continent as well as fellow South African citizens seen as unwelcome ‘foreigners’ provide evidence for a society that is still deeply divided along lines of ‘race’ and ethnicity. This nativist discourse with claims of indigeneity raises questions on who ‘qualifies’ to ‘legitimately’ belong to the social body. Pillay argues in this chapter that this notion of autochthony is not just specific to new immigrants but also to fifth and sixth generation South Africans of Indian descent. The othering of South Africans of Indian descent as ‘foreigner’ and the question of where ‘they’ belong has been perpetuated in one form or another throughout the decades, and continues in contemporary society.
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- 1.
In this chapter the word ‘Indian’ in inverted commas includes all immigrants to South Africa from the sub-continent and their descendants residing in South Africa, and is used to distinguish them from Indian nationals from India.
- 2.
The Natal Mercury was founded in 1852 and in 1878 became the first English medium daily newspaper. The name of the newspaper changed post-1994 to The Mercury (and will be referred to as such throughout this chapter).
- 3.
Ilanga Lase Natal was founded in 1903 by Rev. John L Dube and was the first newspaper to contain articles primarily in isiZulu (there were some articles written in English as well). In March 1965 the title of the newspaper was abridged to Ilanga (and will be referred to as such throughout this chapter).
- 4.
According to Christopher (2001, 17) even though racial categories were reduced in complexity and extent at the time of the Union, a racial classification system was nevertheless employed which was based on “physical and social characteristics.” The three broad racial groups that were recognised by the Census director in the Union period included ‘European or White’, ‘Native’ (later to be termed Bantu, Black or African), and the classification “residual Coloured (including Indians, people of mixed race and the Cape Malays)” in other words all those who could not be neatly slotted into the aforementioned categories (Christopher 2009, 104).
- 5.
The Natal Indian Congress (NIC) was founded by the Indian elites and professionals in Natal in 1894 with the main objectives being to improve the quality of life for ‘Indians’ in South Africa and to end the system of indenture. It is important to note that the government of the time, grouped everyone who came from the sub-continent, India or elsewhere, as ‘Indians’ and although there were strong divisions between the merchant class and the indentured labourers and the subsequent working class, the heterogeneity among ‘Indians’ was ignored by the government (Naidoo 1998).
- 6.
The South African Indian Congress was founded in 1924, and while they opposed discrimination against ‘Indians’, they also formed part of the broader struggle for freedom in South Africa.
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Pillay, K. (2019). The ‘Indian’ Question: Examining Autochthony, Citizenship, and Belonging in South Africa. In: Essed, P., Farquharson, K., Pillay, K., White, E.J. (eds) Relating Worlds of Racism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78990-3_3
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