Empire Cricket Booklet

CHAPTER FIVE

En1pire, Race and Indian Cricket in Natal, 1880-1914

GOOLAM VAHED AND VISHNU PADAYACHEE

majority of shop-keepers (or 'dukawallahs') - were bound by common economic interests, preserved caste divisions and consciousness, and maintained links with India through visits, marriages and remittances. Around the time that Indians were making their way to Natal, the British and other European powers were involved in a scramble for colonies in various parts of the world. In this scramble, the British more often than not emerged victorious. Their empire included the white settlement colonies of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, as well as colonies in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. Imperialism, as Eric Hobsbawm reminds us, was of the ' gr eatest importance to Britain since the economic supremacy of that country had always hinged on her special relationship with the overseas markets and sources of primary products'/· By the late nineteenth century, Britain's formal and informal empire covered about a third of the globe, both in an economic, but more important, cultural sense. Hobsbawm is clear on the latter point: 'The Age of Empire was not only economic and political but a cultural phenomenon. The conquest of the globe by its "developed" minority transformed images, ideas and aspirations, both by force and institutions, by example and by social transformation ... What imperialism brought to the elites or potential elites of the dependent world was essentially "westernisation".' 3

Cricket develops good citizenship among mem bers, by forming their character, training them in the habit of observation, obedience and self reliance, inculcating loyalty and thoughtfulness to others, teaching them service useful to the public promotion and their mental, physical and moral development. 1

Introduction

As the British empire's reliance on slavery merged into indenture in the latter half of the nineteenth century, a stream of ships moored off Port Natal on South Africa's east coast. They discharged human cargo for work on the sugar plantations of the colony as well as to build its railroads, perform unskilled labour like street sweeping, and to labour as 'special servants' in private clubs, dockyards, hotels and homes. Between 1860 and 1911, as many as 152 641 such indentured workers were drawn to Natal from a range of regions, ecologies and modes of production in India. They were divided by religion, tradition, caste, language, ethnicity, and regional traits. Indentured Indians were followed by traders from Gujarat state on the west coast of India, who began arriving in numbers from the mid 1870s. They were termed 'passengers' because they came on their own accord, at their own expense, and were subject to the ordinary laws of the colony. These traders - a few wealthy, internationally connected merchants and a