Empire Cricket Booklet

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INDIAN CRICKET IN NATAL

In the period under review, the minority Indian traders, who began arriving in the 1870s, rapidly penetrated local trade as well as local Indian political life. When Indian and white business areas were formally segregated through the 1897 Dealer's Licence Act, passenger Indians - having gained somewhat greater access to capital and credit than Africans - dominated trade in business districts reserved for blacks (Indians and Africans). 14 The relationship between Indian traders and workers, both Indian and African, only went 'so far as trade and labour compelled them'. 15 Mohandas K. Gandhi, who had been brought to South Africa by an Indian merchant to assist in a legal matter and stayed until 1914, was instrumental in forming the Natal Indian Congress (NlC) in 1894. Most Indians could not afford its annual membership fee, and not surprisingly some 75 per cent of the NIC's members were merchants, the rest being educated elites. 16 The NIC placed great emphasis on Britishness. Until 1899, the strategy of Gandhi and the NIC was primarily one of writing letters to local newspapers and prominent individuals in Natal, India and Britain, circulating pamphlets, engaging in court cases, sending delegations to India and Britain, and submitting lengthy petitions and memorials to the Natal and Indian governments. The essence of trader politics was the insistence that as British subjects they should be treated equally with whites in terms of Queen Victoria's 1858 proclamation. Every memorial emphasised the British citizenship of Indians, and their pride in this citizenship. Gandhi sought to use the imperial framework to defend the rights of Indians. He felt that the 'few' rights they enjoyed were due to their being British subjects; otherwise they 'would have been on the same footing as Africans'. Gandhi did not actively seek an alliance with Africans, and even led a small stretcher-bearer corps during the Zulu uprising of 1906. Often, the views of merchants on Africans paralleled the prejudices of whites. This was a factor in thwarting any attempt at alliance with the articulate, politicised elements in the African communities. 17 Between 1894 and 1897, merchants tried to prevent the passage of discriminatory legislation; from 1897 to 1906, they attempted to alleviate the effects of

such legislation; and from 1907, Gandhi engaged in passive resistance campaigns. The list of demands included abolishing the £3 tax on free Indians, the removal of residential barriers in Transvaal, the right to inter-provincial migration, just licensing laws, recognition of the validity of Indian marriages, removal of restrictions on the entry of wives and children from India, and the right to domicile after three years' absence from the country. 18 The twenty year struggle of Indians culminated in a national strike from October to December 1913. This was a spontaneous outburst against terrible working conditions and stemmed from a realisation that the poll tax meant perpetual indenture. Mass action was possible because merchants and workers shared a common position. The Indian Relief Act of 1914 made some concessions but left many issues unresolved. Gandhi therefore considered it a 'Magna Carta' that provided Indians with breathing space to resolve their outstanding grievances. For whites, race was the most effective political and ideological means of ensuring a cheap labour supply, and they used it to separate Natal's population into discrete groups, with blacks considered naturally different and inferior. The privileged economic position of Indian elites was neutralised by their having to confront racism, which placed them in the same situation as workers. In response, middle class Indians used the object of their rejection, race, to formulate a strategy of resistance. Indians responded to the state's use of race to subordinate them by adopting a practice of resistance based on race. The formation of a racial organisation, the NIC, assisted in fostering and keeping alive a separate racial political identity. As far as non-Indians were concerned, Indians constituted a homogeneous community; in reality, class, caste, ethnicity, religion and language shaped Indian identities. A professional class of mainly teachers and clerks constituted a third and extremely important social group among Indians. As Hobsbawm has pointed out, the emergence of educated elites throughout the empire was due to 'imperialism itself, or the associated phenomenon of Christian missions, which created the possibility of new social elites based on education in the western manner'. 19 This class began