By Marlan Padayachee
DURBAN: 16 July 2021
AS President Cyril Ramaphosa touched down in Durban today, in a strong show of force by the government and key safety and security cluster ministers and provincial government leaders, organisations in faraway India have expressed “worrying concerns’’ about the attacks and plight of Durban’s 600 000-strong Indians in the riot-hit hotspots of Chatsworth and Phoenix.
And as the looting and rioting continued in the 3-million populated metropolitan city and across KwaZulu-Natal, with dozens of confirmed deaths in the Indian-zoned townships of Phoenix and Chatsworth, where residents have armed themselves, set up barricades and assisting each other with essential foodstuff, politicians and non-government organizations in India and the USA are reaching out to South Africans to express support and solidarity.
The Durban rioting and looting is continuing unabated, prompting President Ramaphosa’s inspection-in-loco, high-powered visit this morning – largely to reassure citizens of all race groups and to examine the extent of the deaths and destruction –particularly the brutal looting and burning of warehouses and factories that has been condemned widely by several community-based and business organisations.
After raiding the Riverhorse Valley in Queen Nandi Drive, north of Durban on the N2 motorway of non-food items, the marauding masses of looters descended on the southern flanks of the city, torching and razing dozens of factories from Mobeni to Merebank on Wednesday.
The world is watching with aghast as TV stations share horrific footages of the unfolding drama in KZN and Gauteng, and a senior MP in the ruling BJP Party, in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-leaning government, has already sent a strongly-worded letter in person to South Africa’s high commissioner in New Delhi, Sibusiso Ndebele, a former KZN premier and former ANC heavyweight leader at a meeting in New Delhi yesterday.
Across the world in the United States of America, Sunny Kulathakall, president of the Global Organisation of People of Indian Origin (Gopio International), an influential lobby representing over 25-million expatriate Indians in 50 countries with influential ties to the Indian, American and British governments, has telephoned local chapter officials to inquire about the worsening looting and rioting and the targeting of Indians in Durban.
“Gopio International is extremely concerned about the crisis in the country and are likewise worried about the safety and welfare of the Indian community and other vulnerable racial groups. We are contacting the Indian government in New Delhi to raise this racial issue with the presidency of South Africa,’’ Kulathakall told me from St Louis, USA, where he is visiting en route to preparations for the opening of the first international office in Chicago on 15 August 2022.
He said there were plans to send a high-profile delegation to South Africa in coming weeks, pending the Covid-19 travel protocols.
In New Delhi, senior BJP leader Dr Vijay Jolly has approached High Commissioner Ndebele at the SA mission in the diplomatic capital’s Vasant Marg district, and hand-delivered his letter of protest and photographed the one-on-one meeting – now gone viral widely across SA and the world.
“Indians have contributed to the peace and progression of South Africa and India and South Africa share goodwill relations (with India) for decades. But recent reports of racial abuse, threats of violence, rape and massacre against Indians living in SA are disturbing and reprehensible. Indian bashing on social media platforms is inciting violence against Indians … some justifying raping Indian women because Indians are are evil, horrible and anti-feminist, Jolly wrote: ‘’The SA unrest after the arrest of former President Jacob Zuma is your internal issue, but violence against Indians who fought against apartheid is abhorred. Targeting peaceful Indians, attacking their residential communities and businesses is inhuman. So we demand State protection to life, property and dignity of all Indians. Social media should refrain from sharing unverified, inaccurate and false images of the past, so avoid panic and fear among the majority of of your country’s citizens who believe in peace and harmony.’’
Gopio International vice-president Ishwar Ramlutchman, also a member of the Zulu Royal Household as Mabheka Zulu, has appealed to Indians and other race groups to remain calm and not agitate any racial tensions in the face of the onslaught of the looters and rioters: “We must all be united in our fight against this new scourge of terrorism unleashed by our own people, and despite the high levels of poverty and joblessness during the Covid-19 pandemic there is no justification to resort to looting, rioting, burning down business premises and threatening violence against other race groups. This nonsense must stop. We must begin rebuilding a non-racial, united country from the ashes of this monumental uprising.’’
Phoenix and Chatsworth is on full alert: as tensions rose in Phoenix, north of Durban, Police Minister denounced that the killing of looters and violent confrontations between the neighbouring communities was racially motivated.
Phoenix is an Indian-concentrated township that is under the siege of the Covid-19 economy, joblessness and poverty, is somewhat scary. Minister Cele held meetings with the local police and community leaders on Thursday: “There are racial tensions simmering here between the Indian community and the African people in Bhambayi and 15 looters were killed since the start of the unrest this week. I do not believe that racial issue is the domination but this is criminality. This is a dangerous thing of the racial tensions.’’
In apartheid-era 1985, rioting broke out between both communities. Bhambayi, a sprawling township and home of Mahatma Gandhi’s peace shrine and self-help settlement, was plunged into racial rioting when African and Indians clashed and hundreds were displaced and dozens lost their lives over the intradomestic tensions between both neighbouring communities.
Meanwhile, thousands of residents across Durban have taken to social media and calling radio stations to voice their grievances over the looters and the shortage of food and essential supplies – including fresh bread, milk, bottle and piped water. On Wednesday, queues at supermarkets were stretched across many roads in towns from Westville, Pinetown, and the highway areas to other suburban hotspots that have been vandalized by the looters amidst tight community security measures and lookout posts – including the N3 and M13 highways flanking from black townships.
In Chatsworth, Naren Puttundeen of the Aryan Benevolent Home, said the NGO for old-age destitute was running out of food and other essentials, while in Merebank, a huge mopping up operation is underway after looters set 15 factories alight in the southern Durban semi-industrial and residential area –occupied mainly by Indians and Coloureds in neighbouring Wentworth.
Senior members of the community also recalled that during the 1949 African-Indians riots, the then Congress Party government in New Delhi, India, newly-installed as an independent nation from Britain, had cautioned the colonial-apartheid government that India would send warships to Durban to ensure the protection and safety of Natal’s Indians, who had arrived in Durban as Indentured labourers, and later as traders, artisans and other professions from 860 to 1911, numbering 200 000.
Indian diplomats in Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town, and the High Commissioner in Pretoria are said to be monitoring the situation closely.
“I trust that you and your family are safe,’’ asked a diplomat from the Johannesburg mission to media queries about India’s possible diplomatic reaction to the unrest here.
- MARLAN PADAYACHEE, our freelance senior correspondent is monitoring the crisis of the looting, arsons, chaos and racial tensions on a 24-hourly basis, and can be reached on: marlan.padayachee@gmail.com
