There are growing concerns as to why Port Shepstone’s former MEC, Ravi Pillay of the ANC, who was tasked by the premier in 2020 to ensure the construction of the government’s R10-million project to memorialise the arrival of his forebears with a statue on Durban’s beachfront, has not got the controversial project off the ground.
In 1860, hundreds of men, women and children were shipped to the city to work on the sugarcane plantations across KwaZulu-Natal. Next week – 16 November – marks 162 years of Indian contribution to turning the tide on the economic growth of the ailing colonial sugar industry between 1860 and 1911 when a total of 200 000 migrants arrived here to work for the British in the sugar farming industry. However, the MEC resigned soon after an election landslide at the ANC’s recent conference that ousted the Premier, Sihle Zikalala, who had appointed him to establish a special committee to ensure the on-off-on-off 1860 statue project got off the ground since the post-Covid-19 hiatus. The MEC was appointed chairman of a committee that included senior officials from the KZN Department of Arts, Culture and Sports. As the province’s 800 000-strong Indian community celebrated the Deepavali / Diwali festival, many cultural-religious leaders asked: “Where’s our 1860 statue, MEC?”
While the majority men, women and children who were shipped to Durban by India’s British colonial rulers in the first ship, SS Truro that docked in the bay on 16 November 1860, followed by the SS Belvedere that landed on 25 November 1860, totalling a human cargo of 680, excluding the death of dozens on the high seas, thousands of these pioneering labourers arrived in Durban until 1911, many later worked on sugarcane plantations and sugar-refining factories across the South Coast from Illovo, Renishaw to Port Shepstone – the MEC’s birthplace town. Pillay, the longest and only Indian-origin MEC, was the provincial minister for Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs, having previously held the finance post, had established a multi-racial committee and there has been little or no feedback to the community and public since he was tasked with the job of ensuring that the long-delayed statue sees the light of the day by his premier, now re-appointed as the MEC for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA).
Selvan Naidoo, curator at the 1860 Indian Heritage Centre in Durban’s Derby Street – a museum that houses the 1860 history, artefacts, photographs, farming utensils, books, photographs and memorabilia – said: “The MEC has chaired several meetings. At this stage the designs have been approved by the committee and the provincial legislature. The procurement process is being managed by the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture. This process is at the final stage at the moment.” Dr Vusi Shongwe of the Department of Arts, Culture and Sports in Pietermaritzburg, confirmed that the project was still in the pipeline and that requests for service providers for tender procurement were being sought. However, sources close to the committee say “disunity among Indian members” representing some linguistic groups and “disagreements” of whether the statue would be “symbolic enough or a mere bust portraying a man and woman labourer carrying sugarcane”.
The stalled statue project has revealed the following:
– In 2010, ANC Premier Zweli Mkhize budgeted R10 million for the project and calls for tenders were put out by the government.
Ten years later, the project had not got off the ground.
– In 2020, ANC Premier Sihle Zikalala then pledged that the statue would rise up to the sun on a heritage site on the city’s seafront on the edge of the Indian Ocean Rim.
– In October 2020, Zikalala, then also chairman of the ANC KZN, tasked the then ANC Finance MEC, Ravi Pillay, to get the show underway amidst concerns that Covid-19 virtual meeting and social distancing protocols were bound to turn the statue into a stalemate.
The MEC then roped in a de facto committee before formalising the committee with his media spin-doctor, Kiru Naidoo, on board and the 1860 Indian Heritage Centre was included as a knowledge content provider. However, the committee fell short of including Christian-Indian inputs from prominent Anglican Bishop Rubin Phillip and Durban’s education and theology academics respectively, Dr GK Nair, Chatsworth-based former Indian education director and rector of the Springfield College of Education, and Dr Gabrielle Naidoo of Phoenix – who both collaborated and contributed to chronicling the 2010 ‘Celebrate Indian Christians in SA’ book.
Meanwhile, details have emerged that between 2010 and 2014, R5 million was spent on 10 plaques in KZN – but the pioneering place of Indian birth – Durban – had hit a roadblock. By March 2014, R4.4 million was transferred to the eThekwini Municipality, but city hall sources said the funds were sent back to the Premier’s office. It was learnt that seven designers were paid R20 000 each and leading architect, Rubin Reddy, picked up R244 000 for the design of the statues. “Where’s the 1860 statue?” – that is a fair question from the descendants of the indentured labourers, said Seelan Archary, chairman of the Shree Mariemmen Temple in Mount Edgecombe – one of SA’s biggest Hindu temples built years after the arrival of the 1860 people. The labourers settled in communal barracks in the town at the end of their five and 10-year indentures. Outspoken about the changing face of the ANC, Archary called on the new ANC leadership to have the “political willingness” to ensure that the statue project was materialised.
“The significance and rationale behind the statue is linked to the history of Indians who landed here as slaves and went on to contribute powerfully to change during the colonial and apartheid era. Indians were at the forefront of our history of struggle for democracy, human rights and social justice,” said Archary, a member of the MEC’s committee who appeared to have lost heart on the delayed project. “Indians are still part of the broader South Africa. Constitutionally, we are Black. We are patriotic South Africans.” In the meantime, descendants of the 1860 Indians will have to continue re-imagining that a steely pose of a turban-wearing man, his sari-clad wife and children in tow striking a symbolic gesture towards the blue skies and seas of the Indian Ocean Rim.
In more than a century and a half, Indians have established this resilient community powerfully in various sectors of the economy and social life, having not had it easy during the tough decades of the colonial-apartheid era, and are renowned worldwide for having contributed bravely to the political campaigners of the liberation struggle for democracy under the banner of the MK Gandhi-founded Natal Indian Congress and various anti-apartheid community, civic, professional and sports formations. The first batches of 342 Indians disembarked from the SS Truro, followed by the SS Belvedere on 27 November. Buildings in Durban were named after Truro and a sugar farming pocket after Belvedere. From 1860 to 1911, 200 000-plus immigrated to SA. The early pioneers sought a better life in Africa. EThekwini Municipality and Premier Nomusa Dube-Ncube, was approached for comment, however, none were received at the time of print.
