SOUTH AFRICANS OF INDIAN-ORIGIN AND THE NATAL INDIAN CONGRESS

(BY SUBRY GOVENDER)

Now that the 6th democratic elections on May 8 2019 are over, all the political parties are taking a step back and reflecting on their performances in the elections. As expected the ruling ANC was returned to power, albiet on a lower percentage poll. A surprising development was the emergence of the Freedom Front Plus, who obtained 10 seats in the national parliament and also at least one seat in most of the nine provinces. While the political analysts and pundits are analysing the results, a number of people are discussing the road ahead for the country’s 1,5-million people of Indian-origin. These people, who launched a social site, SA Indians – RSA, before the elections, now want to organise themselves into a group against what they deem to be discriminatory practices against people of Indian-origin. Many of these people would like to see the re-emergence of an historic organisation like the Natal Indian Congress(NIC), which played a major role in the struggles for a free and non-racial democracy since the early 1900s to 1994, when Nelson Mandela was elected President of the new, non-racial and democratic South Africa. I spoke to a number of veterans of the NIC who say that they agree that many people of Indian-origin feel “lost” in the new political South Africa. They agree that discussions should be held about the revival of the NIC. They say such an organisation should work alongside the ANC like the NIC of the struggle years when for all intents and purposes the NIC was the internal wing of the ANC when Nelson Mandela and others were in prison or in exile and when the ANC was banned. In order to provide some historical perspective about the kind of organisation the NIC was during the struggle years, veteran journalist, Subry Govender, publishes a radio documentary that he produced in 2007.