POLITICAL AWAKENING IN THE SUGAR CANE FIELDS

 

 

In April 2019, veteran political journalist, Subry Govender, published and launched his family’s roots story, which he had researched since the early 1970s.  The family history book, “Flight of Young Lovers”, traces his family’s roots to a little village in Tamil Nadu and how they came to work as indentured labourers at the Blackburn Sugar Estate, near Mount Edgecombe. At a time when we are paying tribute to the arrival of indentured labourers 164 years ago,  Subry Govender, recalls his holiday work in the sugar cane fields in the 1960s and how he went about researching his indentured roots.  

 

 

 

RESEARCHING OUR ROOTS

It was 1960 and I was enjoying the start of the first term of my high school holidays. I was 14-years-old and a pupil at the Verulam High School. The school principal was Mr Simon David, who instilled strict discipline not only among his staff members but also among the school pupils.

My father, Mr Subramoney Munien Govender, was also a strict disciplinarian along the same lines as Mr David.

At this time our parents and our seven brothers and sisters were living in a one bed-room tin shanty in Munn Road, Ottawa, about six kilometres from the neighbouring town of Verulam to the north and about four kilometres from the sugar mill town of Mount Edgecombe to the south.

“I don’t want you to waste your time during the holidays,” my father told me. He worked as a laundry hand at Lever Brothers at the Maydon Wharf in Durban and he was finding it extremely difficult to support all of us and send us to school with his meagre wages.

“You must try to find some work and be helpful to the family.”

I spoke to my close friends, Ruthnam Naidoo, who lived with his family near the Ottawa River, and to Veeran Maharaj, the son of Mr S S Maharaj, the owner of the local Flash Clothing factory situated in School Road of our village.

“I think the three of us should go in the morning to work in the sugar fields run by the Ottawa Sugar Estate,” Ruthnam told us.

While I was overjoyed that Ruthnam would join me to work in the sugar fields, I was a bit reluctant for Veeran to join us.

But his father, Mr S S Maharaj, who was a former South African tennis champion and a local leader, was adamant that his son must join us to work in the fields during the school holidays.

“Veeran is also your friend. So I don’t think there should be any problems for him to join you to work in the sugar cane fields during the holidays.”

The next morning, at about 5am, all three of us arrived at the top of a hill where scores of men, women and young boys and girls had gathered to start their day’s work in the fields.

The supervisor, who was referred to as the Sardaar, looked at us with inquisitive eyes and asked whether we also wanted to work in the fields.

He informed us about the work we should do and provided us with hoes.

“You will get paid 30 cents per day, weeding the sugar cane fields from 6am to 1pm,” he said.

When Ruthnam, Veeran and I proceeded to join the other workers, one young woman, speaking in the Tamil language, asked one of her friends:

“Yena intha payengo inga irakerango? Ango vanthe high school porongo.” – (“What are these boys doing here? They are going to high school.”)

We informed the women that we were not special because we attended high school and that we also wanted to earn some money for our families.

We were accepted as one of them and enjoyed the first experience weeding in the sugar cane fields. At lunch time all the women gathered together to share their porridge while the men folk also shared their roti and dhall. Ruthnam, Veeran and I shared our mealie rice and dhall. It was a fantastic atmosphere with all the field workers sitting around and chatting away about their life in the Ottawa “Cotrie” (estate in Tamil).

But this comradeship was not to last for us. On the third day, while busy in the field, I heard the supervisor shouting, screaming and even using swear words at some of the women workers.

At my tender age I was taken aback at the actions of the Sardaar. I placed my hoe down and went out to investigate. The Sardaar was not concerned about the presence of other workers and continued to swear at the group of ladies.

After hesitating for a while, I went up to the Sardaar and asked him:

“Why are you shouting and swearing at the ladies?” The supervisor looked at me and appeared to be somewhat surprised that a young school boy had the audacity to question his actions.

“What has it got to do with you? You are just a school boy. I am not going to answer to you.”

Some of the workers looked on and could not understand the interaction between the Sardaar and me.

I stood my ground and told the Sardaar that he should not be shouting and swearing at the women workers.

But the sardaar was not interested in my views.

“You have come here to work as a labourer and if you don’t want to continue to work, you must just leave.”

I looked at him and picked up enough courage even at the young age of 14 to retort:

“You can stick your job. There’s your hoe. I am leaving.”

I went up to Ruthnam and Veeran and informed them of what had just taken place and that I was leaving the work.

Both Ruthnam and Veeran informed me that if I was not going to continue with the work, then they too would leave. We wished the other field workers goodbye and walked out of the sugar cane field. The workers, especially the women, looked on in dismay. The three of us went back to our village of Ottawa. At the end of the week, three of us received 90 cents each for working three days in the field.

This unfortunate incident in the sugar cane field had a significant effect on me and aroused my interest in the sugar cane estates and its inhabitants as I began to complete my high school education. The school principal, Mr Simon David, and three teachers, a Mr Kissoon, Mr K P Rajoo and Mr P A Pillay also awakened a consciousness in me about the arrival of our forefathers and mothers as indentured labourers.

Mr David, especially, had a strong influence on me whenever I found myself in his office. He always spoke about the importance of attaining an education and how our parents, despite being poor and illiterate, wanted their children to attain a decent education and improve the quality of their lives. Mr David always interspersed his conversations with me with some Tamil phrases.

"YOU FIRGET YOUR ROOTS, YOU FORGET YOUR HISTORY"

After I completed my matriculation in 1964, I began to question my parents about our great-grand-parents and also spoke to my grand-mother, Muniamma Coopoosamy Govender, whenever she visited us.

My interest in our heritage heightened when I started to take an interest in journalism and started to work as a free-lancer for the Post, Daily News, Mercury, Sunday Tribune, and the Indian weeklies,  Leader and Graphic.

After regular conversations with my grand-mother, I found that I too had my roots in a sugar estate not far from Ottawa. I found that it was at the nearby  Blackburn Sugar Estate where my great-grand-parents had worked as indentured labourers for 10 years after they arrived in 1882.

I researched our history and obtained official documents. I found that my great-grand-parents, Kandasamy Naiken, and his “wife”, Thanji, had fled from their village of Navalpore in the North Arcott District of Tamil Nadu after the village elders and the people found that they had conceived a child out of wedlock. In the middle of the night sometime in November 1881 they escaped from the village and arrived in the then city of Madras(now Chennai), capital of Tamil Nadu.

Here they learnt that a ship was leaving for a far- away destination called Natal Colony and the “white man” was looking for labourers. Kandasamy and Thanji reached an agreement that wherever this place Natal  Colony  was it would be a far safer place than Madras. Their parents were looking to kill them because they had disgraced the family by falling in love.

They signed up to work as indentured labourers and boarded a ship called Mars for the then town of Port of Durban. They arrived on January 30 1882 and were recruited to serve their “grimmit” of five years at the Blackburn Sugar Estate. Here their first child, Muniamma, and second daughter, Yellammah, were born.

After serving another five-year term from 1887 to 1892, the Kandasami Naiken family signed on for a white businessman to work for him and his family in Ladysmith. But here they were soon caught up in the Anglo-Boer War and were forced to return to the Port of Durban.

After moving from one district to another in the Port of Durban town, the Naikens and their two daughters finally settled in Dayal Road, Clairwood. Here they toiled as market gardeners and it was from here that Muniamma and her sister, Yellammah, were married.

Muniamma and her husband, Coopoosamy, from the Mount Edgecombe Sugar Estate, produced 14 children, 11 of them survived to give birth to the larger Muniamma family that runs into six generations and more than 500 descendants today. Yellammah did not have any children and her sister, Muniammah, allowed one of her daughters, Patcha, to be raised by her.

This roots story has been captured in a family history book, Flight of Young Lovers, that Subry Govender published and later celebrated at an extended family gathering of more than 200 people at the Enchanted Gardens conference at the former Durban Airport in April this year. I had written the family history book primarily to remind our third, fourth, fifth, sixth and future generation descendants not to forget their rich legacy and roots. Their ancestors left their village in Tamil Nadu, India, under trying circumstances and arrived in South Africa to seek a better life. The descendants have to be reminded that if they forget their roots, then they would forget who they are and would not know the road ahead. ENDS – subrygovender@gmail.com Oct 2 2024