Politics of racialism : a study of the Indian minority in South Africa down to the Gandhi-Smuts agreement

This work, though inelegantly named "The Civic and Politica Status of Indians in South Africa" is a comprehensive study of a very important problem of racial relations. It is a tragic story which involves the conscious betrayal of a community by the three parties involved in the transaction, the colonial Government in South Africa (later the Dominion Government), the Colonial Office in London and the Secretary of State for India. In the middle of the last century the European settlers in Natal and Transvaal began to realize that without importing outside labour the colony could not be developed. After looking around, it was finally decided that the most suitable solution of the labour problem would be to import indentured labour from India. It was in 1859 that the law was enacted in Natal authorising the government of that colony to import labour from India. It is thus just over a hundred years since this decision was taken and Indians were taken under indenture to South Africa.

There was never any doubt as to why this movement of Indian labour to South Africa was encouraged. At no time was it even pretended that it was in the interests of the people of India. The problem of labour shortage in Transvaal and Natal was so acute that deputations were sent out to arrange the terms with the Govern ment of India. At no time was the position of the Indian emigrant labour anything but pathetic but with years it degenerated and became a major human tragedy. Sent out to a foreign country with whose customs, language and other conditions he was totally unfamiliar, helpless against every kind of inhuman treatment by his Afrikander masters, without adequate support from the Govern ment of India to secure him even elementary justice, the Indian emigrant to South Africa became the poignant symbol, both of Indo-British racial relationships and India's own of subjection.