Commemorating 165 years of indenture to SA: challenging Thala Vidhi in search of a better life

MY FATHER was from a generation that showed little emotion toward their children. Hugs and kisses were rare, if not entirely nonexistent. For him, there was no time for emotion. His dharma was to simply provide a better life for his family; this was all that mattered to him.

- SELVAN NAIDOO

It was only twice that he showed affection towards me. On both occasions, he kissed my forehead. The first was when I got my matric certificate, and the next was when I became the first in my family to graduate with a degree from the University of Durban-Westville.

It was only years after his death, I realised why a man who showed so little emotion kissed my forehead on both those occasions.

He understood what those moments meant for him and his family. For the first time in 136 years, since his ancestors arrived as indentured workers, we were able to alter the trajectory of being trapped in a cycle of the working class. Like my father and the many generations that came before, working as sugar cane labourers, municipal workers, waiters, factory workers, railway workers, and petty market garden hawkers was all we knew.

For them, their Thala Vidhi, a Tamil phrase that describes the invisible inscription of life's destiny (vidhi) written on their forehead (thala), was to be challenged.

What was written on their foreheads changed when they left the port cities of Madras and Calcutta. Every forehead of the 152 184 indentured workers who came on 384 ships from the villages of Bihar to Visakapatnam to Vellore had challenged and rewritten their Thala Vidhi. Their fate changed when they crossed the kaala pani, arriving at the African homes to build the country their descendants call home.

In this African home, is it possible to determine the degree of the contribution of the Indian indentured population to the colony of Natal?

To what extent were they able to rewrite their Thala Vidhi and that of their employers? In a chapter titled "The Coming of the Indians" in a book by EH Brookes and C.de B Webb, the full impact of indentured labour notes that "towards the close of the 1860s, sugar production in Natal amounted to approximately 8 000 tons. When indentured labour was finally stopped in 1911, it was 82 000 tons".