Unbowed and unbroken: the story of Indian women in SA

MORAL FORTITUDE

- DR KATHRYN PILLAY

INDIAN women historically and in contemporary South African society, embody a courage that is not momentary, but unwavering, and persistent. Courage that shows up loudly in the form of our most revered political activists, and also quietly, in everyday lives, lives that have experienced oppression, patriarchy, migration, forced removals, poverty, and ultimately, survival.

The phrase, “Unbowed and unbroken”, has been widely used in academic scholarship to describe people who have faced incredible challenges, yet continue to resist and persevere. This phrase aptly captures the resilience of Indian women in South Africa, who have embodied strength over the past 165 years while living in a country, that for too long, made them feel like outsiders.

Our ancestors, particularly the women who lived lives under servitude and indenture, a system akin to slavery, are often unacknowledged in the stories we hear of resistance and endurance.

In truth, when writing the history of South Africa itself, Indian women are invisible, and their stories lie untold.

It has been argued that Indians were the only segment of Natal’s population who arrived through a “special and urgent invitation”. This invitation, however, was never intended for women to accept.

Their inclusion in the system of indenture was as a result of the Indian government imposing regulations on the importation of indentured workers to the colony, which included a quota of 29% women, much to the disdain of the sugar barons and planters in the colony of Natal.

So from the very onset of indenture they were viewed as “dead stock”, deemed as having no value to the economy (Beall, 1990:58). In spite of this, they were nevertheless put to work under brutal conditions on sugar cane plantations, dairy farms, railways, coalmines, or employed later on as ayahs (nannies) in white households. If paid at all, their wages were lower than the men.