The Passenger Indian as Worker: Indian Immigrants in Cape Town in the Early Twentieth Century

The Passenger Indian as Worker:Indian Immigrants in Cape Town in theEarly Twentieth Century

Uma Dhupelia-Mesthrie

Department of History, University of the Western Cape

The article argues that the term passenger Indian has contributed to a divisive understanding of

migration from the Indian subcontinent to South Africa. It has led to the stereotype of the wealthy

Gujarati trader and it excludes much. By focusing on Indian migrants in Cape Town, the argument

is made that the term must be redefined to include workers who came from not only Gujarat but also

from Maharashtra and the Punjab and that those marginalised by simplified definitions need to be

given a place in the historiography. Biographical sketches of workers are provided freeing one from

the narrow chronological choices historians have made and include family where possible. Details

are provided of what kind of employment Indian immigrants found in Cape Town and the severe

effects of the permit system and immigration laws on the free mobility of Indians. The article

points to the migrant (and circular) nature of Indian labour in Cape Town with consequences for

wives and children in the villages of India and argues that parallels may be made with African

migrant labour.

Key words: Cape Colony, circular migration, migrant workers, passenger Indian

In 1902, Bhana Poonja (also known as Barnard Manners) left India for the Cape

Colony. The twenty-three year old Gujarati Roman Catholic first worked as a

stonebreaker at the Newlands reservoir in Cape Town. After this he worked as

a labourer in the building trade for two years. Thereafter he worked for three

years with Ohlssons Breweries as a bottle sorter.1 Gopal Uker, a Gujarati

Hindu, came to Cape Town in 1902 age twenty-seven. He soon found work

with the Cape Town and District Gas Light & Coke Co, which operated from

Dock Road in the city centre and also at Woodstock. He remained with this

company for a total of eleven years if not more.2 Ebrahim Bassa (also known

as Ebram Basar) came to Cape Town in 1900 at the age of twenty-seven. He

was a Muslim and his home was Rajwadi in the Kolaba District of the Bombay

Presidency. For some fifteen years he worked with the Union Castle Mail Steam-

ship Company as a donkeyman tending to the machines producing steam.3

Another Muslim, twenty-six year old Ebrahim Amin, left his village Dabot in

the Ratnagiri district of the Bombay Presidency arriving in Cape Town in 1902.

Between 1902 and 1919 he worked for W&G Scott Ltd Timber Merchants in

Salt River as an engine driver, but he also had a one-year spell with the South

African Candle Works and a few months as a hawker.4 Bareyam Singh came

ISSN 0002-0184 print/ISSN 1469-2872 online/09/010111–24# 2009 Taylor & Francis Group Ltd on behalf of the University of WitwatersrandDOI: 10.1080/00020180902827498

African Studies, 68, 1, April 2009

from Shoepur in the Punjab at the age of twenty-seven. A Sikh, whose language

was Gurmukhi, he secured work between 1903 and 1908 as a groom and stable-

man with AR Mackenzie & Company, custom and delivery agents whose

stables were at Upper Canterbury Street.5

All these individuals were what the literature on Indian South Africans defines as

passenger Indians, migrants who paid their own way to the colonies of South

Africa as opposed to the indentured who came under contracts to work in Natal.

This article begins by looking at definitions of the passenger Indian in the litera-

ture and its central argument is that the term has become very simplified and has

lent itself to the development of stereotypes. It excludes more than it elucidates.

The article focuses specifically on those who have been marginalised from

definitions – these were the labouring poor.

The passenger Indian apart from being a misunderstood category of migrant is

also much neglected in the historiography. Indentured workers are better served

by the historiography – studies have elaborated on the journey by ship, the

nature of work in Natal, the conditions on the estates, the experiences of the

women, the cultural adaptations taking place and the use of leisure time (Bhana

1991a, 1991b; Brain 1985; Mesthrie 1991; Brain and Brain 1982; Vahed 2001).

While some studies tended to be quantitative, the recent work of Desai and

Vahed (2007) humanises the indentured worker instead of seeing him or her in

the abstract by providing snatches of biographical information. The social

world of the passenger Indian in colonial times, by contrast, is hardly understood

and knowledge of those who came to the Cape Colony in particular is documented

in but a small number of published works (see Bhana and Brain 1990; Bradlow

1979; Davids 1981).

This article draws attention to the kinds of work that poor passenger Indians found

in Cape Town,6 the extent of upward mobility, the pattern of migration and the

nature of family life. In doing this it also points to the way in which restrictive

immigration laws passed by the Cape Colony in the aftermath of the South

African War (1899–1902) affected the mobility of the Indian labouring class.

Cape Town was nonetheless an important port in the Indian Ocean interregional

area and that movement of human beings between Bombay and this port occurred

in the colonial period needs to be recognised. A biographical approach, as Desai

and Vahed have shown, has advantages. Biography, as some of the sketches in

this article show, also breaks down the tight chronologies that historians have

favoured – they transcend these and provide a greater understanding of migration

patterns.

Defining the passenger Indian

Eminent historians Surendra Bhana and Bridglal Pachai were necessarily brief in

their documentary collection about the complex process of migration from the

Indian sub-continent to South Africa:

112 African Studies, 68:1, April 2009

It is common knowledge that Indians came to South Africa in two categories, namely

as indentured Indians and as ‘free’ or ‘passenger’ Indians. The former came as a result

of a triangular pact among three governments [Natal, India, and Britain] and the latter,

mainly traders ever alert to new opportunities abroad, came at their own expense from

India, Mauritius and other places. (Bhana and Pachai 1984:2)

The use of the term passenger Indian had gained currency amongst academics by

this time but this had not always been the case. There is some evidence that those

who came in as migrants who had paid their own ship’s passage used the term pas-

senger themselves though this was far from frequent.7 The word was not employed

in earliest writings about Indians in South Africa. Gandhi ((1928) 1950:21–3)

made a distinction between two groups of Indian migrants in early colonial

Natal: the indentured workers who came under contract and the ‘free traders

and their free servants’. The free servants referred to the Hindu accountants

who came to serve the Muslim traders. He also recognised the category of those

indentured Indians who had served out their contracts. They were, in his

opinion, not really free. He distinguished between the traders and accountants

who were ‘absolutely free’ and the workers whose indenture had expired as a

qualified ‘free’.8

Works by Joshi (1942:46–9), Burrows ((1943) 1952:2), Wetherell (1946:8) and

Calpin (1949:10) do not employ the word passenger Indian – instead they refer

to ‘free Indians’ embracing at times both traders and ex-indentured. Mabel

Palmer (1957:42–3) may well have been the first academic to define the passenger

Indian. She writes of the ‘free immigrant’ Muslim and Hindu traders and argues ‘to

distinguish these from other classes of free Indians, those who had served their

period of indenture, these are commonly called “passenger Indians”.’ All sub-

sequent published works then favour this term and it solidifies so that passenger

and trader become synonymous. Hilda Kuper’s definition though became

the most adopted description (1960:3). Passenger Indians were those ‘who

entered the country under the ordinary immigration laws, and at their own

expense. The majority came specifically to trade or serve in commerce . . .’ She,like Gandhi, recognised that the ex-indentured or ‘time-expired’ Indians were

hardly ‘free’9 Meer (1969:7), Pachai (1971:7, 11) Pillay (1976:1), Swan

(1985:1), and Bhana and Brain (1990:22–3) all adopt the term passenger Indian.

Most follow three categorisations of Indian immigrants 1) the indentured

worker, 2) the ex-indentured or free Indian (the status ‘free’ is no longer ques-

tioned), and 3) the passenger Indian or, as Pachai put it, the ‘free passenger’ Indian.

Bhana and Brain also trace the movements of free Indians and absconding inden-

tured labourers to the various port cities and to the diamond-fields. About Cape

Town, in particular, they note that the vast number of Indians were passenger

Indians (mainly Muslim) while ‘free Indians moved there from Natal after 1897

and engaged in labour on the docks, on the railways and on farms. Later, free

and passenger Indians were engaged in various occupations, particularly trade’

(Bhana and Brain 1990:127). Bradlow argued that Indians in the Cape Colony

The Passenger Indian as Worker 113

are ‘exclusively from “passenger” origin’ and that ‘lacking skills of other kinds, the

Cape Indians almost without exception became traders and shopkeepers . . . TheMoslems tended to become wholesale and retail general dealers and butchers.

The Hindus . . . set up as fruit and vegetable hawkers, and shoemakers . . .’(Bradlow 1979:134, 136–7). In these works and more so in that of Pillay on the

Transvaal (1976:2) the impression is created that a worker in the Transvaal or

the Cape was of indentured background while the passenger Indian was a trader

or hawker.

Maureen Swan’s work contributed to a further equation: the term passenger Indian

became associated with wealth for she focused on the richest merchants who had

extensive trading networks and owned substantial property. While she recognised

that there were ‘smaller traders and hawkers’ whose fortunes were inextricably

connected to the merchants by credit loans she did not pursue this category

with any significant interest. We are left with the dominating image of the passen-

ger as a migrant of much resource, influence and investment (Swan 1985:3–8).

Others like Padayachee and Morell (1991:77, 81–2) have argued for a nuanced

definition of passenger, a two tier one: the wealthy merchants and the small

trader or hawker. But here too, we are not offered much more. In this work and

that of Kalpana Hiralal (2000:135–6) the definition passenger equals trader

(with levels of gradation) endures. Hiralal, in fact, provides a rigid passenger

Indian equals trader equals Gujarati definition whereas an earlier work like that

of Kuper (1960:7–9) provided a much more comprehensive listing of regional

and linguistic origins.10

There are some pointers in the literature to avoid simple definitions of the passen-

ger Indian. Joy Brain compiled a list of Christian passenger Indians to Natal

among whom were traders, teachers, interpreters, catechists (1983:150ff, 243,

245). Kuper also provides an important detail – there were some indentured

Indians who on expiry of their contracts returned to India and came back to

Natal as passenger Indians (1960:8). There is also the aforementioned reference

by Gandhi to the ‘free servants’ of the merchants. Bradlow, too, writes about

the Indian employees of Indian traders in the Cape who were on contract. She pro-

vides a further intriguing sentence, which unfortunately she does not expand on.

Indians, she argues, were ‘prepared to do any manual labour including heavy

work on railway & dock construction for lower wages than other coloured

labourers [but] as soon as they were able . . . they did go into business indepen-

dently or worked as shop assistants’ (Bradlow 1979:134, 136–7).

In many works we are also left with the impression that the passenger Indian is a

male.11 While Bhana and Brain refer to ‘the men and women who arrived in

various ships from western India at their own expense’ (1990:23) their book is

singularly silent about the female passenger immigrant. The statistics reveal

that there were female immigrants from India even if they were few in number

before 1910 (Dhupelia-Mesthrie 2007:17). The historiography neglects the


small storekeeper, hawker, shop assistant, accountant, priest, women and chil-

dren.12 That the passenger Indian could also be a worker is not a scenario contem-

plated by historians. The following section moves to discuss the Cape Colony’s

attitude towards securing labour from India and immigration restrictions which

affected the flow of passenger Indians.

Stopping the flow: The Cape Colony and Indian immigration

Indian immigration to the Cape Colony never quite reached the numbers in Natal,

understandably, since the former chose not to import indentured labour.13 Bradlow

has shown how, on several occasions in the 1870s, a debate surfaced about the use

of such labour but that the colonial government was against it. There was a

reluctance to comply with the strict regulations set up by the imperial government

and government of India. Employers of labour were urged to look within the

colony for black unskilled labour and to whites for skilled workers (Bradlow

1979:132–3).

Indian immigrants had been coming to the Cape from the 1870s and 1880s,

some from Mauritius but many directly from India. There was a growth in

numbers in the 1890s and more especially during and immediately after the

South African War (1899–1902). In 1904 the Cape Colony seems to have overta-

ken the Transvaal in numbers: 10,242 to the Transvaal’s 9,979. Indians were to be

found in many small interior towns of the colony such as Swellendam, Oudtshoorn,

Beaufort West, Colesberg, Preiska, Barkly West, Upington, Vryburg, Middelburg,

Mafeking and the eastern Cape towns of Uitenhage, Grahamstown, Fort Beaufort,

Somerset East, Cathcart, Burgersdorp, Aliwal North, Indwe and Engcobo. In the

early years, between the 1870s and 1880s, Kimberley was the most favoured

city in the colony for Indians. In later years, the port cities especially Port Elizabeth

and Cape Town became more popular (Bhana and Brain 1990:78, 109, 194;

Bradlow 1979:134–5).

Indians in Cape Town came mainly from the Bombay Presidency, an extensive

area along the west coast of India that included the then Districts of Surat and

Broach (now in Gujarat), and the Districts of Kolaba and Ratnagiri (now in

Maharashtra). Smaller numbers came from the Punjab, Bengal and the Madras

Presidency. The languages spoken were Gujarati, Urdu, Kokanie, Mahratti,

Hindi, Tamil and Gurmukhi. Tamil-speaking immigrants coming directly from

Madras were more likely though to have gone to places like Kimberley and

Port Elizabeth.14 The vast majority of Cape Town’s immigrants came from

poor agricultural villages in India. Their migration is characterised by chain

migration – many followed the example of others who had left from their villages

and there was an extensive village and kin network. On landing many of the poor

took to hawking – an activity that required little capital investment. As this article

will detail many became workers as well. Indian barbers, shoemakers, tailors,

butchers, general dealers, hawkers and workers lived mainly around the city


centre (District Six and Woodstock having substantial numbers) but they soon

spread out towards the suburbs.

Ebrhaim Norodien was one of the seasoned entrepreneurs in Cape Town. He came

in 1896 and in just over a decade he had twenty shops. He was a direct importer of

goods, grocer and provision merchant.15 Purseram Lutcheram was based in

Orphan Street. He had first spent six years in Natal before coming to Cape

Town in 1896 aged nineteen. Ten years later he was a silk merchant and owned

substantial property.16 His firm Pohoomul Brothers was originally established in

Durban and expanded to Cape Town. The wholesale and retail shop was

located in Longmarket/Parliament Street in the city and sold silk, embroidered

goods, curios, Eastern jewellery, art works and ornamental objects. Parsi

Mancherji was a merchant and importer and also an agent of the German East

African Line Shipping Company (Indian Department) (Dhupelia-Mesthrie

2000:13).

While there were these successful individuals, there were in Cape Town many

poor Indians. We fortunately have an account written in 1911 of how Osman

Yjir/Vazir of Dungri village in Surat came to Cape Town in the early 1890s

when he was in his twenties. He points to poverty and chance contacts:

. . .my brother, father and mother left me alone in this world, owing to their deaths and

I have no house or piece of land to sustain myself thereby. I am living from hand to

mouth at present and such were my condition before, too; when I could not get any

job in my native place, I resorted to Bombay and there I tried my luck. But poor as

I was born, in Bombay too, I failed. After a short time in Bombay, a gentleman

showed his desire upon my request, and took me along with him to Capetown and I

served under him for seven years with all faith. He gave me some money in return

of my service and by this . . . I started for Delagoa Bay and entered Transvaal on

21st October, 1897. I stayed for a year or so in Transvaal for better earning but I

failed there. And owing to my failure in Transvaal I returned to Capetown, where

I had served so faithfully to my first master beyond the sea, on 14th August 1898. I

served myself here in Capetown for two years in the Frieman Co. and six years in

the Gas Co as a general labourer . . .17

The numbers of poor immigrants threatened to grow in the aftermath of the South

African War. Vivian Bickford-Smith has shown how the total population of Cape

Town grew from 79,000 in 1891 to 170,000 in 1904, making it the most populated

city in South Africa. Amongst the new migrants in this period, the vast majority

were whites from Europe numbering 34,000 while 2,000 were Australians.

There was movement within the colony with 2,000 Afrikaners arriving in the

city. The second largest number of new migrants to the city, 21,000, were colour-

eds from the rural areas of the Cape. In addition, there were 9,000 new African

arrivals from the eastern Cape or Transkei and 2,000 immigrants from India

(Bickford-Smith 1995:11, 130). The city provided many attractions.

The economyofCapeTownboomed in the 1890s and after thewar (Bickford-Smith

1995:129–30; Bickford-Smith et al. 1999:25–7). There was significant expansion


at the Table Bay Harbour, which struggled to cope with the large numbers of ships

docking. Therewas development in the rail and transport systems. This timewas, as

Bickford–Smith records, ‘a golden period for Cape Town’s merchants’. Imports

soared from £3,000,000 in 1891 to £14,000,000 in 1902. The food and clothing

industries, which dominated Cape Town’s light industry registered growth;

12,000 Capetonians found work in factories in 1904. The construction industry

enjoyed a boom period as new buildings, houses, schools, factories and shops

were being constructed.

While Cape Town may have been attractive in itself, Indian immigrants also

arrived here simply because the Transvaal and Natal were far more difficult to

get into. During the war, Indians like others, fled the Transvaal and there were

many refugees in Cape Town. Some lived in tents at Dock Road, thereafter in

Maitland and ultimately District Six (Bickford-Smith et al. 1999:13). After the

war, there were huge difficulties getting back into the Transvaal. As for Natal,

ever since 1897, there were only three main ways new Indian immigrants could

enter the colony: demonstration of writing proficiency in English (which few

from India could accomplish), or if one was indentured or if one was a wife

and child of a domiciled Indian (Bhana and Brain 1990:131–6, 142–6).

The case of passengers on the steamship, the SS Nowshera, in 1901 provides an

example of how some immigrants came to disembark in Cape Town and points

to the eagerness evident in the port of Bombay for a ship bound for South

Africa.18 The Protector of Emigrants in Bombay wrote a report on the 800 passen-

gers due to leave Bombay in September on this ship. Those bound for Natal had

papers and were returnees. They included hawkers and market gardeners. The Pro-

tector is silent about those bound for the other ports, for the ship was due to call not

only at Durban, but also at East London, Port Elizabeth and Cape Town. The offi-

cial was sure that three or four other ships bound for South Africa ‘will all fill up’.

On 10 October the SS Nowshera arrived in Cape Town with 363 passengers, the

rest having landed at the three preceding ports. The medical officer of health wrote

about 49 Indian soldiers on board, eight visiting Indians and 306 ‘coolies’. He was

concerned about the latter who, he argued, were rejected for landing at Natal and

were ‘the worst of the batch’. They were ‘very feeble and of inferior physique’.

Given that there were no immigration laws to prevent them from landing they

were allowed to disembark.

Amongst the authorities in Port Elizabeth, East London and Cape Town there

arose some hysteria at the prospect of ships laden with passengers who would

be rejected in Natal and then disembark at their ports. The editor of the Cape

Times whipped up similar hysteria and wrote about ‘the horde of coolies’

coming to the Cape ports. He argued that while Natal protected itself from ‘the

scum of the Far East’ the Cape, unless it acted, was destined to become ‘a

dumping ground’. He called for some legislation to protect the colony ‘from the

undesirable elements from the East and European ports’.19 In 1901 alone 3,311


Indians had been prohibited from entering Durban and numbers remained high for

the decade (Bhana and Brain 1990:132–3). In 1902 the Cape government rushed

through the Immigration Act. Bickford-Smith (1995:126) has made the insightful

comment that times of prosperity (like times of great economic stress) brought

their own troubles to the ruling class, such as ‘how to maintain material and

social order’. The Act was one such attempt.

The Immigration Act of 1902 all but put paid to fresh immigration from India. It

came into effect at the end of January 1903, and, as the medical officer of the Cape

Colony, A John Gregory, explained, it was aimed ‘to restrict undesirable immigra-

tion’. It prohibited the landing of any person who could not write out an appli-

cation or sign in the characters of any European language and who could not

provide evidence of some financial means to support himself/herself (the

minimum sum was first £5 but quickly raised to £20). Males and females who

were prostitutes and lunatics were also prohibited. The Act did not apply to

those who were already domiciled in the colony and the wife and children of

such domiciled persons. It specifically excluded from its prohibitions ‘European

persons who are agricultural or domestic servants, skilled artisans, mechanics,

workmen or miners’ who could prove that they had already been contracted to

an employer in the colony. Undesirable whites, by implication then, would be

the illiterate and poor who just turned up at the Cape ports from Europe and else-

where – the door was open to white as opposed to Indian or Chinese labour.20 The

Jewish poor arriving from Russia were also the focus of negative attention in Cape

Town, but Jewish leaders in Cape Town succeeded, at least, in getting Yiddish

recognised as a European language for the purposes of the Act (Mendelsohn

and Shain 2008:47, 57, 60).

The case of Attarsing Ralaram reflects how the door to fresh immigration was

shut. A carpenter from India he made his way to Lourenco Marques where he

lived for three years. In 1908 he wished to move on to Cape Town to combine

work and sightseeing. He wrote to the immigration officer of the colony: ‘wher-

ever I go I make my livelihood without any difficulty’. He was given a stock

answer if he had £20 and could write in a European language he would not

have difficulties. Attarsing indeed had £20 but could write only in an Indian

language. So he was denied entry.21 Many such examples of refusals can be

provided and many did not have the £20.

The Immigration Act of 1902 put paid to the desires of any employers in the

colony who looked to India for labour. Already in 1902 there had been two signifi-

cant approaches to the colonial government to import labour from India. The one

came from the Standard Lime Syndicate operating at Lansdowne Road on the

Cape Flats. Its manager had some experience in Natal and was of the view that

‘Indians are more reliable than Cape Boys whom we cannot depend upon’. He

claimed to have difficulties obtaining African labour.22 A second and more sub-

stantial application for Indian labour came from the Sir John Jackson Ltd


company charged with developing the harbour at Simonstown. The proposal was

for 400 to 500 Indians to come under contracts similar to the indentured. The area

suggested for recruiting was the Punjab and towards the Himalayas because the

company already had some satisfactory experience of workers from the Punjab

who had come to Simonstown on their own means. The company claimed

they could not secure sufficient African labour but also they preferred Indian

labour believing the latter to be more ‘tractable and intelligent’. This request

was denied.23

Another group of employers, extremely annoyed at the restrictions imposed by

the Immigration Act, were Indian shopkeepers. They needed shop assistants

and preferred to have young males from India – people they knew from their

villages – rather than local youth. Evidence indicates shop assistants were inden-

tured to their Indian employers with a specified period of service with salary plus

board and lodging.24 Other employers wanted servants of a different kind:

Purseram Lutcheram of Pohumool Brothers, for instance, employed two Indians

Tillmal and Hermandas as valet and cook respectively.25 The traders wanted

the right to import servants from India who would be bound for a few years and

who would be repatriated by them at their cost. This request was not acceded to

though it seems that some small exceptions were made.26

The Immigration Act excluded poor Indians but the language requirements also

affected the trader, against whom there had been rising prejudice since the

1890s (Bradlow 1979:143–5). Between 1903 and 1906, the Immigration Depart-

ment used the Act to get rid of Indians (traders, hawkers and workers) who were

within the colony. With families in India, most Indians wished to return to India

for a period of time but to re-enter the Cape they required a domicile certificate.

These were regularly denied them as domicile was strictly interpreted to include

not just length of stay in the colony but evidence of property holding and most

importantly a family in the colony. As long as wives were in India, Indians

were not regarded as domiciled. On being denied a certificate, the choices were

limited: they could remain in the colony or leave for India with no possibility

of return.27 Abdol Cader noted a drop in the number of Indians in the Cape

suburbs: in 1902 he believed there were about 5,000 Indians but six years later

there were not more than 2,000.28 The drop in numbers in the Cape as recorded

in the 1911 census supports this perception.29 The only fresh legal immigration

that could take place after 1902 was if a domiciled Indian wished to bring out

his wife and children.

There was some softening later on temporary movements to India by those within

the colony. In 1906 permits were issued to Indians leaving the colony at a charge

of £1. The permit system was a means of state surveillance over the movement of

Indians. It was like a pass and the document of identity carried a photograph,

thumbprints and general descriptions of the body. The permit stated the time

within which the holder had to return to the colony or forfeit a right for good to


re-enter. Initially, only a period of one year was given but after 1913 this was

extended to three years. The Chinese had been subject to such monitoring for

some time to the extent that it was claimed that the government knew the where-

abouts of all Chinese in the colony.30 Gandhi who was involved in the satyagraha

campaign in the Transvaal against the documents of identity required there

regarded the Cape permits as ‘certificates of freedom’ or a ‘ticket of leave’ with

the implication that Indians were like prisoners just given parole.31 The operation

of the permit system was crucial, as we shall see, in understanding the experiences

of Indian workers in the colony.

The biographical detail utilised in this article are drawn from this site of power and

surveillance and may be inaccurate in some respects. It was important when filling

in forms for permits to say that one had arrived in the colony by 1902 for any date

after that would indicate an illegal entry. Many Indians also said that they were

single in the early years – there was the belief, inspired by the strictness with

which domicile certificates were issued, that if they indicated they had wives

and families back home in India they would not get a permit. The permit appli-

cations also bear the hands of interpreters and this provides further reason for

approaching them with caution. Despite the serious limitations of this source

they provide useful biographies of Indians in the colony.32

Work, employers, patterns of migration and family

While one cannot provide statistics of exactly how many Indian workers there

were in the 1900s in greater Cape Town, one can say that while a large number

of Indians were general dealers and hawkers a significant number of them were

workers. This section is based on 175 files in an archival collection that runs

into the thousands so it provides but a preliminary picture. The biographical

sketches reveal a pattern of circular migration with the inevitable return to

India. For many individuals, Cape Town was just a short interlude in their lives.

Some of this was by choice as they had families there. The permit system also

required re-entry within a restricted time. The indentured worker had his/herpassage to Natal paid for and, over time, the vast majority lost contact with

their families in India. For those formerly indentured who returned to India on

a paid passage, a return route was to re-indenture. The Indian workers in Cape

Town needed to have enough for the passage back to South Africa (£14 in

1924) after spending a year or more in India.

Several took advantage of the assisted emigration scheme to return to India but

this paid passage had its consequences – domicile had to be surrendered.33

Elderly Indians, in particular, made use of this scheme after ensuring the domicile

rights of young sons who remained in the country.

India at all times remained important. Even after several decades in the country,

India beckoned – there were visits to wives and children were born during

these visits. Some maintained wives and children in both India and South


Africa while for others the circle of mobility ended once they married local

women in Cape Town. In the rare instance, the Cape-born wife was taken back

to the village in India. Wives and children were only brought from India when

workers were well established and had secured better positions.34 There are

some instances of upward mobility and substantial material progress.

Of the 175 Indian workers, sixty-eight were employed at the harbour works in

Simonstown. The men who worked for Sir John Jackson Ltd between 1900 and

1910 when the works were drawing to a completion were predominantly from

the Punjab and were Sikhs. Ajam Chajoo,35 however, was a Muslim Gujarati

from Malekpor in Surat. Abdul Ragman Mahomed Sharief36 was an Afghan

and Dawood Amien37 was from Bombay. The majority were married, had

young children back home and owned some land. Some of them like Kishen

Singh had served in the South African War and after taking their discharge

sought employment.38 A few like Rala Singh39 and Banta Singh40 worked at

the Salt River Locomotive Works before moving to Simonstown. Dhar (Thakar)

Singh41 first worked at the Table Bay docks and then moved to Simonstown,

while Jamet Singh first started at Ohlssons Breweries.42 Gulwant Singh43

worked for the Cape Government Railways (CGR) for eighteen months before

being employed by John Jackson. We have a few specific descriptions of what

work they did. Kara Singh was a coachman, Gulwant Singh was a ganger,

Dalel Singh44 was a coal ganger, Hazara Singh45 was a boss boy, Basant

Singh46 was a labourer and watchman. Dawood Amien was a fireman (stoker)

and looked after the air compressors. Many worked for John Jackson for about

five to seven years after which the majority returned to India. Some like Kishen

Singh went on to South West Africa and others like Basant Singh were making

enquiries about work possibilities in Nigeria. Rala Singh returned to Cape

Town in 1910 after a trip to India. By 1926 he was a greengrocer. After a short

trip to India in 1926–27 he remained in Cape Town until 1936 when he left

under the assisted emigration scheme.

One hundred and seven Indians worked in Cape Town city itself and of these at

least twenty–three secured employment with the CGR. Some of them were

general labourers like Kesir Singh, Goorndat Singh, Kisheim Singh and Sunder

Singh.47 Burgas Omar48 and Omargee Mousa,49 both Gujarati Muslims, were

cleaners. Mogul Jan of Calcutta also called Mongel John was a cleaner.50

Mahomed Moosa was a traffic manager.51 Chiba Daya Mitha,52 a Gujarati

Hindu, from Dandi, Surat worked in the stores department, as did Puncha

Boolah53, also from Dandi. Kada Desai54 whose brother Nathoobhai Bhimbhai

Desai had a shop in Tyne Street worked as porter for five years (1901–05).

Some had very short periods of service after which they returned to India. Kesir

Singh, Goorndat Singh, Kisheim Singh, and Sunder Singh all became victims of

the harsh implementation of the Immigration Act and were denied domicile certi-

ficates in 1905 after which they disappear from the record. Burgas Omar worked

for seven years but returned to India in 1907.


The economy of Cape Town took a downward turn so that by 1905–06 there was

considerable unemployment and poverty, which manifested in the unsettling

hunger riots (Bickford-Smith et al. 1999:33–7). The depression lasted for yet

another two years. The immigration officer described ‘the condition of the

labour market . . . as deplorable’ and noted the departure of many artisans and tra-

desmen from the colony in 1906 and 1907 with many ‘hundreds of men in the

colony out of regular employment’.55 Mogul Jan was retrenched from the CGR

in 1907, worked for two years as a hawker and returned to India in 1909. Walla

(Valla) Ravjee56 was retrenched in 1908 after four years of work. He went to

India, returned in 1911 and worked as a hawker for the rest of his years in Cape

Town. He left for India under the assisted emigration scheme in 1938 aged

fifty. Further into the interior, Deva Ratting, a Gujarati Hindu, lost his job with

the CGR at De Aar in 1908 ‘when all the Indians were replaced by Europeans’.57

Some Indians, however, stayed with the railways for many years. Chiba Daya

Mitha was with the CGR from 1902 to 1911. He visited India in 1911–12 after

which he resumed his job with the CGR until 1919. He made one more trip to

India in 1919–20. In 1934 when he left Cape Town, aged sixty-three, he was

still listed as a labourer but his employer is not disclosed. For almost three

decades, Chiba saw his wife, Daya, and son, Lalla, in Surat only on those two

one-year visits to India.

Nagina Sing58 worked for three years at the municipal yard in Claremont. There

were several Indians working there as refuse workers as a photograph testifies

(Dhupelia-Mesthrie 2000:pic48). Nagina wanted to leave in February 1906 for

German South West Africa where his brother was. Denied a domicile certificate

he probably left Cape Town for good. Some Indians like Ally Mohamed59 from

the village Peeplol in Ratnagiri worked for the city corporation. After a brief

spell as a shop assistant he was a foreman in 1914 in the city engineer’s depart-

ment. Four years later he worked at the municipal electric station. Two decades

later he was a shopkeeper. During this latter period he brought out his two sons,

while his wife and daughter remained in India. He left in 1937 on the assisted

emigration scheme.

A few Indians found work in the Public Works Department, the Army Ordnance

Department, Cape Town Tramways and at the Barracks in Cape Town. Dewa

Bhana60 came to Cape Town in 1901 aged thirty-one. He worked as an ‘office

boy’ first with the Harbour Board for ten months and then from 1903 to 1908

with the Army Ordnance Department after which he returned to India. Dhik

Naranji61 aged nineteen in 1903, first worked for a land contractor as a general

labourer between 1903 and 1905 and then worked till 1909 for the Cape Peninsula

Garrison at the Barracks as a ‘fuel and light labourer’, after which he returned to

India.

A few Indians worked for the Cape Town & District Gas Light & Coke Company.

Adam Ebrahim62 was nineteen years old when he left Navsari for the Transvaal.


After four years there he came to Cape Town in 1901 and first hawked fruit. A year

later he secured employment with the Gas Company and stayed with them for

fifteen years. In 1906 he married a Cape-born Malay named Asa and they set

up home in Hanover Street, District Six. The couple travelled to India in 1907.

While Adam returned to his job in 1908, Asa remained behind in Navsari

giving birth to their daughter, Fatima. Adam visited his family in 1911–12 and

in 1912 Asa gave birth to a son, Ismail. For five years Adam remained in Cape

Town away from his young family but returned permanently to India in 1917.

This is an unusual story. Generally when Indians married a local their trips to

India became less frequent and family life was constituted in Cape Town.

Ohlssons Breweries (Newlands), Phoenix Breweries (Chapel Street), Castle

Brewery (Woodstock), Castle Wine & Brandy Company, Van Ryn Wine & Spirit

Co also employed Indians. Nathoo Bagwa (Bhagvan)63 of Navsari, Surat was

thirty-five when he took a position with Ohlssons in 1903 where he worked for

four years. His employer referred to him as ‘a good hardworking boy’. He remained

in Cape Town until 1936 (making three trips to India in that period) but moved to

hawking. He had a shop for a while in 1930 and in 1936 he was hawking fish. He

returned to India that year aged sixty on the assisted emigration scheme. He had

three children with his wife Pemi during his three trips to India between 1912

and 1925. The oldest son Chagan was brought to Cape Town in the 1920s.

Balla Bapoo64 was an elderly employee of Castle Brewery. He came from India in

1902 aged forty-four.Hewas employed byCastleBrewery for a brief period in 1908

as a cleaner in the engine room but was retrenched that year. He tried selling eggs

but left for India in 1908. Gopal Dya65 came from Astikagam in Surat at the age of

fifteen in 1902. He first hawked fruit and then worked for Castle Brewery for six

years in the fermenting and bilking departments. After a visit to India in 1909–

10 during which time he and his wife Amba had a son he returned to Cape Town

in 1910. For five years he worked in the bottling department of the Beaconfield

Hotel, also serving as barman and canteen-worker. In the period 1915 to 1917 he

visited India and a second son was born. On his return he tried his hand at being

a greengrocer but returned to India in 1920 aged thirty-five. Gafoor Antullie66

came to Cape Town in 1902 from Chanwar in Alibag (Kolaba) aged thirty-two.

He was Urdu-speaking. He worked at the docks for a year then for the next

decade he was with Castle Brewery. He left Cape Town in 1931 under the assisted

emigration scheme after ten years of running a butchery. In the twenty-nine years he

was in Cape Town, he visited India four times: 1909–10, 1913, 1917–21, 1927. His

wife Amina remained in Chanwar while three sons died during this period.

H Henry Collison Ltd were wine merchants in Sir Lowry Road and EK Greene

was a wholesale and family wine merchant in Somerset Road. Gullabhai

Raghnathge Desai67 from Pipaldhara, Surat, worked for Collison for nine years

(1903–12). He was an exception amongst immigrants in that he could read,

write and speak English and entered in March 1903 age nineteen on that basis.


At Collison he was employed as a labeller and capsule samples maker and did

general work. He left for India in 1912. Baba Bapoo68 was illiterate and aged

thirty-eight when he left behind his wife Bai Sahib in Rajwari in Kolaba in

1902. He found a job with Greene as a cellar hand soon after his arrival and

worked here for a total of twelve years. He visited India three times in 1909–

10, 1915–17 and 1921–24. By 1921 he was a general dealer. In 1924 he

brought out his son Shaik Allie aged seven and in 1927 he left permanently for

India to rejoin his wife and the rest of his children.

A few workers from the Punjab secured employment with the Hout Bay Canning

Company. Mihmahl llana69 came to Cape Town aged thirty-three in 1902 and for a

while he did odd jobs around the town. Then between 1903 and 1909 he worked

for the Hout Bay Canning Company. Surjan Singh70 came in 1900 aged twenty-

three. During the war he was employed at Green Point Camp and Stellenbosch.

He then worked at the Locomotive Department in Salt River and spent two

fishing seasons in 1906–07 with the Hout Bay Canning Company. Both Llana

and Singh returned to India.

Indians also secured employment with the Manolis & Paetache Mineral Water

Manufacturers in Sir Lowry Road, The Freeman & Co Lemonade Factory in Sir

Lowry Road, Freeman Aerated Water Factory in Hatfield Street, M Smith

(Mineral Water Manufacturer) in Selkirk Street, Lake Spa Aerated Water

Factory in Newmarket Street, Table Mountain Soda Water Factory in Woodstock,

SA Mineral Water Factory in Selkirk Street. Allie Shaboodin71 who was

thirty-two in 1902 when he came from Dabot in Ratnagiri worked for M Smith

as a handyman until 1908. Smith was pleased with him; he was ‘honest and

respectable’. Allie later became a shop assistant to Abdurhaman Bala.

The Woodstock Sweets Factory and JJ Hill & Co Steam Confectionery & Fruit

Preserving Works in Sir Lowry Road, Newmarket Street and Russell Street also

employed a few Indians. Mahomed Baba72 worked as a handy man for Woodstock

Sweets in 1911, while Mahomed Ismail73 from Kurgawn, Kolaba was a fireman

with them in 1909. In 1916 he was working as a fireman on the tugboats at the

harbour. Camal Ismail74 worked as a labourer in the jam department for Hills

between 1907 and 1908 while Ismail Ayob75 from Pabra, Kolaba worked for

Hills as a fireman between 1902 and 1916. In 1924 he gave his occupation as a

butcher. He spent a full ten years in Cape Town before he was able to return to

India to see his wife and son in 1911. He brought his fifteen-year-old son out in

1913 but his wife and daughter remained in India. The son became a shop assist-

ant. He was able to go three further times to India in 1916–18, 1924–26 and

1930–33 before he left finally for India on the assisted emigration scheme in

1935 aged sixty-four.

Indians seem to have secured work with numerous individual white merchants and

firms. Kooverjee Naranjee Desai76 from Besna, Surat came to Cape Town in 1902

aged twenty-two. He first worked for the city for two years, then as a parcel boy


and messenger for five years with W Kohling of Long Street. He was still a

labourer in 1919 when he left for India. He managed to go to India between

1910 and 1911 where his wife Echa and son Chowtoo (age nine) lived and it

would be seven years before they saw him again. Naran Ratan77 worked for a

fish merchant W & J Greig at the Dock Road fish market between 1904 and

1906 and for B Brown of Cape Fisheries at the stall in the fish market between

1907 and 1909. He then returned to his wife Geevie in India.

Abdulla Enus78 who was also known as Mattagie (he came from the village Meta-

ghar in Chiplun, Ratnagiri) worked for nine years as a fireman on an Italian vessel.

He worked for a while for a fellow villager after which he secured employment

between 1907 and 1910 with Nanucci Ltd in Long and Church streets. His

employer found him to be a ‘good workman, honest, sober, industrious’. Ten

years later he was working for Empire Steam Laundry. In 1936 he was a

hawker. He lived first in Claremont, then Athlone and later Elsies River. He main-

tained two families. Latifa and two sons lived in India. He visited India on three

occasions, 1910–11, 1920–21 and 1936–38. Latifa died in 1921, as did his seven-

teen-year-old son Mohedien two years later. While Latifa was still alive he

married Abiba in Claremont and they had five children.

Moosa Sonie79 came to the Transvaal in 1892 at the age of fifteen and in 1899 no

doubt due to the war moved to Cape Town. He first worked as a shop assistant in

Ceres then found work with Heynes Mathew & Co. This was a chemist and photo-

graphic dealership and there were numerous branches in Cape Town and Moosa

had a long period of service with them from 1903 to 1915. Moosa, who was a

Gujarati Muslim from Dabhol, Surat, like Abdulla maintained two families.

Ayesha was his wife in India and in Cape Town he married Sabida with whom

he had two children. They lived in William Street in District Six. In 1922 he,

Sabida, Katija age three and Jacob age five months went to India. It ended in

tragedy, Sabida returned in 1923 a widow.

Mahomet Sallie80 was thirty-seven when he came from Mobkhay, Ratnagiri. He

first worked as a hawker and then for the Union Castle Mail Steamship

Company for a year. Between 1905 and 1916 he worked for Conningham &

Gearing Atlas Works as a ‘serang of native labourers’. He worked as a shop assist-

ant in 1924 and left for India in 1928 under the assisted emigration scheme. During

his stay in Cape Town he made four trips to India and his wife Sharifa remained in

India and bore him seven children (two of them died in infancy). The Union Castle

Mail Steamship Company employed Mahomed Kassiem81 as a messenger

between 1902 and 1905. Allie Dawood Shaik Nana82 of Tira in Ratnagiri was a

‘donkey man’ with the company between 1906 and 1909. By 1923 when he

decided to return to India to his wife of thirty years, who bore him five children,

he was a greengrocer.

Several Indians secured work as gardeners and house servants. Gooka Lala83

worked for Percy O Wathes of Sea Point from 1902 to 1908. Sardar Rasool84


from Malekpur Surat was a house servant for James Burns in Buitengracht Street

between 1902 and 1906. His employer found the teenager ‘a very honest trust-

worthy obedient boy . . . a first class servant’. Jetta Kisha Paitel (Patel)85 came

from Khandhili in the District Kaira in 1901 aged twenty-nine. He had a wife

in India. He worked as a gardener for two years for a Mr Horsburgh in

Wynberg then secured a job with R Neugebauer. This was a company that

described themselves as merchants and engineers, contractors to the Imperial

German government, the Orange River Colony (Orange Free State as it was

known before the war) and to various mining and colliery companies. They

imported various metal stock, electric accessories and supplied ship cables.

They also had a good supply of second-hand stock. The owners were pleased

with Jetta describing him as a ‘very willing diligent labourer of some skill’. He

was particularly knowledgeable about the metal and iron department. Jetta went

to India on a permit but never returned.

Some Indians started off in Cape Town and then made their way further out.

Doolab Bhika86 first worked as a building labourer in the city when he moved

out to the Hex River Valley where he was employed as a fruit packer by Cape

Orchards for five years. The Kuils River Mines drew some skilled Indian

labour. Sana Rana from Surat was regarded as an ‘expert in tin mines’.87

Bareyam Singh, the stable groom mentioned earlier, provides an example of suc-

cessful upward mobility. For him the pattern of circular migration did not apply.

He did not make any trips to India until a brief visit in 1930 and then twenty-four

years later when his sister Rajkor aged ninety-three was ill. One of the reasons for

these limited trips is that he had married a local woman known as Kitty and they

had two children, Francis and Nellie. By 1931 Bareyam was a produce merchant

in Reform Street and lived in Walmer Estate. He had been active in politics, repre-

senting the Cape National Indian Association at a conference in Durban in 1928.

When Kitty died he married Lettie in 1941 and they had two children Bareyam and

Elaine. By the time he was in his seventies he had an annual income of over £2,400

and owned property over £48,000.88

Experiences of loss

For those who secured a permit to visit India it was the most important document

one could possess. It guaranteed a right to return to Cape Town within a specified

time. Without it and if it had expired, no matter how long one had been in Cape

Town, one could not re-enter. That was not negotiable. Baba Bapoo, who worked

for EK Greene, understood the importance of the permit only too well. He lost the

permit en route to Durban where he was due to get the steamer to India. He wrote

urgently in Urdu to his friend Mohomed Janoodien in Cape Town.

Dear brother,

I let you know that on the 2nd March on board the steamer we had place to sleep on

deck, unfortunately my wearing coat has been stolen away at about 2 pm, and when I


have been awake at 3 pm my coat has gone away. I have searched but without avail. I

have reported but could not be found; My dear brother by losing my coat that has put

me in a very heavy lost as there was £5 in it; and other document and books all has

gone. Since I have made the lost my heart has turned into madness. I could not

sleep night and day; my dear Brother if I write to you the whole particulars it will

be too long; all seem to be my luck; and at present my dear Sir be kind for me and

do this work for me take the number of my permit and go to Mr Cousin [Cousins,

the chief immigration officer] and explain to him the particulars and beg him on

my behalf to issue duplicate permit; I have also wire Mr Cousin concerning this

matter unfortunately I have received no reply today the boat are leaving and I am

very depressed but my dear Sir for the sake of God towards this poor man try yours

best to obtain my permit and send.89

After some trouble and an additional cost of five shillings he secured a duplicate

permit and was able to return from India with it. But the ‘madness’ in his heart

says a lot about how important this document was.

Few could return in time as life in India distracted them: there was unexpected

sickness, inability to raise the money for a passage in time, deaths of family

members and village work. Baba Ismail who worked for W&G Scott wanted

more time in 1929. He got someone in his village Dhabet in Ratnagiri to write

to the immigration officer for him as he was illiterate. He requested an additional

year in India.

Dear Sir,

Immigration officer of Cape Town South Africa

Re Very Sick Present and I could not come. in the time to Cape Town And other thing

is this my wife she has been died 27/3/1929 therfor Nobody to looked for my house

and e.t.c. So please available my permit for other one year . . . If you give me one year

time I will be very glad & Thanks Instead of you helf me the God will save you & your

childrens

My Photo all so herewith.

When he was given only six months he pleaded again as he could not finish his

work in India.

if you do not give me the time then Dear I am nearly Die Because No Body can

loocked Me so the God will keep you well and Glad all ways and save you and

your family I am always asking the god to half you Please dear Half me & give

Sam six months time again and oblige

Officials stuck to the rules and Baba Ismail was not given that extra time. He never

returned.90

Perhaps the most tragic case was that of Osman Vazir who worked for the Gas

Company. He and his wife Haji Khatija left Cape Town suddenly without

getting a permit as he was ill. He wrote many pleas from India to be allowed

back. His losses were many as he explained:

In India I got better by Grace of God and in short my wife fell victim to some disease

and succomed to death. From the death of my this faithful and loving wife I was


deeply engrossed in sorrow and pain which words cannot describe. I have two children

by this wife and now being destitute of both wife and wealth, I am now living as a

beggar with my children. Some day getting food or some day starvation. Such has

been our condition. No doubt we had some money and estate but all this is in Cape-

town for the last two years. I am a lover – a true lover in sense of our Indian tongue, of

Capetown. And I every now and then dream a dream of it too. And so request with my

both hands joined, as one to the Almighty and a father, to allow me, taking my former

long residence in consideration, to enter Capetown and I will always pray to god that

the Capetown Govt may still be long reigning and prosperous . . . I have got many cer-

tifcates and letters of my services there and it will, I hope, prove of my very long long

residence in Capetown. I have a register of Transvaal, a pass of Free State, a certificate

fromGas Co., a receipt for a pass which was received by me in 1907, a card from Som-

erset Hospital while I was sick there and a certificate from Gas Co., while returning to

my native place. Also there will be on record in the Immigration Office the original

copy of the pass given to me on 14th January for India. I have lived there from

21st Oct 1897 to 13th June 1909 and to prove this the above details will be sufficient,

I hope.

The one document he did not have was the permit and the reply to this outpouring

of grief and trouble was short, a refusal.91

Vazir’s impassioned letter indicates how conditions in India could get desperate

and how Cape Town offered a light of hope. Others were driven by this despera-

tion to come back without the document. Picera Canje92 who worked for Phoenix

Breweries returned in 1907, but at Port Elizabeth he was declared a prohibited

immigrant. He jumped ship and reportedly made his way to Cape Town by

train. He joined the uncertain world of the illegal migrant in Cape Town of

whom there were many. The bureaucracy lost these individuals, the latter lost a

legal life.

The loss of rights was painful. Yet these are other losses. There were the women

and children in India who lost years of companionship and guidance of migrant

husbands and fathers. For some the loss was permanent. The story of Gunga,

the wife of Harnam Singh, is one of epic tragedy.93 Harnam left his wife and

son in the village of Chokra in Jallandar in the Punjab in 1902. Among his jobs

in Cape Town was that of a fireman and night watchman for Bingley Brickworks

in Sea Point. He returned to his family in 1909 and another son was born. As he set

out for Cape Town in 1911, Gunga was not to know that would be the last she

would ever see him. Harnam set up home with a local woman called Syna and

they had four children. He was not entirely forgetful of his family in India but

according to the immigration laws he could not bring Gunga to Cape Town as

he had a local family. Gunga’s desperation grew. After two decades of his

absence she wrote directly to the immigration department to find her now sixty-

year old husband. She wrote ‘I am pining for his separation’. She wrote again

and again and by 1938 was so desperate she came as far as Mombasa hoping in

vain that the immigration authorities would let her see her husband whom she

had last seen twenty-seven years previously. Harnam Singh lived another

decade to a ripe old age in Cape Town. Some of his children with Syna sought


and received classification as coloured at the height of apartheid. Of Gunga we

know no more. Her story, while amplified by such great loss, represents also

the grief and difficulties in the smaller stories of separation as migrant husbands

travelled to Cape Town in the 1900s and left behind, for long periods of time,

wives and children in the villages of India.

Conclusion

This article does not argue that Indian workers made a significant contribution to

the economy of Cape Town as academics writing about Natal’s indentured

workers have done. The numbers are far too small in terms of Cape Town’s

larger economy – there were far more white, coloured and African workers.

However, when an audit is taken of the poor of the city then Indians have to be

counted. The term passenger Indian imported into writings about the Cape from

the Natal and Transvaal historiography requires redefinition. Its simplified defi-

nition leads to a divisive understanding of migration from the Indian subcontinent

and contributes to the stereotype of the rich Gujarati. The term needs to embrace

workers and in terms of regional origins to include not just those from west India

and certainly not just Gujarat but also those from other parts of India such as the

Punjab. Passenger Indians secured work in Cape Town in menial positions and

some remained in these for more than just an initial phase.

India was a crucial reference point at all times for most Indian migrant workers –

family and village commitments endured.Migration tended for themost to be a cir-

cular one with time being variable. While the assisted emigration scheme has been

perceived in the literature to be a repressive one (Mesthrie 1985), the workers dis-

cussed here seem to have used it to advantage at the end of their work lives in South

Africa. Some constituted family life in Cape Townwith repercussions for family in

India. The newly constituted family with local Cape women challenged notions of

Indianness and for some, especially the children, India receded.

In the South African historiography on capital and labour we have the dominant

image of African migrant workers on the diamond and gold mines alienated for

long periods from their wives and children and aged parents on the reserves.

This study of the Indian migrant reveals a similar pattern of migration but one

that crosses the ocean and is worthy of recognition in the labour histories of

both countries.

The Cape permit system originating from an exclusionary immigration law must

be regarded as a damaging one that affected the free mobility of Indians and it

tarnishes the liberal image of the region. It extinguished the dream of Africa in

the poor villages of India.

Notes

1. WCAD, IRC 1/1/101 2485a.

2. IRC 1/1/216 4987a.


3. IRC 1/1/142 3449a.

4. IRC 1/1/159 3833a.

5. IRC 1/1/139 3374a.

6. In this article Cape Town is used as it is understood today – greater Cape Town rather than

the small municipality that it was in the early 1900s, with Mowbray, Rondebosch, Wynberg,

Claremont, Woodstock and Kalk Bay for instance all having their own local government.

7. In 1905, for instance, Hardit Singh of Durban wrote to the Cape Colonial Secretary that he had

come to Durban seven years ago with a ‘passenger pass’ (IRC 1/1/116 2825a). VendenayagumLawrence who had worked as a clerk for Gandhi in Durban argued in 1907 that he was ‘a pas-

senger from India’ and asked to be exempt from the various restrictive laws such as the liquor,

gun and franchise laws (Bhana and Pachai 1984:23).

8. There is some justification for this separation – the ex-indentured could easily slide back

into indenture if they were unable to pay the annual £3 tax, the price of their freedom from

indenture.

9. She gives administrative reasons for a separation. The ex-indentured were still listed under the

records of the Protector of Indians Immigrants and were subject to separate registration of mar-

riages, births and deaths.

10. Kuper, for instance, draws attention to passenger Indians from Madras and Calcutta and also

Ceylon and east Africa. She focuses on Parsis and Jains as well as Urdu and Memon speakers.

11. Kuper (1960:16–7) and Meer (1969:19) are exceptions.

12. Badassy (2005) has, however, focused on interpreters. While Vahed (2005) has pointed to the

fairly large number of shop assistants amongst the passenger Indian he does not deal with them

in any substantive manner.

13. This article recognises that many slaves came from the Indian subcontinent between the seven-

teenth and early nineteenth centuries but that historians have failed to find any lingering Indian

identity.

14. The IRC files which deal with movement between India and the Cape indicate some movement

from Tamils between Kimberley and Port Elizabeth to India and back but at this stage of the

research very few Tamil names surface for Cape Town.

15. See SC 16-1908, Report of the Select Committee on Asiatic Grievances, pp 13, 15–19, 30; also

IRC 1/192 2282a Ebrahim Norodien’s file.

16. IRC 1/1/ 71 1738a.

17. IRC 1/1/124 3076a, see letter from Vazir to Capetown Government, 21 September 1911.

18. See WCAD, CO, Vol 7415 file 409, Report of the Protector of Emigrants, 5 September 1901;

Medical Officer of Health to Colonial Secretary, 10 October 1901; Note from Colonial Sec-

retary to Medical Officer, 11 October 1901.

19. Cape Times 9 October 1901, editorial.

20. G.63-1904, Report on the Working of the Immigration Act, 1902 (Cape Town, Government

Printers, 1904:8, 11, 21–2, 35–6.

21. IRC 1/1/141 3417a, Attarsing Ralaram to Immigration Officer, 28 October 1908, 11 November

and reply of Immigration Officer, 21 November 08.

22. WCAD, NA, Vol 511 Part 1, 281, James King to Commissioner of Native Labour, 14 January

1902 and 8 March 1902, reply to King, 7 February 1902.

23. WCAD, NAVol 511 Part 1, 281, Director, John Jackson Ltd, to Civil Engineer in Chief, Admir-

alty, London, 30 October 1902, Secretary to Native Affairs Department to Prime Minister, 24

February 1903 and to Director, John Jackson Ltd, 6 March 1903.

24. See IRC 1/1/167 4036a, contract of Mahomed Salie and others with Hoosen Ebrahim.

25. IRC 1/1/71 1738a, Note by A Karie, 1905 and reply of Officer in Charge, 6 March 1905.

26. See SC 16-1908, Asiatic Grievances, Appendix, pp ii–iii, petition of South African Indian

Association; Thawerdas Shewakram was allowed to enter in February 1909 as a cook ‘for

reasons of religion’ for Pohumool Brothers (IRC 1/1/177 4191a).


27. See for example IRC 1/1/137 3336a, case of Faker Ebrahim, 1905.

28. SC 16-1908, Asiatic Grievances, pp 35–6.

29. By 1911 numbers in the Cape had decreased to 6,606, with Natal at 133,031 and the Transvaal

at 10,048 (Bhana and Brain 1990:194).

30. SC 16-1908, Asiatic Grievances, p 40, evidence of Hing Woo, President of the Chinese Associ-

ation of Cape Town.

31. Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (cd Government of India, New Delhi, 1999), Vol 6, pp

201–2, Indian Opinion, 29 December 1906 (Gujarati) and Vol 7, pp 254–5 Indian Opinion

12 October 1907.

32. For a greater discussion of the issues around this archive and knowledge production see

Dhupelia-Mesthrie 2009.

33. Indentured Indians were at first the only ones offered a free passage back home but in 1914 any

Indian wishing to return home was provided with a free passage on condition they surrendered

their rights to return to South Africa. Bonuses were also offered as additional incentive in 1921.

The state did not have altruistic motives, it wanted to reduce the size of the Indian population

(Mesthrie 1985:36–56).

34. The attitude of Indians to female migration needs to be explored further. There seems not only

to have been patriarchal attitudes but females themselves were reluctant to relocate. After 1927

the law specified that a wife had to accompany a minor child being brought to South Africa and

this raised the numbers of female migration. Some women returned to India after fulfilling this

requirement.

35. IRC 1/1/125 3107a.

36. IRC 1/1/89 2217a.

37. IRC 1/1/159 3838a.

38. IRC 1/1/116 2833a.

39. IRC 1/1/205 4798a.

40. IRC 1/1/182 4290a.

41. IRC 1/1/214 4925a.

42. IRC 1/1/214 4942a.

43. IRC 1/1/100 2442a.

44. IRC 1/1/100 2469a.

45. IRC 1/1/214 4933a.

46. IRC 1/1/100 2441a.

47. See IRC 1/1/185 4340a and IRC 1/1/205 4797a.

48. IRC 1/1/132 3240a.

49. IRC 1/1/86 2140a.

50. IRC 1/1/222 5086a.

51. IRC 1/1/85 2090a.

52. IRC 1/1/152 3683a.

53. IRC 1/1/229 5238a.

54. IRC 1/1/216 4984a.

55. G.9-1908, Report of the Chief Immigration Officer for the year Ending 31st December 1907, p 6.

56. IRC 1/1/147 3540a.

57. IRC 1/1/105 2608a.

58. IRC 1/1/187 4401a.

59. IRC 1/1/225 5137a.

60. IRC 1/1/135 3290a.

61. IRC 1/1/170 4078a.

62. IRC 1/1/185 4356a.

63. IRC 1/1/21 504a.

64. IRC 1/1/160 3857a.


65. IRC 1/1/162 3914a.

66. IRC 1/1/151 3657a.

67. IRC 1/1/33 784a.

68. IRC 1/1/148 3591a.

69. IRC 1/1/214 4948a.

70. IRC 1/1/116 2841a.

71. IRC 1/1/141 3420a. For other workers in this sector see IRC 1/1/103 2533a, 1/1/166 4004,

1/1/70 1709a, 1/1/151 3652a, 1/1/163 3945a.

72. IRC 1/1/116 2826a.

73. IRC 1/1/182 4295a.

74. IRC 1/1/145 3493a.

75. IRC 1/1/178 4211a.

76. IRC 1/1/230 5253a.

77. IRC 1/1/105 2598a.

78. IRC 1/1/71 1755a.

79. IRC 1/1/117 2862a.

80. IRC 1/1/109 2693a.

81. IRC 1/1/198 4659a.

82. IRC 1/1/90 2224.

83. IRC 1/1/140 3409a.

84. IRC 1/1/164 3966a.

85. IRC 1/1/133 3257a.

86. IRC 1/1/125 3098a. He worked there for four years and returned to India in 1908.

87. IRC 1/1/104 2570a. For others working at the mines see IRC 1/1/181 4277a Mackan Bangia;

IRC 1/1/31 705a Heera Dajee and IRC 1/1/120 2974a Meta Vallabh.

88. IRC 1/1/139 3374a.

89. IRC 1/1/148 3591a, Letter to Janoodien, 4 March 1915. This is a translation.

90. IRC 1/1/140 3403a, Letter from Ismail, 28 June 1929; reply of immigration officer, 27 July

1929; letter from Ismail, 7 August 1930; reply 6 September 1930.

91. IRC 1/1/124 3076a, Letter from Vazir, 21 September 1911; Cousins to Vazir, 21 October

1911.

92. IRC 1/1/125 3105a.

93. IRC1/1/153 3699a, SeeGunga to immigration officer, 19 July 1935 and 8November 1935; reply

of principal immigration officer, 7 August 1935 and 21November 1935; secretary of the Siri Guru

Singh Sabha Mombasa, 10 January 1938 and reply of immigration officer, 18 January 1938.

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The Passenger Indian as Worker: Indian Immigrants in Cape Town in the Early Twentieth Century

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