The karela at Le Vieux Kreole in Sainte-Clotilde landed on my table raw. Sliced thin as if by a surgeon’s scalpel, it was tossed in a dressing of red onion, chilli, honey, lime juice and salt, and served with Gallic flourish.

How did this proper Indian vegetable end up in the French province of Ile de la Reunion in the middle of the Indian Ocean? No accident. That divine yet bitter gourd arrived with the Indians.

Thirty-two years before the Truro and Belvedere landed in Durban with its cargo of Indian indentured workers, the French schooner La Turquoise, in April 1828, delivered 15 ‘telinga’ workers from Yanaon (Yanam) in the French enclave of Pondicherry.

They were the first indentured workers in the sugar industry, according to historian Michele Marimoutou.

In the century that followed, the UN Education, Scientific and Cultural Council (Unesco) records that 1 194 957 Indians were shipped from their ancestral homes on the subcontinent on contracts (girmits) of bonded labour to 19 colonies across the globe.

Not much of that storyline finds its way into the history books in South Africa or for that matter in India. In most other indenture colonies, there is a growing agitation that there has to be memory against forgetting and that the thread that joins Indian girmitiyas from Trinidad to Fiji to KwaZulu-Natal must be strengthened.

Such solidarity is not in conflict with the rights and obligations of citizenship that the descendants of indentured and migrant workers are entitled to in the countries they have made their homes. Those patriotic affinities extend two, three and even six generations.

Indian communities in the British, French and Dutch colonies made common cause with the liberation movements fighting for liberation from colonialism and, in the case of South Africa, the crime of apartheid.

The majority of people of Indian descent outside the subcontinent have never visited India, Pakistan or Bangladesh, and have scant knowledge of their distant families. The emotional bond, however, is a cultural, ethnic, faith or historical connection.

One programme that dominates the diaspora thread is the Indo-Caribbean Cultural Centre (ICCC) based in Trinidad.

The ICCC has established links with indenture and diaspora organisations and individuals across the globe forging a familial bond almost severed over the past two centuries.

This past Sunday marked 181 consecutive Sundays of Zoom public meetings hosting over 760 speakers on 180 diverse topics from elder recollections to literature, history, politics, gender and food.

Children outside their home in the municipal workers' compound of Magazine Barracks on the Durban beachfront in the later 1950s before the settlement was demolished and the people forced to move to Chatsworth. The author’s grandmother, Kanniamma Govindarajulu, likely drew her supply of logs for the communal kitchen from the pile behind the children. Picture: Nirmala Naidoo Family Album

The latest slate of speakers tackling the subject of “Seva, Sadaqah and Charity in the Indian Diaspora” included Swami Ramkripananda, co-founder of the Sarva Dharma Ashram in Welbedacht on the outskirts of Chatsworth, which provides 3 000 meals daily for those in need in addition to its other social programmes.

Swami was billed alongside Imam Habeeb Ali of Guyana’s Service to Humanity and One Love Family Services, whose work extends to assisting children of retrenched sugar-cane workers.

Third in the line-up was Revan Teelucksingh, whose community work over the past 23 years includes being the president of Sewa International in Trinidad and Tobago.

Dr Tara Singh’s part on the panel was to reflect on his work as co-founder of the humanitarian and medical organisation called Guyana Watch and founder of the New York Guyana Medical and Humanitarian Mission. Formidable public service all round.

The vibrancy and consistency of the centre are credit to Dr Kumar Mahabir and the teams and participants that he mobilises. These online sessions mark a new terrain of the diaspora dialling back, reconnecting and making its voice heard. Digital activism builds on well-established physical centres like the Apravasi Ghat in Mauritius, the 1860 Heritage Centre and the Gandhi-Luthuli Documentation Centre in Durban which combine museums and “sites of conscience”.

There are other static memorials around the world, including the Suriname Ghat in Kolkata, the statues in Palmyra Village in Guyana, the Sivananda Peace Pillars around South Africa, the Sri Mariammen art works in Mount Edgecombe and the bronze relief telling the story of indentured workers that came to fruition thanks to the sterling efforts of the Verulam Indentured Labourers Foundation.

While there is a place for memorialisation, activism that keeps history alive and advances contemporary causes like peace, social justice and the climate emergency will be a fitting tribute to the generations of Indians whose hard labour changed the face of the planet and the economies of the countries they helped build.

This 163rd year since the first Indian workers stepped onto the shores of Durban should serve as a timely reminder to agitate for this history to find greater respectability in the school curriculum and in the consciousness of our political leadership.

Kiru Naidoo is a co-author of ‘The Indian Africans’ published by Micromega and available at www.madeindurban.co.za

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