Leaving India

by Minal Hajratwala

  As black Africans entered: University of Natal, Durban Housing Survey, p. 21.

  [>] a 1944 planning map: Racial zoning map titled "Proposals Recommended by the Provincial Post-War Works and Reconstruction Commission, 1944," included in University of Natal, Durban Housing Survey.

  The date of this change: South Africa's Group Areas Amendment Act, Act 57 of 1957, gave the executive branch the power to create proclamations that would levy a £200 fine or impose two years of imprisonment on a person found guilty of "attending any place of public entertainment or partaking of any refreshment at a place where refreshments are served" in a segregated area. Proclamation No. 333, of November 1, 1957, imposed the law nationwide, effectively segregating most restaurants and other public spaces. (Survey of Race Relations, 1956–57, pp. 27–29.) However, a similar restriction had already been in effect in Durban, as locals date the bunny chow's invention to the 1940s or earlier.

  [>] To aid white family farms: Details of bread policies and pricing throughout this section are from official histories contained in two South African government documents: the Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Government's Bread Subsidy Scheme by a commission chaired by F. J. Davin (September 1985), and Evaluating the Deregulation Process: Wheat to Bread Value Chain by the Section 7 Committee of the National Agricultural Marketing Council (December 1999).

  [>] "Vote for white bread": O'Meara, Forty Lost Years, p. 19.

  Back in 1912: Indian Opinion, January 13, 1912, p. 15.

  [>] The glossy twenty-eight-page mini-magazine: Durban City Council and the Durban Joint Wards Committee, The Indian in Natal: Is He the Victim of Oppression?

  South Africa, with its 266,000: UK, India Office, "Review of Important Events Relating to or Affecting Indians," 1944 and 1945.

  As the list of countries grew: UK, India Office, "Indians Overseas: A Guide to Source Materials."

  [>] "pariah capitalism": This term was coined by the German sociologist and economist Max Weber (1864–1920), who appropriated a term that originally referred to an "untouchable" group of southern India (the Parai or Paraiyar people). Weber employed it to describe his problematic but influential theory of the Jews' role in European capitalism; he argued that the Jewish or "pariah" model represented a premodern, prerational version of capitalism, whereas modern and rational capitalism has its roots in Protestantism. Some argue that the "pariah capitalism" term is more properly restricted to a despised, rather than middleman, merchant community. It seems clear to me that the Indians of South Africa were both, to a varying degree.

  "We hold ourselves bound": "Proclamation by the Queen in Council, to the Princes, Chiefs, and People of India," Calcutta Gazette, Nov. 1, 1858. Reprinted in The Government of India: Being a Digest of the Statute Law Relating Thereto, with Historical Introduction and Illustrative Documents by Sir Courtenay Ilbert (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1898), pp. 571–74.

  [>] blue-and-white telegrams: UK, India Office, "Representations from Indian Associations in South Africa."

  the United Nations: India, "Question of the Treatment of Indians"

  [>] "The dark shadow": Yusuf Dadoo, South Africa—on the Road to Fascism (London: India League, November 1948), pamphlet.

  [>] "the descendants of some": Satyagraha in South Africa, p. 8.

  "most humiliating": Bhana and Pachai, A Documentary History, p. 32.

  [>] "As some of our Indian children": Indian Opinion, May 18, 1912.

  When the Natal Native Congress: A. J. van Wyk, "'Roses and Rue': Public Opinion in Natal, 1910–1915," in Pachai, South Africa's Indians, p. 123.

  In 1939, answering: The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, 74:507.

  By contrast, Jawaharlal Nehru: "The Condition of Indians Abroad" (July 12, 1939), in Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru (Calcutta: Orient Longman, 1982).

  [>] It came at five o'clock: For reconstruction of the riots, I have relied on the following sources: (1) Webb and Kirkwood, The Durban Riots and After, published by the reliable South African Institute of Race Relations in the year of the event; overheard dialogue during the violence is taken from their well-reported account. (2) Newspaper accounts of the riots published in the Natal Mercury, January 13–27, 1949. (3) Arun Gandhi, who recounts his firsthand experiences in his memoir, A Patch of White. Additionally, Kogila Moodley's "The Ambivalence of Survival Politics in Indian-African Relations," in Pachai, South Africa's Indians, informed my understanding of the riots and the factors that led up to them.

  [>] "masses of irritable human beings": Report of the Judicial Commission on Native Affairs in Durban, chaired by F. N. Broome, June 1949.

  [>] The Grey Street merchants: Surat Hindu Association of Durban, "Platinum Jubilee" commemorative publication, 1982.

  A contemporary report: Webb and Kirkwood, The Durban Riots and After. By contrast, official reports attributed 34 deaths to the Watts uprising of 1965, 43 deaths to the Detroit violence in 1967, and 53 deaths to the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles in 1992.

  [>] Grey Street was "frozen": Maasdorp and Pillay, in Urban Relocation, argue that the racial restrictions artificially retarded Grey Street's economic development: "The continued postponement of the final group areas declaration, together with uncertainty as to the outcome, generally discouraged investment and made it difficult to obtain bonds and loans. Owners tended to neglect the maintenance of their properties, and the area became increasingly shabby" (p. 182).

  [>] Despite the white perceptions: As late as 1971–72, a survey of a sample of Durban voters showed 56 percent of Afrikaans-speaking citizens, and 30 percent of English-speaking citizens, agreeing that "the Indians can never really fit into the South African community." Lawrence Schlemmer, Privilege, Prejudice and Parties: A Study of Patterns of Political Motivation Among White Voters in Durban (Johannesburg: SAIRR, 1973).

  [>] In the Natal Mercury: "Death of Mr. G. Kapitan," February 5, 1972.

  [>] more than a million Indians: As of 2001, the number of people of Indian origin living in the east and south African countries of Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and South Africa was estimated at 1.26 million, according to the Indian government's Report of the High Level Committee on the Indian Diaspora.

  PAGE PART TWO: SUBJECTS

  [>] Figures are drawn from "Review of Important Events Relating to or Affecting Indians," 1944–45. This annual report compiled by the India Office accounted only for British possessions and therefore left out the two Dutch territories with large Indian populations. This is the first set of figures presented here that unites all the regions of South Africa statistically, although they had been politically united in 1910.

  PAGE 4. SALT

  For the chronology of the 1930 salt march in this chapter, I drew primarily on Gandhi's day-by-day reports and speeches, as contained in his Collected Works (cited as CWMG). Additional context was provided by Weber, On the Salt March, and Tewari, Sabarmati to Dandi.

  [>] "Instead of a common riot": Gazetteer of India, Gujarat State, Surat District (1962), p. 187.

  [>] From the script: John Briley, "Gandhi" (1982).

  [>] The decline of Gandevi's weaving: Census of India, 1931, pp. 289–90.

  [>] "furiously thinking": CWMG, 48:366.

  [>] "the State can reach": CWMG, 48:532.

  A massive infrastructure: Gazetteer of Bombay City and Island (1909), p. 459. For a narrative of one man's quest to find the remnants of the thorny hedge designed to stop contraband salt, see Roy Moxham, The Great Hedge of India (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2001).

  "The illegality is": CWMG, 48:366.

  [>] Nine thousand gathered: Weber, On the Salt March, p. 320.

  Navsari's population: Census of India, 1931.

  [>] counterfeit, machine-made versions: Gandhi refers to the problem of fake khaadi several times in his correspondence, articles, and speeches during the Dandi period, and also met with mill owners to try to stop production of the fake-homemade cloth; see, for example, CWMG, 49:21, 49:22, and 49:94.

/>   "Sweets, even if prepared": CWMG, 48:416.

  "We shall have to use water": CWMG, 49:5.

  the nineteen-point code: CWMG, 48:354.

  [>] "Dandi itself has a tragic": CWMG, 49:120.

  "the war against salt tax": CWMG, 49:25.

  At mass demonstrations: Weber, On the Salt March, p. 391.

  "Suddenly, at a word": Miller's article is quoted in ibid., pp. 444–45.

  [>] "rendering ... unconscious": The Black Regime at Dharasana. This booklet was published by the secretary of the Gujarat Provincial Congress Committee, Gandhi's organization, shortly after the events described.

  Bertrand Russell, for example: "Mahatma Gandhi," Atlantic Monthly, December 1952.

  [>] By 1933, so many: Waiz, Indians Abroad Directory.

  [>] fifth on the list: Ibid.

  Fiji's afternoon newspaper reported: Fiji Times and Herald, September 3, 1931.

  tons of sugar: Lal, Broken Waves, p. 62.

  [>] "There are certain undesirable": Gillion, The Fiji Indians, pp. 115–17.

  M. Narsey & Co. spearheaded: Prasad, "The Gujaratis of Fiji."

  [>] "Better is one's own": Bhagavad Geeta, 3:19, translated by Prabha Duneja (Delhi: Govindram Hasanand, 1998).

  [>] The final British count: "Review of Important Events Relating to or Affecting Indians," 1944–45.

  the three-striped flag: CWMG, 47:426.

  [>] "stick of light": CWMG, 49:120.

  PAGE 5. STORY

  In addition to the sources listed under the Chapter 2 notes, this chapter also drew from my own interviews with family members conducted in 2000–2002; I am grateful to all who candidly discussed the company with me. Jayesh V. Khatri kindly lent me his only copy of his unpublished master's thesis, which provided important context about the duty-free market. Jiten'T. Narsey, now a senior partner with the architectural firm Larsen, Holtom, Maybin & Associates of Suva, which designed the Narseys building in the 1960s, provided copies of blueprints and discussed the building, as well as other key Fiji buildings and the Navsari houses, in detail with me. Mahendra Gokal provided an account of the origins of the Narhari Electronics partnership. Jiten'T. Narsey and Bhanu Hajratwala described for me the scene when cruise ships landed in Suva in the 1960s. Over one Coca-Cola and three whiskey-and-sodas, Uttam Narsey gave me a tour and history of the Merchants Club—which is now open to both sexes.

  [>] "It is almost impossible to like": Michener (New York: Random House, 1951), p. 123.

  [>] 2,500, or three percent: Prasad, "The Gujaratis of Fiji," p. 105.

  [>] The Universal Eng.-Guj.: By Shantilal Sarabhai Oza (Bombay: R. R. Sheth, 1940).

  [>] When the government published: Department of Lands, Mines and Surveys, Government of Fiji, Colony Street Directory, 1963.

  [>] "white Australia": For this policy and its impact on Indians, I have drawn from Marie M. de Lepervanche, Indians in a White Australia (Sydney: George Allen, 1984), and Laksiri Jayasuriya and Kee Pookong, The Asianisation of Australia? Some Facts About the Myths (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1999).

  [>] In New Zealand, change: For a review of policy as it related to Indians, see Bennett, Asian Students in New Zealand, and Ongley, "Immigration, Employment and Ethnic Relations."

  [>] nearly forty thousand: Chetty and Prasad, Fiji's Emigration, p. 10.

  PAGE PART THREE: CITIZENS

  [>] The estimated size of the diaspora in 1984 and the list of countries are drawn from I. J. Bahadur Singh, ed., Indians in South Asia (New Delhi: Sterling/India International Centre, 1984), "Appendix I: Table on Distribution of Indians Overseas."

  PAGE 6. BRAINS

  "Brain-drain" material is drawn from various sources. The compendium edited by Adams, The Brain Drain, provided a diversity of contemporary views, including the epigraph to this chapter. I also relied on U.S. government reports cited in the bibliography; McKnight, Scientists Abroad; Newland, International Migration; Niland, The Asian Engineering Brain Drain; Herbert G. Grubel and Anthony Scott, The Brain Drain: Determinants, Measurement and Welfare Effects (Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1977); Kamal Nayan Kabra, Political Economy of Brain Drain: Reverse Technology Transfer (New Delhi: Arnold-Heinemann Publishers, 1976); and Sharon Stanton Russell and Michael'S. Teitelbaum, International Migration and International Trade, World Bank Discussion Papers No. 160 (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1992). For Nehru's science policy, including direct quotations included in this chapter, see Nanda, Science and Technology in India.

  [>] "Brains go": Quoted in V. M. Dandekar, "India," in Adams, The Brain Drain.

  [>] She skipped grade two: I have taken the liberty of translating the academic years of the British educational system, which are counted as "standards" one through six followed by "forms" one through six, into the system of "grades" familiar to the North American reader. In both cases the total is twelve years of education prior to high school graduation.

  [>] on the site of a large detention camp: The first Indian Institute of Technology was founded in 1950 on the site of Hijli Detention Camp. "Institute History," IIT Kharagpur (www.iitkgp.ac.in/institute/history.php).

  [>] most of the rest were visiting: Melendy, Asians in America, p. 244.

  [>] Enrolled at first: Ibid., p. 185.

  To their new bosses: Ibid., pp. 226–28.

  never exceeding one thousand: Ibid., p. 186.

  Japanese scientists: Roger Daniels, The Politics of Prejudice: The Anti-Japanese Movement in California and the Struggle for Japanese Exclusion (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), p. 33.

  CROWD NUMBERING 500: Morning Reveille and Evening American (Bellingham, Wash.), Thursday morning, September 5, 1907.

  [>] In 1913, California's Alien Land Law: Chan, Asian Americans, p. 195.

  "the most undesirable": California and the Oriental, p. 101.

  In 1923, the Supreme Court: U.S. v. Bhagat Singh Thind, decided by the U.S. Supreme Court on February 19, 1923; unanimous opinion written by Justice George Sutherland.

  Students, however: Under section 4(e) of the 1924 immigration law, alien students were considered "nonquota immigrants" who could be admitted without regard to national quotas. Under section 214(f) of the 1952 law, they were reclassified as "nonimmigrants" and given a special visa that was valid for the length of their studies. I&N Reporter 1, no. 3 (January 1953).

  During the 1920s: Melendy, Asians in America, p. 205.

  [>] In 1944, the Senate: Ibid., p. 235.

  105 Chinese immigrants each year: Kitano and Daniels, Asian Americans, p. 16.

  It took two more years: Inder Singh (president of the Global Organization of People of Indian Origin International), "Long Struggle Marked Battle for U.S. Citizenship," India-West, June 30, 2006, pp. A4–A6.

  At last, in 1946: Daniels, "History of Indian Immigration to the United States," p. 235.

  Quietly, Congress authorized: I&N Reporter 19, no. 1 (July 1970): 1, and I&N Reporter 5, no. 1 (July 1956).

  U.S. psychiatric hospitals: Adams, The Brain Drain, p. 236.

  [>] "it became American policy": Paul Ritterband, "Law, Policy, and Behavior: Educational Exchange Policy and Student Migration," American Journal of Sociology 76, no. 1 (July 1970): 71–82.

  America's class of foreign students: I&N Reporter 12, no. 2 (October 1964), Table 3: "Nonimmigrant Aliens Admitted, by Class of Admission."

  [>] Just a few months earlier: I&N Reporter 11, no. 1 (July 1962): 8.

  This was another recent change: Ibid.

  [>] in October 1962, a minor adjustment: Public Law 87–855, Oct. 24, 1962.

  Since 1946, one hundred: Brinley Thomas, "'Modern' Migration," in Adams, The Brain Drain.

  [>] immediately tripled: Asian scientists and engineers with green cards numbered 498 in 1962, and 1,406 in 1963, according to a WHO study. Alfonso Mejia, Helena Pizurki, and Erica Royston, Division of Health Manpower Development of the World Health Organization, Foreign Medical Graduates: The Case of the United States (Lexington,
Mass.: Lexington Books, 1980), p. 7.

  "Send me your trained": The poem is quoted in Patricio R. Mamot, Foreign Medical Graduates in America (Springfield, Ill.: Charles C. Thomas, 1974), p. 13.

  [>] That act had been: Public Law 414, Chapter 477, Section 201; 66 Stat., p. 175.

  as measured by the census of 1920: As a result of this provision, of the roughly 154,000 quota visas that the 1952 act made available each year after 1952, the vast majority (125,000) went to northern and western Europe. A further 24,000 went to southern and eastern Europe. (Western Hemisphere immigrants were not subject to quotas.) Note that I have referred to the act's "quota areas" as "countries," although certain territories and non-nations also received quota allocations. I&N Reporter 4, no. 1 (July 1955): 6.

  [>] "urgently needed": I&N Reporter 4, no. 1 (July 1955): 7.

  [>] The latest census: Melendy, Asians in America, p. 256.

  [>] "The Immigration Service official": I&N Reporter 19, no. 1 (July 1970): 6.

  On October 3,1965: Melendy, Asians in America, p. 41.

  "This bill that we will sign today": Audio of Johnson's comments re-aired in "1965 Immigration Law Changed Face of America," All Things Considered, National Public Radio, May 9, 2006.

  [>] In fact, the act: In addition to the law itself, the following I&N Reporter articles provided context and details of the act's impact: Robert B. Lindsey, "The Act of October 3, 1965," 14, no. 4 (April 1966): 103–4, 111–15; Helen F. Eckerson, "Recent Immigration to the United States," 15, no. 1 (July 1966): 19–20; and John J. Murray, "Labor Certification ... for Third and Sixth Preference Aliens and Nonpreference Cases," 15, no. 4 (April 1967): 50–52.

  "unexpected side effects": I&N Reporter 17, no. 1 (July 1968): 1–3.

  [>] China and India accounted for: National Science Foundation, Scientists, Engineers, p. 43.

  according to the most reliable figure: A U.N. analysis of the 100,262 foreign students who were living in the United States in 1967 estimated that 70 percent came from Less Developed Countries. Report of the U.N. Secretary General, Outflow of Trained Personnel from the LDCs, November 5, 1968.