The fight for land: historical context and current claims in South Africa
SELVAN NAIDOO AND KIRU NAIDOO
Generations nurtured from my seeds will clasp their hands
and say our ancestors carved those fields
which have given us meanings
meanings to stand tall
This land is ours too.
– Rooplall Monar,‘Babu’, in They Came in Ships
LAND ownership remains one of the most fiercely contested debates well into 30 years of South Africa’s democracy. The right to land has been the rallying call of the landless masses, who have been historically dispossessed by colonial and apartheid violence. The clamour for constitutional amendments to take back the land without compensation remains an emotive topic despite assurances that land restitution will be "just and equitable and in the public interest".
In understanding the deep roots of resentment, let us consider the acquisition of land by sugar baron, Sir Liege Hulett, knighted for his contributions to the colony of Natal.
Hulett arrived in Durban as a 19-year-old lad with just 5 pounds in his pocket on board the ship Lady Shelbourne in 1857. Two years later, he borrowed money to purchase a farm near Compensation where he made steady progress to eventually purchase 600 acres of land that he named Kearsney that grew a host of crops from cotton to tea.
Even today, one will be hard-pressed to find an ordinary 21-year-old owing some 800 acres of land, having started with just under R100 (5 pounds converted) in his pocket. By 1882, Hulett consolidated his interests by floating J.L. Hulett & Sons Ltd with capital of 50 000 pounds. In 1903, Hulett operated his first sugar mill at Tinley Manor and by 1908 controlled a sizeable portion of the sugar-dominated production of Natal.
By contrast, Indian indentured workers employed by Hulett were given accommodation on the estates of their employers. As free Indians, these workers had to find their own accommodation. Those who turned to agriculture usually stayed on the land they rented. The Natal Government Railways, municipalities, and private employers erected barracks for their workers. Due to the shortage of housing, these settlements became overcrowded and soon came to be regarded as slums.
In Durban, merchant-class traders and their staff settled in the racially segregated central business district. Some traders lived in their shop precincts, while others rented flats just above their businesses. Later, these too became overcrowded. The European citizens of Durban were not happy with the arrival and settlement of the Indians in “their areas”. The government realised that the housing problem had to be solved and thus set aside several locations for Indians in areas around Natal.
In Natal, three years after the first shipment of indentured Indians arrived on the SS Truro on November 16, 1860, a handful of workers gained early release from their five-year contracts exchanged for a £5 payment to their employers as permitted under Law 14 of 1859. The Mercury, a publication that played a key role in advocating for indentured labour in the colony, suggested residential segregation in the vicinity of the present-day Greyville racecourse through its editor John Robinson, who held the view that Indians could supply white colonists "with vegetables and dairy stuff... at far cheaper rates than we now enjoy".
Historically in KwaZulu-Natal when it governed as a British Colony in 1847, Sir Theophilus Shepstone developed and managed a native policy that inhumanely attempted to categorise and “civilize natives” in the Locations System. This system, went on to influence the racist legislation of the 1913 Natives Land Act that systematically forced black people into “native reserves” thereby relegating ownership of South Africa’s land to the majority to a mere 13%.
To address this imbalance, the Restitution of Land Rights Act was signed into law in 1994 at the advent of South Africa’s democracy, providing for restitution or equitable redress to persons and communities. Any person or a community, who was dispossessed of a right to land after June 19, 1913, as a result of past racially discriminatory laws or practices, and who did not receive just and equitable compensation at the time of dispossession, can claim for restitution of that right in land or equitable redress.
Up to March 31, 2023, the Commission on Restitution of Land Rights has settled a total of 82 976 claims with 53 billion being paid out from 1995. This right to compensation is also available to a tenant, who is entitled to a standard settlement offer. Despite this progress, in May 2024, the eThekwini Municipality in Durban was handed a memorandum by members of the Indian Land Claimants Association requesting the resolution to their 30-year-old land claims.
The claimants, who lost land during apartheid in areas like Inanda, Umlazi, Glen Anil, Malacca Road, Durban North, Riverside, Greyville Block Ak, Cato Manor, Sydenham, Overport, Springfield, Newlands, Phoenix, Chatsworth, Avoca, and the Bluff among others, are yet to be recompensated. Access to proper documentation that either lies buried in the official archives or sit undiscovered in family files prevents compensation from the budget of R3 billion allocated for the KwaZulu-Natal Restitution Commission in the 2024 financial year.
By 1946, the Ghetto Act paved the way for the Apartheid Group Areas Act to be passed into legislation. Black communities in prime areas designated for whites were soon forcibly removed to segregated townships for “Indian”, “Coloured”, or “African” occupation. The repressive legislation caused a major uproar and led to the two-year passive resistance campaign from 1946 to 1948 when thousands of Indians courted arrest by defying the law.
By 1950, there were adverts in the newspapers for an exclusively Indian suburb called “Umhlatuzana”. Later, Red Hill and Silverglen were also advertised. Reservoir Hills was reserved for the richer Indians. In the north of Durban, La Mercy and Isipingo Beach in the south were also designated Indian areas. In Merebank, formal houses replaced the makeshift settlements, and by the late 1950s a reconstructed Merebank offered cheap houses for which the purchaser had ten years to pay.
By the mid-1960s and 1970s, thousands of families were relocated to Chatsworth and later Phoenix under the forced removals of the Group Areas Act of 1950. Many of these families came from Magazine Barracks, Railway Barracks, Clairwood, Greyville, Riverside, Cato Manor, the Bluff, and other areas where the law made them and their descendants unwelcome on the land of their birth with many of whom yet to be recompensation for dispossessed land and the honour of the promise in the 1955 Freedom Charter:
“The land shall be shared among those who work it.”
The hysteria of land expropriation from the White House and elsewhere can easily be dispelled by a closer reading of the responsible approach of the new legislation. No government can sit on its hands while there is land hunger in the most unequal nation in the world. Nor can our government continue to pay exorbitant millions for private land like Cornubia (bought from the selfsame Hulett heirs). Carefully managed land redistribution can be a hugely effective tool of radical socio-economic transformation.
Selvan Naidoo and Kiru Naidoo are co-authors of The Indian Africans available from www.madeindurban.co.za and various bookshops.
** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.