Identity and Belonging in Post-Apartheid South Africa: The Case of Indian South Africans

As this article is being written there is a growing interest in the commemoration of 150 years since the arrival of Indian indentured labourers in South Africa in 1860. The process is already contested with heavily charged debates over who should drive the commemoration and to what ends, given the religious, ethnic, regional, linguistic, and class diversity of the approximately 1.2 million Indian South Africans. What is it that should be remem-bered, celebrated, and commemorated? If comme-moration is to reflect a collective memory, how is this to be stitched together? Can it and should it be a single narrative? How will this honouring of the past avoid ghettoisation? And what does this (ethnic / racial) commemoration mean in a country whose constitution is committed to non-racialism? How should the act of “remembering ” tell of the country of origin? These debates are a valuable lens through which to grasp the story of Indian South Africans in the post-apartheid moment and the vexed issues of identity and belonging