Gujarati Shoemakers in Twentieth-Century Cape Town: Family, Gender, Caste and Community

Abstract

Noting the Natal and Witwatersrand-centredness of the historiography of Indian South Africans, and this historiography's neglect of caste amongst Gujarati Hindus where caste mattered, this study focuses on the Gujarati shoemaker caste in Cape Town. Through narratives of those engaged in making, repairing or selling shoes, the article seeks to understand caste as occupation and explores how caste organisation facilitated economic and social mobility beyond the world of shoemaking. By drawing attention to female shoemakers, for whom the South African setting was challenging yet empowering, the article disturbs an androcentric reading of the term shoemaker and points to the family as a crucial economic unit.

Notes

^*An early draft of this article was originally given as a public lecture to the South Asia Initiative, Harvard University, in September 2010. I would like to thank Sugata Bose and others for the ensuing discussion, and Surendra Bhana and the anonymous readers of this journal who made useful comments.

¹ P.E. Clarke, Plain Furniture (Cape Town, Snail Press, 1991), pp. 36–37. Thanks to Rosemary Barker for this reference.

² Rylands was proclaimed in 1957, Cravenby in 1958 and later in the 1980s Pelican Park was set aside.

³ See N. Ali, V.S. Kalra and S. Sayyid (eds), A Postcolonial People: South Asians in Britain (London, Hurst, 2006), pp. 315 ff., where they examine ‘signature’ Asian influences on the British landscape.

⁴ A Population Profile of the City of Cape Town: Socio-Economic Information from the 2001 Census (Cape Town, Directorate of Strategic Information, 2003), pp. 7, 9 & 15.

⁵ Census 2001: Primary Tables Western Cape: Census '96 and 2001 Compared. Report No. 03-02-13, 2001 (Pretoria, Statistics South Africa, 2005), p. 27. There are a further 1,722 Hindus of other races.

⁶ See U. Dhupelia-Mesthrie, ‘The Passenger Indian as Worker: Indian Immigrants in Cape Town in the Early Twentieth Century’, African Studies, 68, 1 (April 2009), p. 115.

⁷ This information was provided by Nagin Patel.

⁸ I am grateful to Rohit Kooverjee for providing this information drawn from the directory of Gujarati households in Cape Town compiled by the Cape Town Hindu Seva Samaj in 2002.

⁹ These would be: Brahmans (priests), Kshatriyas (warriors and rulers), Vaishyas (agriculturalists and traders) and Shudras (labourers, artisans).

¹⁰ N. Slate, ‘Translating Race and Caste’, Journal of Historical Sociology, 24, 1 (March 2011), p. 63; J.H. Hutton, Caste in India: Its Nature, Function and Origins (Bombay, Oxford University Press, 1963, 4^th edn), pp. 64–7,78.

¹¹ D.P. Mines, Caste in India (Ann Arbor, Association for Asian Studies, 2009), pp. 2–43. Mines shows how British rule in India ‘effectively turned fluid and locally disparate jati into fixed all-Indian categories and as a result created new social identities that Indians, in turn, shaped further’. Newly formed caste organisations sought to secure benefits or claim a better position in the British ranked caste hierarchies. Pocock has shown how the Kanbis who were cultivators (Shudras) elevated themselves under British rule, named themselves Patidars, ensured this description prevailed in the 1931 census, and secured recognition as Kshatriyas or variously as Vaishayas. See D.F. Pocock, Kanbi and Patidar: A Study of the Patidar Community of Gujarat (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1972), pp. 1, & 56.

¹² Slate, ‘Translating Race and Caste’, p. 63.

¹³ R.R. Prasad and G. Rajanikanth, Development of Scheduled Caste Leather Artisans: Profile, Problems, and Prospects (New Delhi, Discovery Publishing House, 1991), pp. 5–58. Laundrymen in the western United Province in India are regarded as Shudras whereas in the eastern parts they are considered untouchables. See P. Kolenda, Caste in Contemporary India: Beyond Organic Solidarity (Menlo Park, Benjamin/Cummings, 1978), p. 101.

¹⁴ K. Knott, ‘The Gujarati Mochis in Leeds: From Leather Stockings to Surgical Boots and Beyond’, in R. Ballard and M. Banks (eds), Desh Pardesh: The South Asian Presence in Britain (London, Hurst, 1994), p. 216.

¹⁵ S. Bhana, Indentured Indian Emigrants to Natal, 1860–1902: A Study Based on Ships' Lists (New Delhi, Promilla, 1991), pp. 60 ff.

¹⁶ H. Kuper, Indian People in Natal (Pietermaritzburg, University of Natal Press, 1960), pp. 20 ff., 39–40; A. Desai and G. Vahed, Inside Indian Indenture: a South African Story, 1860–1914 (Cape Town, HSRC Press, 2010), pp. 177 & 179; R. Ebr.-Vally, Kala Pani: Caste and Colour in South Africa (Cape Town, Kwela Books, 2001), pp. 138 & 140.

¹⁷ R. Mesthrie, ‘The Linguistic Reflex of Social Change: Caste and Kinship Terms Among People of Indian Descent in Natal, South Africa’, Anthropological Linguistics, 32, 3–4 (Fall–Winter 1990), pp. 340–44, reporting findings in 1980 that there was knowledge of a few caste terms such as Brahman (priests), Sonar (goldsmith), Lohar (blacksmith), Teli (oil-maker), Nau (barber), Chamar (leather worker) and Dhobi (washerman), but over 42 terms had become obsolete.

¹⁸ Kuper, Indian People, p. 20.

¹⁹ Ebr.-Vally, Kala Pani, p. 144.

²⁰ S. Bhana and K.K. Bhoola, ‘The Dynamics of Preserving Cultural Heritage: The Case of Durban's Kathiawad Hindu Seva Samaj, 1943–1960 and Beyond’, South Asian Diaspora, 3, 1 (March 2011), pp. 15–36. K.S. Hiralal and V. Rawjee, Tracing our Roots: The Natal Rajput Association, 1911–2011 (Durban, Atlas Printers, 2011) is a nostalgic rather than academic commemorative book on Dhobis in Natal.

²¹ See the chapters by S. Warrier, ‘Gujarati Prajapatis in London’, and Knott, ‘The Gujarati Mochis’, in Ballard and Banks (eds), Desh Pardesh, pp. 191–230; H. Tambs-Lysche, London Patidars: A Case Study of Urban Ethnicity (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980).

²² Although the interviews dealt with a number of issues, I have focused only on caste for this article. Not all interviewees would agree that caste was relevant in their lives; all gave me permission to use their names.

²³ South African Kshatriya Mahasabha and South African Kshatriya Mahasabha Educational Trust, Daan Data Granth (1995).

²⁴ Nagin Patel Papers (privately held, Cape Town).

²⁵ Interview with Ramjee Magan and Lalitha Magan, 25 January 2010, Wynberg, Cape Town.

²⁶ This refers to worship of Goddess Durga who inspires fear and respect.

²⁷ Interview with Bhadra, Gunwant and Bhanu Jaga, 17 April 2010, Green Point, Cape Town.

²⁸ Group Areas restrictions were repealed in 1991.

²⁹ Interview with Bhikhiben Keshev, 20 January 2010, Rylands, Cape Town.

³⁰ Interview with Rashmi Kooverjee, 28 January 2010, Rylands, Cape Town. Additional information on the family was also sourced from the Daan Data Granth, p. 4.

³¹ K. Botha, A. Barnard, T. Links, L. Pokpas, Spore 2: Afrikaans Eerste Taal (Pietermaritzburg, Centaur Publications, 1991), pp. 25–32.

³² Southern Suburbs Tatler, 30 September 1993; South, 28 January to 1 February 1994.

³³ Compare H. Bradford, ‘Women, Gender and Colonialism: Rethinking the History of the British Cape Colony and Its Frontier Zones, c. 1806–70’, Journal of African History, 37, 3 (1996), pp. 352–53.

³⁴ Interview with Magan Lalloo (b.1920), Claremont, Cape Town, 23 November 1996.

³⁵ See W. Taliep, ‘A Study in the History of Claremont and the Impact of the Group Areas Act circa 1950–1970’ (BA Hons essay, History Department, University of Cape Town, 1992), Appendix III, Taliep's interview with M. Lalloo, November 1992, p. 13.

³⁶ Interview with Damyanti Chagan, 9 April 2010, Bantry Bay, Cape Town.

³⁷ Knott, ‘Gujarati Mochis of Leeds’, pp. 213–14.

³⁸ N.P. Sahai, ‘Crafts in Eighteenth-Century Jodhpur: Questions of Class, Caste and Community Identities’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 48, 4 (2005), p. 549.

³⁹ Knott, ‘Gujarati Mochis’, p. 219.

⁴⁰ Mines, Caste in India, p. 3.

⁴¹ U. Rao, ‘Caste and the Desire for Belonging’, Asian Studies Review, 33, 4 (December 2009), p. 484.

⁴² Paan is a betel leaf filled with lime and areca nut. See R. Mesthrie, A Dictionary of South African Indian English (Cape Town, UCT Press, 2010), p. 174.

⁴³ Other mandals operated similarly. Bhagatsingh Govan explains how the Measuria Shahitiya Vardak Mandal (f. 1911) representing the barber (Hajam) caste in Cape Town (originally comprising 24 families) would take care of matters affecting families such as death, marriage and divorce and the educational needs of youth. Interview with Bhagatsingh Govan (b.1939), 16 January 2010, Rylands, Cape Town.

⁴⁴ I prefer not to identify my informants here by name.

⁴⁵ They claimed Rajput (warrior) origins. See B. Kirparam (compiler) and J.M. Campbell (ed.), Hindu Castes and Tribes of Gujarat, Vol. 1 (New Delhi, Vintage Books, 1988), p. 192. This volume is a compilation of the original Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, Volume IX, Part 1 (Bombay, Government Central Press, 1901).

⁴⁶ Daan Data Granth, p. 22.

⁴⁷ Daan Data Granth, p. 27.

⁴⁸ Daan Data Granth, p. 22.

⁴⁹ Daan Data Granth, p. 216.

⁵⁰ Interview with Ramjee Magan, 3 August 2010.

⁵¹ The Gujarati Arya Kshatriya Mahasabha founded in Britain in 1975 represents some 3,000 Mochi families and is the national body to which all the smaller organisations are affiliated. Available at http://www.gakm.co.uk/ and http://gkmna.com, retrieved on 17 October 2011.

⁵² Interview with Jamnadas Chauhan, 30 October 2007, Ottery, Cape Town.

⁵³ E-mail from A. Chavda to author, 9 May 2010.

⁵⁴ Interview with Bhadra Jaga, 17 April 2010; also telephone conversation with Arun Chavda, 9 May 2010.

⁵⁷ Daan Data Granth, pp. 9 & 32.

⁵⁵ See Desai and Vahed, Inside Indenture, pp. 237–48.

⁵⁶ A ceremony around a fire into which offerings such as ghee and other goods are poured. See Mesthrie, A Dictionary of South African Indian English, p. 97.

⁵⁸ Daan Data Granth, p. 216.

⁵⁹ Kolenda, Caste in Contemporary India, p. 99; Pocock, Kanbi and Patidar, pp. 40–41.

⁶⁰ Referred to in Kolenda, Caste in Contemporary India, p. 103.

⁶¹ Daan Data Granth, pp. 108–09.

⁶² Telephone conversation with Nagin Patel, 17 August 2010.

⁶³ Hutton, Caste in India, p. 99.

⁶⁴ Nagin Patel Papers, Minute Book of the Patidar Society, 1929 to 1946. It did host Diwali celebrations and visitors from India, and sent money for the India independence movement.

⁶⁵ Daan Data Granth, p. 22.

⁶⁶ Only recently Naresh Chauhan set up a blog devoted to families from Billimora, available at http://billi.yolasite.com/, retrieved on 17 October 2011.

⁶⁷ The Muslims from the Konkan villages of Maharashtra (who make up the majority of Indian Muslims in the Western Cape) formed village societies such as the Sakhrol Society, Janjira Society and Sangemeshwar Society – all of which survive today. Indian Muslims numbered 29,800 in the Western Cape in 2001 (Census 2001: Primary Tables Western Cape, p. 27).

⁶⁸ The revival of societies and caste organisations in the 1920s may have had to do with more settled family life being developed as wives and children came out from India.

⁶⁹ Nagin Patel Papers, Notes on the United Hindu Association by Bhikoo Magan, undated. From 1940 to 1943, Chavda was chairman and may have served other terms but the records are incomplete.

⁷⁰ There are several references in the Patidar minutes to a Hindu Hall in Chapel Street in 1938 and 1939. See also Nagin Patel Papers, B. Magan, Notes on the Gandhi Memorial School, undated; and Report by the Cape Yuvak Mandal on the Split in the Gujarati Community, 1988.

⁷¹ See for instance interviews with Nagin Patel (b.1944), 26 September 2007, Rylands Cape Town; Bharat Bhikha (b.1954), 30 January 2010, Rylands, Cape Town; and Bhagatsingh Govan (b.1939), 16 January 2010, Rylands, Cape Town.

⁷² Telephone conversation with Nagin Patel, 17 August 2010.

⁷³ See Patidar Society minutes, 14 May, 8 June and 20 July 1930.

⁷⁴ The argument of the KHMM was that it was simply building a temple and hall to replace the Mowbray hall which had been expropriated. The argument of the CHCS was that it was the main Gujarati Hindu body. The constitution of the CHCS was amended in 1977 to specifically exclude a member of a caste body from joining it. See Patel Papers, ‘A Special Committee Report on the Split in Our Gujarati Community by the Cape Yuvuk Mandal’, 1988; ‘Notes by a Concerned Youth’, undated (probably late 1980s).

⁷⁵ See for instance interviews with Kanti Patel, 13 January 2010, Rylands, Cape Town; Ebrahim Omar, 29 November 2007, Rylands, Cape Town; and Luxmiben Gihwala, 26 March 2008, Rylands, Cape Town.