Constructions of Community and Identity Among Indians in Colonial Natal, 1860-1910. Goolam Vahed

Constructions of Community and Identity among Indians in Colonial Natal, 1860-1910: The
Role of the Muharram Festival

Author(s): Goolam Vahed
Source: The Journal of African History, Vol. 43, No. 1 (2002), pp. 77-93
Published by: Cambridge University Press
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Journal of African History, 43 (2002), pp. 77-93. ? 2002 Cambridge University Press 77
DOI: Io. o17/Sooz 8537200oo8oio Printed in the United Kingdom
CONSTRUCTIONS OF COMMUNITY AND IDENTITY

AMONG INDIANS IN COLONIAL NATAL, 1860-1910:
THE ROLE OF THE MUHARRAM FESTIVAL
BY GOOLAM VAHED
University of Durban-Westville
ABSTRACT: This article is concerned with the historical construction of com-

munities, cultures and identities in colonial Natal, in this case an Indian grouping
that emerged from the heterogeneous collection of indentured workers imported
between 186o and 191i. Despite the difficulties of indenture, Indians set about re-
establishing their culture and religion in Durban. The most visible and public
expression of ritual was the festival of Muhurram,which played an important role
in forging a pan-Indian 'Indianness' within a white and African colonial society.
This was significant when one considers that the nationalist movement was in its
formative stages and there was no national identity when indentured workers had
left India.
KEY WORDS: South Africa, ethnicity, colonial, race.
THIS article focuses on the expressive and representative functions of

Muharram to illuminate key features of the construction of 'Indianness' in
colonial Natal. It is predicated on the premise that identities are not coherent
and unchanging, but dynamic and multi-faceted. While the traditions, values
and practices of migrants were important, community and identity were
forged in the interaction of actual historical circumstances, political policies,
social experience and the meanings accorded to these in daily practice and
discourse in Natal.' Indianness was a complex construction, constituted
through struggles among disparate Indians, and between them and whites
and Africans in Natal where the ideas of empire, as Kale reminds us,
'secured racial hierarchy and privilege '. The racialization of class made race
a point of reference in personal and group behaviour. While Muharram
mourned the death of a Muslim martyr, the joint participation of Hindus and
Muslims, and a fusion of Muslim and Hindu traditions, made it a pan-Indian
festival, and an important aspect of Indian community formation. This study
will fill an important void in a neglected area, that of Indian working class life
1 See S. Hall, 'Cultural identity and diaspora', in J. Rutherford (ed.), Identity,
Community and Cultural Difference (London, 1990), 222-37.
2 M. Kale, Fragments of Empire: Capital, Slavery, and Indian Indentured Labor
Migration in the British Caribbean (Philadelphia, 1995), 173.

78 GOOLAM VAHED
in Natal, a gap that stands in sharp contrast to the Cape where carnival/
festival among Cape Coloureds has been relatively widely studied.3
ARRIVAL OF INDIANS
The arrivalin Natal of 342 Indians aboard the Truroon I6 November I86o
marked the culmination of a ten-year struggle by British immigrants for
cheap indentured labour. Subsequently, in all, 152,184 immigrants arrived
between i86o and 1911. The tendency of the Natal government to treat them
as a homogenous entity should not mask the fact that there were considerable
differences of class, gender, caste, religion, language and experiences of
migration. Immigrants had been recruited as individuals from a vast area of
India characterized by significant variation. Most were lower caste agri-
cultural workers from Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh in the south-east,
and Oudh, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh in the north-east of India.4 Those from
the Ganges valley spoke Bhojpuri (or Hindi), while those from the south
spoke Tamil or Telugu.5 Two-thirds of immigrants were male, 90oper cent
(137,099) were Hindu,6 and approximately 8,ooo were Muslim.7
In terms of their contract, indentured workers were assigned to an
employer for five years. At the end of that period they were free either to
reindenture or to seek work elsewhere in Natal. Approximately 6o per cent
of indentured workers were allocated to sugar estates; the rest were
employed by the municipalities of Durban and Pietermaritzburg,the Natal
Government Railways, and as 'special servants' such as cooks, waiters,
policemen, clerks and interpreters.' A detailed discussion of indenture falls
outside the scope of this paper.9 In her analysis, Swan concludes that
'overwork, malnourishment, and squalid living conditions formed the
pattern of daily life for most agriculturalworkers'.1"Indentured Indians had
few ways of resisting their exploitation as they were subject to close
supervision and systematic discipline. Draconian laws viewed all contractual
offences as criminal acts, and sanctioned legal action against Indians for
'laziness' and desertion. The burdens of proof and penalty were on the
3 See, for example,L. Baxter,'History,identityandmeaning:CapeTown'sCoon
Carnival in the I960s and 1970s' (MA thesis, University of Cape Town, 1996); D.-C.
Martin, Coon Carnival : New Year in Cape Town, Past and Present (Cape Town, 1999);
B. Nasson, '"She preferred living in a cave with Harry the snakecatcher": towards an
oral history of popular leisure and class expression in District 6, Cape Town, c.
192os-I950s', in P. Bonner et al. (eds.), Holding Their Ground: Class, Locality and
Culture in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century South Africa (Johannesburg, 1989).
4 S. Bhana, IndenturedIndian Migrants To Natal, 1860-z9o2. A Study Based on Ships'
Lists (New Delhi, 1991), 19-2o.
s S. Bhana, 'Natal's traditional temples in the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries' Unpublished paper (1997), 3. 6 Bhana, Indian Migrants, 19-20.
7 Information supplied by J. Brain and T. Bennett, who are analyzing the ships' lists.
8 R. F. Osborn, Valiant Harvest: The Founding of the South African Sugar Industry,
1848-1926 (Durban, 1964), 39.
9 See J. D. Beall, 'Women under indenture in Natal', in S. Bhana (ed.), Essays on
Indentured Indians in Natal (Yorkshire, 1990), 89-1 15; M. Swan, 'Indentured Indians:
accommodation and resistance, 1890-1913', in Bhana, Essays, 117-35; and M. Tayal,
'Indian indentured labour in Natal, 1890-1911', Indian Social and Economic History
Review, 14 (1978), 519-46. 10oSwan, Gandhi, 26.

INDIANS IN COLONIAL NATAL 79
weaker party to the contract. Indians could not refuse any work, demand
higher wages or leave the employer. They could not go more than two miles
from the estate without their employer's written permission, even to lay a
charge against that employer.11 Resistance was difficult in a climate where
Indians were spread over vast distances, there being 1,3oo employers of
indentured labour in Natal in I904,12 and where public institutions, the
police, courts and law were under white control.
Indentured immigrants were followed by entrepreneurs from Gujarat on
the west coast of India, who began arriving from the mid-I870s. Traders
were considered by others, and considered themselves, 'Arab' because most
were Muslims. Although small in number, traders became significant from
the turn of the century when, under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, who
lived in South Africa from 1893 to 1914, they gave international prominence
to the plight of Indians in South Africa. A third category of Indians was
'free': Indians: the 58 per cent of indentured Indians who did not return to
India but remained in Natal where they mainly took to farming, market
gardening and hawking."3 By 1904, there were 904,041 Africans, 97,I09
whites and Ioo,918 Indians. The majority of Indians, 63,746 (63.17 per
cent), were male."4 Despite the fact that the Indians were a heterogeneous
collection of people, the emergent colonial state, feeling economically,
socially and politically threatened, treated them legislatively as a homogenous
and discrete racial category. Within this social order, the construction of
'Whiteness' was a way for white migrants, particularly workers, to respond
to wage labour. In indentured workers, they found a convenient 'other'. Joe
Cunningham, chairman of the Patriotic Union, pointed out in 1907, for
example, that whites should 'stop dealing with the coolie, and this question
will solve itself ... Surely the coolies are eating their way into every walk of
life and labour. Let there be no side issues with workers; either the coolie has
to go or we go'.15 But indentured Indians stayed and expressed themselves
in tenacious ways.
CELEBRATING MUHARRAM IN COLONIAL NATAL
The major Indian festival in colonial Natal was Muharram, which mourns
the martyrdom of Imam Husain, grandson of the Prophet Mohammad, who
was killed in battle on the plains of Karbala in Iraq by the army of Caliph
Yazid I on Io Muharram 68o. Although denied water by the enemy,
Husain's group survived for the first nine days of Muharram, the first month
of the Islamic lunar calendar. On the tenth, the enemy's arrows killed
Husain, whose body was left to rot in the desert sun, while his head was
placed on a spear and paraded in Damascus.16 While Husain's martyrdom is
doctrinally important to Shias with their belief that Husain and his father Ali
are part of a line of Imams deriving from the Prophet, it also has a solemn
memory for Sunnis who regard Yazid as a corrupt and unjust ruler. This was
ix M. Swan, 'Indentured Indians', I19. 12 Bhana, Indentured Migrants, 19.
x13Ibid. 14 Census of the Population of Natal, Apr. o1904.
15 Natal Mercury, 30 Dec. 1907.
16 G. Thaiss, 'Contested meaningsand the politics of authenticity:the "Hosay" in
Trinidad', in Akbar S. Ahmed and Hasting Donnan (eds.), Islam, Globalization and
Postmodernity (London, 1994), 38-62, 4o.

80 GOOLAM VAHED
clearly the case in India where Titus observed that 'Sunnis are found to
observe the [Muharram] ceremonies with the same regularity as the Shias
do'." Hindu participation in the festival in India, according to Ahmed, was
a function of 'the latitude in ritual available to Hindu lower castes and the
love of spectacle, fanfare and group exhibition of passion inherent in the
Indian character, as well as generalised superstition'.18
The Muharram was the first communal Indian ceremony to be observed
in Natal. Indentured workers were granted three days annual leave during
Muharram or 'Coolie Christmas' as it became known among whites."9 Thus,
when requesting permission for workers to attend the festival, Abdul Kadir
informed the Protector20 that the 'Moharram alias Coolie Christmas will
begin on the 3rd of January 1878'.21 A letter from H. Peron of the Victoria
Planters Association to Protector Graves in September 1885 suggests that
the festival was widely celebrated, and climaxed with the convergence of
Indians from various plantations:
Which is the proper day for the conclusion of the Coolie Christmas festival? I have
the honour to request you to be good enough to make enquiries amongst the
leading Mohammedans in Durban so that the doubt and uncertainty, which have
hitherto existed, may this year be done away with. Coolies on the estate being
generally uneducated and illiterate were unable to fix the date accurately and that
until they have found out what day coolies on other estates in the neighbourhood
had fixed upon they were unable to inform their employers on what day they
wished to meet to put their gods in the river.22
Indians also demanded the right to observe Muharram. In October 1886,
when police stopped a Muharram procession in Ladysmith in northern
Natal, Indians petitioned the governor of Natal that other towns in the
colony allowed:
the religious procession through the public streets of people making much noise by
musical and other sounds, following their Creed unmolested by the Police.
Therefore your Petitioners humbly pray that when your Petitioners desire to
practice the religion of their Fathers they may be free from the hardship of arrest.
Although a Hindu, Ratansamy Pillay, presented the petition and while only
nine of the 25 petitioners were Muslim, the festival was regarded as their
'creed'.23 This is not surprising because in the areas from which most
indentured Indians were drawn, particularly Oudh, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh,
Hinduism and Islam were mutually reinforcing, although Hindus were the
17 Murray T. Titus, Indian Islam : A Religious History of Islam in India (New Delhi,
1979 [original 1930o]), 92.
18 Aziz Ahmad, Studies in Islamic Culture in the Indian Environment(New Delhi, 1964),
157.
19 Natal Archives Repository (NAR), Colonial Secretary's Office (CSO) 299/1910,
Protector Polkinghorne to Town Clerk, i i Nov. 1909.
20 An 1872 Commission of Enquiry recommended that a 'Protector' of Indian
Immigrantsbe appointed to visit each estate at least twice a year, attend to Indian
grievancesand publish an annualreport.A Deputy was later appointedto assist him.
21 NAR, Indian Immigration Papers (II), 1/3, 520/1877, Abdul Kadir, Indian
interpreter,to ProtectorGraves, i Dec. 1877.
22 NAR, II, I/30, 1253/85, 28 Sept. 1885.
23 NAR, Natal Provincial Papers (NPP), 645, Petition 18 of 1886, I8 Oct. 1886.

majority population.24 Another petition by twelve 'Mahomedan Natives of
India at present residing in the Boro of Durban' warned the Protector that
if the police interfered with 'our religious matters it may cause some
disturbance'." The Deputy Protector reported in February 1885 that there
was 'much talk about matters such as leave for the Moharram' when he
visited plantations.26 In 1890, Police Superintendent Alexander informed
the Mayor of Durban that he had been 'besieged with applicants representing
the various classes to take part in the Festival'.27 In 1896, another Hindu,
Kistnasamy Naidoo, requested permission for public processions until
midnight on five nights in Muharram, which were to include 'displays of
fireworks', and to 'cast the tazzias into water on the tenth'.28
Muharram was a common festival for Indians from various plantations
who could gather, dance, play music, parade and make merry. From the
sketchy evidence that is available we can piece together a story of the
unfolding and organization of Muharram. It included two elements, public
processions by neighbourhood groups, and their converging on the tenth to
immerse tazzias in water. The tazzia, which translates into 'mourning', was
a replica of the martyred Husain's mausoleum at Karbala.29 It was an ornately
decorated, gaudy simulacrum of the tomb. James Meldrum, an Englishman
visiting Natal in 1893, described the tazzia as 'made of a light framework
covered with muslin, adorned with wonderful emblematic designs in all
colours of the rainbow, and surrounded with bannerettes'.30 Tazzias ranged
between 15 to 25 feet in height and consisted of three levels, each rising from
within the other with the base, about io feet square, being the largest. They
were built with great care and the task was passed from generation to
generation. Family folklore believed that failure to continue this tradition
would lead to tragedy.31 The Baccus family were among typical early tazzia
builders.32 In an incident recorded by the protector in November 1882,
Hassein and Kaddar Baccus 'spent five days making Coolie cages and the
Idol for the approaching Indian festivities'. They smoked Indian hemp
(dagga) during this period and a heavily drugged Hassein Baccus committed
suicide by slitting his throat on the evening of the fifth day as a result of
24
A. Khan, 'Homeland,motherland:authenticity,legitimacyand ideologiesof place
among Muslims in Trinidad', in P. van der Veer (ed.), Nation and Migration: The
Politics of Space in the South Asian Diaspora (Philadelphia,
995)-
25 NAR, II, I/i, I05/1877, Mohammed Ali Shah Qadri and Petitioners to Protector,
26 Mar. i877.
26 NAR, II, 1/24, 1418/85, Report on Estates Visited by the Deputy Protector of
Immigrants, Feb. 1885.
27 NAR, Durban Town Clerk (DTC), 5/2/5/3/5, Police Superintendent Richard
Alexander to Town Clerk, 20 Aug. I890.
28 NAR, II, 1/96, 820/96, Naidoo to Mayor of Pietermaritzburg, Iz Apr. 1896.
29 Legend has it that this particular form of celebration originated in India at the end
of the thirteenth century with the Shia wife of Emperor Timur, who had taken a vow to
visit the mausoleum of Husain annually in Iraq. When illness prevented her from doing
so, a replica of the mausoleum was placed before her during Muharram. See Thaiss,
'Contested Meanings', 41.
30 J. Meldrum, 'The Moharrem festival in Natal'. Title of journal unknown, dated
I893. Housed at the Killie Campbell Library, PAM 297 MEL.
31 F. Meer, Portrait of Indian South Africans (Durban, 1969), 21.
32 Interviewwith Mr F. Baccus,4 Dec. 1999.

82 GOOLAM VAHED
'hallucination'." Competition among Indians for the most attractive tazzia

gave Muharram a competitive edge that was detrimental to public order.
According to Alexander, 'there was natural jealousy between the different
parties respecting their ability to build pagodas and other 'Artistics
devices '.34
Muharram festivities began on the first and lasted until the tenth. Close to
the site where the tazzia was built stood the 'imam bada', an area that served
as a place of worship for devotees during the ten days. Each tazzia group built
'panjas', which were replicas of the human hand; participants told Meldrum
that panjas were models of the right hand of Husain. According to tradition,
when Husain was going out to battle and his wife enquired when they would
meet again, he raised his right hand and replied, 'At the Day of Judgement'.
Panjas were clothed in green and smothered in garlands of flowers brought
by devotees, who believed that they had the power to cure problems.
Meldrum observed panjas being immersed in water, 'thereby, it is supposed,
removing the sins of the faithful'.35
From the fifth to the ninth, Indians marched through neighbourhoods
with their tazzias, drumming continually and beating sticks. James Meldrum
observed that 'for some days previous to the actual celebration the tom-toms
were almost continually beaten'.a" This was a source of great nuisance to
whites. According to one newspaper, 'the nerve shrieking yells of these
almost naked fanatics, together with the monotonous thumping of tom-toms
are sufficiently convincing that participants in the festival know nothing of
the history of the patron saints'."7 The religious role of this practice was
notional;3" it became more an excuse for the display of high spirits and
assertion of neighbourhood pride. In 1890, Alexander informed the Mayor
of Durban that 'tom-tomming has on many occasions been stopped by your
police and the offenders prosecuted '.39But the practice continued. Alexander
reported the following year:
On Sunday morning during the Divine Service the public were distracted by Tom-
tomming carried on in the Railway compound. I went myself to stop it. I found
about 1500 half drunk Coolies enclosed in this compound nearly a mile away from
the Railway station, the whole in charge of a couple of Coolie Policeman and in
Indian Sirdar, none of whom I could find. I stopped the Tom-tomming but heard
it again before I reached home.40
In 1896, W. Goodwin and '215 other Europeans' petitioned the Mayor of
Pietermaritzburg to stop 'this nuisance of tom-tomming' because it was 'a
very great annoyance and dangerous to sick persons'.41 As a report in the
Natal Mercury in 191o shows, police action failed to eradicate this practice.
33 NAR, II, I/II, 1176/82, Report on Suicide of Hassein Baccus, no. 10.999, 13 Dec.
1882. 34 Recollections of Superintendent Alexander, Natal Advertiser, 23 Apr. 1902.
35 Meldrum, 'Moharrem festival'. 36 Meldrum, 'Moharrem festival'.
37 Natal Advertiser, 23 Apr. 1904.
38 According to Edwardes, drumming is 'primarily designed to scare away evil-
spirits ... this is a relic of pure Hinduism, of aboriginal self-belief, and has in the course
of centuries been gradually associated with the great Muhammadan Festival of tears'.
S. M. Edwardes, The Gazetteer of Bombay City and Island, I (Bombay, 1909), 188.
39 NAR, DTC, 5/2/5/3/5, 20 Aug. 1890.
40 NAR, II, I/64, 4740/91, Alexander to Mayor of Durban, Aug. 1891.
41 NAR, II, 1/96, 814/99, Godfrey to Mayor of Pietermaritzburg, 19 May 1896.

INDIANS IN COLONIAL 83
NATAL
More important, it also shows that drumming was not simply senseless noise
made by 'naked fanatics', which was the dominant impression created by
whites:
All the processions without exception had a tom-tom band. The throb of tom-toms
filled the air for miles around. Let no dog bark at the tom-tom, for it is an
institution at least as important as the English 'waita'. Its manipulation is quite a
high art, and to some ears no doubt it is inspiringly musical, though to European
ears a trifle monotonous ... the tom-tom music touched every plane from an
insinuating purr to a wild hullabaloo. The tom-tom beat so furiously that presently
the ears of the artistes - trained to a finer perception in these matters than those of
laymen - detected that the instruments had got out of tune, and forthwith there
was a cessation while little fires were lighted, and the drums held over them till the
contraction by the heat had tightened the skins up to concert pitch again. It was
curious to watch how the instrumentalists tried their instruments with their
fingers, as seriously as any piano-tuner, to see if they had attained the right tone,
before discontinuing the shrinking process.42
While groups took part individually, they were united and bound by the
events at Karbala and particularly the final convergence on the tenth. On this
day, groups of Indians gathered around each tazzia and pulled it by hand, all
the while singing 'marsiyas' or laments to the memory of Husain, beating on
drums, dancing wildly or carrying out stick fights. Participants believed in
the potency of the tazzia and offered fruits, vegetables, sugar, money and
other objects in return for the birth of a son, long life, cure from illness, and
so on. The tenth began with a 'gatka', a play in which some participants
represented Yazid's army and others Hussain, to symbolize the actual battle.
Men dressed as women if the play included a woman. For example,
Moonean, who was giving evidence in a rape case, mentioned that 'I went to
it [the Muharram festival] and dressed myself as a woman' because he played
the role of a woman in the play.43 Consumption of alcohol was part of the
festivities. In her evidence against an alleged rapist, Patchay, wife of
Patchamoolloo, testified that some men had 'forcible connection' with her
after a heavy bout of drinking rum.44 The Natal Advertiser reported that
'from sunrise yesterday, coolies were lingering chiefly in the vicinity of coolie
bars. They were not allowed to eat food but their religious regulations did
not prevent them from imbibing freely in the viles of all liquors sold within
the Colony'.45
Depending on the number of tazzias, the fragmented processions that
made their way to an assembly point could be several miles long. The
assembly point was always close to a river or sea because tazzias were
immersed in water to remind participants of the suffering that Husain
endured when he was denied water.46 In Durban and surrounding districts,
tazzia processions marched through the neighbourhoods towards the Umgeni
42 Natal Mercury, 9 Dec. i9 Io.
43 NAR, II, I/51, IOI7/1889, Statements of Certain Indians with reference to the
Rape of Patchay,Indenturedto Robbins of Umhlali, Aug. 1889.
44 NAR, II, I/51, oI07/1889, Statements of Certain Indians with reference to the
Rape of Patchay,Indenturedto Robbins of Umhlali, Aug. I889.
45 Natal Advertiser,23 Apr. I902.
46 Garcin de Tassy (trans. M. Waseem), Muslim Festivals in India and Other Essays
(Delhi, 1995), 56.

84 GOOLAM VAHED
River, which a contemporary newspaper referred to as 'Coolieland'."

Dancers known as 'tigers', who painted their faces and body and wore masks
to resemble tigers, led tazzias. Participants told Meldrum that 'tigers'
represented real tigers in India who often attackedparticipants."8The Natal
Advertiser described 'tigers' as larger than life: 'by their dilated eyes and
eccentric actions it could be seen that the strain on their nerves had almost
overpowered their mental faculties'.4"Large crowds were attractedannually
to Umgeni:
Fromsunriseyesterday,little assembliesof paintedcoolieswereseen all overtown.
As the forenoonwore on the little bandsmovedon towardsUmgeni, the majority
of themjoiningthe largerprocessionwhichthey met en route.By two o'clock,the
assemblyexceeded io,ooo, while carriagesand rikshascontinuedto arrivewith
hundredsof passengers.The slopesfor hourspriorto the ceremonywerecrowded
by Indians,and the brilliantcolouredclothingof the Indianwomen showed up
vividly againstthe green of the banks."5
Participants, contemporary records suggest, experienced great enjoyment
during the festival, which represented a world very different to their rigidly
controlled work environment. Stick fights, wrestling, food and alcohol,
various festivities and the immersing of tazzias in water were all part of the
day's activities. Stick fights especially captured the attention of the crowds.
According to one report:
'Sammy' is never tired of watchingthat processwhich resemblesa single-stick
encounter,andwherethis was going on the crowdwas dense.The Indianlikeshis
pleasuresservedup with a certainamountof ceremonial,for in this stickbusiness
the firstnine minutesare occupiedin rhythmiccirclingaroundone anotherwith
the seriousnessof a sacredrite, and then in the tenth someonegets a crackcross
the shoulders.The object at first is to be as far away and look as fearsomeas
possible, and to get in one good smite beforethe end.5"
Wrestling featured prominently during Muharram. 'Tigers' were usually
champion wrestlers and represented their district of plantation in kushti
(wrestling) competitions to determine the best wrestler.52It was a source of
great pride for a neighbourhood to have its representative win. One report
described a confrontation between 'tigers':
Cladin theirtraditionalcostumesof little fabricandmuch paint,they dancedand
curvettedin more or less rhythmicmovementsbefore the admiringmultitudes.
They unmistakeablyrolled forth a challengewhen two rival schools of 'tigers'
7 Natal Mercury, 9 Dec. 1910. 'Coolie' was a derogatory term used by whites to refer
to Indians.As ValentineDanielhasshown,'coolie'is a mixtureof GujaratiandTamil
of someonedevoid
It carriessuggestions
termsthathasto dowitha denialof personhood.
of morals.See E. V. Daniel,'The makingof a coolie',in H. Bernstein,E. V. Daniel
and T. Brass (eds.), Plantations, Proletarians and Peasants in Colonial Asia (London,
1992). 48 Meldrum, 'Moharrem festival'. 4 Natal Advertiser, 22 Apr. 1902.
5o Natal Advertiser, 23 Apr. I902.
5 Natal Mercury, 9 Dec. 19xo. Indian males were called 'Sammy', most probably
because many Hindu surnames ended with the suffix 'samy', such as Appalsamy,
Munsamy and Ramsamy. Women were called 'Mary', the origins of which are unknown.
Both were regarded as derogatory by Indians.
52 There were several wrestling clubs at the Magazine Barracks in Durban, for
example, where municipal workers lived. See P. Murugan, The Lotus Blooms on the
Eastern Vlei (Chennai, 1998), 76-82.

found themselves facing one another in a cleared space in the middle of the road.
One party was daubed all over with green and yellow war paint, and grovelled in
the road beneath a lurid standard whereon two fearsome wild beasts faced one
another on opposite cliffs. As the opposing parties drew near the accompanists
thumped and thundered louder then ever and, as if in reply, the dancers danced
and leaped more furiously than before. The native police thought well to stand
back.53
According to Meldrum, 'like Christmas', the Muharram 'seems largely
altered from fast to feast' as a result of the various festivities:
Around the pagoda was a 'motley crowd: Mohammedans in white and in red, with
turbans generally in pure white; masquerades, dressed up to represent tigers, who
rushed through the crowd, pretending to assault the worshippers, in imitation of
the real tigers which frequently attack the procession in India; Hindoo men and
women in costumes which nearly defy description, all possible colours and
materials seem to have been used. Jewellery was abundant: earrings, nose-jewels,
necklaces, bangles, rings, anklets, toe-rings - all of the most gaudy description ...
The din was terrific. Above the noise of the drums and tom-toms came the yells
of the groups of those engaged in mimic battle with long sticks, while the rest of
the faithful vied with each other in producing strange weird sounds.54
The day ended with tazzias being immersed in water. Flowers and
coloured paper on the tazzias was thrown in the river while the wooden
structures were immersed in water and taken home to construct the following
year's tazzia.55 Tazzias were submerged in the river from around 4 pm. 'Each
conveyance was accompanied by a large cheering crowd, and the applause
was kept up as the various contingents went down to the river.'"5 Meldrum
observed:
The pagoda (British colonial name for tazzias) was taken to the river, where, after
great beating of tom-toms and wild dances, the emblems were immersed, most of
the faithful also sprinkling their heads with water. Many children were also
baptised by their parents. The top of the pagoda was then covered with white cloth,
and the lower part opened. From it were taken basins of what appeared to be boiled
rice, which was eagerly fought for and devoured. Thus ended the celebration.57
The records also suggest that at least until the I89os some participants
killed animals ritually. When Alexander arrived in Natal in 1878 he was
'staggered' by the first Muharram that he witnessed. In Bamboo Square in
Durban he saw a 'horrible case of cruelty, where the " tigers " were worrying
a young goat, endeavouring to tear the throat and drink the blood'.
Alexander shot the 'nearly killed' goat to put it out of its misery. According
to Alexander this 'demonical practice was put down' in Natal through his
efforts.58 However, when evidence was being given in I889 in the alleged
rape of Patchay in Verulam on the North Coast, Mooneaa testified that he
has missed the festival but 'was at the pig killing at 2 o'clock',59 raising
questions about whether the practice was totally eradicated, and when. In the
53 Natal Mercury, 9 Dec. I913. 54 Meldrum, 'Moharrem festival'.
55 Interview with Mr F. Baccus, 26 Jan. 200ooo. 56 Natal Advertiser, 7 Feb. 1906.
57 Meldrum, 'Moharrem festival'.
58 Recollections of Superintendent Alexander, Natal Advertiser, 23 Apr. I902.
59 NAR, II, 1/51, IoI7/I889, Statements of Certain Indians with reference to the
Rape of Patchay,Indenturedto Mr Robbins of Umhlali, Aug. I889.

86 GOOLAM VAHED
absence of more evidence one can only speculate on the reasons for this
practice. It was probably due to deeply entrenched notions of blood sacrifice
and identity, or perhaps the strong faith of Indians in the curative power of
blood.60
MUHARRAM CONFLICT
Local authorities did not take kindly to the Muharram because heavy
drinking, fighting and the spilling of blood at the slightest provocation made
it a raucous and boisterous affair. Many whites came to regard Indians as
'fanatical' beings who erupted at the slightest opportunity. The Natal
Advertiser, for example, concluded:
The Mohurram, or Coolie Christmas, as celebrated in Durban, has now become
an occasion for the Easterns on which all their innate fanatical ideas seem to let
loose. What religion could tolerate such series of scenes as those enacted in Durban
during these last few days cannot be imagined. The hideously decked 'tigers' and
gaudily attired women, alike, become insane. The nerve shocking yells of those
almost naked fanatics, together with the monotonous thumping of tom-toms are
sufficiently convincing that participants know nothing of the history of the patron
saints whose sad deaths they pretend to commemorate.61
Religious grief, large crowds, streets packed with observers and partici-
pants, and tazzias jostling for public space produced a potent combination
that could explode into spontaneous or even planned violence. The patterns
of Muharram conflict differed. There were conflicts between processionists
and the police, participants and white civilians, and between Indians from
different plantations or neighbourhoods. Tazzia groups usually had a
geographical base, linked as they were to specific plantations or neighbour-
hoods, which often coincided with occupational category. The restriction of
Indians to plantations and the curb on their mobility served also to foster
neighbourhood pride and identity. In this climate, the superiority of tazzias,
in terms of size, appearance, splendour or numbers, strength of procession
and excellence of wrestlers were invariably contentious matters. Some
conflicts followed predictable precedents when Muharram triggered existing
tensions, while others exploded randomly over specific incidents. In
November I884, for example, when the medical officer of Isipingo, Dr
Green, had gone with his wife to 'view the Coolie Christmas Festival', his
carriage inadvertently ran over and injured an Indian child, Rambinguru.
The crowd became 'enraged ... and as the doctor drove along they threatened
to retaliate ... The procession met him on the road, seized the reins of the
horse and assaulted him'. Only quick action by the police saved his life.62
There are many other references to violence. Mr Hunter, manager of the
Natal Government Railways, complained to the Protector that a Sulehman:
Got leave all day for the Coolie Festival on the 12th. He was there all day, but he
did not return here at night as he should have; he had been fighting and all next
day he was lying about doing nothing. I had to engage a free Indian at higher wages
to take his place."6
6o See W. Crooke,An Introductionto the PopularReligionand Folkloreof Northern
India (Allahabad,GovernmentPress, North-WesternProvinceand Oudh, 1894), 196-7.
61 Natal Advertiser, 23 Apr. 19oz. 62 Natal Mercury, 3 Nov. I884.
63 NAR, II, I/16, o071/83, 4 Nov. 1883.

The rape in 1889 of Patchay, wife of Patchamoolloo, who was indentured
to Robbins of Umhlali, further confirms that violence featured in the
Muharram. On the tenth, Patchay left the estate with Veeramah and
Tirumalay to attend the 'Coolie festival near the river'. After drinking rum,
some men had 'forcible connection' with Patchay.64 Perumal and Koman
Nilladoo were imprisoned for I2 months for assaulting Chattiah 'with intent
to do grievous bodily harm' near Verulam on the North Coast. During
Moharram, on 4 August 1892, an altercation between different processions
resulted in Chattiah being stabbed in the head and chest:
The man was so badly injured that he was paralysed, and for some time his wife
was in danger. Other people were injured severely, and witnesses came into the box
with marks of the fray upon them ... Even women were engaged in the altercation.65
The Natal Advertiser reported in I906 that 'there was a large section of
police at Umgeni as yearly there is a tendency to indulge in fisticuffs by the
various contingents'.66
Rivalries specifically connected to occupation also led to conflict. This was
the case, for example, with employees of the railways and municipality. In
1891, Sirdar Parnee of Magazine Barracks, where employees of the Durban
municipality lived, requested police protection because residents of the
railway barracks had collected pieces of wood, bottles and stones to use
against them during Muharram. Parnee pointed out that Railway Indians
had prepared two pagodas so that one would remain intact after the
confrontation. Parnee also told Alexander that Indian hawkers, kitchen boys
and waiters had joined the Railway Indians during previous altercations."67
On the tenth, Parnee's group set off for Umgeni under the supervision of
twelve mounted policemen. En route they met the Railway Pagoda with 300
men, a hundred of whom were armed with 'long heavy sticks and pieces of
iron bars'. When Alexander instructed their leader, Sarakan, to return to the
city until Parnee had completed his rituals, a 'clamour and threatening with
sticks commenced' before they obliged. At Umgeni a fight was already
underway between 'Logan's Coolies' and another group, which the police
stopped after 'some ugly blows were dealt'.68 Meanwhile, Sarakan's group,
forced by police to return to the city, destroyed the pagodas of another
procession from Cato Manor and attacked Constable Bird. Heavy police
reinforcements stopped Sarakan's procession and arrested eleven of his
men.69
The roles were reversed in 1902 when municipal employees attacked
Railway Indians, who were proceeding to Umgeni, with 'a volley of stones
and bottles'. The result was that 'a number of coolies are now lying in
hospital, and the recovery of several is doubtful'. During the altercation, 'the
air was blackened with a shower of missiles, mostly chunks of road metal,
stones, bottles, sticks, etc'. When the police separated the groups, they
64 NAR, II, I/51, IOI7/I889, Statements of Certain Indians with reference to the
Rape of Patchay, Indentured to Mr Robbins of Umhlali, in Aug. 1889.
65 Natal Mercury, 15 Oct. 1892. 66 Natal Advertiser, 7 Feb. 1906.
67 NAR, II, I/64, 4740/90, Parnee to Alexander, 13 Aug. I891.
68 NAR, II, I/64, 4740/90, Alexander to Mayor, Aug. I89I. 69 Ibid.

88 GOOLAM VAHED
'turned on the officers, and many of them had narrow escapes from serious
injury ... The Indians, worked up to such a frenzy, were ready for almost
anything'.7o That evening, when municipal employees were returning home,
the police asked them to use an alternate route in order to bypass the railway
barracks. They refused, on the grounds that 'if we sneak home this way they
will think we are afraid of them'. As municipal workers passed the railway
barracks, they 'were pelted with a storm of missiles of every description,
mostly coal'." The following morning, railway workers challenged mu-
nicipal workers to a fight. 'The invitation was promptly accepted, and they
swarmed out in hundreds.' The police forced both parties to retire to their
barracks. At railway barracks about a thousand Indians stoned the police,
who 'at first had to retreat, so dangerous was the "fire" to which they were
subjected'. Constable Welsh was hurt in a 'cross fire of stones ... which will
likely incapacitate him from duty for several days. After some time peace was
restored'.72
This attack on the police was not isolated. In another incident, a policeman
who tried to stop a confrontation between warring factions was knocked
unconscious when both groups turned on him. When the police heard of this,
'the kaffirs [Africans] with their knobkerries were sent out'.
As soon as they saw a tazzia, 'they fell upon the crowd, the Indians ran for
their lives and the pagoda was smashed to smithereens'. It later transpired
that the police had destroyed the tazzia of an innocent party. When the
wronged Indian, 'with a heap of tinsel', wanted to lay a charge against the
police for destroying his 'god', Alexander gave him a sovereign to settle the
matter."73Alexander felt that many of the approximately 3,500 Indians who
were arrested annually in Durban used the Muharram as an opportunity to
'take advantage and settle old scores' against the police.74 The preconceived
notions that they were dealing with 'fanatics' resulted in the police reacting
harshly against Muharram processions. Meldrum witnessed police violence
that he considered unwarranted. He reported that while Indians were
marching with their pagodas the police 'decided that in defiance of custom
the procession not move any further in that direction. Result: what had been
a playful cat turned into a growling tiger'.75
The authorities were determined to bind and regulate Muharram pro-
cessions. The Durban Town Council (DTC) wanted to ban street pro-
cessions in 1887, but the Colonial Secretary advised that a gathering only
became unlawful if it acted in 'a violent and turbulent manner to the terror
of the people'. The fact that a lawful gathering such as the Muharram might
subsequently become unlawful was not sufficient grounds to impose a ban.76
The Mayor of Durban informed the Colonial Secretary in 1891 that the
festival 'has become an intolerable nuisance, resulting only in drunkenness
and riot'.77 In 189, Alexander urged the authorities to 'put a stop to this
absurd annual Indian Pagoda parading business about our streets ... [Other-
70 Natal Advertiser, 22 Apr. 1902. 71 Natal Advertiser, 24 Apr. 1902. 72 Ibid.

73 Recollections of Alexander, 23 Apr. 1902.
74 Annual Police Report, I902. University of Durban-Westville Documentation
Centre, Accession No. 957/2059. 75 Meldrum, 'Moharrem festival'.
76 NAR, CSO, 2752/87, Colonial Secretary's Office to Mayor of Durban, I2 Sept.
I887.
77 NA, II, 2/64, 4740/91, Mayor of Durban to Colonial Secretary, I Oct. 1891.

wise] we may expect shortly to have an army of these scull-breaking fanatics
taking charge of our Borough'." In July 1892, Alexander queried from the
town clerk what the 'wishes of the Council are upon the Coolie Christmas
after the result of the festival last year, and the Indians themselves wish to
know their position'." The confrontation between railway and municipal
Indians in 1902 was the last straw for Alexander, who was determined to
regulate the festival. He urged that 'in future this festival tomfoolery be
suppressed ... The Indians have no right to carry out this debauchery in our
main streets'."o In 1902, Alexander opined that the Muharram was 'nothing
more than an excuse for drunkenness, riotous conduct, and vengeful feelings
towards those parties they may have a grudge against, particularly the
police'.81 In a memorandum to the mayor in 1902, Alexander considered the
Muharram a danger to the public 'especially situated as we are in the midst
of a large Native population, who are becoming yearly more interested in this
festival. The fact is, the hordes of Indians who carry out this fanatic
ceremony have no religion at all, and do not in any way follow the
instructions laid down in the Koran'.82
As a result of Alexander's clamourings, measures were eventually intro-
duced to regulate the festival. From 1902, police were given instructions to
prevent the 'unseemly noise made on the Tom-Toms', to bar Indians
'insufficiently clothed or in any dress likely to frighten children from the
public thoroughfare', and to prevent pagodas from obstructing public
roads."8 The new measures satisfied Alexander, who reported in 1904 that
with the exception of two Indians arrested for disobeying the police, 'the
Indian community generally behaved better than on any previous oc-
casion'.84 Alexander was pleased that in 1905 the 'principal day passed off
very quiet and orderly'; yet 'the night previous was to most intolerable'.
Alexander was determined to prohibit the night parades preceding the
festival because they were a source of 'annoyance' to white citizens and the
heavy consumption of alcohol had a harmful affect on Indian behaviour on
the tenth. He therefore appealed for a 9.oo pm curfew on the night preceding
the tenth."5 In 19o6, Alexander again called on the government to 'stop the
hideous night parade in our streets and reckless consumption of drink'. This
time the government relented. Night parades were prohibited and Indians
were only allowed one day, the tenth, to observe the festival.86 The
enforcement of these laws, which were made more stringent in subsequent
years, modified the form of the Muharram and limited the potential for
violence by introducing strong police control over proceedings.
78 NA, II, 1/64,
4740/91, Alexanderto Mayor of Durban, Aug. 1891.
79NAR, DTC, 5/2/5/3/5, Alexander to DurbanTownClerk,4 July 1892.
8soNatal Advertiser,24 Apr. I902. 81 Annual Police Report, 1902.
82 Memorandumfrom Alexanderto Mayor, 23 Apr. 1902. University of Durban-
Westville, DocumentationCentre,Accession No. 957/2057.

83 Annual Police Report, I902.
84 NAR, 3/DBN, 5/2/5/4/I, Reportof the Superintendentof Police, 6 Apr. 190o4.
8 NAR, 3/DBN, 5/2/5/3/2, Reportof the Superintendentof Police, 3 Apr. 190o6.
86 Natal Advertiser,5 Feb. I906.

90 GOOLAM VAHED
MUHARRAM AND THE HINDU REFORM MOVEMENT
In addition to pressure from the police and government, educated Hindus

and religious leaders also attempted to curb Hindu participation in the
Muharram, albeit towards the end of the period under review. The early
opportunities offered by mission schools resulted in the emergence around
the turn of the century of a small western-educated class of colonial-born
Hindus. Some of them were critical of the practices of the Hindu masses. An
editorial in 19o6 in African Chronicle, whose editor P. S. Aiyar personified
this elite, argued that local Pandits (Hindu religious leaders) who had very
little formal education were exploiting the belief of the masses in superstition
and idolatry.87 African Chronicle noted in another editorial in I909 that 'it is
the lowest strata of the labouring classes, just for fun and frolic, that make all
the fuss, and noise, and disgrace themselves ... We do not see how these
confounded Tom-Tomming and hideous display of fantastic figures, can
have any sanction from true religious doctrine'.88 "Bhessmasoor" com-
plained in April 1907:
Hindoos ought to consider that the world is laughing at them on their moral
degradation and stupidity in taking part in the Festival of Mohammedans. Let me
hope that the Colonial-born Hindoos would try to put a stop to their compatriots
taking part in this festival.89
B. Mahatho considered it:
Very grievous that the Hindi community, ignorant of the fact that Hussain was
murdered by another Muslim took part in a celebration that is opposed to a part
of the Mahomedan section, and still more so to the lofty religious views of the
Hindoos and it is equally opposed to common sense."9
Aiyar also condemned Muharram as a 'waste of money [which] benefits
no-one but the beer shops and the Tom-Tom drummer ... Our countrymen
would do better service by utilising the same amount for some national
purpose'."
Despite these individual objections, local educated Hindus were too few in
number and powerless to have a discursive impact on the mass of Indians. It
was only with the arrival of missionaries from India that they cohered as a
group and were able to take up issues that were of concern to them.
Missionaries who began arriving from India from 1905 were adherents of the
Arya Samaj movement, founded in Bombay in 1875 by Swami Dayanand
Saraswati (1825-83). The Samaj focused on restructuring Hindu society by
abolishing the caste system and eradicating rituals considered outside the
fold of Hinduism.92 The first Hindu missionary to visit Natal was Bhai
Parmanand, who arrived on 5 August 1905. He formed in i906 the Hindu
Young Men's Society (HYMS), which implored its members to study
Tamil, to visit India to understand their culture and religion, and educate
their children.93 His mission was continued by Swami Shankeranand, who
arrived in October i 908 to work 'for the betterment of the Hindu nation and
Indians generally '."
87 African Chronicle, 4 May 1906. 88 African Chronicle, 13 Dec. 1909.
89 African Chronicle, 24 Apr. I 909. 90 African Chronicle, z Jan. 1909. 91 Ibid.
92 T. Naidoo, The Arya Samaj Movementin South Africa (Delhi, 1992), 7.
93 African Chronicle, 4 May 907. 94 Indian Opinion, z21Mar. 1908.

The arrival of these missionaries and formation of HYMS resulted in a
more sustained condemnation of the participation of local Hindus in
Muharram.At Umgeni Temple, the Swami 'in strong terms, denounced and
rebuked the Hindoos for taking part in Mohurram but ignoring their own
festivals, yet insisting on being called Hindoos'." The Swami was annoyed
that employers granted Hindus leave during Muharram but not Diwali, the
festival of lights, which Hindus celebrate as a sign of joy at the homecoming
of Shri Ramachandra to Ayodha approximately 3,000 years before. The
Swami asked the government to set aside I2 November 1909 as a religious
holiday for indentured Indians to celebrate Diwali. The Protector refused
because he believed that Diwali was essentially celebrated by 'better class'
Indians. He was 'not at all convinced that the general indentured population
of the Colony would wish this day set apart'.96
In January 19Io, the Swami distributed circulars on plantations calling on
Hindus to boycott Muharram and to observe Diwali. The Protector again
warned that 'care will have to be taken lest the opinion of the few people
living in Durban should be regarded as representing the opinions of the
Hindoo Indians in the Colony'.97In October 1910, the Swami pleaded with
the Protector to grant Hindu workers leave during Diwali:
Should not this day be made a generalholiday for the Hindus you should not
expect the common labourersto understandtheir interest. You will help them
immenselyif you stop the Pagodaholidayandwill substitutethe samewith Devali.
By so doing you could save them from the evil influenceof the Mohammadans.98
This time the Protector asked the Durban and Pietermaritzburg mu-
nicipalities to consider granting leave to Indians to celebrate Diwali on
I November i9I0.99 While the Durban municipality granted leave to its
employees,100 the town clerk of Pietermaritzburg replied that Indians
desiring leave should apply in the ordinary way and 'favourable con-
sideration' would be given if services were not disrupted.1"'HYMS also
reported in January 1910 that the Education Department had declared
Diwali a school holiday.'"2
Despite these efforts on the part of missionaries and local educated
Hindus, the majority of Hindus continued to participate in Muharram
during the period under review. The Deputy Protector reported in 1910 that
Muhurram was well attended by Hindus 'although it is a Mahomedan
occasion of mourning'.lo The medical officer of Verulam supported this
when he informed the Protector in October 19Io, 'I have no information
before me to justify, at present, any change. I do know that where the Indians
9 African Chronicle, 9 Jan. o909.

96 NAR, CSO 299/1910, Protector Polkinghorne to Durban Town Clerk,
ii Nov.
1909. 97 Ibid.
98 NAR, II, 1/177, 12437/10, Swami Shankeranand to Protector Polkinghorne, 22-31
Oct. I910o. 99 Ibid.
100 Pandit Vedalankar, Hindu Awakening in South Africa (Durban, 1949), i8.
10x1 NAR, II, 1/177, I2437/Io, Pietermaritzburg Town Clerk to Protector Polking-
horne, 25 Oct. 1910o.
102 Report of the Secretary T. M. Naicker, Durban Hindu Young Men's Society,
Fourth Annual General Meeting. Published in African Chronicle, 22 Jan. I91o.

103 NAR, II, 8/5, Report of the A.R. Dunning, Deputy Protector of Indian
Immigrants, I9Io.

92 GOOLAM VAHED
were consulted they stated they did not want any change in the custom which
has prevailed'.104 As late as April 19o09, the editor of African Chronicle
complained that Hindus continued to participate by 'tom-tomming, the
donning of hideous disguises, illicit drinking and a regular general
jollification'.105 It was only after Hinduism was placed on a more organized
basis with the formation of the South African Hindu Maha Sabha in 1912,106
at the instigation of the Swami, that the crusade of the Swami and other
Hindus had a significant discursive impact on Hindu behaviour. Aside from
Hindu organization, which was crucial in constructing new practices,
changes in the character and form of Muharram after 191o were also related
to the end of indenture in 191I1,urbanization, education, the changing socio-
economic status of Indians, police pressure and debates among Muslims
themselves about the 'true' custom and meaning of Muharram.
CONCLUSION
The extended length of the Muharram celebration, ten days, was perfectly
suited to building a collective spirit. Through Muharram, which was a
common cultural festival attracting the participation of the mass of Indians,
Indian workers challenged official, white, definitions of respectability and
culture in Natal. They did not restrain themselves, even though there was
strong opposition to many of the activities associated with Muharram.
Despite the fragmented nature of the 'community', Indians asserted their
right to public spaces. Muharram was the only opportunity for Indians from
self-contained plantations to meet in an environment that militated against
this. It promoted intra- and inter-group cohesion through joint involvement
and mutual cooperation. While group violence between Indians from
different occupations and neighbourhoods was potentially divisive and
perhaps reflected the rivalries of daily life, there was overall ritual unity
between participants who were bound by the memory of Husain and the
events at Karbala, the festival's time limit and convergence on the tenth.
Muharram had a multi-religious participation and reflected significant
Hindu influences. Collective participation had an integrative function that
promoted fraternal feeling and 'Indianness'. Muharram provided an op-
portunity for developing and expressing a self-conscious local community
identity, in the first instance, but also signalled the participation of Indians
in a broader collective. Muharram strengthened links between the individual
and 'community', and was important in constituting a diverse collection of
people into a collectivity, while also excluding others, whites and Africans,
notwithstanding local educated Hindus and religious missionaries from
India whose efforts began to unravel distinct Hindu and Muslim identities
in the period after 19Io.
The festival of Muharram was an important aspect of Indian community
formation, which must be understood in the context of the instrumental
dimension of indentured labour. Indentured workers were imported to Natal
as 'scabs', as a result of the refusal of most Africans to labour for white
104 NAR, II, I/177, 12437/10, Medical Officer, Verulam to Protector Polkinghorne, 24
Oct. 19Io. 105 African Chronicle, 24 Apr. 1909.
106 See G. Vahed, 'Swami Shankeranand and the consolidation of Hinduism in Natal,
I908-1914', fournal for the Study of Religion, Io (I997), 3-35.

settlers. The laws and regulations that were framed in colonial Natal, racial
attitudes that came to prevail, the geographic distribution of Indians, their
distinctiveness in food and clothing preferences and so on, were shaped by
this fact. Racial hierarchy and privilege were part of the imperial order, and
the multiracial Natal setting was no exception. As Edward Said has pointed
out, in a context of domination and submission the expanding colonial
powers reduced the complexity of the Orient into a 'definite order of types,
characters and constitutions'. The rationality of the Occident was contrasted
with the social stationariness and child-like behaviour of the colonized to
'define, control and manipulate Orientals'.10' Descriptions such as 'innate
fanatical ideas', 'hideously decked', 'lurid', 'gaudily attired', 'strange weird
sounds', 'fearsome' and 'naked fanatics' in the reports of newspapers and
officials are indicative of the prejudices that whites created and harboured
about Indians in Natal. The latter were seen as irrational, absurd, garish,
over-zealous and fervent. Thus, I. M. Hunter, manager of the railway
barracks, proposed in I891 that the solution to Muharram violence was to
'have a white man living near the Barracks, who can exercise a moral
influence over the people residing '.08 While Muharram drew Indians
together, the ideas associated with it led whites to create fears and prejudices
about Indians. This led to the formation of a status hierarchy that was used
to discriminate against Indians and to separate whites, Indians and Africans
in schools, at work, in hospitals, jails and places of residence became the
Natal norm.
107 B. S. Turner, Orientalism, Postmodernismand Globalism (London, I994), 21.

108 NAR, II, 1/64, 4740/91, Hunter to Town Clerk of Durban, 18 June 1891.


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Role of the Muharram Festival

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