A History of the Present

Abstract

While small in number, the place of the Indian in South Africa has historically loomed large because of their strong commercial and professional middle class, international influence through India, the commitment of many Indians to the anti-apartheid struggle and the prominent role that they have played in political and economic life post-apartheid. A History of the Present is the first book-length overview of Indian South Africans in the quarter century following the end of apartheid. Based on oral interviews and archival research it threads a narrative of the lives of Indian South Africans that ranges from the working class men and women to the heady heights of the newly minted billionaires; the changes wrought in the fields of religion and gender; opportunities offered on the sporting fields; the search for roots both locally and in India that also witnesses the rise of transnational organizations. Indians in South Africa appear to be always caught in an infernal contradiction; too traditional, too insular, never fitting in, while also too modern, too mobile. While focusing on Indian South Africans, this study makes critical interventions into several charged political discussions in post-apartheid South Africa, especially the debate over race and identity, while also engaging in discussions of wider intellectual interest, including diaspora, nation, and citizenship.