Redressing urban land dispossession of Indians in Cato Manor, Durban, South Africa

Abstract

ABSTRACT In South Africa, the 1913 Land Act and the Group Areas Act of 1950 resulted in about 3.5 million people being dispossessed of their land and business sites, with little or no compensation. Cato Manor, one of the earliest settlements occupied by Indians after the completion of indenture, was one such site of displacement in Durban. In the democratic era, the Durban City Council used the Section 34 application by the Cato Manor Development Agency (CMDA) to rule out the restoration of land lost by those dispossessed by the Group Areas Act in Cato Manor. Drawing from data collected from the Land Claims Commission, proceedings of the Land Claims Court, and participation in urban restitution workshops, this paper analyses the Cato Manor Section 34 application to illustrate the conflict between two competing public interests: low-cost housing and the need for restoration of land to those who were dispossessed by apartheid forced removals.