06/09/2026
LIGHT THE FLAME OF SHARED CULTURES
Selvan Naidoo & Kiru Naidoo
The Indian state of Kerala’s annual celebration of Onam as a harvest festival brings together Hindus, Christians, Muslims and other faiths in a shared display of communal harmony and secular tradition. While Onam has roots in Hindu legend, it functions primarily as a cultural identity celebration for all Malayalis.
Shared traditions like “pookkalam” see neighbours create colourful flower carpets outside homes and schools. Customs like “onasadya” have people sharing a multi-course vegetarian feast served on fresh banana leaves.
Shared celebration once flourished in South Africa as well. From the time the first indentured workers were shipped to the plantations of colonial Natal to when they eked out an existence in places like Magazine Barracks, Riverside and Kearsney, people came together effortlessly.
Muharram, for instance, was a key cultural expression for indentured workers, irrespective of their religious affiliation. The European colonials characterised this as the "Coolie Christmas". Distinguished historian Professor Goolam Vahed, writing on Constructions of Community and Identity among Indians in Colonial Natal, 1860-1910, noted that: "Despite the difficulties of indenture, Indians set about re-establishing their culture and religion in Durban … forging a pan-Indian identity within a white and African colonial society."
The late Professor Fatima Meer’s seminal study, ‘Portrait of Indian South Africans’ foregrounds cultural expression as a critical part of local life, noting that: “They began as the improvised expressions of the poor indentured workers….” The first contingent of free Indians had among them a few musicians, storytellers and dancers who improvised in creating entertainment. “Their meagre talents and instruments provided for the little Indian communities, settled in rural and virgin environs of the city, the basis of all their entertainment,” added Meer.
The narrative for these performances came from dramatized stories from the Mahabharata, Ramayana, and Puranas in Hindustani and Tamil. The Muslims among them sang Qawwalis in praise and worship. In days gone by, Indian Africans supported each other notwithstanding their religious differences. That is a lesson in unity at a time when suspect motivations threaten to drive wedges in South African society.
From improvisation with limited resources, performances became much more organized, with artists performing at grand temple ceremonies and weddings. By the 1930s, fully-fledged professional orchestras became commonplace. Dr Naresh Denny Veeran’s research on “Orchestral Music of the Working Class” offers phenomenal insight into the mechanics of a musical identity. Veeran brought to light the doyens of a rich orchestral tradition, among which were the Railway Youth, the Golden Lily, and the Ranjeni Orchestras. No wedding in the 1950s to the 1980s was complete without an orchestral ensemble. Sadly, that great orchestral tradition has all but disappeared. Before the orchestral tradition existed, there were three other types of semi-professional forms of artistic expression. Therukoothu, a South Indian dance drama group performance that dramatized religious scripture; Sarangi Tal, the North Indian groups that rendered religious song and dance in the rapidly disappearing language of Bhojpuri; and the third expression found in Qawwalis by Muslim performers, rendered through energetic expression often lasting an entire night.
In most instances, the performers made the props and costumes with the ‘natchanias’ (males impersonating females) of the Sarangi Tal dressed in ornate costumes. Therukoothu dancers made papier-mâché masks and accessories to dramatize their performances. Crude patriarchy ‘barred’ women from roles in such performances. It wasn’t until the 1950s that women like Dr Ansuyah Singh, a medical doctor and pathbreaking novelist, broke new ground in taking to the stage in dramatic performances.
The plantation barracks at Mount Edgecombe is widely regarded as the citadel of Therukoothu, as expertly illustrated in Dr Sathasivan (Satchu) Annamlai’s research on the once-flourishing art form. Devotees from other plantations were even provided a ‘special train service’ to enable them to take in the festival activities. As there were few alternative forms of entertainment, Therukoothu occupied centre stage with performers being accorded celebrity status. It did not require elaborate stage settings. Performances took place in the open air, some without a platform. Cloth sheeting held aloft by performers sufficed as stage curtains
Unlike in contemporary Kerala, the village traditions of Indian Africans, particularly in KwaZulu-Natal, eroded over time. Apartheid separate development, urbanisation and the mistaken cultural superiority of Western traditions shunted a large part of this heritage to memory and the history books. All was not lost, though. Spotlights of brilliance in nagara groups, Bharatanatyam and kathak schools, thespians and individual musicians soldiered on. Flash Entertainers and Nagara Touch remain household names. Acharya Ratna Isai Selvamani Karthiegasen Pillay rates among the finest Carnatic voices on the planet with Durban as his home base.
Professor Suria Govender breathed fresh life into Bharatanatyam with the Surialanga Dance Company’s fusion with traditional African dance forms. The mastery of Manesh Maharaj and Verushka Pather, among others, has seen their respective dance traditions blossom through creative collaboration.
The stage is currently being set alight by Pat Pillai’s exceptional performance of My Cape Town in collaboration with academic and jazz maestro, Melvin Peters. Peters laments that the great jazz tradition among Indian Africans that was commonplace until the early 1980s has gone into low ebb with the current generation. Hope lies in the flame of revival, boldly grasped by, among others, actor and impresario Rajesh Gopie, who has hosted successive Red Mango Festival at Sastri College. The festival stands shoulder to shoulder with Grahamstown and Edinburgh in spite of just a handful of dedicated benefactors.
Red Mango’s unifying theme, not unlike Kerala’s Onam, was evident as Gopie promoted the collaboration of Sufis, Mystics and Qawwali, bringing together the talents of Zoliswa Mchunu, Vishen Kemraj, Master Kirthan Pillay and their crews. Kemraj’s invoking the great legacy of Sufi poetry set to ostensibly Hindustani musical scores elevated the soul. Pillay demonstrated that an all-embracing Hindu could hold an audience spellbound with qawwali that would have had Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan on his feet.
Music, the stage and the arts more broadly present a unique platform to reclaim lost ground in the cultural life of Indian Africans on the southern tip of the African continent. Let’s use observances of Easter, Eid, Deepavali, Kavady, Christmas, Muharram and Navratri as both worship and a unifying celebration, as the people of Kerala have shown us.
Selvan Naidoo is the Director of the 1860 Heritage Centre and Kiru Naidoo is the founder of the Indian Diaspora Research Academy (INDRA).
