G Vahed
Biographic Data
| ID | 5410 |
|---|---|
| NAME | G Vahed |
| GIVEN NAMES | G |
| FAMILY NAME | Vahed |
| SIGNATURE | VAHED G |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of KwaZulu-Natal |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6038-2616 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 66 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 48 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 66 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1999 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Indentured Labour in South Africa
This essay traces the historiography of Indian indenture in South Africa, paying particular attention to shifts in approaches and interpretation and the evolution of the extant archive. Studies of Indian indenture in the 1970s focused on how the system originated and operated, the conditions under which migrants laboured, and their contribution to the colonial economy. Digitizing immigrants' registers and quantitative studies followed in the 1980…
Lanzillo, Amanda
Girmitiyas and the Global Indian Diaspora
Many Indians journeyed out of India to supplant the loss of slave labour in the former European plantation colonies of Mauritius, South Africa, Fiji, and the Caribbean from the early nineteenth century onwards. This book aims to highlight the careers of these migrants who served as vital agents in building the global society of the twenty-first century. It explores the transformative experiences of those who migrated, and the memories of those wh…
Years of Democracy
The revenge of history
Muslim marriages, the South African state and the courts
A central feature of South Africa's legal system under white minority rule was the state's institutionalisation of racist structures and a distinct Christian bias in religious matters. Muslim marriages were not recognised because they permitted polygamy. Majority rule in 1994 resulted in the adoption of a new constitution that recognised non-Christian and ‘non-European' beliefs and practices, and some Muslims lobbied for the legal recognition of …
Between the Local and the Global
This article charts the contours of Sunni-Shia relations in South Africa, with a particular focus on the period since the Iranian Revolution of 1979, which was received positively by many Muslims in a context of American hegemony globally and heightened anti-apartheid political activism locally. The growth of Saudi Arabian funded religious organisations within the Sunni majority community, and similar investment by Iran in emerging and existing S…
Colour, Class and Community - The Natal Indian Congress, 1971-1994
An important study of the revival of the Natal Indian Congress in 1971 to the first democratic elections in 1994. In fascinating detail, Ashwin Desai and Goolam Vahed bring the inner workings of the NIC to life against the canvas of major political developments in South Africa during the 1970s and 1980s
A fool’s errand? Black Consciousness and the 1970s debate over the “Indian” in the Natal Indian Congress
Bantu Stephen Biko, born in Tarkastad in the Eastern Cape was murdered by the South African apartheid regime in September 1977, aged 31. The year 2021 marks the 75th anniversary of his birth. Biko remains iconic, but a figure that exists on the margins in South Africa. His impact in challenging both apartheid-imposed race categories and the dominant thinking of the African National Congress (ANC) inspired a whole generation through the 1970s. Thi…
Inside the cricket change room
South African cricket was awakened to the crudity of racial exclusions when former Proteas fast bowler Makhaya Ntini revealed that he would rather run to the ground and back than take the team bus to avoid his white team-mates who, he felt, were isolating him because of the colour of his skin. Ntini’s revelation of the pain of loneliness was followed by a plethora of similar ones by Black cricketers, sparked by young Proteas player Lungisani Ngid…
Muslims in post-apartheid South Africa
Archbishop Desmond Tutu evocatively called South Africa the ‘Rainbow Nation of God’ to show how, despite the doomsayers who predicted racial civil war, under the guiding hand of Nelson Mandela in 1994, South Africa had adopted a path of reconciliation and non-racialism. A quarter-century on, this optimism is on the wane as ‘racial’ incidents make national headlines virtually daily. This broader context frames this article, which examines the hist…
Negotiating the (Uncertain) Corridors of Power in Post-Apartheid South African Cricket
The issues of race, class and transformation in South African cricket are examined through a life history of Haroon Lorgat, a player and administrator in pre- and post-apartheid cricket. Lorgat’s journey provides seminal insights into the sport as his life spans the dusty playing fields of apartheid cricket, to the top order of the sport as CEO of the International Cricket Council (ICC), and then returning as CEO of Cricket South Africa (CSA). It…
A History of the Present
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…
An evil thing’
Between 1860 and 1911, 152,184 Indian indentured workers went to the then British colony of Natal to work primarily on the sugar plantations. They were followed by free Indian migrants. White settlers felt threatened by a settled Indian population and passed legislation to curb their immigration, trading, employment and residence rights. The struggle of Indians against this racist legislation was spearheaded by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. The mos…
Chota Motala. The Making of a South African Political Biography
Drawing on my experience of writing an account of Chota Motala, a Pietermaritzburg-based medical doctor and anti-apartheid activist, this article considers some of the historiographical and methodological challenges of writing biography in general, and South African political biographies in particular. On a general level, this includes whether biography is ‘inferior’ history, an ‘illusion’, and whether it can be written in a linear manner. Specif…
Innovative departures
The Protector, Plantocracy, and Indentured Labour in Natal, 1860–1911
Between 1860 and 1911, a total of 152,641 Indian indentured workers arrived in the then British Colony of Natal. The first group of workers who returned home in 1871 complained of ill-treatment and abuse by employers and the Indian government refused to sanction further allotments of labourers until the Natal government investigated their complaints. The ensuing Coolie Commission of 1872 called for the appointment of a Protector of Indian Immigra…
Networks, Caste, and Transnational Identities
This chapter primarily focuses on the descendants of those Indians who emigrated as indentured labourers to sugar-producing colonies such as Mauritius, Trinidad, Suriname, Natal, and Fiji from the 1830s following the end of slavery in the British Empire in 1834. It traces the descendants of the free migrants who followed in their wake as traders, the 'Old Diaspora', as well as those who migrated and known in the literature as the 'New Diaspora'. …
Stuck in the middle? Indians in South Africa's fading rainbow
This article examines the political and economic position of Indians in post-apartheid South Africa, where they are sandwiched between an economically dominant white class and the majority African population. It provides a brief background on African and Indian relations since the nineteenth century, and examines how and why these were strained at certain historical junctures. Against this background, the article explores issues of identity, nati…
The Past in the Present
Radical Equality
They Are Fine Specimens of the Illustrious Indian Settler
Sporting contacts between the India and diasporic Indian community in South Africa were part of a broader range of links between the two countries. In this article, we consider association football tours between both countries from 1914 to 1955 against the backdrop of increased racism and segregation in South Africa and the anti-colonial movement in India. We draw from a range of sources, including archives, unpublished reports and newspaper arti…
The Coming of Nelson and the Ending of Apartheid Cricket? Gatting’s Rebels in South Africa, 1990
The year 1990 is pivotal in South African history. The liberation movements were unbanned, and Nelson Mandela was freed in the midst of a tour by Mike Gatting’s English rebel cricket team. The newly constituted National Sports Congress, which had the support of the African National Congress, was at the forefront of protests against the tour. For once, Ali Bacher and apartheid cricket were on the back foot. However, the NSC did a sudden volte-face…
Multiple communities
Passengers, partnerships, and promissory notes
There were no complicated business arrangements. People trusted each other in those days. When you opened a shop, you would do your utmost to pay your creditors first.... To be insolvent was a stigma. Traders tried to help one another. They helped others to open a shop. They lent money to one another without interest, but by and large it was a stigma to borrow. For Muslim merchants to borrow on interest was unlawful.1 In this 1980 interview, the …
Constructions of Community and Identity Among Indians in Colonial Natal, 1860–1910
This article is concerned with the historical construction of communities, cultures and identities in colonial Natal, in this case an Indian grouping that emerged from the heterogeneous collection of indentured workers imported between 1860 and 1911. 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 pl…
Changing Islamic Traditions and Emerging Identities in South Africa
2000). Changing Islamic Traditions and Emerging Identities in South Africa. Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs: Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 43-73
World Cup 2010
The awarding of World Cup 2010 to South Africa was hailed as a great ‘victory’ for the African continent and the cause of much celebration. It heightened expectations not only about the spectacle itself but about the benefits that would accrue to South Africa and the rest of Africa. This essay examines the notion of the successful bid as an ‘African victory’ in the context of global power relations in football, South Africa’s alleged function as …
The Protector, Plantocracy, and Indentured Labour in Natal, 1860–1911
Between 1860 and 1911, a total of 152,641 Indian indentured workers arrived in the then British Colony of Natal. The first group of workers who returned home in 1871 complained of ill-treatment and abuse by employers and the Indian government refused to sanction further allotments of labourers until the Natal government investigated their complaints. The ensuing Coolie Commission of 1872 called for the appointment of a Protector of Indian Immigra…
Between Apartheid and Neoliberalism in Durban's Indian Quarter
Mosques, Mawlanas and Muharram
This study examines the establishment of Islam in colonial Natal, attempting to fill a void in and correct the existing historiography.1 In comparison with other parts of Africa, the lack of a historiographical tradition on Islamic South Africa is conspicuous, but understandable given that traditionally the impact and consequences of racial segregation occupied the attention of most historians. Although Islam is a minority religion in South Afric…
Control and Repression
Des centaines d'Indiens tenterent de vivre dans les rues de Durban en tant que colporteurs et vendeurs de fleurs entre 1910 et 1948 lorsqu'ils quitterent les plantations de sucre du Natal pour s'installer en ville. L'analyse de leur histoire aide a mieux comprendre les racines locales de la segregation raciale qui fut pratiquee de maniere officielle par la politique de l'apartheid en Afrique du Sud. Les activites des colporteurs les placerent au …
A case of ‘strategic ethnicity’? The Natal Indian Congress in the 1970s
This article focuses on the revival of the Natal Indian Congress (NIC) in 1971 in the context of what is retrospectively known as the 'Durban moment'. The early 1970s witnessed the emergence of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) as well as a resurgence of working class collective action that was to form the embryo of the independent labour movement later in the decade. This article examines the debates surrounding the revival of the NIC, in p…
Managing South African transformation
Sport has historically been an important element of South African popular culture, even though it was divided along racial lines for much of the country's history. In post-apartheid South Africa, sport is seen by politicians, sports officials and many ordinary people as a means to surmount race and class barriers and to forge nationhood. But sport remains a site of acute contestation over what transformation means: ‘merit’ versus ‘affirmative act…
Uprooting, Rerooting
The revenge of history
Between the Local and the Global
This article charts the contours of Sunni-Shia relations in South Africa, with a particular focus on the period since the Iranian Revolution of 1979, which was received positively by many Muslims in a context of American hegemony globally and heightened anti-apartheid political activism locally. The growth of Saudi Arabian funded religious organisations within the Sunni majority community, and similar investment by Iran in emerging and existing S…
Muslims in post-apartheid South Africa
Archbishop Desmond Tutu evocatively called South Africa the ‘Rainbow Nation of God’ to show how, despite the doomsayers who predicted racial civil war, under the guiding hand of Nelson Mandela in 1994, South Africa had adopted a path of reconciliation and non-racialism. A quarter-century on, this optimism is on the wane as ‘racial’ incidents make national headlines virtually daily. This broader context frames this article, which examines the hist…
Negotiating the (Uncertain) Corridors of Power in Post-Apartheid South African Cricket
The issues of race, class and transformation in South African cricket are examined through a life history of Haroon Lorgat, a player and administrator in pre- and post-apartheid cricket. Lorgat’s journey provides seminal insights into the sport as his life spans the dusty playing fields of apartheid cricket, to the top order of the sport as CEO of the International Cricket Council (ICC), and then returning as CEO of Cricket South Africa (CSA). It…
An evil thing’
Between 1860 and 1911, 152,184 Indian indentured workers went to the then British colony of Natal to work primarily on the sugar plantations. They were followed by free Indian migrants. White settlers felt threatened by a settled Indian population and passed legislation to curb their immigration, trading, employment and residence rights. The struggle of Indians against this racist legislation was spearheaded by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. The mos…
The Natal Indian Congress, the Mass Democratic Movement and the Struggle to Defeat Apartheid
The Natal Indian Congress (NIC) was revived in 1971 in the context of what has become known as the ‘Durban moment’. This period also witnessed the emergence of the Black Consciousness Movement and an independent trade union movement inspired by the 1973 Durban strikes. Despite a government crackdown and opposition from anti-apartheid groups that asserted that ethnic identities were a relic of the past, the NIC attracted younger activists through …
A Sufi Saint's Day in South Africa
This article examines the role of pirs (saints), mazars (shrines) and Urs ('wedding') in forging Islamic culture and identity in South Africa, which has a minority Muslim population of approximately one million, originating mainly in the Indian sub-continent and Malay Archipelago. The focus of this study is the Urs in May 2002 of Badsha Peer, a revered saint who lies buried in Durban, KwaZulu Natal, where Muslims are predominantly of Indian origi…
Race or Class? Community and Conflict amongst Indian Municipal Employees in Durban, 1914-1949
This article explores different facets of South African Indian identity between 1914 and 1949 by focusing on the Indian municipal workers resident in Magazine Barracks, Durban. In a situation of economic privation, heightened discrimination in Durban's racially segmented labour market, segregation and the growing radicalisation of Indian politics, the article seeks to explain the saliency and vigour of a sense of 'Indianness' amongst municipal wo…
What Do They Know of Cricket Who Only Cricket Know
This article charts developments in cricket during the past decade to explore issues related to social transformation and redress in post-apartheid South Africa. It examines who is benefiting from change, whether change is driven by or being resisted by Whites, and whether there is tension among Blacks regarding transformation. This study found that the attitude of Blacks has evolved from acceptance of all-White cricket teams to calls for inclusi…
A ‘Public Health Nuisance’
The focus of this paper is the Indian Market, a famous tourist landmark in Durban. While local and foreign tourists have flocked in large numbers to the Market for most of this century, few realise that the Market has historically been an arena of struggle between Indians and whites concerned about public health in Durban, between Indians and the local state, and amongst Indians themselves. This struggle over the Market encapsulated the class and…
Control and Repression
Des centaines d'Indiens tenterent de vivre dans les rues de Durban en tant que colporteurs et vendeurs de fleurs entre 1910 et 1948 lorsqu'ils quitterent les plantations de sucre du Natal pour s'installer en ville. L'analyse de leur histoire aide a mieux comprendre les racines locales de la segregation raciale qui fut pratiquee de maniere officielle par la politique de l'apartheid en Afrique du Sud. Les activites des colporteurs les placerent au …
Changing Islamic Traditions and Emerging Identities in South Africa
2000). Changing Islamic Traditions and Emerging Identities in South Africa. Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs: Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 43-73
From Cane Fields to Freedom
Uprooting, Rerooting
Mosques, Mawlanas and Muharram
This study examines the establishment of Islam in colonial Natal, attempting to fill a void in and correct the existing historiography.1 In comparison with other parts of Africa, the lack of a historiographical tradition on Islamic South Africa is conspicuous, but understandable given that traditionally the impact and consequences of racial segregation occupied the attention of most historians. Although Islam is a minority religion in South Afric…
Race or Class? Community and Conflict amongst Indian Municipal Employees in Durban, 1914-1949
This article explores different facets of South African Indian identity between 1914 and 1949 by focusing on the Indian municipal workers resident in Magazine Barracks, Durban. In a situation of economic privation, heightened discrimination in Durban's racially segmented labour market, segregation and the growing radicalisation of Indian politics, the article seeks to explain the saliency and vigour of a sense of 'Indianness' amongst municipal wo…
What Do They Know of Cricket Who Only Cricket Know
This article charts developments in cricket during the past decade to explore issues related to social transformation and redress in post-apartheid South Africa. It examines who is benefiting from change, whether change is driven by or being resisted by Whites, and whether there is tension among Blacks regarding transformation. This study found that the attitude of Blacks has evolved from acceptance of all-White cricket teams to calls for inclusi…
Cultural Confrontation
(2002). Cultural Confrontation: Race, Politics and Cricket in South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s. Culture, Sport, Society: Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 79-108
Constructions of Community and Identity Among Indians in Colonial Natal, 1860–1910
This article is concerned with the historical construction of communities, cultures and identities in colonial Natal, in this case an Indian grouping that emerged from the heterogeneous collection of indentured workers imported between 1860 and 1911. 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 pl…
Deconstructing 'Indianness'
A Sufi Saint's Day in South Africa
This article examines the role of pirs (saints), mazars (shrines) and Urs ('wedding') in forging Islamic culture and identity in South Africa, which has a minority Muslim population of approximately one million, originating mainly in the Indian sub-continent and Malay Archipelago. The focus of this study is the Urs in May 2002 of Badsha Peer, a revered saint who lies buried in Durban, KwaZulu Natal, where Muslims are predominantly of Indian origi…
Blacks in Whites
Managing South African transformation
Sport has historically been an important element of South African popular culture, even though it was divided along racial lines for much of the country's history. In post-apartheid South Africa, sport is seen by politicians, sports officials and many ordinary people as a means to surmount race and class barriers and to forge nationhood. But sport remains a site of acute contestation over what transformation means: ‘merit’ versus ‘affirmative act…
Unhappily Torn by Dissensions and Litigations
This study focuses on Durban's Grey Street mosque, built by Indian Memon migrants in 1880. This review of the first half-century of the mosque's existence underlines the important social role of mosques, and also questions the notion of homogeneous Muslim community. While the mosque was the most visible symbol of Muslim identity in Natal, it was also a site of contestation, reflecting the class, language, caste and ethnic divisions among Muslims …
Inside Indian Indenture
Many were filled with hopes as high as the stars as they crossed the Indian Ocean, making their way from India to Durban in southern Africa in the late 1800s. Yet, realising the dream of a better life and returning home triumphant was not to be for many. Thousands returned with less than they had started out with, only to find that home was no longer the place they had left. The travellers, too, had changed irrevocably: caste had been transgresse…
Islam in the Public Sphere in Post-Apartheid South Africa
The Islamic presence in South Africa dates over three centuries. Islam has mostly been the private affair of Muslims who lived in harmony with non-Muslims in “Indian” or “Coloured” public spaces, and engaged with them in political struggles against various White minority regimes. Islam has been brought into the national public sphere more manifestly in democratic South Africa. The activities of the vigilante group People Against Gangsterism and D…
The “Beards” versus the “Bards” among Indian Muslims in South Africa
This paper examines Indian Muslims in post-apartheid South Africa, with particular respect to the inclination by non-Muslims to view Muslims as a homogeneous monolith, and the divisions among Muslims over traditions, beliefs, and practices, which run contrary to this wide-held perception. Muslims are divided by race, class, gender, and ethnicity; theologically they run the gamut from orthodox to progressive; and among themselves they are boxed in…
Ahmed Deedat and Muslim-Christian Relations at the Cape, c. 1960-1980
This paper establishes the historical context of Muslim-Christianrelations at the Cape, the role played by Ahmed Deedat in thisrelationship, and the public reaction to his role. It focuses in particular on his reaction to the polemics of various churches against Islam and the divisions among Muslims regarding Christian-Muslim relations. Opposition to Deedat among Muslims underscored deeper discursive differences betweentraditional >ulamOE< and th…
World Cup 2010
The awarding of World Cup 2010 to South Africa was hailed as a great ‘victory’ for the African continent and the cause of much celebration. It heightened expectations not only about the spectacle itself but about the benefits that would accrue to South Africa and the rest of Africa. This essay examines the notion of the successful bid as an ‘African victory’ in the context of global power relations in football, South Africa’s alleged function as …
An ‘Imagined Community’ in diaspora
Increasing attention is being paid to the heterogeneous identity of Indian South Africans. This article contributes to this literature by highlighting the distinct migratory history of Gujarati South Africans and the importance these histories have in perceptions of community identity. It traces key features of the early Gujarati migratory process, the ways in which Gujarati identities have been reconfigured over the past century, the relationshi…
Gender, Modernity & Indian Delights
"For decades, South Africans aspiring to make the perfect biryani have turned to Indian Delights, the best selling cookbook produced by Zuleikha Mayat and the Women's Cultural Group. This is the story of the women behind the recipes; it is an account that brings to life the changing, gendered worlds of Muslim women in 20th century Durban. Through a blend of scholarly rigour and compelling biography, this book reveals how a group of women, who wer…
Between Apartheid and Neoliberalism in Durban's Indian Quarter
Indian Indenture in the Straits Settlements, 1872-1910
by David Chanderbali, Leeds, Peepal Tree, 2008, 280 pp., £14.19 (paperback), ISBN 9781845230364 Indian Indenture is an important addition to the growing literature on the nineteenth century migrati
The Diaspora at Home
This article examines how the Gujarati-speaking Muslim trading class in South(ern) Africa was linked as a reading public through a newspaper, Indian Views, which had been founded in early twentieth-century Durban in opposition to Mahatma Gandhi's Indian Opinion. Under the editorship of Moosa Meer (1929-63) it was a conduit for sustaining existing social networks as well as offering common narratives that galvanized an idea of community embracing …
Political science (50 works) · Sociology (50 works) · Gender Studies (42 works) · History (41 works) · Law (41 works) · South African History and Culture (32 works) · Politics (27 works) · Geography (24 works) · Gender Studies (21 works) · History (19 works)