Diasporic dispositions

The dismantling of apartheid in South Africa from the 1990s onwards led, among other things, to an intensification of the links between India and South Africa. The boycott of apartheid-era South Africa imposed by the government of India since 1948 had constrained official exchanges but did not prevent wealthy Indians of South Africa from visiting the Subcontinent regularly. The Indians in South Africa are a socially heterogeneous and relatively 'Westernised' group of people, now haunted by fears of being marginalised and stigmatised in 'new' South Africa. Forging links with India, or searching for authentic cultural and family roots, has for some of the more affluent sections emerged as one of several ways to cope with a bewildering situation.

Even during apartheid there were a number of linkages between India and South Africa – films, music, religious teachers – but more recently, new 'diasporic' links have been constructed. Two of these very different links will be explored in this article. One has been established by the entry into South Africa of transnational organisations such as the right wing Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Global Organisation of People of Indian Origin (GOPIO). Both these organisations actively seek to construct and maintain cultural, religious and sentimental ties between the dispersed populations originating in the Subcontinent and an India that is promoted as a cultural motherland and the source of Hindu culture. Both these organisations enjoy extensive support from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in New Delhi.