Sanjay Kumar Pradhan

The People of Indian Origin (Pio) in South Africa: Past Trajectory and Present Discourse Sanjay Kumar Pradhan

For the People of Indian Origin (PIO) in South Africa struggle never ends. In the apartheid period, they had to fight against repatriation and segregation policies of the White regime, which treated Indians as near threat to White economic dominance in the country. The struggle of the PIO began in 1893 with the arrival of Mahatma Gandhi. In the initial phase of the struggle Indians stood on their own legs but in its later phase, they identified themselves with the Black and stood for a united struggle against apartheid for the abolition of apartheid and peaceful transition to democracy. However, in the post-apartheid era, mushrooming animosities and emerging issues, to a large extent, overshadows the solidarity among ethnic communities, and the PIO, in the post-apartheid era, feels that in the past they were not White enough and today they are not Black enough.