numbers altered the composition of existing communities and expanded areas of predominantly African settlement. In most cases, these migrants lacked the ties to Indian storeowners, co-workers, and neighbors that sometimes developed in Durban’s older, more mixed areas. At the same time, most of these new arrivals depended on Indian-owned shops for their survival, including within the more homogenous enclaves that some perceived as refuges from “Indian domination.” Already a deeply ambiguous figure in the urban imagination, the merchant now became the focal point of widespread frustration and anger. In letters to Ilanga and other papers, African customers complained bitterly about dishonest business practices, contemptuous treatment by storeowners (which they often compared to segregation and the “colour bar”), and their own powerlessness in the face of abuse.63
The persistence of these conditions after the war, especially black marketing, reinforced the popular association between the shopkeeper’s dishonesty and racial arrogance. “In almost all of their dealings with Africans they show marked colour bar segregation,” wrote G. R. Moya in 1947. “In some of their shops they single out Africans for contemptuous treatment. ‘No bread’, ‘no tea’, ‘no sugar’ applies only to Africans.”64 A repertoire of stock complaints became standardized through multiple retellings and generalized to Indian shops and then Indians as a whole. Store owners tried to segregate Africans from other customers.65 They insulted Africans by calling them “boy.” They spoke to them in “Kitchen Kaffir” (Fanagalo) rather than English or isiZulu. They overcharged Africans and manipulated the weight of bulk goods. They gave incorrect change and threatened to call the police if the customer protested.66 As Tunya Dlamini later recalled, many Africans attributed the origins of the 1949 Riots to the actions of Indian store owners: “One [reason] was that the Indians were ripping them off, the other was they put glass in their sugar.”67 Ilanga called these traders “sharks” and published the addresses of stores fined for overcharging Africans.68 Most Africans, however, stressed their helplessness: “We can’t quarrel with our shop; it is the only place where our people can buy food.”69 On some occasions, individuals petitioned white employers to intercede on their behalf.
Even in these circumstances, some depictions of the merchant expressed envy, ironic appreciation of their cunning, and—more rarely—gratitude.70 This ambivalence was particularly marked in writings and statements by members of the African middle class. Almost every aspect of their economic and social lives interpenetrated in some fashion with the world of the Indian petite bourgeoisie. Individuals like Luthuli, Champion, Ngubane, Yengwa, and the Dhlomo brothers negotiated with Indian creditors, established (sometimes clandestine) businesses with Indian partners, used the services of Indian printers, consulted Indian medical specialists and lawyers, held events at Indian-owned theaters and conference halls, paid rent to the Indian landlords willing to provide them with office space, and developed close relationships with Indian social peers through liberal organizations like the International Club and the Joint Council Movement. Unsurprisingly, their statements regarding the Indian often reflected a complicated—and frequently convoluted—synthesis of respect, their own class aspirations, and tempered mordancy.
In a 1946 column, “Rolling Stone” (Ilanga editor R. R. R. Dhlomo) lauded the proliferation of Indian-owned stores and taxis boasting isiZulu names throughout Durban. After celebrating the acumen of Indian entrepreneurs, Dhlomo suggested reversing this gimmick—a thought experiment designed to indict the double standard of the Indian merchant. “We think that is business enterprise and there is nothing wrong with it,” Rolling Stone pontificated, “although we still have to meet an enterprising Zulu store owner who would dare to name his shop or tea-room ‘KwaMaharaj’ or ‘Isitolo sakwaNaidoo’ and expect the people from the East to flock to it.”71 If an Indian-owned store could sell medicinal herbs to Africans, perhaps Africans could utilize these same marketing practices? Dhlomo exclaimed: “Why, he might live to see that rarest of occurrences. Indian customers in an African store!” Begrudging admiration bled together with jealousy. Both sentiments coexisted with frustration toward Africans drawn to such ploys. At the end of the day, Dhlomo’s irony in this article only worked because some Africans embraced devices like the patronizing signs outside Indian tearooms. Nor would this marketing have been effective unless the storeowners in question knew enough about the local market—including Zulu medicinal practices—to satisfy African customers.72 Ultimately, Dhlomo implied, Africans participated in their own humiliation by flocking to these places. Perhaps, he intimated, the Zulu should strive to be a bit more like the Indian.
LANDLORDS AND HOUSING
The rapid, and largely unregulated, growth of Durban’s African population resulted in an acute housing shortage. In previous decades, the majority of migrant workers found accommodation in the backyards of European and Indian households.73 Their options, however, were restricted by the 1923 Native (Urban Areas) Act, which prohibited Africans from living in white-designated areas unless housed in hostels, government locations, or servant quarters.74 As a result, Africans began to lease shacks from Indian landowners or build their own informal housing on Indian-owned land in areas like Cato Manor, Happy Valley (the location of the Wentworth oil refinery), and north of the Umgeni River in the Newlands area. Given the relatively high rents charged by landlords, several individuals typically crowded into a single room. In 1952, the Natal University Department of Economics estimated that half of Durban’s African population of 132,000 lived in illegal slums.75 According to one estimate, Indians owned 80 percent of the land rented by African shack dwellers.76
As in the case of the “Indian merchant class,” the category of landlord must be disaggregated. Some notorious slumlords like Omar Sayed owned blocks of flats and vast tracks of land in Cato Manor, which they exploited by allowing Africans, Coloureds, and poor Indian families to erect dwellings.77 Indian business men also let flats to Indian and Coloured families, charging exhorbitant sums of “goodwill” for security.78 But Africans also lived on land provided by Tamil- and Telugu-speaking market gardeners, who had purchased plots on what was once the urban periphery and later abandoned farming in favor of subletting their land. During the 1940s, Ilanga alleged that Indian landlords charged immorally high rents—“sheer extortion”—based simply on the reality that Africans had no alternative.79 These landlords, however, were not necessarily elite.
As with the complaints regarding traders, a mood of powerlessness, even futility, pervaded statements about landlords. In addition to the economic insecurity of the war years, many African renters were in the city without authorization, living illegally on Indian-owned land. Not only did few other housing options exist, tenants had no legal recourse to challenge the dictates of landlords since their own presence broke the law. This intersection of illegality and precariousness generated a specific zone of social interaction: economic relationships that were outside of state regulation and characterized by asymmetrical vulnerability. (African domestic workers in Indian households occupied a similar position.) At the same time, this zone opened the space for an independent African urban existence, and sometimes small-scale capital accumulation, beyond the reach of segregationist institutions and state control. The hierarchies that solidified in this context were frequently personalized (many tenants knew their landlords), proximate (the material advantages of many landlords were small), and unstable (the situation possessed no direct legal sanction). The fact that some landlords faced similar forms of insecurity only intensified bitterness: different layers of the poor struggled against each other for increasingly scarce resources.
During the 1940s, the city council directed owners of over 1,800 shacks to provide basic services like water and sanitation to their tenants. In the majority of cases, the landlords refused to comply, petitioned for the authority to evict the squatters on their premises, and eventually paid fines rather than improve their sites. Only two of more than seven hundred landowners made any modifications.80 Such resistance did not necessarily reflect callousness or profiteering. Given the insecurity of their property rights, owners—even when they had the resources to improve lots—often refrained from investing in the land on which they
