Durban - The newly-elected ANC leadership in KwaZulu-Natal has tasked its committee dealing with minority groups to look into the question of anti-Indian sentiment in the province.
“We don’t want our Indian community to feel neglected, and allow such discussion to go unattended. They were part of us during the liberation struggle,” provincial secretary Super Zuma said on Tuesday.
Zuma, who was addressing a media briefing in Durban, made the comment after the executive committee met on Monday.
The Daily News reported on Tuesday that businessman Vivian Reddy had launched a counter-attack on his critics, accusing them of waging a politically-driven campaign against him, allegedly at behest of a senior politician.
It was reported that three prominent figures – Professor Jerry Coovadia, Judge Thumba Pillay and Professor Yousuf Vawda – recently criticised Reddy for remarks he allegedly made at a Diaspora Conference in Durban on Indian-African relations.
Reddy, the three claimed in a letter, offered a perception that Indians did not respect blacks.
The row came after the provincial government was granted an interdict against Phumlani Mfeka of the Injenye yamaNguni.
Mfeka was barred by the Pietermaritzburg High Court from discriminating against or advocating violence against the Indian community, or any community in KZN, as well as making statements that may incite racial violence.
Mfeka and his pressure group, along with Mazibuye African Forum, had in 2013 claimed that Indians were in control of the province’s economy.
They had also called for their exclusion from affirmative action and black economic empowerment, a move that prompted the provincial government to form a task team to analyse the awarding of tenders since 2004. On Tuesday, Zuma said the ANC had noted the growing anti-Indian sentiment, which manifested in many ways, including a narrative creating racial tensions based on unfounded economic analysis of the province.
“We categorically reject the narrative that our compatriots from the Indian communities must be isolated and vilified for any advantage and possibility created for them as a result of the advancement of the national democratic revolution,” he said.
Daily News
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