IN 1948, fresh out of Adams College, I boarded a train from Durban to Alice. My future stretched before me, and I couldn't wait. With me were other black and Indian students, equally eager to arrive at the University of Fort Hare. When the train stopped at Bloemfontein, we clambered off, grateful to go and stretch our legs in town. But the Indian students stayed behind.
They could not set foot outside the railway station, because Indians were not allowed in the Free State. I remember my despair at the absurd particularities of discrimination.
Seventy years later, I feel that same pain as the flames of racial conflict are fanned by careless speeches.
I have lived through the worst of apartheid and have given my contribution to nation-building and social cohesion. I have learned through experience that in all our diversity, we have only one destiny. We will swim or sink together.
My party was built on non-racialism and we are home to South Africans of every extraction. Numerically, however, we are still a predominantly black organisation.
So it should be a source of encouragement that we embrace and treasure our comrades from other races, including Indians. It is a sign that the social cohesion our country so desperately needs is both possible and valued.
This desire to work together did not start in 1994. In the ’50s, as a young graduate, I attended many of the Nichols Square rallies in Durban.
Prominent leaders of the Indian Congress, such as Dr Monty Naicker, Debbie Singh and Dr Yusuf Dadoo, shared a podium with ANC leaders like Masabalala B Yengwa and iNkosi Albert Luthuli. I stood side by side with Indian activists like Fatima Meer, Manilal Gandhi and Dr Kesaveloo Goonam, all of whom were my friends.
It was these same friends, and the Poovalingan and Mayat families, who opened their homes to my wife and me when I was installed as iNkosi of the Buthelezi Clan.
Hotels in Durban were strictly Whites Only. Except for the hospitality of our friends, we could not have stayed overnight in Durban.
Later, when the apartheid regime passed the Improper Interference Act forbidding interracial politics, we responded with the Black Alliance.
It included Inkatha, the Reform Party led by Mr Yellan Chinsamy, the Coloured Labour Party, the Inyandza Movement and the Dikwakwentla Party from the Free State.
Julius Malema and EFF members outside the Israeli Embassy in Pretoria, to show their support for the state of Palestine. Malema has been criticised for his comments declaring that the majority of Indians hate Africans.
The regime’s introduction of the Tricameral Parliament was meant to break the Black Alliance. But Mr Chinsamy’s Reform Party continued to work with Inkatha.
As Chief Minister of KwaZulu, I was blessed by a close friendship with Sri Swamiji Sahajananda of the Divine Life Society. With his assistance, we built thousands of classrooms for African children.
There were several initiatives from the Indian community to assist African children, such as the Lockhat Trust and the Natal Committee, which helped finance classrooms and build schools.
This legacy of service and philanthropy still flourishes.
Today there are many prominent Indian families, and even captains of industry such as Vivian Reddy, who are passionate about social cohesion and are striving for South Africa’s shared prosperity. I admire those who have stepped outside their own culture to build bridges. For decades I have been called a Zulu Indian, and I am humbled by the title.
I am proud of people like Ishwar Ramlutchman, whose complete identification with the Zulu people is not only historic, but quite unique, to the extent that the Zulu King has adopted Mr Ramlutchman as his son.
Living closely with all our communities, I know that there are thousands of black people who would not be able to put food on the table but for their jobs with Indian employers.
I expect that there are some employers who may have a racist attitude, but it is very unfair to tar the whole Indian community with the same brush.
There are black employers who treat their workers well. But even among them there are those who treat their own people as though they were sub-human.
Here again it would be unfair to tar all blacks with the same brush because of the actions of some.
Where an attitude of racism exists there is, quite tragically, a historical context.
In January 1949, an anti-Indian riot claimed 142 lives and created some 40000 Indian refugees. It was bloody, brutal and devastating, and it came at the hands of black South Africans.
The scars remain in many Indian families.
Both black and Indian leaders have worked to heal that wound and restore unity. Sadly, Professor Meer passed away before we achieved our shared vision for an Indo-African Institute in KwaZulu-Natal. But there are legacies that remain of Indian women and men who have shaped our country for good.
The legacy bequeathed by Mahatma Gandhi, of non-violent resistance and Satyagraha, can never be erased.
I applaud the many Indians who are participating in predominantly black political parties, including the IFP, for their contribution is as relevant as my own. We are one people, whether some like it or not, and we share a common destiny.
* iNkosi Buthelezi is an MP and president of the IFP.