Durban - In 1919 Jack Sidhoo converted a Dodge truck into a bus by placing two benches lengthwise at the back. He did so to cater for the poor and marginalised black community living on the banks of the Umgeni River, in an area now called Riverside.
In the same year, brothers Moonsamy and Dharmalingham Marimuthoo bought an old, World War I army truck and placed benches lengthwise in the back to cater for black people on the Bluff and in Clairwood.
Whites, Africans and coloured people referred to these privately owned buses as “Indian Buses”. It stemmed from the fact that some (African) passengers could not pronounce the names emblazoned on the body panels. But they would be informed by their colleagues to take an “Indian” bus if they were travelling to suburbs like Cato Manor and Sydenham.
There were two main reasons that the bus industry started up within the Indian community. Initially, some of the early bus owners used horse or donkey carts to transport fruit and vegetables from outlying areas to the Early Morning Market on Julius Nyerere (Warwick) Avenue. But all too often these carts were overladen, leaving little space for even the farmer.
In addition to demand, there was the issue of service. The city had separate buses for whites and blacks. And given the times, the service offered to whites was superior to that available for blacks.
The advent of the Group Areas Act in the 1950s meant that Africans and Indians lived in neighbouring areas.
As a result, uMlazi residents could use Sivalingham Dass - South Coast Transport buses.
KwaMashu, Inanda and Amaoti passengers could use the Phoenix buses.
At the end of 1945, there were 142 private owners operating 177 bus services. In 1979, there were an estimated 687 bus owners.
The two most populated housing schemes for Indians, Chatsworth (1962) and Phoenix (1976) dominated the bus market.
Chatsworth had 69 bus owners in the ’80s while Phoenix had 175 buses run by five companies.
Decades ago, it was these bus owners who had no fixed routes or roads. Three Indian-owned bus companies are still providing a service in outlying Inanda on sandy roads with rocky outcrops to service passengers via Iqadi towards Osindisweni Hospital.
African-owned bus companies emerged after the 1949 Cato Manor riots, due to the cessation of Indian-owned bus services in uMkhumbane (Ridgeview).
In July 1949, six African bus companies applied for licences to operate on the Booth and Wiggins roads routes to and from the city. Bantu Bus Company, owned by Fred Ngema of Johannesburg, owned a fleet of buses and extended his operations to both Clermont and uMkhumbane.
In Cato Manor, Israel Alexandra began Ebony bus service to uMkhumbane and Chesterville.
In 1951, of the 17 African-owned buses operating in the uMkhumbane area, only two would usually operate on any given day.
In 1953, there were 38 Indian-owned buses and nine African-owned buses providing a bus service in Cato Manor.
The Group Areas Act relocated people to KwaMashu and Chatsworth in the 1960s. This brought an end to African- owned bus services in Durban.
Inanda Vusumuzi Goba and his brother Selby Goba owned and drove Khaliphani Bus Service.
Gideon Chili owned Khulani maQwabe Bus Service. Bus owner Seth Mdima managed Vukani Bantu Bus Service while Muntumunye Bernard Mbambo owned Ukuthuthuka KwamaQadi Bus Company. The services continued into the early ’90s.
Initially, the official bus service was run by the city and was started in 1926.
In August 2003 the Durban Transport bus service was sold to the Remant and Alton Coach Africa Consortium owned by Jay Singh for R70 million. Singh, who owned his own fleet in Phoenix, made history by becoming the first Indian owner of the city’s fleet.
Five years later, the municipality spent R405m buying back the buses and equipment, and in 2009 the municipality terminated the company’s contract.
Tansnat Africa was appointed in August 2009 to run a reduced service on a monthly basis. But there have been ongoing problems.
Last week the eThekwini Municipality executive committee requested approval for a plan to establish an entity that would operate Durban Transport. It allows for the private sector to be involved.
Priority will be given to those groups that the city has identified in the Radical Economic Transformation Framework and Supply Chain Management Policy (2019). It includes black people who fall under the following categories: youth, women, disability, people living in rural or underdeveloped communities, military veterans and co-operatives that are at least 51% owned by black people.
The DA in eThekwini voted against the road map. The DA said a resolution that came before Exco repeatedly and expressly mentioned Tansnat, and that it was the only “African” bus service in the city. According to the resolution, all other bus services were of “Indian descent”.
The DA pointed out that there were many Indian bus operators in Durban who ran successful, safe and reliable services for decades.
eThekwini mayor Nxolisi Kaunda later clarified that the category “black people” was inclusive of Africans, Indians, coloureds and Asians. But it seems the service rendered by these Indian pioneers being forgotten.
Ginny Porter, the editor of the book Indian Buses - The History, the Memories the Personalities, wrote: “The trials and tribulations of many intrepid individuals whose personalities were so much larger than life. They invented, created and maintained a mode of transport for people disadvantaged by a system and fragmented society plagued by colonialism, racist agendas, apartheid and transport lawlessness.
“They endured an era of challenges and opportunities. These men and women trail-blazed this transport business. The engineering feats are something to be marvelled at as they supported the Indian bus system of operation.
“The Indian bus system was not simply a means of transport; it was an integral part of family life. Buses carried people and news from far-flung corners of a subtropical region where streams could turn to raging torrents and baking heat could tax any engine to the point of failure.
“But the service ground on, over hill and through dale, facilitating wedding and funeral gatherings and holy occasions and also creating economic wealth, some of which went to the transport operators, most of it to an onerous system which took but returned little.
“Bus operators even created routes by blazing new tracks through virgin bush. They built both bus and route and then maintained both.”
If the city is genuine about improving its transport system, it should look to those who not only have decades of experience, but who overcame huge odds to succeed.
While their numbers have fallen in recent times, many still have the know-how. It would be foolish to let that expertise go to waste on the basis that they’re not black enough.
Dawood is a journalist and author of Indian Buses: The history, the memories, the personalities and the book History of Phoenix Buses.
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