The district was also the epicenter of one of Durban’s most popular and accessible forms of entertainment: the cinema. Major cultural landmarks that sometimes doubled as meeting halls, Grey Street’s six theaters were venues within which a range of people—including Indian women and African youth—nurtured class aspirations and new forms of international awareness. These “bioscopes” were seen as distinctly Indian spaces.58 The Grey Street complex arose out of efforts to build institutions that manifested the claims of particular groups—religious and linguistic, “traditional” and “modern”—to form part of a larger Indian community. The success of this strategy generated an ironic result: the popular association of the Indian with the wealth of Grey Street and the deliberately cultivated image of an elite.
This image obfuscated enormous disparities of wealth, security, and prestige. After a new generation of Indian activists emerged in the 1940s, several of whom were members of the Communist Party, the term “merchant class” came into increasingly widespread use to describe the most economically successful layer. By clearly demarcating the trader from the proletarian, the concept suggested that political conservatism, racial prejudices, and exploitative practices were the attributes of a small minority, which possessed little in common with the overwhelming majority of Indians. The idea of the “merchant class” functioned as a moral category: it reproduced the content of the trader stereotype while circumscribing its applicability to a small group, characterized in sociological rather than racial terms, and located outside the authentic (that is, working-class) Indian community.
In reality, only a few hundred Indian professionals and businessmen had obtained levels of wealth comparable to their white counterparts by the beginning of the 1960s. C. A. Woods warns: “To the casual onlooker the obvious wealth of some Indian traders with well-established premises and first class fittings and stock is apt to give the wrong idea. The other side of the picture, however, shows many small back street traders whose turnover is probably very low.”59 Most Indian shops in Durban, which were often little more than stalls, operated with rudimentary stock and survived by mobilizing unpaid family labor, especially that of women and children.60 Although some Africans may have frequented higher-end establishments, the majority interacted with a far poorer, more dependent, and insecure layer of retailers. In the Grey Street area, the stores that specialized in “African goods” (that is, daily provisions for the working class) were concentrated on Queen Street. Many of these traders cultivated good relationships with their African customers, offering them credit and selling special meals at an affordable price.61 In outlying areas, the Indian-owned shop sometimes functioned as a meeting point where groups of men exchanged stories, read newspapers aloud, and ate meals together.
Beginning in the mid- to late 1930s, the influx of African migrants began to transform Durban’s demographics. Shortly afterward, wartime shortages gave birth to rationing and a black market developed for many items. Hoarding became common and shop owners, white and Indian, often refused to sell to Africans or charged inflated prices.62 These crosshatching trends would have enormous repercussions for the city’s racial politics. Even as migrants negotiated an urban landscape in many respects defined by Indian institutions, their steadily increasing 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