An Indian State in South Africa

[Purrangzeb]

For those who do not know, there is an extensive Indian community in South Africa, harkening back to when they were brought to South Africa as labourers.
Would it be possible to create a state specifically for Indian South Africans?
Perhaps a larger, organized initiative to bring over Indians to work Agricultural Jobs, leading to the gradual formation of a larger Indian-South African Identity.
What do you guys think?

 

[Wendell]

Maybe something in/around Durban?

 

[Vishnustarlord]

For those who do not know, there is an extensive Indian community in South Africa, harkening back to when they were brought to South Africa as labourers.
Would it be possible to create a state specifically for Indian South Africans?
Perhaps a larger, organized initiative to bring over Indians to work Agricultural Jobs, leading to the gradual formation of a larger Indian-South African Identity.
What do you guys think?

Don't think so. It's really difficult

 

[PsyloSurgeon]

A substantial minority of Indian mitochondrial dna in South Africa is of Bantu origin. This means Indian men married African women, and raised the progeny as Indian. It might be possible if the Indians are brought over beginning in 1600s or 1700s, and they basically assimilate the Zulu tribes. So instead, a mixed Indo-bantu group emerges that identifies solely as Indian, where they are paternally Indian and maternally African.

 

[Hrvatskiwi]

For those who do not know, there is an extensive Indian community in South Africa, harkening back to when they were brought to South Africa as labourers.
Would it be possible to create a state specifically for Indian South Africans?
Perhaps a larger, organized initiative to bring over Indians to work Agricultural Jobs, leading to the gradual formation of a larger Indian-South African Identity.
What do you guys think?

I know you were talking about South Africa, but if you just want an Indian state in Africa, I'd look at possibilities in East Africa. Uganda in particular had a very big Indian population until Idi Amin expelled them.

 

[Aghasverov]

This probably isn't what you had in mind (and is a horrible idea), but maybe the RSA creates a "Hindustan" similar to the Bantustans they created during the height of Apartheid? Would probably be somewhere in Natal, maybe consist of several small discontiguous areas like most of the OTL Bantustans... in the late 1970's it receives de jure independence, like Transkei and Bophuthatswana, which is of course not recognized by the rest of the world...

 

[Purrangzeb]

I know you were talking about South Africa, but if you just want an Indian state in Africa, I'd look at possibilities in East Africa. Uganda in particular had a very big Indian population until Idi Amin expelled them.

That actually piques my interest, apparently, Indians and Asians, in general, are very influential on Ugandan Economy.
Maybe a large-scale initiative by the British to settle colonists from the Isles and India could happen? It would certainly tie the colony closer to the empire as a whole.
picrel, though it doesn't really convery what i'm thinking.

 

[Warthog]

Why would Indian political consciousness in South Africa end up focussing on an Indian-only state?


The main activists and politicians of Indian descent in South Africa in the 1960s and beyond were opposed to apartheid, but an Indian-only state would be an apartheid friendly concept