ARISE YE COOLIES, Apartheid and the Indian 1960-1995

iv + 148pp., illus., paperback, cover a little worn, Johannesburg, [1996]

"The lives of many of the res-workers who must now be retired early, map out the course of Indian history in South Africa. Through their lives at UDW they have been non-whites, (the sign on the toilets), non-Europeans, (the sign on the seats at the bus-stops), so-called Indians and Blacks, (the sign on the banners at student mass meetings). As they struggle to fight to save their jobs today, they are struggling again to ascertain who they are. Once again the struggle for survival is lodged within the struggle for self-consciousness. 

In many senses this is what this book is about. It is as much about the political history of Indian South Africans as it is about Indian identity. It is a story of collaboration and confrontation. Of subservience and subversion. Of division and unity. All through this identity was being rejected, contested, shaped." Taken from the introduction.