Malema raises 'Indian question' in KZN division

EFF leader Julius Malema, a commissioner at the JSC, yesterday raised the spectre of the ‘Indian question’ in KZN during interviews taking place in Cape Town for the vacant Deputy Judge President position in that division, notes a Mail & Guardian report. When quizzing Judge Shyam Gyanda, the first of four candidates vying for the position, Malema said that ’in the context of KZN, where we have an ‘Indian question’ particularly, the Africans feel Indians are dominating life in every sphere’, including business and the legal sector. He asked Gyanda, the most senior member of the KZN Bench and a candidate for the position, whether transformation imperatives demanded the appointment of a black African rather than an Indian. Gyanda said that ‘if Indians are progressing, should they be penalised for working harder and longer?’ His response led to a heated exchange between Gyanda and Malema that explored the touchy issue of ethnicity, race and notions of Africanness. This included Malema’s ‘view … that blacks were oppressed (during apartheid) but Africans were more oppressed’. The M&G notes this was a view another candidate being interviewed for the position, Judge Mjabuliseni Madondo, expressed four years ago when interviewed by the commission for the position of KZN High Court Judge President – a response for which he was heavily criticised. At the time – as it did yesterday – the exchange laid bare simmering racial tensions in the division. Gyanda later said: ‘I am an African. I was born in Africa, my parents were born in Africa, why should I be called an Indian when I am an African? Why should I be called an Indian because I am of Asiatic descent?’