Three months after ‘Go back to Bombay’ slur, MEC requests investigation

THE MEC for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) in KwaZulu-Natal has requested eThekwini's municipal speaker address concerns raised by an NPO regarding the "Go back to Bombay" comment, which was made at a full sitting council meeting on November 6 last year.

In a letter to Ethan Ramkuar and Nazeera Khan, the directors of Survival Centre, MEC Reverend Thulasizwe Buthelezi said he requested the speaker address the matter.

This, he said, would be done in terms of the code of conduct for councillors as it appeared in schedule 7 of the Local Government Municipal Structure Amendment Act 2021.

"The department will await the response of the speaker (Thabani Nyawose) and will advise you accordingly," Buthelezi wrote earlier this month.

He was responding after Ramkuar and Khan wrote to various departments following the comment, including the premier, the exco committee, ethics committee and the South African Human Rights Commission seeking recourse.

"In a recent full sitting council meeting on 6th November 2024, at eThekwini, a councillor had told an Indian opposition councillor to 'Go Back to Bombay”. Indians are not foreigners in South Africa. We are citizens. The contribution and role of the Indian community towards the liberation of South Africa should not be overlooked," said the letter by Ramkuar and Khan.

"The South African Constitution and other laws prohibit racial utterances that are hateful, harmful, or incite violence. The Constitution was drafted in response to South Africa’s history of colonial conquest and apartheid. The Constitution’s values include non-racialism, human dignity, and the advancement of human rights...

"The Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act (PEPUDA) prohibits hate speech, which includes words that are intended to be hurtful, harmful, or incite harm. PEPUDA also prohibits excluding people based on race under rules or practices that are intended to maintain exclusive control by a particular race group."

He said it was disturbing and disrespectful for an elected leader to make racist utterance at a full council meeting and infringe both Section 9(3) of the Constitution and PEPUDA.

"It is even worse to be sitting amongst councillors from his/her party and turn the utterance into a joke. Thirty years into democracy, the spirit of Ubuntu and social cohesion has gone out the door on the 6th November 2024, by the very people who are elected to represent the rainbow nation at local government."

Ramkuar and Khan said this kind of racial comment should not be tolerated or down-played the way it was by the speaker.

"We demand, on behalf of the Indian councillors and Indian community of South Africa, a verbal and written apology from the councillor who made the utterance along with councillors of the ANC who deemed the racial utterance as a joke..."

In addition, they demanded the DA’s chief whip in eThekwini, Yogis Govender, who the utterance were made to, get an apology, as well as all Indian councillors at the municipality, and to the councillors who found the utterance to be both racist and offensive.

"Also an apology to the Indian community of South Africa should be made with immediate effect. It is also necessary for the speaker to do the same for his inability to resolve the matter at the council sitting. This should be an example of how social cohesion and democracy is upheld in our municipality and country."

Speaking to the POST this week, Ramkuar said he thanked those councillors who took a stand against the racial comments and that they appreciated the request made to the speaker to investigate the matter "even after he denied and declined to take action at the council meeting".

"We Indians are citizens of South Africa. We can't sit back and let people make insults to us..."

The Survival Centre was founded in Chatsworth in 2017 and spread to places like Richards Bay where Ramkuar served as a councillor and thereafter to Kempton Park in Johannesburg.

Ramkaur said he and Khan were human rights and community activists who took on issues that affected communities.

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