Binaben Akoobhai
Separated by Statute, which delicately threads together the lives of a young girl, tracing her journey from the quiet rhythms of a Gujarati village to the charged pulse of a South African township, will be launched as part of the India Independence Day celebration on August 16 at 10.30am at Sandown School in Sandton, Johannesburg.Yogin Devan writes about vignettes from the autobiography.
AS A LITTLE girl in Ponsra, a quiet village in Gujarat, Binaben Akoobhai would dash outside at the sound of an airplane. Her heart would leap, and her voice would rise in a cry of pure longing as she screamed, “Daddy is coming!”
The fields, the dust, and the open sky became her stage of hope - each passing plane a promise, her words a prayer stitched with innocence and yearning for a father who lived in South Africa, separated from his wife and two daughters in India for several years by an insanely cruel piece of apartheid legislation.
The Immigrants Regulation Amendment Act of 1953 was a calculated apartheid-era measure to curtail Indian immigration, specifically targeting foreign-born Indian women and children, thereby reinforcing racial segregation and limiting the growth of South Africa’s Indian community.
