I am delighted to be here with you this evening. I have greatly enjoyed my first visit to India; a country which can accurately be described as a "cousin" of South Africa. This week I have had the privilege of visiting Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi, and I greatly enjoyed visiting the greatest monument ever built to the power of love whilst I am here. On Tuesday, I greatly enjoyed visiting the Nehru Centre and seeing the Discovery of India exhibition in Mumbai on Tuesday. 

It has been truly amazing to observe at once an ancient Asian civilisation, a modern nation grounded in Enlightenment values and democratic institutions, and a rising twenty-first-century superpower. The pace of change in the world's largest democracy, with its vibrant and open society, is simply inspiring. 

This evening I will naturally focus on South Africa's economic environment and the "special relationship" between our two countries: a special relationship which was forged in the struggle against racial oppression and discrimination.

Just over one hundred years ago, MK Gandhi launched his civil disobedience campaign in SA. His Satyagraha movement led to the freedom from colonial rule in India.  How moving it was to stand on the balcony of the Mahatma's home in Mumbai on Tuesday, as I have visited his home in Phoenix in KwaZulu- Natal and the place where he was turned out of the first-class rail carriage.

I believe that it is the influence of this man's philosophy which guided the founding fathers of the African National Congress to establish Africa's oldest liberation movement upon the ideals of non-violence and passive resistance.
 

We were inspired by his example when he led the non-violent struggle and founded the Natal Indian Congress.

As many of you will know, the special relationship between our two countries goes back several hundred years. From the beginning of the Dutch colonisation in the 1650's there were Indian slaves. In 1860 the first indentured labourers arrived on SS Truro, in Durban, and they worked and lived in conditions of semi-slavery. Then in the 19th century we had the so-called "passenger Indians", who came over to our country. These three waves of immigrants now make up the South African Indian community of over a million people.

One of these people is my colleague, Mr Narend Singh MP, who is here with us tonight. Mr Singh is one of the leaders of the IFP and has served as a Minister with flair and distinction in the IFP-led governments which governed South Africa's most populous province, KwaZulu-Natal, between 1994 and 2004.

I was astonished to see Mr Singh's grandfather's registration certificate from when he left these shores - he hailed from Gorakhpur - to arrive in SA in Durban on the 24th of April 1897.

Our province is home to the largest Indian population outside of India and the history of our country cannot be understood without reference to the great contribution of this community.

By way of personal introduction, I am the great grandson of King Cetshwayo and grandson of his son, King Dinuzulu. King Cetshwayo was the nephew of the legendary King Shaka, the founder of the Zulu Nation. It was King Cetshwayo's regiments that inflicted the worst defeat ever on imperial Britain at the Battle of Isandlwana on the 22nd of January 1879, during the Anglo-Zulu war.

King Cetshwayo's regiments were led by my great grandfather, Mnyamana Buthelezi, the Prime Minister to the King. My political roots run deep in the African National Congress, which has close historical ties to the Indian Congress Party, and I maintain a deep respect for the tradition of the party which rules us today. I have the privilege of leading the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), which is SA's largest predominately black opposition party.  My Indian friends have played a significant role throughout my political career and several of them, like Mr Singh, are active in the IFP today.

It was one of the privileges of life to know the son of the Mahatma, Mr Manilal Gandhi and his wife. I met him during the Defiance Campaign in Durban when he was released from jail after serving his sentence. Later in life I met the granddaughter of the Mahatma, Ela Gandhi and her then husband Mr Mewa Ramgobin.

It was during this time that I had the privilege of delivering the Ghandi Memorial Lecture at the Phoenix settlement near Durban where the Mahatma had lived.

I have cherished my close association with stalwarts of the liberation struggle of Indian extraction in my province of KwaZulu-Natal such as the Ramgobin family, Professor Fatima Meer and her husband Ismail Meer - whose wedding I attended - and such heavyweights in the liberation struggle as Dr Monty Naicker, Debi Singh and many others. To capture the significance of the role that the Indian community has played in my country's journey to democracy, I can do no better than quote A.I Kajee, an early twentieth-century Indian politician, who famously said, "We are part and parcel of this country; we know no other land".

Contrasting the political economies of South Africa and India

For the purposes of this presentation, it is pertinent to briefly sketch the political economy of South Africa. Over the last fourteen years of democratic rule, South Africa, in many ways, has made remarkable progress. A human rights culture rooted in our Constitution and Bill of Rights has begun to be inculcated amongst our disparate peoples. Our governance and judicial institutions are bedded down, although the latter has been looking rather dicey in recent times.

My principal observation that I would like to make tonight is that South Africa and India share the same challenge of transforming a developing country into a developed country and global leader in the face of resource scarcity and environmental degradation.

Like India, SA is divided among a tiny affluent minority, a rising middle class, and an overwhelming majority who reside in gut-wrenching poverty. For my whole life, I have lived amongst the latter and their plight is my abiding passion.

SA and India share the same critical problems: extreme social inequality, joblessness, a growing energy crisis, severe water shortages, and a galloping HIV/Aids epidemic, to name the most obvious.

As you will understand well, the change to a market-related policy carries its own risks in a society as fraught with racial and income disparities as South Africa. That is why we cheer you on so fervently. If this great nation succeeds, India will have demonstrated that it is possible to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and prove that multiethnic, multi-religious democracy is not the preserve of rich societies.

Both of our countries have witnessed the depressing development of wealthy enclaves from Durban to Delhi, employing private companies to provide their security needs and to protect them from the poor masses huddled at their gates.

Crime has reached exorbitant levels in SA. For not only wealth brings temptation: so does poverty.

Our economy has been performing reasonably well, but nothing like the pace of India's startling growth over the last decade of 8.5%. Until recently, we were touching five percent growth, but that growth has now been halved.

We have long known that to cut through the structural conditions that produce large-scale poverty, the growth rate needs to be increased to six percent plus, a similar pace to other comparable emerging markets. You have achieved 2.5% higher than that over the last economic cycle and my delegation and I admit to a touch of jealousy!

At the present time we are also witnessing the inexorable centralisation of power. Power has gravitated from society to state, from local and provincial spheres to national, and from judiciary and legislature to executive.

The top-heavy concentration of power at the centre, paradoxically, sits astride a weak delivery state which has not done enough to stimulate employment, deliver basic public services or protect its citizens. And that is the paradox of the new South Africa: the nation is strong, but the state is weak. If we fail to remedy the latter, we will undermine the former.

Undoubtedly, the social impact of globalisation and urbanisation is driving people to take refuge in what they know - their families, communities, regions. These are now the social institutions that offer security and opportunity. Where our people feel powerless in the face of global and urban change, they feel the local can be influenced even if the national cannot.

It is here, in particular, that we have much to learn from India with your vibrant multi-party democracy in which the people regularly change governments. My goodness, we really could do with a bit of that! To be fair, however, you have been practicing democracy a little longer than us! We may look to you to help build the democratic alternative in SA.

On balance SA, like India, is on the right path, but there are pitfalls aplenty - and marvellous opportunities too. It these opportunities that I would now like to turn to.

Strengthening the strategic relationship between SA and India

I believe this present generation - and I have this "can do" audience in mind - more than any previous one, requires a quality of the imagination to propel our peoples' development. Both of our countries simply do not have the luxury of marking time. Long before Barack Obama chanted the call to "change", the Mahatma Gandhi said "You must be the change you wish to see in this world".

Like China, which I visited in May, India is looking for raw materials and new markets for its goods. This, of course, has sharpened India's hope for a more nuanced, south-south relationship which will give it the edge. There is nothing wrong with that. Every ambitious country seeks the edge.

We are beginning to see the economic rewards, as well as the cultural and social rewards, of the deepening of the South-South relationship. India, for example, is searching for long-term uranium supplies to feed its nuclear reactors, as well as strategic minerals, meaning that South Africa is emerging as a key partner.

I must also underline my personal support, and that of my party, to the South African government's clear commitment to the Strategic Partnership between our two countries.

In 2003, India, Brazil and South Africa forged a trilateral linkage in Brasilia: the so-called "Butterfly" strategy. I believe that the combined dynamism of the three countries will make a huge material difference to the lives of our peoples. Brazil, South Africa and India are emerging global powers and together we can influence the global paradigm by prioritising the needs of the disadvantaged.

In the light of the common social-economic challenges which I have outlined, I believe it is essential that we make good on the noble goals that we have set out to achieve.  I therefore add my voice to the call for a permanent seat for India and South Africa on the UN Security Council and the expansion of the G8 to include our two countries and Brazil. Our time has come. One is grateful that President Sarkozy and Prime Minister Brown supported this call in Japan this week.

South Africa is the point of entry to an entire continent which is rapidly opening up at a dizzying rate. The next decade will see the rise of African markets and opportunities in the same way as the past few decades have witnessed the emergence of new markets in the East.

I believe that a strong relationship between South Africa and India will make a great contribution to promoting the trade and commerce needed to make Africa flourish and prosper.

I obviously do not need to spell out to you how such bilateral trade, transfer of skills, products and services, and commerce would equally benefit India's industry and economic development.

Indian made cars are now beginning to be sold in South Africa and we have witnessed an increasing flow of technical assistance from India in the fields of information technology, engineering, and research and development.

However, as all businessmen like you know, all profits and rewards emanate from investment and the taking of risks. There is a necessity to make investments in Africa in general, and South Africa in particular, and accept that there may be an element of risk.

The most important investment of all is, in my opinion, the training of African people. The people of Africa are the most important, still untapped, natural resource in the world.

There are other economic factors in South Africa which are not perfectly suited to economic growth and business too. As a candid friend I will not shy from mentioning them. I have long criticised the lack of labour market flexibility and the over dominant role played by our trade unions - and that is not to say that trade unions do not have an essential role to play in regulating society and the workplace.

The crippling rigidity of the labour market legislation that we have enacted makes it onerous for work seekers to gain access to steady jobs or any jobs at all. SA has also been reluctant to develop standard anti-trust and a pro-competition legislation to break the grip of our private and public cartels and monopolies on our economy.

The consequences are painful for all who participate in this 'free market'.

Our bank charges, for example, are amongst the highest in the world, as are our telecommunication charges. What incentive is there for poor people to place their money into bank accounts? Yet without banking facilities, people do not have access to loans to purchase property or start their own small businesses.

These are the prerequisites of a functioning market economy, from Chile to New Zealand to India.

This obviously is to the detriment of our country and, in the end, only serves to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. But I remain optimistic that we can and will succeed with fine friends like you. Now is the hour to invest in good and trusted friends. Other countries have the advantage of making such investments upon the strength of a partnership between government and business, which is when the distinction between the private and public sectors is blurred. 

In the Indian context it may also be necessary to bolster the presence of the Indian Government to provide greater assistance for Indian businesses wanting to invest in South Africa.

This is also the time to enhance the marketing and commercial presence of the Indian Government in South Africa. Over the years I have been very impressed with the work conducted in Durban by the various Indian Consuls-General, who have worked hard with the local Indian community to build a bridge between the South African Indian community and India.

As a long-term and trusted friend of the Indian people, my party, the IFP, and I are available to help foster and influence the ever closer relationship between our two countries. Let us do so for the benefit of all the people of the South who eagerly wait for, and rightly deserve, social and economic empowerment to follow their political liberation.

I thank you. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Mr Jon Cayzer: 084 555 7144