Cape Town Hindu Seva Samaj

In the early 1900’s many of our forefathers came to the shores of the Cape, and slowly established themselves in the various forms of work. Only the males had come and had fended for themselves as

their spouses had been left in their villages in India respectively. The elders although being far from their homes, united themselves with their fellow brethren.

In 1922 when a few of our elders gathered for their first deliberations at the premises of Late Pranjivan Chiba Chavda residing and conducting business at 189 Victoria Road Woodstock on 19th November. A body was established by six of the seniors all of them after lengthy deliberations decided to formulate an organization and named it “Shree Cape Town Mochi Gnati Mitra Mandal”. While the meetings took place many constructive ideas were exchanged and new revival was awakened amongst the members. The younger generation was exposed to the workings and expectations of the organization.

After the arrival of the first Indian females to the Cape, slowly the other female partners started arriving, as time progressed changes were made to the rules and regulations regarding foreigners arriving in the country, making it more difficult for more partners arriving. Many of the seniors started bringing in family and friends on their names as extended family, accordingly many individuals were literally smuggled in under false pretences.

As time progressed Cape Town’s activities were brought to light in India and many forms of literature started arriving, slowly the locally learned individuals produced many handwritten magazines namely “Mochi Hitarth Prakash”, “Sri Mochi Mitra” and “Mochi Gnati Hrtechhoo”,

In 1929 the Cape Town Mandal acquired premises namely “Mitra Hall” in Mowbray. The official opening of the venue occurred on 24th October 1929. As the community grew the hall became small, though an adjoining property was acquired, it was felt to enlarge the hall, in January 1951, the new extended hall was declared open.

As the years progressed the rest of the Gujerati community also progressed in their stride, many attempts were carried out to break the unity of the membership, but the society has survived all these atrocities and has grown from strength to strength. As time progressed the younger generation came along with new ideas to serve the community to progress in the unified form and religious activities are carried out regularly making full use of the facilities provided for the community.

Transformation to a Samaj

The Cape Town Hindu Seva Samaj came into being in 1996 with the dissolution of the Kshatriya Hindu Mitra Mandal (KHMM) after this organisation had withdrawn its membership from the South African Kshatriya Mahasabha (SAKM).

The journey toward the birth of the Samaj had started when a group of concerned youth, all children of the officials and members of the KHMM, started questioning their role in society.

It was obvious to them, in light of the tremendous change that South Africa as a whole had undergone, that they could not be part of a caste body. The concerned group undertook a survey amongst members of the KHMM to determine their needs and whether they would support a non-caste body in the future. There was overwhelming support from the community to move away from being a caste body and the KHMM, to its credit, heeded the call of the general membership and withdrew its membership from the national SAKM.

An interim committee was formed consisting of KHMM

and Concerned Group members, and a constitution was formulated for a new organisation that would be based at the Samaj Centre in Gatesville, Cape Town.

At the first AGM of the Samaj, a new executive committee was elected while members of the community volunteered for various committees as described in the constitution.

The General Committee governed the organisation while the Exco managed the day to day running of the Samaj. Each committee had regular activities and a newsletter was sent to all members informing them of activities and happenings in the community.