https://doi.org/10.1177/0021909618797147 Journal of Asian and African Studies 2019, Vol. 54(2) 155–168 © The Author(s) 2018 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/0021909618797147 journals.sagepub.com/home/jas J A A S Grey Street Casbah: Market Town as a Symbol of Indian Diasporic Experience P Pratap Kumar University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa Abstract In this paper, I wish to explore the life in the mid-19th to 20th century in the Durban-based Indian Casbah and its enduring legacy. In exploring the Casbah life in Durban, I wish to pay special attention to the narratives of the people who either were associated with it and had living memories of it, or remember the many stories passed on to them by their families. 1 The central question that I explore in analysing these narratives is: does Casbah in the diaspora enable the diasporic community to reconnect with their Indian origins or does it orient them away from the romantic attachment to the places of their origin in India? In other words, is Casbah a symbol of a new settlement in which the diasporic community finds lasting meaning and legacy, or does it evoke memories and myths about their origins in India? Keywords Casbah, Indian diaspora, caste, market-town, nostalgia, coolie, apartheid, South Africa Introduction In the following I offer some background on market towns in India not so much to provide comparison between India and South Africa, but rather to provide some background to the idea of Casbah in my subsequent discussion on the Grey Street Complex. Market towns are common place throughout India. They are neither fully urban nor fully rural, but a mixture of both worlds. They serve as a connection between the rural folk and the town folk. They are known as Qasba – a term from Arabic origins used commonly in Algeria to refer to a citadel. It is not clear how the term entered the Indian vocabulary but in English usage it came to be spelled as Casbah. It is a market place to which village folk bring and sell their produce and buy the more typical urban goods: fancy goods such as bangles, skin creams, soaps and so on. Referring to the general lack of attention given to market towns in social science research, Richard Fox points out that because of these being less attractive in appearance and the general mistrust people have about the merchants, researchers did not pay attention to the study of these small towns. Nevertheless, he argues that ‘[T]hey may serve as centres for the dissemination of liter- ate or sophisticated cultural traditions’ (1967: 297). In India market towns first appeared around Corresponding author: P Pratap Kumar, University of KwaZulu-Natal, King George V Avenue, Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, 4041, South Africa. Email: penumalap@ukzn.ac.za 797147JAS 0 0 10.1177/0021909618797147Journal of Asian and African StudiesKumar research-article 2018 Original Article