“A perfect match.” 

That is how South Africa’s High Commissioner to India Professor Anil Sooklal described the recently finalised Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Sastri College in Durban and Bluebells School International in New Delhi. 

The MoU will be signed in the presence of Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Parks Tau when he visits India. 

Sastri College

In 1926, Srinivasa Sastri was sent by British-India to South Africa as the agent general of British India to South Africa. 

Sastri noted that indentured Indians in South Africa had built their own schools but there was no high school for them. 

He then raised money and built the first Indian high school in South Africa, Sastri College, formally opened in 1929, before Sastri returned to India. 

“Many of the leaders from the Indian community attended that school under apartheid. Even someone like Pravin Gordhan was a student at that school,” Sooklal said. 

Bluebells School

Bluebells School is one of New Delhi’s top high schools, ranking among the top 10.

Sooklal said the ANC had a representational office in New Delhi, and many ANC leaders who were exiled in India sent their children to this school. It helped raise funds for the ANC and it helped provide free education to all the ANC exiles’ children.

He said the school had established a South Africa Club to raise money to support the anti-apartheid movement.

“So it has a historical relationship with South Africa. They still have a South Africa Club and an Africa Club as well,” Sooklal said. 

He said that annually, the school celebrates South Africa’s Freedom Day and International Nelson Mandela Day in a large way, where the students participate and have an art competition, essay competition, cultural items, singing and dancing.

“When Mandela came to India (Delhi) he met the principal and board members of the school and thanked them for the role they played to conscientise young students about our struggle and how they supported it. Today they are still very wedded to South Africa. It is this school and there’s one other school also called Springdales; these two schools have a very special relationship with South Africa,” Sooklal said. 

South Africa High Commissioner to India

Sooklal mentioned that upon his departure for his posting, alumni from Sastri College approached him with two requests.

“Firstly, they have lost contact with the Sastri family in India. They are preparing in 2029 to celebrate 100 years of the school’s existence and they wanted to reconnect with the Sastri family,” Sooklal said. 

“The second request they made to me was to find a school that Sastri College could be twinned with in India.

“That was also for me an important mandate because we don’t have any twinning between schools in India and South Africa.” 

Sooklal said that when he arrived in India, he visited Bluebells School and spoke to the principal and the board. He proposed twinning Sastri and Bluebells. 

“They were very excited. They started a dialogue and had many online meetings between the two schools. Now they have finalised an MoU,” Sooklal said. 

“They will look at cooperating in terms of assisting each other in terms of curriculum sharing, in terms of student exchange, teacher exchange, and a whole lot of other activities that they are planning. That’s the first part.

“The second part was for me to try and find the Sastri family because the school has been trying for many years and we have not been able to and through the ministry of culture here, one of the officials assisted me and I located the family – in fact the great granddaughter of Srinivasa Sastri,” Sooklal said. 

“The family was very excited to make contact with the High Commission and I then put them in touch with Sastri College. They (Sastri family and Sastri College) had a very good online meeting.”

Sooklal said the school now has revived links with the family. 

He said the family indicated that when Sastri College celebrates their anniversary in 2029, they will come to South Africa with a large delegation for the event. 

“This connection is very important, given the role Sastri played in education in South Africa and the school today is one of the prominent schools in Durban,” Sooklal said. 

“Now to link it up with the historical ties to South Africa from the days of our freedom struggle, I think it’s a perfect match between these two schools.”

thobeka.ngema@inl.co.za

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