Kapiti Coast Mayor K. Gurunathan has a pocketful of campaign stories.
As the only non-Pakeha to be voted to the office of the mayor, not once but two times back-to-back, he is quick to recount his struggles in a largely white Kapiti Coast electorate.
There is that famous incident on the campaign trail when Guru turned to his managers, “two white blokes,” and told them to “brighten the photograph” on his billboards.
Was that a sell-out?
Guru calls it a strategy.
“You don’t realise that you don’t fight this battle, I do,” he reminded his Pakeha election managers at the time.
That incident is freeze-framed in electoral folklore. It highlights the subliminal battles the dark-skinned candidate must face to cross the finish line in a predominantly white social milieu.
Guru elaborates on this in a somewhat comic vein: “If you take a photograph, and if there are Pakehas in it, you’ll find that your features cannot be seen (because it’s too dark). When you brighten it up so that your features can be seen, you’ll find that their faces get blurred and cannot be seen (because it’s too white). But that’s their problem, right? “
Guru sees that as a tactical move.
“Some may think I lightened my skin to gain the chains of the mayor. That is a prejudicial way of thinking,” Guru argues. “I’m not becoming white; I’m reducing my blackness.”
He says in an election he knows he must be in charge of his own image. “So, am I a sell-out because I reduce my own blackness? Or am I strategically thinking to get the Pakehas across the line to lose their prejudice? “
The challenge before Guru when he entered the election fray back in 2016 was that “to get across the line to become the mayor” he needed to “take along those people who don’t realise that they’ve got racial prejudice embedded in them.”
His battle was based on the premise that “the Pakeha mindset is subconsciously biased against the colour black,” what with all those negative connotation words such as “ black spot “ and “ blackmail” that litter the English language.
Throughout, Guru was acutely aware that he was up against the deeply entrenched cultural perception that “black means bad.”
So, in his playbook as a non-Pakeha candidate in the mayoral fray, brightening his photo on the billboards was a strategic imperative.
“When you are part of the minority, you’ve got to do that,” Guru explains. “It’s easier for the Pakehas because they don’t have to fight that battle, but coloured people do,”
But Guru was no stranger to racial discrimination. It was embedded in his past in Malaysia, where he traced his roots to the diaspora of indentured labourers.
“In Malaysia, Indians are only 10 per cent of the population and we are the darkest. When you belong to the plantation workers class and are the darkest, you are at the bottom rung of the ladder.”
He followed his older brother to New Zealand to pursue his education, partly to escape his social underdog status and the stigma attached to it, as well as because NZ was the cheapest overseas destination to study in at the time.
All roads led to Kapiti Coast for Guru once he found a Kiwi wife. He worked as a reporter for 15 years, which dovetailed into a political career. “Working for a local paper is not like working as a specialist journalist for the city papers,” Guru notes. “For the local papers you have to write stories on topics like “Mrs Brown’s lost cat” or “Council’s project costs blow up.”
A lot of Guru’s reporting back then was on the council. His by-line and the man behind it became familiar to the community. Throwing his hat in the ring for the local bodies election was almost a natural progression.
Becoming a councillor was the first step. But making the leap to mayor was something else.
“Being a mayor involves a certain gravitas,” Guru explains. “Therefore, it’s not an easy glass ceiling to break.”
He recalls travelling to Malaysia to attend his niece’s wedding after he took office as mayor.
“I was treated as a poster boy. For me to become a mayor was big news,” Guru recalls.
Guru said a question he was always asked was “What do they call you over there when you are the mayor? ”
“The white people call me Your Worship,” was Guru’s reply.
Guru said that “just blew their minds.”
He says for a black person to be called “Your Worship” means a psychological barrier has been broken.
But being an Indian raises his acceptance levels across communities, Guru says.
“I think the fact that I’m Indian, and I’m bald, and wear round glasses and look like Gandhi, also helps,” he says, only partly in jest.
To the mainstream mind Gandhi is a figure that’s acceptable, Guru suggests. “Except for the violence that followed after the country was partitioned, the change-over from British rule was largely peaceful in India.”
Then there is the name Guru, which denotes a spiritual teacher.
“So, I look like Gandhi and am known as Guru. You can’t get a better branding than that,” he quips.
But those assets are peripheral. Guru recognises what matters is the merit you bring to the role, “in making yourself available to the community, the activities you do, the submissions you make on important issues.”
Then why shy away from a third term?
Approaching 70, Guru wants to spend time with his first grandchild, and return to what he calls his “actual calling”--- being a journalist.