By Gabriel Manyati
It was a photograph that seemed to transport South Africa back a decade, straight into the dark epicentre of institutional pillage. There stood former president Jacob Zuma, smiling warmly alongside businessman Ajay Gupta, one of the three notorious brothers whose names became universally synonymous with the era of state capture.
Within hours of the images circulating online, social media exploded, political parties issued scathing statements, and anti-corruption activists reacted with a mixture of disbelief and deep-seated fury.
For many South Africans, this was not simply a private reunion between old acquaintances. It was a visceral reminder of one of the most traumatic chapters in the country’s democratic history. Taking place around 26 June 2026 at the Sidipeeth Shri Dakshin Kali Temple in the pilgrim city of Haridwar, India, the encounter has done more than just trend online. It has reopened a profound national wound and forced an unsettling question back to the surface: did the era of state capture ever really end, or has it merely gone global?
The controversy surrounding Zuma’s visit has once again thrust the 84-year-old former president and the Gupta family into the centre of national debate, upending diplomatic protocol and triggering a fierce executive backlash. In video clips that emerged from the prayer event, a garlanded Zuma openly referred to Ajay Gupta as his “brother and friend” who had been unfairly forced to leave South Africa. More ominously for the domestic political landscape, Zuma expressed absolute confidence that he would return to power after receiving blessings at the temple, declaring, “I decided to take a decision to retake the country forward. I am contesting.”
According to Zuma’s supporters, particularly within the uMkhonto weSizwe Party, there is nothing sinister about the meeting. They argue that the former president is a private citizen entitled to travel wherever he chooses and that no law prevents him from associating with long-time friends. They insist that years of investigations and commissions have failed to yield successful criminal convictions against Zuma relating to state capture. For this constituency, Zuma remains a liberation hero unfairly targeted by political rivals, and the backlash merely consolidates their deep-seated sense of political grievance.
His critics, however, see an entirely different and dangerous reality. To them, the images represent a profound act of political defiance and a calculated insult to the rule of law. The fury generated by the photographs is magnified because few families have inflicted greater damage on South Africa’s socio-economic fabric than the Guptas.
The Gupta brothers arrived in South Africa from India in the 1990s, building a sprawling business empire with interests ranging from mining and information technology to media. Their proximity to Jacob Zuma during his presidency allowed them to construct an extraordinary network of undue influence over the state apparatus. The subsequent Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture, chaired by Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, painted a devastating picture of systematic decay. The commission established that the Guptas collectively siphoned off at least R15 billions of public funds, eviscerating critical state-owned enterprises like Eskom, Transnet, and South African Airways to repurpose public power for private gain.
While the National Prosecuting Authority’s current extradition proceedings and Interpol Red Notices specifically target Ajay’s brothers, Atul and Rajesh, Ajay Gupta himself remains a central archetype of this institutional collapse. For a former head of state to embrace him on foreign soil is seen by millions as a blatant validation of an organised syndicate that drained the nation’s wealth.
What has elevated this incident from a domestic political spat into a full-blown diplomatic crisis is the presence of South Africa’s High Commissioner to India, Professor Anil Sooklal, who was captured in the photos and videos alongside Zuma and Gupta. This official presence has deeply embarrassed the Government of National Unity and raised serious questions about state complicity and parallel foreign policy.
The state reaction has been swift and unyielding. International Relations and Cooperation Minister Ronald Lamola called the encounter “very disturbing” and immediately ordered an internal departmental investigation into why the High Commissioner participated. Lamola emphasised that while Zuma retains certain travel privileges as a former head of state, those privileges do not give him the right to conduct an independent, rogue foreign policy that undermines domestic legal frameworks.
Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni went even further during a post-Cabinet briefing, describing Sooklal’s presence as a absolute disgrace and accusing Zuma of openly and unapologetically showing the middle finger to South Africans who lost their livelihoods to Zuma-era corruption. Ntshavheni warned that the government is actively reviewing the financial and travel privileges extended to former presidents, stating that an employee of the state should not be hobnobbing with individuals implicated in plundering the country.
The opposition Democratic Alliance has added fuel to the fire, raising the stakes by claiming in parliament’s portfolio committee that High Commissioner Sooklal may have received official written instructions from within the Department of International Relations and Cooperation to receive Zuma. If true, it points to a lingering, deep-seated institutional capture that extends well beyond South Africa’s borders.
The timing of this encounter is also heavily loaded with political signaling. With crucial local government elections approaching, Zuma’s MK Party has established itself as a highly disruptive force, drawing heavily on populist resentment and voter disillusionment. By showcasing his enduring ties to wealthy benefactors and claiming divine backing for a political comeback, Zuma is signaling to his base that he remains unbowed by the formal structures of the South African state. It is a calculated display of impunity, designed to show that his brand of politics operates above the reach of conventional accountability.
The significance of the Haridwar photographs extends far beyond party politics. They have forced South Africans to confront an uncomfortable truth. Despite years of judicial commissions, promises of renewal, and institutional clean-ups, the country remains deeply fractured over Zuma’s legacy. To his detractors, he is the leader under whose watch corruption flourished and a generation’s future was stolen. To his core loyalists, the global outcry merely confirms a long-standing belief that he is subjected to selective justice by an establishment determined to keep him from power.
The controversy is ultimately not about whether an elderly former president has the legal right to visit an old associate at a temple. It is about the symbolic weight of the rule of law in a fragile democracy. The image of Zuma, a state diplomat, and a state-capture architect standing together under the guise of spiritual blessing tells South Africans that the reckoning with the past remains fundamentally incomplete.
South Africa may have desperately tried to turn the page on the devastation of state capture, but as long as its primary architects and enablers can flaunt their alliance on the global stage, the country will never truly close the chapter.
