The Gandhi-Smuts settlement formalized Indians as repatriable sojourners in South Africa

Evidence

One of its most controversial clauses was the one in which the government undertook to provide free passage to Indians who wished to return permanently to India. It reinforced and formalised the idea that Indians were sojourners who could be repatriated. (In their 1948 election manifesto the apartheid National Party called for the repatriation of all Indians. Indians finally became full-fledged citizens only in 1960, when South Africa became a republic.) — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 263