The Beginnings of Protest, 1860-1923
< 3. Gandhi in South Africa, 1893-1914 | 5. Conclusion >
CHAPTER I
The Establishment of the Indian Community: The Beginnings of Protest, 1860-1923
4. Formation of the SAIC and the First Three Conferences
On the initiative of the Cape British Indian Council (CBIC) the first session of the South African Indian Congress (SAIC) was held in Cape Town from January 26th to 30th, 1919. After failing at the first attempt in 1917, the CBIC in a letter to the Indian Opinion dated May 21st, 1918 once again called for a national conference. In the appeal letter the president, A. Esmal, and the secretary, A. Ismail, justified the calling of such a conference on the grounds that:
"In view of the disabilities and inconvenience which burden the Indians ... it has been decided to call together delegates from the whole of South Africa... as matters affecting us will simply drift and remain in their present unsatisfactory conditions, unless wejoin hands... and lay our troubles before the authorities. .... It is to be borne in mind that the main object for which we are striving to raise the status of His Majesty's subjects [Indian]. and that this desirable and praise worthy end will never be attained until we put our grievances forward in a united and resolute manner."
But the other organisations remained cool, and it was only after further postponements in August and October that the first conference of the SAIC was opened byj.X. Merriman on January 26th, 1919.
In his opening address the chairman, Sheikh Ismail (president of the CBIC), drew the attention of the delegates to the long list of racially discriminatory practices oppressing the Indians, and the war efforts of the Indians in South Africa. He added that they were meeting, to discuss what action to take on national issues, and that nine years of Union had only increased their grievances and disabilities which were evaded or ignored by the government.
The speech set the tone, and the following three days were taken up by reports and discussions on the problems faced by the different provinces. Some of the delegates called for passive resistance since their pleas were ignored. Aiyar ( Natal) put the opposing case. He deprecated loose, frivolous and violent language and claimed that the Indians should be moderate and constitutional and should only resort to extremes when this government had refused them redress.
Resolutions covering a wide range of issues were adopted and it decided to hold the next conference in Johannesburg. For this purpose a committee of thirty-six was set up made up of twelve members from each province is which had to "devise ways and means" to achieve the objective and to submit a constitution "for consideration to the next South African Indian Conference." Other resolutions dealt with issues as diverse as the franchises price of rice, Natal immigration laws, discrimination in the granting of trade licences in the Cape, the sending of two delegates from each province to a special session of the Indian National Congress in London and finally that South West Africa should not be ceded to the Union unless Indian "British subjects" were treated on an equal basis.
There seems to be no clear-cut reason why the initiative for this important national meeting came from the Cape, and the available literature is not helpful. Nevertheless, the letter of May 21st, 1918 and the nature of some of the resolutions of the conference offer clues from which some deductions can be drawn. They are, firstly the creation of the Union of South Africa in 1910 which gave the country a central government with a parliament (in Cape Town) and white political parties organised on a national scale. Secondly, unlike their counterparts in Natal and Transvaal the Indians in the Cape were not subjected to substantial local pressures and they were thus perhaps not so immersed in their own problems. Moreover of the four provinces, excluding the Orange Free State, the Cape had the smallest Indian population and therefore could have felt that their grievances were better articulated on a broader basis. The converse of it is also tenable, but it was the CBIC that took the initiative. The formation of the African Peoples Organisation in 1902 and the emergence of Dr. Abdurahaman, a Malay, as the leader of the Coloured community could have influenced the Cape Indians as Abdurahaman was also concerned with the unity of the non-white peoples. Finally, for the Indians in the Cape the question of ''status" loomed large since they enjoyed the vote and could be elected as local councillors. These are privileges were threatened by virulent anti-Indian demands. It was also at this time that the Indian traders in the Cape were experiencing great difficulties in obtaining trading licences.
The conference was at least successful in bringing together Indians from the different parts of South Africa, and thereby created a precedent and an environment for opposition on a national scale. Moreover, the first conference was quickly followed by a second later in the same year as result of events in the Transvaal .
In January 1919 the Krugersdorp local council successfully restrained a European owned company from letting its premises to an Indian. This action precipitated a crisis which led to the passing in July of the same year of the Transvaal Land and Trading Amendment Act of 1919. The TBIA vehemently protested against the legislation. It organised mass meetings and petitions and sent protest telegrams to the Viceroy of India, the British Prime Minister, Lord Sinha, Generals Smuts and Botha, Gandhi, H.S.L. Polak, Sir M.M Bhowanaggree and Lord Buxton, the Governor-General of South Africa. In an interview with the latter they requested him to refuse consent to the Act. Lord Buxton, though recognising the validity of the objections, declined to do so.
Having failed to stay the legislation, the TBIA summoned an emergency conference of the SAIC for 3 August 1919. In an appeal couched in an agitational tone the TBIA said:
"It is hoped by means of this conference to safeguard the rights and privileges that have been so dearly won for us by the followers of Mother Hind. If we do not rise to this momentous occasion, then indeed will those heroes have laid down their lives in vain."
The appeal received an enthusiastic response from Natal, the Cape and from the editorial columns of the Indian editorial columns of the Indian Opinion. Just prior to the conference some of the most prominent Indians in the Transvaal signed a passive resistance pledge, which bound the signatories to oppose any law discriminating against the Indians, irrespective of the consequences that such action may entail. That this was an emotional response, and not a carefully planned strategy, became evident when the signatories forgot the pledge during and after the conference. Moreover, none of the resolutions passed at the conference mentioned passive resistance or the pledge. The Conference was attended by 310 delegates, 201 representing the Transvaal, 51 Natal and 58 the Cape Province .
However, the conference, opened by the Mayor of Johannesburg on August 3 rd, met in an atmosphere of anger and on enthusiastic desire for united action. In his presidential speech Albert Christopher detailed the various disabilities suffered by the Indians and called for sacrifices to be made. The speech, moderate in tone and content, did not specify what actions were to be taken or what sacrifices were to be made.
Conference passed over twenty-five resolutions, which reflected the issues discussed. In the resolutions they emphasised the need for a morejust and sympathetic administration of the existing laws, and also demanded the franchise and the repeal of the Rowlatt Act passed by the Indian government.
L.W. Ritch, a European liberal, who was sympathetic to the Indians, commented:
"The high order of intelligence displayed, the close grip and understanding of the issues, the ability with which the discussions were handled should have exploded once end for all the fallacy that the Indians in South Africa are in any sense inherently different either in their outlook or in their ability to consider and handle political subjects from their European fellow citizens of the Dominion.. [and] There were no overt, threats but the whole tone and temper of the very representative gathering were characterised by determination to win all or lose all."
This was perhaps too optimistic an assessment of the achievements of conference. For the national unity achieved by the Indians in coming together at two SAIC conferences within six months was not formalised in terms of a constitution with stated aims and objects; and as yet, any organisation, whether local, regional or provincial could attend the conference as full delegates. Once again a SAIC conference had passed moderate resolutions and did not consider the possibilities or applicability of mass militant struggles as a viable tool of resistance. The delegates were concerned and constrained to create a good impression on the white oriented and dominated superstructure, as to form part of the mores and values of the establishment. It also seems that it had not occurred to the delegates that a comprehensive policy aimed at a national solution and articulation of their grievances demanded at the very least an executive committee, which would act and speak on behalf of the Indian people, and a firm decision to meet within the next twelve months. As it turned out the third SAIC conference was not held until 31 May to 4 June 1923, after an interval of nearly four years.
The NIC failed to convene the third conference principally because it and the other provincial bodies did not see the necessity of calling such a conference since no issues of national proportions had merged. It was still felt that an SAIC conference was on the cards only if there was a Union-wide issue or issues, or threats that required the co-ordinated action of all the provincial organisations.
At the beginning of 1923 the NIC still had no intention of calling a national conference, since on 12 January 1923 they advertised the Annual General Meeting of the NIC and made no reference to the SAIC. But the SAIC were to be overtaken by three events that goaded them into calling the conference. This was firstly, a mass meeting in Cape Town in mid-January, under the auspices of a number of Indian organisations of the Province. At the meeting the chairman, Essop Bikha, said in a passionate tone that "race hatred and tradejealousy" were the two most important factors in the continued anti-Asiatic agitation. This meeting passed a resolution which noted with apprehension the continued anti-Asiatic agitation and demanded that the rest of the Indian population be given the same rights enjoyed by the Indians living in the Cape. Secondly, the Indian Opinion took up the cudgels. In a hard-hitting editorial it fully supported the demands of the Cape meeting and called for united action against anti-Indian legislation and humiliation. The editorial castigated the Indians in the Transvaal and Natal for continuing to resist the increasing pressures by means of protest meetings resolutions and petitions, since these were treated like "scraps of paper." It was, said the editorial, up to the Indians in South Africa, particularly those from Natal, to decide what status they wanted in the Union, and it urged the NIC to fulfil their undertaking to call the conference so that the Indians could make:
"the minimum demands and has them granted. It is useless to cry for full citizenship rights and quietly allow our existing rights to be gradually taken away from us."
Finally came the announcement by the Natal Provincial Council of its intention to re-introduce the Rural Dealers Licensing Ordinance (which the NIC successfully petitioned against in the previous year), giving rural boards arbitrary powers concerning the granting of trading licences.
For the reasons enumerated above, the NIC postponed its own Annual Meeting and convened the third SAIC conference. On Thursday, 31 May the Mayor of Durban officially opened the conference. Thereafter the delegates got down to business and on the following two days adopted the constitution and standing orders of the SAIC. On Saturday and Sunday the Subjects Committee sat all day drafting the resolutions, which were then discussed, on Sunday night and Monday, when the conference ended.
O.H.A. Jhaveri delivered the presidential address, which was once again couched in moderate terms, appealing to the good sense of the Europeans to dojustice to the Indians. However, the speech also included a blistering, attack on segregation but excluded an analysis of the various options open to the SAIC in its struggle to resist the continuous assault of discriminatory legislation and virulent prejudice.
Twenty-two resolutions were adopted by conference with the emphasis on the various statutory and administrative restrictions imposed on the Indians. It was also resolved to send representatives to India every year in order to keep public opinion in India well informed, and to send representatives to the Imperial Conference and the League of Nations. Conference also decided to have its headquarters in Durban until the next conference, which would be held in Cape Town.
The constitution (link to Essop Pahad SAIC constitution RL 06Apr04.doc) laid down that the policy of the SAIC should be non-sectarian and non-partisan in the representation of the Indian people. The main objects of the SAIC were to attempt to unite, and to provide a policy of reciprocity between the constituent organisations, to improve relations between Indians and Europeans and:
"to co-operate as far as possible with other communities and organisations in matters affecting the interests of the people resident in the Union and elsewhere."
Membership consisted of the CBIC, NIC and TBIA, and the SAIC would attempt to meet at least once a year, when a new executive would be elected and new headquarters chosen. Each province was allowed to send 30 delegates to the conference and the SAIC was to be financed by contributions on the following basis: Cape Province £75 p.a., Natal £150 p.a., and the Transvaal £150 p.a.
At the end of the conference the delegates were still immersed in acting moderately as a pressure group. They were satisfied with an attempt to affect amongst white South Africans a change of heart by passing moderate resolutions that would be acceptable to the various government ministries. Once more the delegates did not endeavour to discuss seriously the viability of militant forms of resistance, and the building of the Indian organisations into mass movements with grass-roots contact and participation. They remained an amorphous organisation of the richer and more educated sections that were cut off from their own people and the other non-white political organisations. Nor did it heed the pre-conference advice of the Indian Opinion, which called for the appointment of a full-time organising secretary who could tour the Union.
After Gandhi's departure, his example was not followed by the Indian organisations but by the African Congress (ANC), which was formed on 8 January 1912. The ANC mounted a major anti-pass passive resistance campaign on 30 March 1919. According to Makgatho, the ANC president, the two main reasons for the campaign were the Free State municipal regulations that compelled African men and women to pay 1 shilling a month for residential permits and the fact that when Africans struck work they werejailed, beaten or fined because they contravened their service contracts under the pass laws.
Thousands of Africans burnt their passes and more than 700 were arrested, whilst other Africans were injured by the police and white civilians who molested and often broke up Congress meetings, occasionally with the use of fire-arms. They were, said Makgatho:
"driven like cattle, trampled by mounted policemen. shot at by white volunteers and some men and women are in their graves as a result of their refusal to buy any more passes."
The Congress leaders were determined to maintain their struggle, this was emphasised by a Congress official:
"The white man fights for his rights, and when he does not get them he goes on strike.... But if we fight for our rights the police, lock us up. If a white man can fight for his rights, why can't we?"
There was, the Congress official said, no alternative to passive resistance, as the government "won't listen to us." However, despite this campaign the ANC remained:
"under the leadership of men who still saw the African's place as one of responsible citizenship. Lacking the ruthlessness as well as the organisational strength to maintain such pressures, Congress had therefore to divert attention from passive resistance and began once again to express its opposition constitutionally in evidence to Government commissions and at the Government Conferences initiated under the Native Affairs Act of 1920."
Whereas the previous two SAIC conferences evinced no responses the third conference was the subject of a minor controversy betweenj.W. Godfrey and the SAIC officials.j.W. Godfrey, who was to emerge as a prominent leader in the Indian political organisations, wrote three letters to the Indian Opinion in which he attempted to assess the value and functions of the SAIC.
In the first letter he expressed dissatisfaction at the amount of time spent on drafting and discussing resolutions, and suggested the following remedy: that the executive committee of the SAIC should prepare and circulate to members draft resolutions three months prior to the conference. The draft resolutions could then be discussed at local and provincial levels, which had to submit their suggestions and amendments within one month. Following this, the executive should re-draft the resolutions and once more circulate them to the members. By this method, Godfrey felt that the time spent on drafting and discussing resolutions at Conference would be shortened; that delegates would be properly instructed; and that the mass of the community could thereby be stimulated and given an opportunity to participate at least on one level in the main issues which conference would discuss.
Judging from the Indian Opinion the SAIC ignored this letter, and neither did the letter stimulate a debate within the columns of that weekly. Godfrey's endeavour to stimulate and bring into the organisation the mass of the people deserved consideration, even though in all likelihood the tight time-scale schedule of sending and receiving resolutions would not have worked in practice as it assumed a very efficient organisational machinery and timely and definite responses. In any event his method would not have prevented animated haggling over resolutions at conference.
In the second letter, Godfrey suggested that the SAIC should employ a full time secretary who could deal with all the complicationsarising out of any action, be a propaganda agent and "initiate, promote and give life to Branch Associations." This was a good and workable suggestion. For a full-time functionary, if efficient and hard working, could ensure greater co-ordination of activities and implementation of conference resolutions and decisions. To its regret the SAIC executive also ignored this suggestion (see below chapter IV, p. 199).
Undeterred, Godfrey wrote a third letter, in which he asked the SAIC secretary to answer the following queries:
(a) To whom the resolutions were sent which were passed at the last conference.
(b) What replies if any were received, and
(c) What steps were taken to push matters to a proper conclusion.
This time he did receive the courtesy
of a reply from V.S.C.
Pather,
secretary of the SAIC.
However, Pather merely pointed out that the resolutions were forwarded
to the respective ministries, whose replies could not as yet be published,
and advised Godfrey to apply to the provincial body, in this case the NIC,
for further information.
The tone of Pather's reply suggests that there may have been personal differences between Godfrey and the congress officials that prevented a more fruitful dialogue. Nevertheless, for the SAIC to ignore some of the suggesting showed a lack of understanding, immaturity, and a desire for a "closed shop" approach in the building of a national movement.
