Resolution of the Working Committee of the Indian National Congress, Bombay, March 1946
India National Congress
Resolution of the Working Committee of the Indian National Congress, Bombay, March 1946
The Working Committee of the Indian National Congress are of the opinion that the disabilities of the Indian settlers in South Africa constitute a blot on humanity and a slur on the civilisation of the West. As the submission to His Excellency the Viceroy of the Indian deputation from South Africa shows, the disabilities are an unbroken tale of progressive prejudice against Asiatics defined as "any Turk and any member of a race or tribe whose national home is in Asia but which does not include any member of the Jewish or the Syrian race or a person belonging to the race or class known as the Cape Malay", and of broken promises and declarations. A civilisation that requires for its protection a series of legal enactments imposing political and economic restrictions on coloured and Asiatic peoples must contain seeds of future wars and of its own destruction.
The Committee are of the opinion that the contemplated breach of trade relations between India and the Union of South Africa is the mildest step that the government of India could have taken. The Committee would ask the government of India forthwith to withdraw the High Commissioner, if the Union government would not suspend the proposed legislation, pending the convening of a Round Table Conference between the two governments to consider the whole policy of the Union government against non-white peoples of the earth.
The Committee are painfully surprised to find Field Marshal Smuts, the Premier of the Union, dismissing, on the untenable plea of regarding the proposed anti-Asiatic bill as a domestic affair, the right of the Indian government and, by parity of reasoning, of the other Allied Powers, of friendly intervention. The Committee hold kit at this time of the day it is not open to any State, however powerful it may be, to refuse to listen to the public opinion of the world as voiced through its different States with reference to any legislation regarded by them as of an inhuman character or as amounting to a slur on the self-respect of the races comprising such a State.
The Committee venture to advise the victorious Allies to take notice of the contemplated action of the government of South Africa inasmuch as the late war would have been fought in vain if now the persistence by the Union government of South Africa in the bar sinister against Asiatic races and coloured people inhabiting that sub-continent is maintained. To the Indian deputation from South Africa the Committee would say that whilst they (the Committee) and, indeed, the whole of India, irrespective of parties and communities, are with them in their just struggle and would lend them all the moral weight they can, they should realise that the brunt of the unequal struggle will have to be borne by them, and the Committee feel assured that the Indians in South Africa will worthily carry out the example set by them years ago of vindicating their self-respect and that of the Motherland by the noble rule of suffering. The Committee would, however, fain hope, even at the eleventh hour, that in the place of the indefensible law of the jungle, which the policy as revealed by the contemplated legislation enunciates, the government of the Union of South Africa and its white settlers would listen to reason and the appeal of the moral law by which mankind lives.
Resolution of the Working Committee of the Indian National Congress, Delhi, 15 June 1946
The Congress Working Committee note with satisfaction not unmixed with concern that Indians in South Africa have started the campaign of civil disobedience as a protest against the recently passed legislation by the South African Union Parliament imposing disabilities upon them. The Congress Working Committee is of the opinion that the campaign carries in it the seeds of success in so far as the honour of Indians is concerned as distinguished from the loss of material prospects. The Committee expect that having begun the struggle the resisters will carry it to the end without yielding. The Committee assure the resisters of full sympathy in their brave struggle and hope that those who are not themselves resisters will not on any account succumb to the temptations contained in the legislation itself and such small concessions that may be held out by the Union government. The inferior status assigned to the Indians by the Act can be wiped out only by its complete abrogation. The Committee hopes and expects that while the government of India remains in the British power, His Excellency the Viceroy will use his influence openly on behalf of the brave resisters and thus secure for them the sympathy of the world in this noble struggle for the rights of man.
Resolution of the All India Congress, Bombay, 7 July 1946
The meeting of the AICC, while it is grieved that it has become imperative for the Indian settlers in South Africa, once more to offer Satyagrahain the land of its birth, against a law imposing on them a colour bar far more sinister than the one against which they had put up a brave fight between 1907 and 1914, congratulates the handful of Satyagrahis on their brave but unequal action against heavy odds.
This meeting is pleased to find that doctors and such other men and women are at the head of the gallant struggle and that among them are represented Parsis, Christians, Muslims and Hindus. This meeting is also pleased to find that a few white men like the Reverend Scott have thrown in their lot with the Satyagrahis.
This meeting condemns the action of some white men in resorting to the barbarous method known as lynch law to terrorise the Satyagrahis into submission to the humiliating legislation. It is worthy to note that a large part of the Indians are born and bred in South Africa to whom India exists only in their imagination. These colonial-born Indians have adopted European manners and customs and English has become their mother tongue. This meeting notes with great satisfaction that the Indian resisters are keeping their struggle free from violence in any shape or form and conducting it with dignity and without rancour and that they are thus suffering not only for their self-respect but for the honour of India, and by their heroic resistance setting a noble example to all the exploited peoples of the earth.
This meeting assures the Indian settlers of South Africa of India's full support in this unequal struggle and is firmly of the opinion tat persistence in it is bound to crown their effort with success.
This meeting appeals to H. E. the Viceroy to use all his endeavour and ensure that of the British government in aid of this struggle and invites the European residents of India to raise their voice in protest against white hooliganism and the anti-Asiatic and anti-colour legislation if South Africa.
