Barney “Rissik” Desai was born on 10 April 1932 in Durban. He grew up as an Indian but was "reclassified" Coloured in 1957.Desai was the Vice President of the South African Coloured People's Congress before leaving South Africa in the early 1960s. At the time of the Defiance Campaign he helped to produce a short-lived newspaper called Spark, and he was subsequently banned. Elected to the Cape Town City Council in 1962, he was prohibited by the government from taking his seat and shortly thereafter left the country. In 1970 he qualified as a lawyer in Britain. Despite his past con­nections with the Congress alliance, he has associated himself with the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) in exile. Desai died in 1997.

References

• Gerhart G.M and Karis T. (ed)(1977)
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