I am glad to be in your midst after a brief incarceration of three months.
I am proud of the Indian people. The discomforts of prison life mattered little before the knowledge that the response of the Indian people to the call of Passive Resistance against the Ghetto Act and for the elementary rights of citizenship has been total and united. In the short period of three months over 700 brave men and women have suffered imprisonment and have sacrificed for the cause of our people. I am now informed that hundreds more are prepared for the call to duty.
The Indian people in South Africa although only a quarter of a million are making history. They are once again proving their determination to fight for their inalienable right to live as free, equal and self- respecting citizens of South Africa and they are throwing themselves into the struggle regardless of the cost in sorrow and suffering.
We look forward to the future with confidence and courage. The sacrifices of the Indian people symbolising their resistance are making their impressions already. Of the many positive features of the struggle the first is the total and united opposition of the community to the Asiatic Land and Indian Representation Act. The Government of South Africa miscalculated the determination of the Indian people. The Government has been confounded. Secondly the active participation of the Indian women, our brave sisters, indicates the depth of the political consciousness and readiness of the people to struggle rather than submit to Fascist practices. Thirdly the support from other sections of the non-European peoples and also from the genuine liberal section of the European population is an indication of the emergence of a new force in the political field of South Africa, fighting for democracy for all, for a great united and happy South Africa.
Our first objective is the United Nations Assembly. Our struggle has condemned as nothing else has done before, the fascist practices and colour oppression of the Union Government. The South African Government must answer for its criminal misdeeds at the bar of world opinion.
The South African Government is already feeling the pinch. The acute shortage of gunny bags has already created a serious situation. Our united efforts are proving effective. THE UNITED NATIONS ASSEMBLY MUST HEAR OUR CASE. We must continue without faltering and without flinching in our non-violent struggle of Passive Resistance. WE SHALL RESIST. THE GHETTO ACT MUST BE REPEALED. WE WILL VINDICATE OUR SELF-RESPECT AND THE HONOUR OF INDIA. WE SHALL CARRY ON.
Yusuf Mohamed Dadoo South Africa's Freedom Struggle: Statements, Speeches and Articles including Correspondence with Mahatma Gandhi
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