PANDIT NEHRU AND THE UNITY OF THE OPPRESSED PEOPLE OF SOUTH AFRICA

The historic role of Gandhiji has overshadowed the crucial role of Pandit Nehru and others in encouraging and promoting the unity of the Indians in South Africa with the African majority in the common struggle against racism, and in organising international support for the struggle.

Perhaps the first political activity of Jawaharlal Nehru after return from England as a barrister was to join the campaign against the recruitment of indentured labour for Fiji and South Africa, and to throw himself into the fund-raising campaign, launched by Gopal Krishna Gokhale, in support of Gandhiji's Satyagraha in South Africa. That was in 1912 - the year when the African National Congress was founded.

At the Brussels Congress against Imperialism, February 10-15, 1927, Jawaharlal Nehru met the South African delegation which consisted of Josiah T. Gumede, President of the ANC; J.A. La Guma, a Coloured leader of the Communist Party; and D. Colraine of the South African Congress of Trade Unions. The three jointly drafted the resolution on South Africa which was adopted by the Congress. Later that year, Nehru, Gumede and La Guma were guests at the tenth anniversary celebrations of the October revolution in Moscow.

Pandit Nehru, in his report to the Indian National Congress on the Brussels Congress, noted with pleasure that the South African delegates worked together. "In these days of race hatred in South Africa and the ill-treatment of Indians," he wrote, "it was pleasing to hear the representative of the white workers giving expression to the most advanced opinions on the equality of races and of workers of all races."

He added in a further report:

"The South African delegates have undertaken to form a branch of the League (against Imperialism) in South Africa in collaboration with the advanced wing of the white workers, the African workers, the African (National) Congress and the South African Indian Congress. This branch will specially work against all colour legislation and discrimination. So far there has not been much cooperation between these different organisations and each one of them has had to fight its battle singly. The white workers have of course not only not helped but have been the partisans of the colour discrimination policy. It will therefore be a great gain if the League succeeds in bringing about some cooperation and specially in associating at least the advanced white workers with the oppressed races in South Africa. A recent agreement between the Government of South Africa and India has apparently been approved in India. I am unable to express an opinion on it, though it does not seem to me to go very far. But in any event it would be foolish to imagine that the troubles of Indian settlers in South Africa are over and the help of the other communities should be very welcome."

The plans of the South African delegates at Brussels for unity in the struggle in South Africa did not come to fruition for many years.

Mr. Gumede was, in fact, forced to leave the presidency of the African National Congress in 1930, because of the opposition of chiefs, who exercised considerable influence in the organisation at that time.

But very significant developments were taking place in South Africa towards unity in the struggle.

While Indian traders and some professionals in the leadership of the Indian Congresses were always compromising with the racist regime and seeking only some mitigation of discrimination, a new generation of Indians, born and raised in South Africa, sought nothing less than full equality. They were active in the trade union movement where they cooperated with African and other workers.

In the thirties, many of them were influenced by Marxism. A Young "Liberal" Study Group in Durban became a forum where radical Indians and Africans met to discuss the common problem of the elimination of racism.

A Non-European United Front was formed at a conference in Cape Town on April 25, 1939, attended by representatives of 45 organisations, "for the cooperation of Native, Indian and Coloured races in the struggle against the colour bar in South Africa."

It was led by Mrs. Zainunisa (Cissie) Gool, daughter of Dr. Abdulla Abdurahman, and wife of Dr. A.H. Gool, a former President of the South African Indian Congress. Dr. Yusuf M. Dadoo and Dr. H.A. Naidoo were among several Indians in the leadership of this Front.

Understanding and support for this movement grew rather slowly in India since the "moderates" in the South African Indian Congress, rather than the young radicals, had access to Mahatma Gandhi and other leaders in India.

At the meeting of the All India Congress Committee in June 1939, Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia, then head of the Foreign Department of the Congress, moved an amendment to the resolution on the problems of Indians in South Africa urging them "to join hands with other Non-Europeans to form a front to oppose the segregation policy." Gandhiji pointed out that the amendment does not belong in the resolution which concerned violations of undertakings by the South African Government on the rights of the Indian community. The amendment was then withdrawn at the request of Pandit Nehru.

Gandhiji's subsequent statement, that the South African regime's policy of segregation of Indians had nothing to do with the policy concerning the Africans, embarrassed young Indian leaders in the Transvaal who were preparing for resistance against racist oppression and espoused unity with the African majority. It provoked considerable criticism in India.

Even Sir Sayed Raza Ali, former Indian Agent-General in South Africa, said in a statement that "the All India Congress Committee made a serious blunder by deleting from the resolution the passage supporting the Non-European front."

"Mahatmaji cannot be unaware of the fact that segregation as a policy was first enforced against the Bantu race. The trouble is that Mahatmaji's knowledge is quarter of a century old...

"I am afraid that Mahatma Gandhi has done a great deal of harm to our people."

Replying to Sir Sayed, Gandhiji wrote in the Harijan:

"I have carefully read Sir Raza Ali's condemnation of my advice to Indians in South Africa not to embark upon a non-European Front. My advice may be bad on merits, but does not become bad because I have been absent from South Africa for a quarter of a century. I have no doubts about the soundness of my advice. However much one may sympathise with the Bantus, Indians cannot make common cause with them.

"I doubt if the Bantus themselves will, as a class, countenance any such move. They can only damage and complicate their cause by mixing it up with Indians; as Indians would damage theirs by such mixture. But neither the All India Congress Committee resolution, nor my advice need deter Indians from forming a Non-European Front, if they are sure thereby of winning their freedom. Indeed had they thought it beneficial or possible, they would have formed it long ago."

Gandhiji had not been aware of the trends towards unity in South Africa. His attitude represented no lack of regard for the rights and aspirations of the African people. He had declared in an interview with the Reverend S. Tema of the African National Congress of South Africa, at the beginning of that year:

"The Indians are a microscopic minority... You, on the other hand, are the sons of the soil who are being robbed of your inheritance. You are bound to resist that. Yours is a far bigger issue. It ought not to be mixed up with that of the Indian. This does not preclude the establishment of the friendliest relations between the two races."

It is to the credit of Gandhiji that he was to revise his views in the light of further developments.

In 1946, when a delegation of Indians from South Africa, led by Sorabjee Rustomjee, met him to seek his support and advice for a mass passive resistance campaign against the Ghetto Act, Gandhiji told them - echoing Nehru - to associate Africans with the struggle.

"The slogan today," he said, "is no longer merely 'Asia for the Asiatics' or 'Africa for the Africans' but the unity of all the oppressed races of the earth." He lent full support to Dr. Yusuf M. Dadoo and Dr. G. M. Naicker, leaders of the passive resistance.

Next year, when Dr. Dadoo and Dr. Naicker visited India, Gandhiji held lengthy discussions with them and gave them a message in which he said:

"Political cooperation among all the exploited races in South Africa can only result in mutual good if wisely directed."

Nehru, meanwhile, had significant influence on the thinking of young militants in South Africa. His writings were avidly read by Indians as well as Africans as testified by the moving letter sent by Nelson Mandela from prison when he received the Nehru Award for International Understanding.

India's complaint to the United Nations on the treatment of Indians in South Africa was taken up soon after Jawaharlal Nehru became head of the Interim Government in September 1946. The Indian delegation took care to ensure that India's espousal of the rights of people of Indian origin was in the context of opposition to all racial discrimination. India helped to secure support for the freedom movement from governments as well as world public opinion. The India League in London set up a South Africa Committee to promote solidarity with that movement.

In 1947, the Indian Government was inclined, at the request of Dr. Dadoo and Dr. Naicker, to propose United Nations sanctions against South Africa. But the strong support received by the Smuts regime from the Western Powers with the beginning of the "Cold War" and the problems during the transition of India to independence, made that impracticable. In fact, India was unable to obtain a two-thirds majority even for a mild resolution of censure of South Africa. A resolution on sanctions had to await an appeal by the ANC in 1958 and the Sharpeville massacre of 1960.

In 1952, however, India was able, with the support of other Asian and Arab States, to place the whole problem of apartheid on the agenda of the United Nations General Assembly.

The struggle and sacrifice of the Indians in South Africa, and the actions of the Indian Government under the leadership of Nehru, persuaded African militants to overcome their hesitations about multi-racial unity and build a united democratic front.

Jawaharlal Nehru was always responsive to requests from the leaders of the movement in South Africa.

In 1955, when India secured the exclusion of South Africa from invitations to the Asian-African Conference in Bandung, ANC wished to send Moses Kotane and Moulvi Cachalia as observers to the Conference. It approached Pandit Nehru for assistance: he offered not only to take them with him but to introduce them to all the leaders at the Conference.

In 1960, when Oliver Tambo and Dr. Yusuf Dadoo escaped from South Africa, he provided them urgently with Indian travel documents and transport from Dar es Salaam to London. He met them soon after and took initiatives to secure the exclusion of South Africa from the Commonwealth the next year.

While exhorting Indians abroad to identify with the legitimate aspirations of the indigenous people, he educated Indian public opinion to recognise that the problem of Indians in South Africa was inseparable from the struggle of the African people. He said in a speech in Rajya Sabha on December 15, 1958:

"The question of the people of Indian descent in South Africa has really merged into bigger questions where not only Indians are affected but the whole African population along with... any other people who happen to go to South Africa and who do not belong to the European or American countries."

He said in the Lok Sabha on March 28, 1960, after the Sharpeville massacre:

"The people of Indian descent, as we well know, have had to put up with a great deal of discrimination and suffering and we have resented that. But we must remember that the African people have to put up with something infinitely more, and that, therefore, our sympathies must go out to them even more than to our kith and kin there."

By then, the movement in South Africa had made tremendous strides in forging the unity of the oppressed people, as well as democratic whites, which Nehru had envisaged in 1927. He had himself made a significant contribution, as a national leader and as head of government, to promoting that unity in struggle.