Edited by E. S. Reddy
February 1992
Mr. V. K. Krishna Menon, as Chairman of the delegation of India to the United Nations General Assembly from 1953 to 1962, made a number of speeches on the problem of apartheid and racial situation in South Africa. I have compiled and edited them as they are a valuable source for a study of the liberation struggle in South Africa, as well as of the United Nations and India`s foreign policy.(1)
Mr. Menon had a keen understanding of the situation in South Africa, having been in close contact since the 1930s with Dr. Yusuf M. Dadoo and other leaders of the South African Indian community whom he encouraged in building the unity of the Indian community with the African people in the common struggle against racist domination. He made a significant contribution to the development of international solidarity with the South African liberation movement.
When the Indian Congresses launched the passive resistance campaign in 1946, as head of the India League in London, he established a South Africa Committee to publicise the struggles of the Indians as well as the African majority. He was in New York later that year as a member of the Indian delegation to the first session of the General Assembly. A joint delegation of the African National Congress and the Indian Passive Resistance Council arrived in New York to seek support. Mr. Menon spoke at a public meeting organised for them by the Council on African Affairs led by Mr. Paul Robeson.
Later, as High Commissioner for India in London, he was able to help the South African freedom movement in contacts with Prime Minister Nehru and the Indian Government.
His statements in the United Nations General Assembly, since he returned as head of the Indian delegation, reflect his intimate knowledge of the subject, his intense detestation of apartheid and his passionate support for the freedom movement.
The United Nations had been seized with the racial problem in South Africa since 1946 when an item on the "treatment of people of Indian origin in the Union of South Africa" was included in the agenda of its General Assembly at the request of India. (2)
The Indian complaint was originally lodged even before India had a national government - by the British authorities in India - because of the pressure of public opinion. The Asiatic Land Tenure and Indian Representation Bill - designed to restrict Indian landownership and segregate the Indian community - was introduced in the South African Parliament by the Smuts Government in March 1946 and enacted in June. Following an appeal by the South African Indian Congress, which sent a delegation to India to seek support, the Government of India made representations to the South African Government and proposed a round table conference, but was rebuffed. It then terminated the trade agreement with South Africa, recalled its High Commissioner and imposed a trade embargo. It stated in its complaint to the United Nations that the actions of the South African Government had created a situation likely to impair friendly relations between the two countries, and were, therefore, appropriate for consideration by the United Nations under its Charter.
The Indian community in South Africa launched a passive resistance campaign in June 1946 and over two thousand men and women courted imprisonment. A few whites, Coloured people and Africans joined the movement in solidarity with the Indians.
India`s complaint was based on the premise that the Asiatic Act was a violation of the 1927 Cape Town Agreement between India and South Africa and of the provisions of the United Nations Charter. The South African Government claimed that the Cape Town Agreement was not an international agreement,(3) and that, by virtue of Article 2, paragraph 7, of the United Nations Charter, the General Assembly could not consider the complaint as it related to domestic affairs of South Africa.(4)
When the matter was debated in the General Assembly, India had to focus on the legal aspects of the problem in terms of the Cape Town Agreement as it affected Indians - because of the composition of the United Nations at the time and its reluctance to deal seriously with colonial and racial problems. But the Government of India, now led by Pandit Nehru, already recognised that the discrimination against Indians was part of the larger problem of racist domination in South Africa. It used the forum of the United Nations not only to protest further discrimination against the Indians but to draw attention to the wider aspects and repercussions.
The General Assembly rejected the South African objection by increasing majorities at each annual session. Though South Africa ignored repeated appeals to bring the treatment of Indians into conformity with its obligations as a member of the United Nations, and to negotiate with India and Pakistan, the debates helped promote international awareness of the racial policies of South Africa, and build a consensus against apartheid - the policy proclaimed by the Nationalist Government which came to power in 1948.
In 1950, India, Pakistan and the Union of South Africa agreed to hold a round table conference. But that proved abortive as South Africa enacted and began to implement the Group Areas Act, 1950, which involved even greater discrimination and stricter segregation than the 1946 Act. It rejected appeals by the United Nations to refrain from implementing the provisions of the Act. The Assembly continued annually to deplore the intransigence of the apartheid regime.
Meanwhile, in June 1952, as the Nationalist Government proceeded to enact a series of racist and repressive measures to consolidate white supremacy, the African National Congress and the South African Indian Congress launched a joint "Campaign of Defiance against Unjust Laws", demanding the abrogation of a number of obnoxious laws. Over 8,000 people of all racial origins were imprisoned in this multi-racial non-violent campaign.
India and twelve other Asian-Arab states then proposed the discussion of another item in the General Assembly, entitled "question of race conflict resulting from the policies of apartheid of the Government of the Union of South Africa". The discussion of the Indian complaint, and the excesses of the South African regime, prepared the political and legal basis to obtain adequate support for the discussion of this broader item.
The two items were considered separately until 1962 when they were merged, at the request of India, into a single item under the title "the policies of apartheid of the Government of the Republic of South Africa".
The speeches in this collection are between 1953 and 1962, which was a very difficult period for the freedom movement in South Africa.
The Defiance Campaign was suspended in 1953 when the regime enacted legislation to impose long terms of imprisonment, and even whippings, on non-violent passive resisters. It proceeded to try to prevent effective peaceful protest by serving "banning orders" on leaders of the movement. In December 1956, it detained 156 leaders and charged them with "high treason": the trial dragged on for four years before they were all acquitted.
It enacted further racist laws enforcing strict racial segregation in education, abolishing the trade union rights of the Africans, removing even the token representation of the Africans and Coloured people in Parliament etc. The Group Areas Act was enforced ruthlessly to uproot Indians and others from their homes and businesses.
Despite the great difficulties, the African, Indian and other Congresses carried on campaigns of resistance such as the boycott of segregated schools, bus boycotts, potato boycott, and mass protests against the extension of pass laws to African women.
The growing tension in the country led to the Sharpeville massacre of unarmed demonstrators on March 21, 1960, and the banning of the African National Congress and other organisations. In 1961, the liberation movement, with many of its leaders now underground or in exile, decided that it could no longer adhere strictly to non-violence, and undertook sabotage and other armed actions. It appealed to the international community for sanctions against South Africa.
In response to these developments, Prime Minister Nehru told the Indian Parliament on December 15, 1958, that the question of people of Indian descent in South Africa had really merged into bigger questions affecting all the oppressed people of that country. He declared on March 28, 1960, a week after the Sharpeville massacre:
"The people of Indian descent, as we all 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."
The Indian Government constantly tried, at the risk of Western displeasure, to promote world opinion against apartheid and in support of the freedom movement.
The major Western Powers, for their own strategic and other reasons, constantly pressed the Asian-African countries to be "moderate" and to avoid condemnation of the South African regime. Their pressure increased in the period 1954-58 when that regime became more intransigent and refused to participate in the work of the General Assembly. Even as South Africa showed contempt for the United Nations and world opinion, they treated South Africa as a valuable ally and reinforced their economic and military relations with it.
Mr. Menon was particularly disappointed that the United Kingdom and the white Commonwealth countries, which bore a responsibility for the problem, opposed all United Nations action against racial discrimination in South Africa.
India, for some time, was as restrained in statements and resolutions as it could be under the circumstances. It entertained some hope that pressure of world opinion might encourage liberal elements among the whites in South Africa and facilitate a move away from apartheid. Mr. Menon spoke mainly on the treatment of Indians in South Africa until 1959, and tried to avoid the charge of making negotiations difficult. But from 1959, he spoke on the wider problem, reviewing the rapidly deteriorating situation in South Africa and its repercussions, and calling for concerted action by the world community against apartheid.
He constantly stressed that South Africa belonged to all its people, and not to its white minority alone, and paid tribute to to all those struggling against apartheid under great difficulties. He repeatedly expressed the hope that freedom and democracy will prevail in South Africa, making it possible for India to establish friendly relations with that country. He said on November 15, 1956, for instance:
"My Government and my people are not without hope that that vast population of 10 million people, to all of whom that country belongs... will one day, however hard the road, however great the obstacles and however severe the prejudices, break the bonds that now bind them and become citizens of a civilised humanity. We hope that we shall be able to establish with them unbreakable bonds of friendship and fraternity."
New York E. S. Reddy March 1992
On "Treatment of People of Indian Origin in the Union of South Africa"
In reply to the representative of South Africa
On "Treatment of People of Indian Origin in the Union of South Africa"
FURTHER STATEMENT IN THE AD HOC POLITICAL COMMITTEE, OCTOBER 28, 1954
On the inclusion in the agenda of items on "Treatment of People of Indian Origin in the Union of South Africa" and "Question of Race Conflict resulting from the Policies of Apartheid of the Government of the Union of South Africa"
On "Treatment of People of Indian Origin in the Union of South Africa"
On the inclusion in the agenda of item on "Treatment of People of Indian Origin in the Union of South Africa"
On "Treatment of People of Indian Origin in the Union of South Africa"
On "Treatment of People of Indian Origin in the Union of South Africa"
On "Question of Race Conflict in South Africa resulting from the Policies of Apartheid of the Government of the Union of South Africa"
On the inclusion in the agenda of items on "treatment of People of Indian and Indo-Pakistan Origin in the Union of South Africa" and "Question of Race Conflict resulting from the Policies of Apartheid of the Government of the Union of South Africa"
On "Question of Race Conflict resulting from the Policies of Apartheid of the Government of the Republic of South Africa"
In reply to the Foreign Minister of South Africa, Eric Louw
(1). Most of the statements are taken from the official records of the United Nations. The official records reproduce speeches in plenary meetings in verbatim and speeches in committees in summary. Verbatim texts of three speeches in the Special Political Committee of the General Assembly (in 1957, 1959 and 1961), are reproduced here from Foreign Affairs Record, published by the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi.
The speeches are slightly condensed. Some purely procedural interventions and explanations of vote are omitted.
Repetition was unavoidable as the matter was considered annually by the United Nations and there was little material change, except for a steady deterioration of the situation.
(2). Pakistan associated itself with the complaint when it became a member of the United Nations in 1947.
(3). At a round table conference between December 17, 1926, and January 12, 1927, the Governments of South Africa and India agreed to cooperate in assisting Indians wishing to leave South Africa for India. South Africa pledged to promote "upliftment" of Indians who remained in South Africa and agreed to withdraw pending restrictive legislation against Indians.
Another round table conference in 1932 to review the operation of the agreement reaffirmed its provisions.
The conferences did not produce formal treaties: their results were announced in joint communiques, signed and ratified by the two Governments.
(4). Article 2, paragraph 7, of the Charter reads:
"Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require the Members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter; but this principle shall not prejudice the application of enforcement measures under Chapter VII."