Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Acronyms and Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Repression, Revelation and Resurrection: The Revival of the NIC
- 2 Black Consciousness and the Challenge to the ‘I’ in the NIC
- 3 Between Principle and Pragmatism: Debates over the SAIC, 1971−1978
- 4 Changing Geographies and New Terrains of Struggle
- 5 Class(rooms) of Dissent: Education Boycotts and Democratic Trade Unions, 1976−1985
- 6 Lenin and the Duma Come to Durban: Reigniting the Participation Debate
- 7 The Anti-SAIC Campaign of 1981: Prefigurative Politics?
- 8 Botha’s 1984 and the Rise of the UDF
- 9 Letters from Near and Afar: The Consulate Six
- 10 Inanda, Inkatha and Insurrection: 1985
- 11 Building Up Steam: Operation Vula and Local Networks
- 12 Between Fact and Factions: The 1987 Conference
- 13 ‘Caught With Our Pants Down’: The NIC and the Crumbling of Apartheid 1988−1990
- 14 Snapping the Strings of the UDF
- 15 Digging Their Own Grave: Debating the Future of the NIC
- 16 The Ballot Box, 1994: A Punch in the Gut?
- 17 Between Rajbansi’s ‘Ethnic Guitar’ and the String of the ANC Party List
- Conclusion: A Spoke in the Wheel
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
11 - Building Up Steam: Operation Vula and Local Networks
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 October 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Acronyms and Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Repression, Revelation and Resurrection: The Revival of the NIC
- 2 Black Consciousness and the Challenge to the ‘I’ in the NIC
- 3 Between Principle and Pragmatism: Debates over the SAIC, 1971−1978
- 4 Changing Geographies and New Terrains of Struggle
- 5 Class(rooms) of Dissent: Education Boycotts and Democratic Trade Unions, 1976−1985
- 6 Lenin and the Duma Come to Durban: Reigniting the Participation Debate
- 7 The Anti-SAIC Campaign of 1981: Prefigurative Politics?
- 8 Botha’s 1984 and the Rise of the UDF
- 9 Letters from Near and Afar: The Consulate Six
- 10 Inanda, Inkatha and Insurrection: 1985
- 11 Building Up Steam: Operation Vula and Local Networks
- 12 Between Fact and Factions: The 1987 Conference
- 13 ‘Caught With Our Pants Down’: The NIC and the Crumbling of Apartheid 1988−1990
- 14 Snapping the Strings of the UDF
- 15 Digging Their Own Grave: Debating the Future of the NIC
- 16 The Ballot Box, 1994: A Punch in the Gut?
- 17 Between Rajbansi’s ‘Ethnic Guitar’ and the String of the ANC Party List
- Conclusion: A Spoke in the Wheel
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
While members of the post-1971 NIC publicly embraced Gandhi and his principle of non-violent resistance (satyagraha) on every possible occasion, they did not openly criticise the activities of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the armed wing of the ANC. When it was put to Jerry Coovadia that there appeared to be a contradiction between some activists’ involvement in MK and the organisation's public endorsement of Gandhi, he responded:
We saw the armed wing of the ANC. We saw how things were going in the country. We saw the fights between the cops and all of us. We saw the violence of the struggle. To us, to think of satyagraha in that context just didn't seem right. Gandhi was fine for India … but we were looking at Cuba, looking at Vietnam, looking at all those struggles and there comes Gandhi and he didn't sound right for us.
In a 1968 call for Indian youth to join MK, Yusuf Dadoo explained that passive resistance was a method, not a principle, of the Indian Congresses:
Passive resistance was never the ideology of the organisation, although it had been used as a method of struggle since it was introduced by Gandhiji in the early part of this century. The principles of Satyagraha as enunciated by Gandhiji were never accepted as a creed by the Indian people. It is true that in the [South African Indian Congress], as a national organisation representing all interests and all viewpoints, there are some leaders − like Dr. G.M. [Monty] Naicker and Nana Sita − who implicitly believe in Gandhian principles and who have lived by them; and of course we honour their convictions and their sufferings for their convictions.
Indian activists joined MK from its inception and a significant tranche of NIC members supported the building of ANC underground structures. NIC activists such as Ebrahim Ebrahim, Billy Nair and Sunny Singh were among the first to be imprisoned on Robben Island for MK activities. Even the most Gandhian of Gandhians in the NIC, George Sewpersadh, defended the turn to armed struggle when he said:
I never really joined the armed struggle, but I was never opposed to it. The ANC, when it was banned, it couldn't operate here in South Africa and the people had no other alternative but to be involved in armed struggle. So I think from that point of view it was justified.
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- Colour, Class and CommunityThe Natal Indian Congress, 1971-1994, pp. 191 - 208Publisher: Wits University PressPrint publication year: 2021