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
15 - Digging Their Own Grave: Debating the Future of the NIC
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
As the political environment changed dramatically, what would become of those old warhorses − some would say Trojan horses − of the Charterist tradition, the Indian Congresses?
Many activists within these organisations had paid a heavy price to keep the Freedom Charter in the public domain, helping to build the ANC's underground structures and supporting the armed struggle. Others saw their professional careers ruined as they suffered detentions and banning orders. They also faced down criticism for persisting with the ‘I’ in the NIC. From within the very organisation they had helped to build, the UDF, they faced the slur of cabal. Through all this they had defended the NIC/TIC as a surrogate of the ANC and representative of its ideals.
The unbanning of the ANC in February 1990 caught NIC leaders on the horns of a dilemma. They had sacrificed their lives for this moment, and many became members of the ANC legally for the first time. But what about the Indian community as a whole? How best to carry Indian South Africans into the new dispensation that was fraught with ongoing violence and threats of re(dis)tribution?
Differences of opinion emerged within the NIC once the ANC was unbanned. Mewa Ramgobin was one of the first to enter the fray, stating in a 1990 interview that the unbanning of the ANC meant that ‘there may be a limited lifespan for the NIC, especially as the democratic movement is now seeking to build non-racial constituencies for the creation of a future non-racial, democratic and united South Africa’.
In a speech delivered at an NIC meeting in Ladysmith on 29 April 1990, Ramgobin warned:
An indefinite lifespan for the NIC is neither in the interests of the Indian Community nor will it be in step with the new historical forces operative in our country. Since we in 1971 were bold enough to demonstrate the need for the re-emergence of the NIC, let us be bolder enough, now, to demonstrate that our historical role has been played, and therefore we will suspend all activities under its auspices and add to the glory of the ANC by facilitating for the first time in its own history, in formal terms, to make it a truly non-racial political formation, to which we commit our own destiny.
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- Information
- Colour, Class and CommunityThe Natal Indian Congress, 1971-1994, pp. 257 - 270Publisher: Wits University PressPrint publication year: 2021