Description
Book SynopsisIn fascinating detail, Ashwin Desai and Goolam Vahed bring the inner workings of the Natal Indian Congress (NIC) to life against the canvas of major political developments in South Africa during the 1970s and 1980s, and up to the first democratic elections in 1994.
The NIC was relaunched during the rise of the Black Consciousness Movement, which attracted a following among Indian university students, and whose invocation of Indians as Black led to a major debate about ethnic organisations such as the NIC. This debate persisted in the 1980s with the rise of the United Democratic Front and its commitment to non-racialism. The NIC was central to other major debates of the period, most significantly the lines drawn between boycotting and participating in government-created structures. The NIC continued to attract recruits who encouraged the development of community organisations. Some members played dual roles and were members of a legal organisation as well as allies of the African National Congress’ underground armed struggle.
Drawing on oral interviews, newspaper reports, and minutes of organisational meetings, this in-depth study tells a largely untold history, challenging existing narratives around Indian ‘cabalism’, and bringing the African and Indian political story into present debates about race, class and nation.
Table of Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Acronyms and Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Repression, Revelation and Resurrection: The Revival of the NIC
- Chapter 2 Black Consciousness and the Challenge to the ‘I’ in the NIC
- Chapter 3 Between Principle and Pragmatism: Debates over the SAIC, 1971−1978
- Chapter 4 Changing Geographies and New Terrains of Struggle
- Chapter 5 Class(rooms) of Dissent: Education Boycotts and Democratic Trade Unions, 1976−1985
- Chapter 6 Lenin and the Duma Come to Durban: Reigniting the Participation Debate
- Chapter 7 The Anti-SAIC Campaign of 1981: Prefigurative Politics?
- Chapter 8 Botha’s 1984 and the Rise of the UDF
- Chapter 9 Letters from Near and Afar: The Consulate Six
- Chapter 10 Inanda, Inkatha and Insurrection: 1985
- Chapter 11 Building Up Steam: Operation Vula and Local Networks 191
- Chapter 12 Between Fact and Factions: The 1987 Conference 209
- Chapter 13 ‘Caught With Our Pants Down’: The NIC and the Crumbling of Apartheid 1988−1990
- Chapter 14 Snapping the Strings of the UDF
- Chapter 15 Digging Their Own Grave: Debating the Future of the NIC
- Chapter 16 The Ballot Box, 1994: A Punch in the Gut?
- Chapter 17 Between Rajbansi’s ‘Ethnic Guitar’ and the String of the ANC Party List
- Conclusion: A Spoke in the Wheel
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
