FATIMA MEER

In some respects, the Indians were strategically placed to play a vital and leading role in the development of the Non-White urban political movement and indeed, between the years 1893 and 1913, they monopolised the scene in this respect. These were the years which saw the emergence of [the South African Indian] "Congress" in the life of the Indians; their unity as a people; and the organisation of their political thought and action in a highly sophisticated and disciplined manner. They constituted the Gandhian era, formative not only for Indians in South Africa, but for Indians in India, for Gandhi himself, and, for the broad amalgamated struggle for democratic rights in South Africa which characteroses the scene today and was actively inaugurated on June 26th, 1950. Gandhi was both a thinker and am activist and he successfully transcribed his political thought into vital mass resistance by a political minority---a minority not merely in the sense of numbers, but more important, in the sense of legislative power. His strategy was simple---mass non-co-operation and civil disobedience directed against laws which were construed as unjust due to their discriminatory nature.

- Fatima Meer, "Resistance in the Steps of Gandhi", Fightining Talk, June 1961.