Civil rights organisation for Indians in South Africa (1894–1994)
Natal Indian Congress
Founder
Mahatma Gandhi Dada Abdulla
Founded
22 August 1894
Dissolved
1994
Ideology
Gandhism Indian interests Nonviolent resistance Socialism Anti-Apartheid Anti-colonialism Progressivism
Political position
Left-wing
Religion
Hinduism, Islam
National affiliation
South African Indian Congress
Politics of South Africa
Political parties
Elections
Founders of the Natal Indian Congress; Gandhi is in the top row, fourth from left.
The Natal Indian Congress (NIC) was a political organisation established in 1894 to fight discrimination against Indians in the Natal Colony, and later the Natal Province, of South Africa. Founded by Mahatma Gandhi, it later served an important role in opposing apartheid. It was the oldest affiliate of the South African Indian Congress.
During its formative years, the constituency of the NIC largely comprised educated Indian merchants who sought to oppose discriminatory legislation through petitioning. In the mid-1940s, the organisation became increasing confrontational under the leadership of Monty Naicker, who led the NIC through a renowned campaign of passive resistance against the Asiatic Land Tenure and Indian Representation Act from 1946 to 1948. After the introduction of formal apartheid in 1948, the NIC participated in the Defiance Campaign, the beginning of a long, though not untroubled, alliance with the African National Congress (ANC).
In the 1960s, members of the NIC and other Congress Alliance organisations faced increased state repression, and the organisation entered a decade of dormancy. It was revived in October 1971 and continued its activism against apartheid, notably through boycotts of the South African Indian Council and Tricameral Parliament. The NIC was a founding affiliate of the United Democratic Front, whose leadership often overlapped with that of the NIC. Although the NIC was represented at the Convention for a Democratic South Africa in 1991, it did not restructure itself as a political party during South Africa's democratic transition. Instead, many leaders and members joined the ANC, and the NIC again fell into dormancy from around the time of the first post-apartheid elections in 1994.
and 24 Related for: Natal Indian Congress information
The NatalIndianCongress (NIC) was a political organisation established in 1894 to fight discrimination against Indians in the Natal Colony, and later...
anti-apartheid activist. A stalwart of the NatalIndianCongress, he represented the African National Congress (ANC) in the National Assembly from 1994...
British Indian Association, it was a member of the South African IndianCongress alongside its elder and larger sibling, the NatalIndianCongress. It fell...
movement led by Gandhi and the NatalIndianCongress to fight racial discrimination and again civil rights for the Indian community and the native Africans...
legislation to restrict Indian voting rights in Natal, he helped organise resistance, leading to the formation of the NatalIndianCongress. This organised resistance...
The NatalIndian Ambulance Corps was created by Mahatma Gandhi for use by the British as stretcher bearers during the Second Boer War, with expenses met...
grievances of Indians in South Africa. He helped found the NatalIndianCongress in 1894, and through this organisation, Gandhi moulded the Indian community...
outnumbered whites in Natal. In 1894, Gandhi helped to establish the NatalIndianCongress to fight discrimination against Indians. Population figures for...
aligned with the African National Congress (ANC) party representing the Phoenix area of Inanda in the KwaZulu-Natal province. Her parliamentary committee...
Campaign, a campaign of mass civil disobedience organised by the ANC, the IndianCongress, and the coloured Franchise Action Council in protest of six apartheid...
the Indian right to the vote. Gandhi also formed a new political organization called the NatalIndianCongress (a clear reference to the Indian National...
Mpho Monty Naicker, the Gandhian leader of the NatalIndianCongress Billy Nair, trade unionist in Natal Lillian Ngoyi (one of the final 30 defendants)...
anti-pass committee – and with the IndianCongresses (the Transvaal IndianCongress and Gandhi's NatalIndianCongress), who at the time were protesting...
Yesizwe Party (of KwaNdebele), the Labour Party, the Transvaal and NatalIndianCongress, the National People's Party, Solidarity, the United People's Front...
wrote that he believed that the result of the election, which gave KwaZulu-Natal to the IFP; gave the National Party 20% of the vote share, and a Deputy...
affiliated trade unions. On 30 Nov 1985, 33 unions met at the University of Natal for talks on forming a federation of trade unions. This followed four years...
Bellair, Hilary and Umhlatuzana area of the NatalIndianCongress, says that Naicker was a delegate to the Congress of the People and joined the South African...
bill is believed to Gandhi's establishment of the NatalIndianCongress to protect the rights of Indians in South Africa. It created awareness of the racial...
Island for his role as a leader of the then-outlawed African National Congress (ANC) and its armed wing the Umkhonto We Sizwe. He later achieved international...
impis (Zulu warriors) then killed almost 300 Boers who had settled in the Natal region. After Pretorius was recruited to fill the leadership vacuum created...
outnumbered whites in Natal. The civil rights struggle of Gandhi's NatalIndianCongress failed; until the 1994 advent of democracy, Indians in South Africa...
for the ideal of his own political philosophy. Later Gandhians, like the Indian nonviolence activist Vinoba Bhave, embraced the term as a name for the social...
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