From the book: A Documentary History of Indian South Africans edited by Surendra Bhana and Bridglal Pachai
The People's Candidates Party participated in the Lenasia Management Committee between 1974 and 1978. But over time the party became disenchanted with local authorities, and it later withdrew from the L.M.C. In the next document the committee's chairman, Dr. R. A. M. Salojee, explains why the P.C.P. members resigned. The P.C.P., he declared, was not interested in the 'glittering chains of office', and its opposition to racially-organised autonomy was necessary to prevent Indians from drifting into the 'white laager'. The speech, which is reproduced in an edited version below, was made on 27 November 1977. Source: Copy supplied by Dr. Salojee.
WHY DID THE MEMBERS OF THE PEOPLE'S CANDIDATES GROUP RESIGN?
After our announcement in late August that we would continue to participate in the L.M.C. system, cumulating factors necessitated the reappraisal of our previous decision. The gravity of the events created a crisis of commitment because the authorities, by their insensitive handling of the detention-without-trial issue; the brutal treatment of innocent mourners from Soweto at the Steve Biko burial; the call to whites to polarise in a racial laager; the bulldozing of the shelters of squatters; the continued harassment of political opponents, even if not charged with any crime; the harsh attitude towards the legitimate educational rights of subject groups; the firm indication that the Government will continue with the political 'new deal' for the Coloureds and Indians, even if there is mass rejection by these groups, made our continued participation in the elections untenable. It is clear that the Nationalist Party is inflexible in making changes in its policy of separatism, and is unswerving in its resolve to impose solutions of its own design. [This] made it mandatory that we show our opposition through a re-assessment of our role in the civic affairs of Lenasia ”” especially if we were to keep trust with our spiritual and moral responsibilities. In the light of these realities, we could find no justification, even as a strategy, to continue participation in the local Management Committee; because to have continued would have meant that we are blind to the continued denial of justice and human dignity, values which we had so consistently espoused. Limited objectives had to give way for the broader issues. It must be realised that in the light of the P.C.P.'s stated opposition to racialism, it was always on the cards that our withdrawal would become final. As innocuous advisory machinery, the Management Committee served a useful platform for persistent pressure on the local authority to discharge its responsibilities and so correct the deficiencies of the area: as a vehicle for registering our protests against the injustices of the apartheid system. ...
However, the announcement of the 'new dispensation' for Coloureds and Indians, aimed at entrenching racialism, altered the circumstances, and we began seriously to consider our withdrawal from the Management Committee. The surreptitious manner in which the Management Committee of the Johannesburg city council introduced the motion of autonomy for Lenasia on the 27th September 1977, unmindful of our repeated rejection of racially structured autonomous areas, was the last straw, and we resigned. This decision by the white council to pursue an item rejected by us was not only a breach of trust, but also a violation of our right to self-determination and public representation. .... To have submitted meekly would have given a hollow ring to our past refusal to participate in the S.A.I.C. and our rejection of the 'new dispensation'. We consider the acceptance of local autonomy based on colour as support for racialism. Local racial autonomy is the cellular component on which the whole farcical citadel of three parliaments is built; and those that agree to administer these separate units will in effect become active agents for apartheid. Consequently we had to refuse to be party to any negotiation which would implicate us in becoming instruments or executors of apartheid....
WHAT IS THE MEANING AND WHAT ARE THE EFFECTS OF AUTONOMY?
In the context of Lenasia [autonomy] will mean an artificially carved local municipality exclusively for Indian Lenasians. ”¦ We reject autonomy on two fundamental grounds: one is ideological and the other is the economic effects on the area. We cannot condone separation of people on colour and race ”” it is completely alien to all religious creeds. Furthermore, as an integral part of Johannesburg we have an equal right as any other citizens to share in its combined assets and benefits. ....
We have already paid dearly through self-help projects to lessen the effects of the Group Areas uprootment, and now to be burdened with additional rates and taxes would add further suffering to our community. . . . These added strains would create situations that exist in other areas, such as in Natal, where internal strife and problems can destroy the integrity of our community....
However, the crucial question that arises is, will we stand up to defend our right to remain an integral unit of an undivided city. If we are to defend our unquestionable right to remain part of the city, then we should make it absolutely clear to those who claim to represent the area on the Management Committee, to desist from any collaboration that will sell us down the drain. This they can best do by resigning forthwith.
Our past history has shown that we as a people have the moral courage and the spiritual strength to stand up and be counted for in the defence of our rights and recognition as full-blooded citizens of South Africa. I am sure we still have the ability and the courage to give expression to the discipline and motivation that has characterised our past since the time of Mahatma Gandhi. We hope this call to the conscience of those that occupy the advisory seats of administration will meet with their resignation and so join us in the mainstream of our just cause....
At this point I think it necessary that the role of the People's Candidates group be placed in its proper perspective. The emergence of the P.C.P. must be seen in the light of two fundamental factors. One is the near total absence of the voice of the people, as a result of the repressive actions of the Nationalist Government since 1948 against our legitimate leaders; this created a serious void, and much of our interests were undefended and brutalised by default. The other is the increasing acceptance by the other sectors of the South African population that nominated Indian leaders who chimed in tune with Government policies are our recognised leaders. Thus, in the first place the L.M.C. platform was used to lead a people, gripped in political inertia, back into the stream of the active, concerned and the committed. Secondly, we wanted to identify publicly our people as opposed to the compromising postures of our self-appointed and government-nominated spokesmen. We had no pretensions to leadership and still have no such ambitions. We merely served as a catalyst to encourage true leadership to surface and old leadership to reconvene....
It is sad to record that the effects of racism have cut deeply into the fragile unity of our body politic. Until our resignation, we had on the one extreme the group that supported segregation and separation. But they are so blinkered that they will not want to admit the follies of their masters' policies. Thus, instead of attacking apartheid for the sufferings of the people, they lamely tried to blame the politics of the P.C.P. At the other extreme we have the so-called 'radicals' who equally feel powerless to confront the state, but they too transferred their venom onto the P.C.P., giving their cause a false sense of activism, because they were attacking us for using a different strategy, though they subscribed to identical ideals. In the centre, the P.C.P. had under trying conditions to fulfil the two vital factors mentioned earlier by me - to expose and oppose the inequities of the system, and to function as a barrier, blocking the passive movement of our people into the fold of the white laager as second-class affiliates; while simultaneously striving to obtain for our people the facilities and amenities due to them. ...
Our strategy always was and is based on an assessment of the public weal, and in this point in time we believe that the public interest was best served by getting off the Management Committee and other such institutions. This is a lesson we have learned from the fact that time and circumstances determine strategy. Personal prejudices and dislike of others must never be allowed to dictate one's own actions, because at leadership level they can be costly to the cause of the people ”” and in South Africa we have to respond, not to sectional or group privileges, but to the fundamental rights of all its 26 million souls. We must overcome the obstacles of colour separation by the creation of a unity of minds, conscience and ideals ”” and so transcend the barriers that have estranged man from man. In this process there is no place for our own petty issues and individual quarrels, because such trivialities will be mercilessly trampled by the urgency of the basic issues confronting us. ...