Anti-SAIC political rally ends in Lenasia

On 19 and 20 August 1981, in response to the National Party (NP) government’s attempts to co opt Indians and Coloured communities into puppet state institutions, a mass meeting was called in Lenasia, an Indian suburb south of Johannesburg. The purpose of the meeting was to mobilse the Indian community to boycott the envisaged creation of the Tricameral Parliament in which the South African Indian Council (SAIC), an apartheid-created body established in 1968 as the Indian National Council (INC), was set to participate. Opposition to this initiative by the government became apparent just over three months earlier. On 6 June 1981, a meeting was called in Lenasia, Johannesburg to discuss how the Indian community should respond to the upcoming elections for the S.A.I.C. From this meeting, the Transvaal Anti-SAIC Committee (TASC) was established, with Dr. Essop Jassat as the chairman, to oppose the S.A.I.C elections. At the same time, similar bodies were formed in the Cape and by the NIC in Natal. The committees actively campaigned for a boycott of the S.A.I.C and the election. These boycotts began in August.  On 19 August 1981 a meeting of 3000 people was held in Lenasia and it became the biggest Indian political rally since the 1950s. This was followed by mass leafleting, press statements and house-to-house visits; prospective candidates were threatened with embargoes against their businesses if they stood. Despite the low turnout at the polls, the Minister of Internal Affairs declared that the government would look upon the S.A.I.C as legitimate.   This led to the intensification of resistance to the Tricameral Parliament led by the TASC.  At the annual TASC conference on 23 January 1983, attended by various community-groups, it was decided to revive the old Transvaal Indian Congress (TIC) and establish a broad front to oppse the governmet’s measures. This led to the launch of the United Democratic Front (UDF),six months later, on 20 August 1983 at the Rocklands Civic Centre in Mitchells Plain, Cape Town.