First name
Yusaf
Middle name
Ahmed
Last name
Cachalia
Date of birth
1915
Born in 1915 and restricted to Johannesburg by the apartheid government. A leading figure in the South African Indian Congress in the 1940s and 1950s; he was instrumental in bringing about African/Indian co-operation during the 1952 Defiance campaign. He was arrested several times for civil disobediance and convicted with 19 other leaders in the Defiance Campaign in Dec 52, receiving a 9 month suspended sentence. He has been continuously under ban since 1953 and was under house arrest from 1963 to 1973. In 1963 his second wife, Amina, was issued with a banning order, making it necessary for them to obtain government permission to speak to one another.