Indian South Africans and the Black Consciousness Movement under apartheid

Abstract

In the late 1960s, “non-White” university students marched out of the white dominated but, at that stage, still multiracial, National Union of South African Students. They formed the South African Students Organisation (SASO) and began formulating an ideology called Black Consciousness. At its heart, the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) called for the unity of South Africa's oppressed, which they defined as African, Coloured and Indian. Those who were not students found a home in the Black People's Convention. Many students of Indian origin joined SASO and played leading roles in the development of the BCM. This article traces these developments, paying particular attention to Indian women, seeking to understand their motivations in joining the movement, and record their experiences inside the BCM. Their story has to date been largely ignored, primarily because the Indian male members of BCM who stood trial and went to Robben Island during this period have tended to overwhelm the narrative, and in more recent times, the post-apartheid liberation story has been dominated by the journey of the African National Congress.