Freedom, Dignity, and Decolonization: Two Case Studies – India and South Africa

India: Before the 20 th century, few inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent thought of themselves as “Indians” Cultural identities were local and infinitely varied The most important political expression of an all-Indian identity took shape in the Indian National Congress (established in 1885)

Mohandas K. Gandhi: 1893, accepted a job with an Indian firm in South Africa Personally experienced overt racism in South Africa Began to protest the South Africa’s policies of racial segregation Emerging political philosophy, known as Satyagraha (“truth force”), was an active and confrontational, though nonviolent, approach to political action

Returning to India in 1914, Gandhi rose within leadership ranks of the INC Called Mahatma, Great Soul Campaigns: - Boycott of British Cloth - Salt March - “Quit India” - Addressed injustices regarding untouchables - Addressed issues of religious intolerance

I could not resist this French cartoon on Gandhi!

However, Gandhi opposed a modern industrial future and advocated self-sufficient villages to address issues of poverty and injustice in the Indian subcontinent

Of course, Jawaharlal Nehru, another Indian nationalist, a colleague of Gandhi’s, and the first prime minister of embraced modernization, science, secularism, and industrialization

The India of today is Nehru’s India! A Modern, Secular, Industrialized India, the world’s largest democracy!

Case Study: South Africa - South Africa had been independent of Great Britain since However, independence had been granted to a government wholly controlled by a white settler minority

Some whites were descended from British settlers but a politically dominant section of whites descended from the early Dutch settlers (1600s - Boers) and were known as Afrikaners The Boers had unsuccessfully sought independence from a British-ruled South Africa in two bitter struggles (the Boer Wars, 1880–1881 and )

However, while the Boers lost the wars, they did eventually gain control of the white-only South African government after independence The Boer concern over race was expressed most clearly in the policy of apartheid which attempted to separate blacks from whites in every conceivable way

Rigid “pass laws” were enacted to control the movement of Africans to cities “Native reserves,” or Bantustans, served as ethnic homelands

However, black South Africans did NOT accept apartheid and in 1912 founded the African National Congress (ANC) The ANC was led by educated, professional, and middle- class Africans who sought political equality within society During the 1950s, a new and younger generation of the ANC leaders included Nelson Mandela

But in 1960 at Sharpeville, police fired on unarmed demonstrators and killed sixty-nine demonstrators The government also banned the ANC and imprisoned its leadership

In 1976 in an impoverished black neighborhood called Soweto, hundreds were killed -The trigger for the uprising was the government’s decision to enforce education for Africans in the hated language of white Afrikaners rather than English – This decision started an uprising that ended in bloodshed

In addition, the international community began a divestment movement or the withdrawal of private investment funds in the South African economy to protest the inequities of the apartheid system

In 1994, the first inclusive national election resulted in bringing the ANC to power F.W. De Klerk was the last apartheid-elected President. He dismantled apartheid and shared a Nobel Peace Prize with Nelson Mandela in 1993.