How Mandela prevented the partition of South Africa

by Rishi Sat Dec 07, 2013 4:28 pm

was in 1993 that this author met a distinguished South African professor of political science who was also an African National Congress’s rare white activist. In discussions we found tremendous parallels between partition of India in 1947 and situation in South Africa in 1990s. South Africa was at that time going through a very turbulent period. Mandela was released in February 1990 but instead of the promised peace, the nation was rocked with greater violence.
In the four years between 1990 and 1994 over 20,000 people died in violence between the IFP (Inkatha Freedom Party of the Zulus) and the largely Xhosa-dominated ANC. There was an uncanny resemblance between what was happening in South Africa in the 1990s and the happenings in India between 1945 and 1947. Chief Buthelezi was playing the role performed by Mohammad Ali Jinnah.
Buthelezi launched the equivalent of Jinnah’s ‘direct action’ (mass killings/riots). Zulus, like Muslims in India, had memories of having ruled over the entire country, were more warlike than the majority Xhosas, were in greater number in the armed forces and formed a majority in the Natal province. Like Jinnah earlier, Buthelezi was also associated with ANC and the anti-apartheid struggle but later broke away and pursued a ‘separatist’ agenda.
The white regime and western powers clandestinely supported Zulu separatism as they did Jinnah’s Muslim League. Of course there were major differences in the two situations. The ANC unlike the Indian National Congress had an armed wing Umkhonto (MK) or the ‘Spear of the nation’ and gave it back as it got. The South African professor and this author came to the conclusion that there was a real possibility of South Africa following the Indian subcontinent and being partitioned with a separate Zulu land. An article written jointly by the two of us was published in leading South African newspaper at that time.
But then none had reckoned with the genius of Mandela.
One of the major demands of the Zulus was for regional autonomy and special status. By accepting the position of the Zulu Monarch, Mandela neutralised a large measure of support for Buthelezi. Forced by the public opinion as well as fear of violence from MK, Buthelezi’s IFP participated in the 1994 elections and won 10 percent of national vote and 51percent vote in the Zulu-majority Natal province.
On May 10, 1994 as Nelson Mandela was sworn in as the first black President in the history of South Africa, he made Buthelezi the country’s home minister, a post he continued in for the next 10 years. Mandela successfully tackled the real challenge of Zulu separatism unlike Jawaharlal Nehru and Gandhi in 1947.
Many African nations have faced constant violence due to strong tribal ties and a culture of inter-tribe wars. When he completed his term as President in 1999, Mandela walked away from power, showing great humility and also showing that he was not indispensible. This was also a very shrewd move as he guided the ANC government from outside with a carefully crafted succession policy of giving power to representatives of all the three major tribes in turn. The current President of South Africa is a Zulu. Inkatha and its separatist movement are a distant memory.
Many commentators in India have been calling Mandela South Africa’s Gandhi. This is unfair to both these great men. Mandela was not as rigid a follower of non-violence as Gandhi was. His use of MK in ending the separatist struggle of Zulus is well documented. Unlike Gandhi’s denunciation of revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh, Mandela never under estimated or belittled the value of violent struggle.

The famous ‘Rivonia Trials’ in 1963-64 were a watershed in the life of Mandela and South Africa. These trials were the outcome of a raid by the South African police on the farm, Lilliesleaf at Rivonia near Johannesburg, on July 11, 1963. The trial was the most famous in the history of South African political resistance. Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki and others were sentenced to life imprisonment on June 12, 1964.

This marked the virtual end of the peaceful struggle waged by the majority black Africans and can be said to be the beginning of the armed struggle, not out of choice but out of compulsion. Much before the arrest in 1963, the ANC in its annual conference chalked out a plan to carryout underground violent struggle in case it was banned. Known as the M-Plan (Mandela Plan), ground work was laid to carry out underground struggle on the lines of Communist revolts in other parts of the world.