Yusuf Cachalia

Yusuf Mohamed Cachalia (15 January 1915 – 9 April 1995) was a South African anti-apartheid activist. He was the secretary of the South African Indian Congress, in which capacity he played a central role in organising the 1952 Defiance Campaign.

Cachalia was born on 15 January 1915 in Johannesburg.^[1] His father, A. M. (Ahmed Mohamed) Cachalia, was a politically active Indian: he was a close ally to Mohandas Gandhi and had served as president of the Transvaal British Indian Association.^[2] Cachalia himself left South Africa between 1936 and 1941 to study Islamic philosophy in India.^[1]

Upon his return to South Africa, Cachalia became an influential figure in the Transvaal Indian Congress (TIC) and South African Indian Congress (SAIC), ultimately serving as secretary of the SAIC.^[1][3] He was known for his "eclectic" personal political philosophy, which combined orthodox Islamic thought with Gandhian philosophy and Marxism.^[1][2] He was viewed as an ally of Yusuf Dadoo, who was credited with effecting a left-wing putsch in the Indian Congresses,^[2] as well as an ally of Nelson Mandela.^[4] Like Dadoo and Mandela, he was an advocate for closer cooperation between Indians and black Africans.

Cachalia represented the SAIC on the joint planning council that organised the non-racial 1952 Defiance Campaign,^[1] and in December 1952 he was among the activists convicted for their role in planning the campaign.^[2] The following year, he was issued with a strict banning order, which thereafter was renewed several times; between 1963 and 1973, he was not only banned but confined to effective house arrest in Fordsburg.^[2][3] Despite his ban, he was a member of the committee that drafted the Freedom Charter in 1955.^[1][3] His banning orders expired in 1977 and resumed his activism.^[3]

He died at his home in Johannesburg on 9 April 1995,^[3] less than a year after the end of apartheid.^[2][5] Mandela, by then serving as President of South Africa, described his death as a "great personal blow".^[6]

Cachalia was Muslim.^[1]Joe Matthews later said that he was known for being, with Mandela, one of "the two best-dressed chaps in the [anti-apartheid] movement".^[4]

Cachalia had two sons and a daughter from two marriages.^[3] His first wife was Bettie du Toit, a white Afrikaner.^[2] In July 1955,^[7] he remarried to Amina Asvat, the daughter of another Gandhi ally, Ebrahim Asvat.^[8] In her 2013 memoirs, Asvat alleged that some of Cachalia's friends disapproved of their marriage, leading to rifts between Cachalia and his elder brother, Moulvi, and between Cachalia and Ahmed Kathrada.^[7] Nonetheless, Asvat said that Cachalia was "a liberated husband. He always let me do exactly what I felt necessary."^[1] Their two children are Coco, a media personality, and Ghaleb, a politician.^[1]

• 1952 photograph of Cachalia during the Defiance Campaign, via Getty Images