Later Indian anti-apartheid activists broke from Gandhi’s politics, not extended them.

Evidence

In all his years in South Africa, Gandhi maintained that Indians deserved better treatment than Africans. The jury is still out on whether or not Gandhi’s political activity helped or harmed the Indian community in the long run. But his consistent attempts to collaborate with the British government certainly made the Indian community vulnerable during the rise of African nationalism. When Indian political activists joined the liberation movement under African leadership in the 1950s and saw their freedom as being linked to the freedom of African people, they were breaking with Gandhi’s politics, not carrying on his legacy. When Indians joined the Black Consciousness Movement in the 1970s seeking to build a broader Black identity, they were actually upending Gandhian politics. It is these people, many of whom did their time in Robben Island with Nelson Mandela and other African comrades, who have saved the South African Indian community from being painted as a race of collaborators and from being isolated, even expelled, like the Indians in Uganda were in 1972. — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 266

Categorization

Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s understanding of Gandhi’s caste politics; the iconoclastic revisionism here parallels the whole Annihilation of Caste project’s push against Gandhi’s legacy.

Related

• South African Indians joined the anti-apartheid struggle against Gandhi’s politics, not through it (similarity 0.92)
• Gandhi’s South African activism opposed equal treatment with Black Africans, not segregation itself. (similarity 0.86)
• Gandhi opposed Indian-African solidarity against South African white rule (similarity 0.82)
• Gandhi’s Indian reputation retroactively made him a South African Indian hero (similarity 0.81)
• Gandhi’s demeaning views of Untouchables remained consistent across his adult life. (similarity 0.81)
• Gandhi rejected Black-Indian solidarity against white rule in 1939. (similarity 0.81)
• Gandhi showed Adivasis the same disdain he showed Black Africans (similarity 0.80)
• Gandhi actively collaborated with white colonizers to suppress Africans (similarity 0.80)
• Gandhi opposed non-Hindu involvement in caste struggles as an internal Hindu matter (similarity 0.80)
• Gandhi retroactively reframed his pro-colonial military service after turning anti-British (similarity 0.79)
• Gandhi’s moral authority cannot be separated from his caste views (similarity 0.79)
• Early Gandhi distinguished elite passenger Indians from indentured coolies (similarity 0.79)
• The BSP is the only mainstream party opposing the Poona Pact and Gandhi (similarity 0.79)
• Gandhi consistently insulted Untouchables and denied them political self-organization (similarity 0.78)
• White colonial racism lumped all Indians together, erasing internal caste distinctions (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• The BSP is the only mainstream party opposing the Poona Pact and Gandhi #exemplifies (0.55)