The Natal Indian Congress was an elite club by design

Evidence

In 1894, he became secretary of the Natal Indian Congress founded and funded by rich Indian merchants and traders. The membership fee, of three pounds, was a princely sum that meant the NIC would remain an elite club. (For a sense of proportion—twelve years later, the Zulus would rise in rebellion against the British for imposing an unaffordable one-pound poll tax on them.) — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 185