Apartheid

History glossary

Topic: Settler Colonialism: Native Peoples of America and Australia · NCERT: Beyond NCERT

Meaning

Apartheid (an Afrikaans word meaning "apartness" or "separateness") was the system of racial segregation and white-minority rule in South Africa. The National Party government enforced it by law from 1948 until the early 1990s. It ended through negotiations and the 1994 election, the first open to all races, in which Nelson Mandela became president.

It matters because apartheid is the clearest modern example of a settler colony turning into a state run only by settlers' descendants. It is also a frequent exam link to Gandhi, India's foreign policy and the United Nations.

Explanation

Background: South Africa as a settler colony

  • South Africa was a settler colony. It belongs in the same group as America, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland.
  • European immigrants came and stayed permanently.
  • They pushed out the native people and took their land.

  • When the country became independent, it was run by the settlers' descendants, not by the natives.

  • The settlers in South Africa were mainly the Dutch. The study note uses the word "settler" for them. Their descendants became known as Afrikaners (white South Africans of mainly Dutch origin who speak Afrikaans). British settlers came later.

  • South Africa was an exception in Africa. In most of Africa, Europeans traded only on the coast until the late nineteenth century. In South Africa they settled deep inland.
  • Racial discrimination came long before 1948. Africans, Indians and people of mixed race already faced unequal laws. Gandhi fought these laws in South Africa between 1893 and 1914.
  • In 1948 the National Party won the election. Only white voters could take part. The party turned old customs of discrimination into a full legal system called apartheid.

Main features: how the system worked

  • Every person was classified by race. The Population Registration Act (1950) placed people in groups such as White, Black (African), Coloured (mixed race) and Indian/Asian.
  • Each race was given separate areas to live in. Under the Group Areas Act (1950), non-white families were often moved out of areas marked "white".
  • Pass laws controlled where Black Africans could go. Black Africans had to carry passes (identity documents) to enter or work in "white" areas.
  • Public places were separated by race. Separate buses, schools, hospitals, beaches and toilets were set up, and those for non-whites were much worse.
  • Mixed marriage was a crime. Marriage and relationships between races were banned.
  • Black Africans were given "homelands". These were called Bantustans (small, poor territories set aside for different African groups). The plan was to strip Black Africans of South African citizenship.
  • Non-whites had no political rights. Only white people could vote for the national parliament.

Resistance and the end of apartheid

  • The African National Congress (ANC) led the struggle against apartheid. Nelson Mandela was one of its main leaders.
  • 1960: the Sharpeville massacre. Police shot dead unarmed people protesting against the pass laws. The government then banned the ANC.
  • 1964: Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment. He stayed in prison for about 27 years, much of it on Robben Island.
  • 1976: the Soweto uprising. Black school students protested against being forced to study in Afrikaans, and many were killed.
  • Pressure from abroad grew. Many countries applied sanctions (trade and other punishments) and sports boycotts. The UN condemned apartheid again and again.
  • 1990: President F. W. de Klerk lifted the ban on the ANC and released Mandela. Negotiations then began.
  • 1993: Mandela and de Klerk jointly received the Nobel Peace Prize.
  • 1994: South Africa held its first election open to all races. Mandela became the first Black president.

Results

  • Apartheid laws were removed, and a new constitution gave equal rights to all.
  • A Truth and Reconciliation Commission was set up after 1994. It recorded the crimes of the apartheid years. It aimed at healing the country, not revenge.
  • The economic damage lasted. Much of the land and wealth stayed in white hands long after apartheid ended.

Time, place and evidence

  • Period: formal apartheid lasted from 1948 to the early 1990s and ended with the 1994 election. Its roots lie in the eighteenth- to twentieth-century era of European settler colonialism.
  • Place: South Africa, including named sites such as Sharpeville, Soweto and Robben Island (where Mandela was held).
  • Key people:
  • Nelson Mandela (ANC leader, prisoner, and president from 1994).
  • F. W. de Klerk (the last apartheid-era president, who began the negotiations).

  • Mahatma Gandhi, who fought racial laws in South Africa before apartheid.

  • Key groups: the National Party (which ran apartheid) and the African National Congress (which led the resistance).

  • How we know:
  • the apartheid laws themselves, which are official records;
  • UN resolutions condemning apartheid;
  • the records and hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission;
  • the writings of people who lived through it, such as Mandela's autobiography Long Walk to Freedom.

Don't confuse with

  • Settler colony vs apartheid: a settler colony is the wider type, where outsiders replace the native population, as in America, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Apartheid is one particular legal system of racial separation, used in South Africa after 1948.
  • Terra nullius: this was a legal claim that land belonged to nobody. It was used to take Aboriginal land, and British settlers declared Australia terra nullius in 1788 [1]. Apartheid did not deny that the natives existed. Instead, it ranked them by race and kept them apart by law.
  • Gandhi's satyagraha in South Africa (1893–1914): this was a struggle against earlier racial laws that targeted Indians. It came before apartheid. Apartheid as a formal system began only in 1948.
  • Racial segregation in the USA (the "Jim Crow" laws): these were state laws in the American South. They were overturned by the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Apartheid was a national system run by a white-minority government. It also included homelands (Bantustans) and the removal of Black Africans' citizenship.

Prelims Hooks

  • Apartheid is an Afrikaans word meaning "apartness". It was enforced by the National Party from 1948.
  • Order of events: Sharpeville massacre (1960) → Mandela sentenced to life (1964) → Soweto uprising (1976) → Mandela released (1990) → first election open to all races (1994).
  • Bantustans were the "homelands" set aside for Black Africans under apartheid. They were not reserves in America or Australia.
  • Mandela and de Klerk jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. India gave Mandela the Bharat Ratna in 1990.
  • Trap: among the settler colonies named in the study note (America, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland), the "settlers" in South Africa were mainly the Dutch, not the British.
  • Trap: South Africa was the exception in Africa. Elsewhere, Europeans entered the interior only in the late nineteenth century.

Mains Points

  • Apartheid as the final stage of settler colonialism. Settler colonies became states run by settlers' descendants, not by natives. South Africa took this to its extreme: a white minority used the law itself to keep the native majority without land, votes or citizenship. Compare this with how terra nullius was used to justify taking land in Australia [1].
  • India's role and Gandhi's legacy. Gandhi first tried satyagraha against racial laws in South Africa. Independent India was among the first countries to raise racial discrimination in South Africa at the UN, and it backed sanctions and the anti-apartheid struggle. This shows how India's freedom movement shaped its anti-colonial foreign policy.
  • How apartheid ended (continuity and change). Apartheid ended through negotiation, not civil war. The 1994 election and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission became a model for peaceful change. But land and wealth stayed unequal, which shows that legal equality does not quickly undo colonial dispossession.

Related concepts

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Sources

  1. 1Terra nulliusbritannica.com · tier 3