It advocated non-violent resistance to discriminatory laws and in its formative years was strongly influenced by the NIC's founder, Mahatma Gandhi.
[1] Over the next decade, the SAIC, like its affiliates, was a moderate and even conservative body; dominated by an elite class of South African Indians, its primary methods were petitions, deputations to the authorities, and appeals for help to the government of India, then under British control.
[1][2] However, during the 1930s, the incumbent leadership was challenged by a group of younger activists, labelled radicals, who advocated for a more militant form of non-violent resistance to racist laws, as well as for cooperation with South Africa's black African majority.
[5][2] In 1948, the National Party came to power in South Africa on a platform of legislating apartheid; in September that year, Naicker was elected as president of the SAIC.
[7] On the first day of the campaign on 26 June 1952, the ANC's Walter Sisulu and TIC president Nana Sita led the first group of Johannesburg volunteers to arrest in Boksburg.
From 1960, the apartheid government embarked on an unprecedented programme to repress opposition groups in the aftermath of the 1960 Sharpeville massacre.
The provincial branches continued to work in partnership with each other, as well as independently and as affiliates of the United Democratic Front.