Interview with Saeeda Cachalia
SAEEDA CACHALIA is the daughter of Struggle stalwart Maulvi (a nickname for “priest”) Cachalia and his wife Miriam.
Maulvi was the brother of Yusuf Cachalia and they were the sons of Ahmed Cachalia, who first came to South Africa as a young man and was instrumental in the Passive Resistance campaign in the late 1800s.
The 76-year-old is no stranger to political agitation, having grown up in a home where both her parents were very involved in the resistance movement and the Defiance Campaign, which ultimately led to the 1956 Women’s March.
Maulvi went into exile for 26 years following Bram Fischer’s arrest and was the instigator of the Defiance Campaign. Saeeda recalls a man deeply committed to changing the oppressive laws that were being introduced.
“My dad was the deputy director of the Defiance Campaign and Nelson Mandela headed it up. My dad wrote the campaign and he always said that a black should be in front as it was their country.”
Miriam Cachalia, who had four children, was imprisoned in 1948 for protesting against the Asiatic pass laws.
Saeeda was only eight, but remembers being at her mother’s side whenever she embarked on a march.
“I used to run away from school to march with the women. Then I would be given lashes by the teacher the next day,” laughs Cachalia at her Houghton home.
August 9, 1956 was no different. Cachalia was 16 and, even though her memory of the winter day is sketchy, the determination is fresh in her mind. Cachalia says the women assembled in Mary Fitzgerald Square early in the morning.
“I don’t remember wearing a jacket – so it must have been quite warm. As we walked along the streets, up Bree and out of town, we got on to buses when we were tired. Maulvi walked, saw us off, smiling.
“The black women wore their long skirts and the Indian women wore traditional clothes – dress and trousers with our heads covered.
“There were no slogans or anything, just us.”
She says when the women arrived at the Union Buildings, they sang Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika and “You strike a woman, you strike a rock”.
“There were police all around us but no one was afraid. We knew already (then prime minister JG) Strijdom wouldn’t come out. The mood was happy and we were persistent.
“I think he eventually came out to meet Helen Joseph because he was afraid of us.”
Joseph delivered 20 000 petitions to Strijdom before the end of the day – a triumph for the Passive Resistance movement and, especially, for Maulvi Cachalia.
“My dad was so proud; he always believed that the women had the strength to make a difference.”
Cachalia says the Indian women who were part of the Defiance Campaign collected food and cooked Indian meals for their fellow stalwarts.
Cachalia believes the Women’s March had a major impact on South Africa’s political history.
“It was the first time Muslim women really came out,” she says, paging through albums with group photos of the determined Muslim women.
Cachalia continued her parents’ legacy; she was jailed in 1980 when she marched for equal education.
She was imprisoned in the Potchefstroom combined-race prison for six months while her young family waited at home.