Why is it in the news?

• South Africa commemorates 30 years since the dismantling of apartheid, marking the end of a system of racial discrimination and segregation.

 Some of the Key Aspects

• Apartheid was a legal system of racial segregation in South Africa, enforced through political, social, and economic discrimination against non-whites.
• Instituted by the National Party in 1948, it classified South Africans into racial categories: Blacks, Coloureds, Whites, and Indians, with laws such as the Population Registration Act of 1950 forming its framework.
• Additional apartheid laws included the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act of 1949, the Group Areas Act of 1950 (creating separate residency areas), and the Bantu Education Act of 1953 (segregating education).
• The Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM) underwent three phases, starting with non-violent resistance, with the African National Congress (ANC) as a leading organization.
• The movement internationalized, gaining support from organizations like the Organization of African Unity (now African Union) and the UN, which adopted the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid.
• India played a crucial role by being the first country to sever trade relations with the apartheid government in 1946 and imposing a complete embargo on South Africa.
• Resistance against apartheid included boycotts, demonstrations, and campaigns like the Defiance Campaign of 1952 led by the ANC.
• Mahatma Gandhi’s early anti-colonial and anti-racial discrimination movements in South Africa laid the groundwork for the AAM, with his Satyagraha technique being influential in later protests.