This chapter will explore two related questions: the influence of the South African Indian Congress (SAIC) on the transformation of African nationalist politics during the 1940s and the debate among different African political factions over ‘co-operation’ versus ‘unity’ with other non-European groups.2 The mid-1940s witnessed a series of watershed developments related to South African Indians: the revitalisation of the Indian Congress under a younger, more radical leadership, the launch of a mass campaign of passive resistance against the Asiatic Land Tenure Act, the censure by the United Nations (UN) of South Africa's treatment of Indians and the independence of India from British colonial rule. Occurring in break-neck succession, these events had an extraordinary impact on the ideas and outlook of African intellectuals, especially a new generation of younger activists associated with the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL). At the same time, the ANC was divided over the proper response to these new circumstances. The rivalry of the Non-European Unity Movement (NEUM), the initial success of the Passive Resistance campaign and the UN decision pushed sections of the Transvaal-based ANC leadership towards a limited form of collaboration with the Indian Congress. The leadership of the Natal ANC strenuously rejected this course of action, while the ANCYL opposed all but the most circumscribed forms of occasional co-operation. Moreover, widespread resentment among Africans against Indian shopkeepers and other petty entrepreneurs, especially in Natal where the majority of Indians lived, ensured that a strand of anti-Indian chauvinism would permeate African populism.