Extract from booklet entitled ‘Apartheid: Racial Discrimination’ published on behalf of the Indian Government by the Foreign Relations Society of India, circa 1951

Transcript

POPULATION REGISTRATION

The Population Registration Act provides for the separate registration of Europeans, Natives and Coloureds. According to Field Marshall Smuts the Act was designed to help the Government to carry out their policy of apartheid and to provide for the elimination of the coloured from the voters’ roll. This is to be done through the compilation of a register after the 1951 census, showing whether a man is a Union citizen, domiciled in the Union or on a temporary visit to the Union. Every person over 16 years of age will be issued with an identity card giving a description of his person and the ethnic group to which he belongs. These cards will have to be presented to authorized police officers. This measure coupled with the Mixed Marriage Act will ensure the supposed purity of the white race.

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