How were the prison conditions?
AK: Prison itself is a very harsh place. It also depends on your state of mind. If you go in with a negative state of mind prison can be hell, but we were all freedom fighters. We knew that sooner or later we were going to be arrested so we were positive in our outlook and you try your best to adjust to it [prison] in a positive way. You don’t accept humiliation or indignity of any sort. In that sense you educate your guards. You humanize them because they’ve been brought up with one thing in mind, and that is to crush the morale and the spirit of the prisoners and you have to see to it that they don’t succeed. NM: Being a South African Indian, were you treated any differently from the black political prisoners and fellow comrades? AK: Yes. The laws of the time stipulated different treatment for whites, coloureds, Indians, and Africans. Africans were always at the bottom of the ladder inside and outside of prison. In prison itself I had better clothing than my colleagues. There was tha
