Having joined the
Non-European United Front in high school, In Flat 13 he also became a political mentor to
Ahmed Kathrada, who said in his memoirs that Meer was, "more than an individual – he was an institution". His own political influences included
Jawaharlal Nehru and
Clements Kadalie. In 1946, Meer was elected to take office as secretary of the TIC, serving under newly elected TIC president
Yusuf Dadoo. Under Dadoo's leadership, the TIC launched its campaign of
passive resistance to the
Ghetto Act, as well as its gradual embrace of the
African National Congress (ANC) and other non-
Indian political organisations; Meer was regarded as an instrumental figure in both respects. He also contributed to various progressive publications – including through a regular column titled
I Remember in the
Leader newspaper – and he was editor of the
Passive Resister, a Johannesburg-based publication that reported on developments in the two-year-long Ghetto Act campaign. In the 1950s, while practising as a lawyer in Verulam, Meer remained politically active in the
anti-apartheid movement. In 1952, he was on the executive committee of the
Defiance Campaign, and on 29 November that year he led one of the campaign's
civil disobedience events; he was arrested and imprisoned for a month with hard labour. He went on to serve stints as vice-president of the
Natal Indian Congress and president of the Natal branch of the
South African Congress of Trade Unions. He and his wife were both subjected to
banning orders in 1954, and – after being arrested while recovering from an
appendectomy – he was among the 156 activists charged with treason in the
1956 Treason Trial. Although he was acquitted of treason, he was detained again during the 1960 state of emergency. As a result of state banning orders, it was illegal to quote or print Meer's words between 1952 and 1990, though he continued to write under a pseudonym. == Post-apartheid political career ==