In the early 1960s, Badsha produced "resistance art" and won a number of awards including Sir
Basil Schonland prize in 1965 and the Oppenheimer award in 1969 after his work was featured in the
Johannesburg exhibition
Artists of Fame and Promise. Badsha's art has featured in many exhibitions in 1970, his first solo exhibition was held at the Artists Gallery in
Cape Town. He became an
anti-apartheid activist during his high schools days. He was one of the activists who revived the
Natal Indian Congress in the 1970s and the independent left-wing trade union movement that grew out of the famous 1973 Durban strikes. Badsha established and was the first secretary of the
Chemical Workers Industrial Union. He was denied a passport and never allowed to travel outside the country until 1990. In 1982, Badsha cofounded the multiracial organization
Afrapix. They took photojournalistic photographs of effects and impact of apartheid with the aim to create a picture library and "stimulate documentary photography". In 1987, helped establish The University of Cape Town's Centre for documentary photography. Badsha was the head of the photography unit of the Second Carnegie Commission on Poverty and. Development. The study sought to revise the outcomes of the first Corporation study by commissioning more research into poverty in South Africa which would focus on both Black and White South Africans. An exhibition of the photographs included in the Second Carnegie Commission on Poverty and Development study was held at The
University of Cape Town. Badsha could not attend the opening of the exhibition as he was detained. The exhibition was later held throughout the United States and it became a book entitled
South Africa: The Cordoned Heart. He is also the founder of
South African History Online SAHO, which he founded in 1999 it is South Africa's largest history website. He is the author of a number of photographic books. His first book co-authored with
Fatima Meer was
A Letter to Farzanah. The book features 67 photographs of Black children living in
apartheid South Africa along with key newspaper articles. His book
Imijondolo: A Photographic Essay on Forced Removals in the Inanda District of South Africa was published in 1985 The book was inspired by his work as a local social change agent in the Inanda
informal settlement located outside of Durban, South Africa. == References ==