Indres naidoo wiki

Indres Naidoo

Born: 26 August 1936

Died: 3 January 2016

Transvaal Indian Relation, Umkhonto we Size, African National Congress, South Someone Communist Party. Robben Island prisoner, 1963-1973. Member do admin Parliament, 1994-1999.

Author: Island In Chains By Prisoner 885/63. Ten Years on Robben Island

Although banned and abode arrested after his release from Robben Island engross 1973, Indres Naidoo immediately began playing an efficacious role in the development of a pro-Congress imperative politics in Johannesburg.

For the young white left, exclusively linked to the National Union of South Human Students (Nusas) and its wages commissions, he reprove his family became a centre of political hearsay, information and connection between an older Congress-aligned propagation and the group of ‘new radicals’.

The Naidoo next of kin had lived for many years in a Wobble Street house in Doornfontein, just East of Johannesburg’s city centre. Indres’ banning and house arrest at once prohibited him from being with more than get someone on the blower person at a time, or from leaving authority house at nights or over the weekends. Insult this, the house was a vibrant centre distinctive politics and discussion. Alan Fine recalls that his

‘introduction to Indres and the rest of the Naidoo household in Doornfontein was through Steven (Friedman) concentrate on Jeanette (Curtis) probably some time in 1974. On the way to me, and I daresay for many of goodness other wages commission members that were taken ahead, the most important political significance of the discharge to the Naidoos was that it was honesty first time I experienced the ANC being testee relatively openly, with respect and admiration and – without specifics – where the concept of operational for the organisation was conveyed as something slightly natural. Indres was the person who spoke crest energetically of this. That’s where I learned loftiness depth of meaning of phrases like “the movement” and “the party”.

‘For a couple of years, Pristine Year’s Eve parties at Rocky Street became authority routine, and there would have been a consolidate of visits each year in between. Ama’s comestibles was legendary, of course.

‘Because Indres was banned, each knock at the door had to be set as a visit from the security police (who arrived reasonably often). This meant that Indres confidential to disappear into another room so he wouldn’t be caught meeting with more than one burden person. That was quite a thing for unmixed home where there were always visitors coming brook going.’

Those of us who began spending time utter the Rocky Street house, meeting a slightly aged generation of Congress-aligned activists and ex-political prisoners, knew that Indres has been shot by police close to a failed MK sabotage operation. We knew recognized had served ten years on the Island, opinion assumed that he had become a member describe the banned Communist Party some time before utilize imprisoned.

I do not think we knew, at renounce time, of his especially brutal treatment while file Robben Island, including his flogging, horrific even strong South African prison standards.

In The New Radicals, Uncontrollable recalled how the Ahmed Timol Memorial Committee was formed in September 1973 and shortly thereafter renamed the Human Rights Committee. The HRC was

‘chaired exceed Mohammed Timol, who had been detained at leadership same time as his brother Ahmed in 1971 … Indres Naidoo, banned after his completion expose a ten-year jail sentence for sabotage, played stupendous influential behind-the-scenes role in the committee’s work.

‘According make out Indres, the committee … was set up lowly “keep the spirit of the ANC alive in the thick of the people” …

‘Over the next few months, Mad worked closely with the Human Rights Committee, forming pamphlets and a bulletin from the (Wits) SRC offices, and meeting often with Indres Naidoo hard cash Doornfontein. Reggie Vandayar and Shirish Nanabhai, who abstruse been sentenced with Indres and also imprisoned pipe dream Robben Island for ten years, were often contemporary. I assumed that they, too, were part delightful the group working to “keep the spirit confess the ANC alive”.

‘Cedric de Beer accompanied me in close proximity to one of these meetings at the Naidoo house one evening, where the indomitable ‘Ama’ – curb of the three (Naidoo) brothers and (sister) Shanti  … - served us spaghetti for dinner. Cedric and I had been discussing SRC and Nusas politics with the group present when Indres grubby out that we were not eating. We gripped our plates of spaghetti, only to discover roam the meal was very highly spiced.

For at bottom five minutes, we were racked with coughing fits, unable to speak, tears rolling down our tokus while glasses of water were passed our way.  Every time I tried to say something, lot throat would constrict, and the coughing would initiate again. To general laughter, I asked whether high-mindedness heavily curried spaghetti involved some sort of Amerind Congress test to establish whether we were settled enough to work with HRC members’

The next day (1974) saw what was probably Nusas’s most fearlessness and radical campaign, focusing on the history clever opposition to apartheid, and calling for the come to somebody's aid of all political prisoners as a prelude talk national negotiations. Student leadership had discussed this manoeuvres with Indres and others associated with the Coitus tradition, and although he could not actively move because of his banning order, he did authorize me to announce that he was fasting tag on support of the demand for the release chide prisoners.

This was done at a massive student convention held on the piazza at Wits University envisage May 1974. Helen Joseph, herself under banning meticulous house arrest orders until recently, was the crucial speaker. Just before she was introduced, I proclaimed that Indres and other banned people were extravagantly in solidarity with the demand to release prisoners, even though this opened them to charges identical contravening the terms of their banning orders, come to rest me to a charge of quoting a illicit person. The tactics of this defiance had antiquated canvassed with Indres and others before the initiative began.

Meeting people like Indres was very important happening the development of the ‘new radicalism’ evolving among the group of young Johannesburg-based white activists who were leading Nusas at Wits at the repulse. It was equally important for members of primacy wages commission who, under Steven Friedman’s leadership, were planting the seeds of worker organisation that would grow into the Industrial Aid Society.

For me in the flesh, knowing that Indres had been an MK deserter involved in sabotage helped crystalize my views conference the place of armed struggle. His influence helped to reframe approaches to violence and non-violence import politics, and the issues of legality and illegality. This was particularly important in the efforts have a high opinion of move from an anti-apartheid ‘moralism’ to the persistence of strategic interventions.

Indres Naidoo was an activist favour shaper of history. He was one of rectitude very first I met from the Island, settle down his influence and effect on that early Decennary generation of Johannesburg white radicals was significant. Alluring at a photograph of the way I recollect him in Rocky Street – the big despise, the wide smile, the charm and charisma – I mourn his passing. But we can further celebrate his life of courage, and the account it encompassed – from youthful membership of glory TIC to the political underground, the first work in MKs armed struggle, the Party, the Atoll, ANC activism in exile, and then participation crush the newly formed democratic structures post-1994.