BY SUBRY GOVENDER DEVADAS PAUL DAVID – A STRUGGLE ACTIVIST WHO WAS COMMITTED TO THE LIBERATION OF THE OPPRESSED FROM AN EARLY AGE

DEVADAS PAUL DAVID - STRUGGLE STALWART WHO BECAME INVOLVED IN LIBERATION STRUGGLES AT AN EARLY AGE May 25 2017 In his continuing efforts to recognise the contributions of our struggle stalwarts, veteran journalist, Subry Govender, in this feature pays tribute to North Coast lawyer, 76-year-old Devadas Paul David. David was one of the anti-apartheid activists who played a major role in the struggles for a free, democratic and non-racial South Africa.

In 1961 when he was studying for a law degree at the then University of Natal in Durban, Devadas Paul David took the plunge to contribute to the liberation struggles when he became an underground member of the African National Congress(ANC). At this time the ANC had just been banned along with the Pan Africanist Congress(PAC) following the massacre by the apartheid police of anti-pass law protestors in Sharpeville, near Johannesburg, in 1960. He was recruited to distribute pamphlets and to carry out other underground activities. “At this time there was a lot of political activity on the campus and I came under the influence of some great leaders such as Palaki Sello and Ernest Gallo, who died while evading arrest,” he said in an interview. “We also had Phyllis Naidoo, Sydney Dunn, and Kutumela who came from Fort Hare.” Three years earlier Paul David, at the tender age of 17, joined the Natal Indian Congress and became the secretary of the NIC Youth Congress while still a pupil at the Verulam High School on the North Coast. He became politically aware at a young age when his father and eldest sister, Phyllis Naidoo, spoke out openly against the apartheid system. At this time, he also came under the influence of his brother-in-law, M D Naidoo, who with his sister, Phyllis Naidoo, were firebrand leaders of the Congress at that time.

Born on August 26 1940 in Pietermaritzburg into a devout Catholic family, David’s grand-parents came from a little village in Tamil Nadu in South India to the then Natal Colony as indentured sugar cane labourers. His father, Simon David, was a school teacher and principal and as such was a strict disciplinarian. He instilled the values of respect for elders and commitment to education to David and his three other sons and three daughters. David became actively involved in the political struggles when he joined Mewa Ramgobin and other activists in the revival of the Natal Indian Congress in the early 1970s and was elected secretary of the NIC in 1979. He was also involved with the Release Mandela Committee and was elected its secretary in 1983 and in the same year became fully involved with the United Democratic Front(UDF). In addition to his political involvement at all levels, Paul David also became involved in anti-apartheid work at community levels in ratepayers’ organisations in Verulam, Stanger and Durban. He was also involved in non-racial sport in organisations such as the Southern Natal Soccer Board, South African Soccer Federation, Natal Cricket Board, Natal Council of Sport, South African Council of Sport and at local levels in Verulam and Stanger. His involvement and that of some of his comrades in sporting arena was meant to basically keep the former dreaded Security Police off their backs. “People had to be mobilised and they had to be organised. Sport we thought was a very useful vehicle for that purpose and that is why we joined the non-racial sporting organisations in soccer, cricket, SACOS (South African Council of Sport. We expected the Security Police to stop tracking us but in fact they intensified their watch,” he said. After the Natal Indian Congress was revived in the early 1970s, Paul David once again took an active part in its activities. At the same time with other leaders he initiated the establishment of the Release Mandela Committee, calling for the release of Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners. The Natal Indian Congress at this time was for all intents and purposes the internal wing of the ANC. One of their major campaigns in the early 1980s was against the South African Indian Council (SAIC), whose leaders at that time included J N Reddy, Salaam Abram Mayet and Amichand Rajbansi. “In that campaign we visited an estimated 50 000 homes in Natal alone, carrying the message that the SAIC people didn’t represent South Africans of Indian-origin and our destiny lay with the vast majority of the South African people. As you know that was a very successful campaign and less than 10 percent of the people voted in the elections.” In August 1983 when the UDF was launched in Cape Town, Paul David and other leaders of the Natal Indian Congress were some of the leading personalities in this stage of the struggle that pronounced that minority rule was coming to an end. “The political struggle of 1983 against the tri-cameral parliament stood on all the mobilising work that had been done for years before that. So the UDF was absolutely political in nature.” Paul David and his comrades came under attack from the security police after they were seen as being the architects behind the establishment of the UDF in 1983. Paul David and his comrades, George Sewpersadh, M J Naidoo, Mewa Ramgobin, Archie Gumede and Billy Nair took refuge at the British Consulate in the then Smith Street in Durban. “We knew that there were warrants out for our arrest, so we sought the sanctuary of the British Consulate to highlight to the outside world the repressive actions of arrest without trial, arbitrary powers of the Minister of Justice at the time and things like that. We were there in the Consulate for about five months and then we were charged for treason.” Paul David was among the 16 activists who were charged with High Treason at the Pietermaritzburg High Court in 1985. The others were Mewa Ramgobin, Isaac Duze Ngcobo, Archie Gumede, Curtis Nkondo, Sisa Njikelana, Aubrey Mokoena, Sam Kikine, M J Naidoo, Albertina Sisulu, Essop Jassat, Cassim Salojee, George Sewpersadh, Frank Chikane and Thozamile Gqweta. But after a trial lasting more than two years all of them were found not guilty and discharged. During the constitutional talks at Kempton Park in Johannesburg in the early 1990s, Paul David was one the delegates who represented the Natal Indian Congress. Now resident in KwaDukuza, Paul David still keeps an active eye on political developments while involving himself in several community and civic organisations. In a recent interview at his home in KwaDukuza, David told me that he was disillusioned with the deep divisions currently wracking the ANC and he hoped that the organisation would cleanse itself of those people who only joined to enrich themselves and to further their own nests. “The ANC is our home and we cannot allow corruption, nepotism, and greed to devour our organisation,” he said. “We have to commit ourselves to the values and principles that our leaders such as Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Ahmed Kathrada, Billy Nair, Monty Naicker, Yusuf Dadoo and others had infused in us.” He said despite the enormous achievements over the past 23 years, he believes that the ANC has become like any other political party. “We thought that the ANC would be different from other political parties around the country and its approach to politics would be completely different. We thought that the formation of a party would not be different to a liberation organisation where it had morality as the core trait or as a recognisable characteristic. But the ANC has fallen into the trap that is set for all politicians and political parties and that is designed for gain for itself and for chosen members.” David said it was time for vibrant debate and discussions on the many social and economic issues facing the people. David was blunt in his view that the ANC is not the future but merely the hope for a better future. “Having said that the ANC has adopted so many anti-social characteristics, it doesn’t mean that it is the end. But what we see today is that the ANC is not the future, it is merely the hope of a brighter future, and to achieve that the ANC has to be reformed from the centre and right from grass-root level. “The ANC should be the first organisation to encourage committees, lobby groups, forums where policies and politics of the country are debated robustly. You can’t hope to achieve this through the ANC branches because they follow the policy of the ANC. “South Africa should not become a country where only the views of one political party becomes dominant. If this happens then all the sacrifices of thousands of activists and leaders would have been in vain.” Ends –subrygovender@gmail.com