Dr KESAVELOO GOONAM – A FIREBRAND POLITICAL ACTIVIST REMEMBERED WHEN SOUTH AFRICANS OF INDIAN-ORIGIN OBSERVE THE 158TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ARRIVAL OF THEIR ANCESTORS FROM INDIA

(DR KESAVELOO GOONAM WEARING THE GANDHI CAP DURING ONE OF THE PASSIVE RESISTANCE CAMPAIGNS) (NB: PHOTOS OBTAINED FROM DR GOONAM'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY: "COOLIE DOCTOR") BY SUBRY GOVENDER

At a time when we are observing the 158th anniversary of the arrival of our indentured ancestors to South Africa, it is important that we also recall the vital role played by our early leaders for a non-racial and democratic future. One such leader who took up the struggles of indentured labourers and their children on the sugar estates is South Africa’s first Indian woman medical practitioner, Dr Kesaveloo Goonam. Veteran political journalist, Subry Govender, who had the privilege of interviewing Dr Goonam in November 1995, writes that Dr Goonam was a firebrand leader who refused to be cowed into submission either by conservative Indian traditions or the colonial and apartheid oppressors… .

(Dr Kesaveloo Goonum (far left standing) with her family members in Durban) DR GOONUM VISITS THE MOUNT EDGECOME SUGAR BARRACKS TO CHECK THE LIVING CONDITIONS OF THE "COOLIE" SUGAR WORKERS It was in the early 1940s, four years after Dr Kesaveloo Goonam returned home to Durban after qualifying as a doctor at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, that she and a fellow activist, Dr Monty Naicker, visited the Mount Edgecombe sugar barracks on the north coast of Natal to see a traditional Tamil dance show called Therookutoo. While they were there they decided to visit the barracks in order to check how the people were living. “We found the people living in hutments and in conditions of abject poverty. We were horrified that people were being kept in slavery and bondage-like conditions after they had contributed enormously to the sugar estates since their arrival more than 80 years earlier. “It was their slave work that brought about the prosperity for the sugar plantations and their bosses. Monty and I decided there and then that we needed to capture the Natal Indian Congress from the conservative forces to take up the struggles of the people in the sugar estates and in the urban areas.” INTERVIEW IN NOVEMBER 1995 Dr Goonam was talking to this correspondent in November 1995 about her life as a social, political and community activist and leader. Five years earlier in 1990 she had returned from political exile after fleeing the country for the second time in 1977. She had voted in the first democratic elections in April 1994 and I wanted to know more about her early life and her political, social and community work on behalf of the people. Born in the Grey Street area of Durban in 1906, Dr Goonam stood up for her rights from an early age when her father, R K Naidoo, came under the influence of his fellow conservative business friends. They did not want him to send her away to Scotland to study to become a doctor because she would lose her cultural identity. But despite the reservations by her father, she won the support of her mother, Thangatchee, and eventually in 1928 departed from the Durban Harbour on a ship to England. On board the same ship was Monty Naicker, who was President of the Natal and South African Indian Congresses in the hey days of the struggles 1950s and 1960s. He was also travelling to Scotland to study medicine.

(DR GOONAM AFTER QUALIFYING IN 1936) Life was not easy for Dr Goonam because she missed being away from home and also experienced financial constraints. But she persevered and succeeded in qualifying as the first Indian woman doctor in South Africa. She returned home in 1936. Despite the early struggles to set up her practice, she became dragged into the political, social and community struggles. After enjoying freedom and liberty in the United Kingdom for eight long years, she could not accept the discrimination and the human rights violations perpetrated by the former colonial and apartheid regimes in South Africa. She soon became involved in social and community organisations such as Child Welfare and FOSA, and the Passive Resistance campaigns organised by the Natal Indian Congress. Just before she left the country to go into exile in 1977, she formed the Helping Hands Society to assist families who had been forced to move into Chatsworth from all over Clairwood, Durban, Cato Manor and other suburbs. At this time she also campaigned with Dr Monty Naicker against the South African Indian Council(SAIC), which was set up by the former National Party to divide South Africans according to racial lines.

Because of her outspoken attitude against the social, political and economical oppression of the people, she came under constant surveillance of the then dreaded security police. Some of the police officers she mentioned were Sargeant Moodley and Sargeant Niagar. Although she was a dire-hard supporter of Indian culture and languages, she had “no patience” for superstition and rituals such as the belief in “trance culture” that dominated the lives of Indian people in South Africa at that time. She was a progressive in all aspects and even dropped the Naidoo name when she started her practice in Durban. She felt that the name Naidoo was contaminated by caste and class. CAPTURED CONTROL OF NATAL INDIAN CONGRESS FROM CONSERVATIVE LEADERS In my interview in 1995, Dr Goonam told me that she and others such as Dr Naicker had to gain control of the NIC from the conservatives in order to highlight the plight of former indentured labourers and their children, both on and off the sugar cane estates. She had said: “We had liberal study groups at that time but these were not enough for us. We wanted a political organisation to be the voice of the people. We went to Kajee many times but he and P R Pather would not relent. “But we would not give up and decided to take them to court. When they found that they were not wanted anymore, they gave us letters of resignation. Together with H A Naidoo, George Poonen and George Singh, I collected the resignation letters. We went to Saville Street where the office of the NIC was situated and showed all our people that at last we had got rid of the conservatives.” DR GOONAM DID NOT COW DOWN TO WHITE RACISTS AND SUPREMACISTS She was not a person who bowed down to the “white” oppressors and related an incident when she visited the Depot Road area of Durban where people were living in terrible conditions. “The white man in charge of the place saw me and said: ‘You are a doctor. I have seen you coming around here. I see you want to talk to the people’. I said yes. He thought I was going to talk to them about medicine. “I stood on a chair and started talking to the people about the oppressive conditions in which they were living. “While I was talking the white man rushed to me and said: ‘get out, get out and stay out. I didn’t know you were going to talk about politics. I thought you were going to talk about your medical work.’ “I told him: ‘what medical work you are talking about when you keep these people in such terrible conditions’. “So I told the people they must come right outside the place so that I can talk to them. It was then that they realised it was the best medicine I can give to that white man. They listened to me and took my advice.”

(Dr Kesaveloo Goonum - photo taken when she went on a her first visit to India) MEETING PANDIT JAWAHARLALL NEHRU - INDIA'S FIRST PRIME MINISTER AFTER INDEPENDENCE IN 1947 During one of her early trips to India, she was given an audience with the first Prime Minister of India, Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru. She won the support of Nehru when he found that she was not a meek and submissive Indian woman. She related the incident: “After the initial introductions he asked me whether I had come with my children. I said ‘no Punditjee, my children are in England because I am now in exile’. Then he asked whether I had come with my husband. “I responded by saying I have no husband. He immediately said well how is that you got three children without a husband? I told him ‘Punditjee why can’t I have three children and more children without a husband?’ “He immediately said there was no problem and I will get whatever job I wanted. From that moment we became very friendly. Then he started to light a cigarette and began to smoke. He offered me a cigarette and I refused to accept it. He said: ‘no no I know you smoke. You don’t have to be shy about this.’ Then he lit the cigarette for me.”

(Dr GOONAM WITH FATIMA MEER AND KWAZULU LEADER, MANGOSUTHU BUTHELEZI. GOONAM HAD HELPED MEER IN HER NATAL EDUCATION TRUST THAT HELPED TO FINANCE THE CONSTRUCTION OF SCHOOLS FOR AFRICAN CHILDREN) With the election of Nelson Mandela as president and the emergence of the new democratic order in 1994, I had asked Dr Goonam what she thought about our new democracy and the future. She had said: “I never tasted democracy at all in this country. I did see democracy at work in England and India. I’m hoping and I have full hope for a real democratic order being born here, for us to participate and to be part of it. This is my hope and prayer every day and I hope I will succeed. “I hope more could be done for every section of the people, not just for one or two sections of the people. But for everybody. “I am very proud of our people because our people have made tremendous contributions to the social, economic and political development of our country. This has been recognised by the current political leaders.” Dr Goonam, who has written her own autobiography titled “Coolie Doctor”, died at the age of 92 in Durban in 1999. Ends – subrygovender@gmail.com