TRIBUTE TO FORMER ANTI-APARTHEID ACTIVIST, D K SINGH, WHO PASSED AWAY ON FRIDAY, AUGUIST 20 2010 (This article was written a week after his passing)

"I saw the the injustices being done to our people and without thinking about it I felt that I had a duty to our people both locally and nationally."




                                                           

 (MR D K SINGH (LEFT) WHEN HE WAS PRESIDENT OF THE OF THE NON-RACIAL SWIMMING FEDERATION. ON THE RIGHT HIS MR ARCHIE HULLEY, WHO WAS THE SECRETARY UNDER MR SINGH. MR HULLEY HAS ALSO PASSED ON.)




By Subry Govender

"He indeed was a champion of the underdog. He was a stalwart who inspired many generations of Congress activists by his unflinching and dedicated conduct, even in the face of great adversity."
This is how former anti-apartheid activist, Swaminathan Gounden, described his close comrade and veteran struggle activist, Dharamraj Kissoon Singh, who died at his home in Durban last Friday at the age of 81.
Mr Singh, known fondly as "DK" to his comrades and friends,  was one of the anti-apartheid leaders and lawyers who featured prominently in a number of community, political, social and sporting organisations in the struggles against the former racist regime in the 1970s and 1980s.
His funeral service, held at the Claire Estate Crematorium on Sunday, was attended by a large number of family, friends, colleagues and former comrades such as Finance Minister, Pravin Gordhan; KwaZulu-Natal Human Settlement MEC Mrs Maggie Govender; Dr Dilly Naidoo, and Sunny Singh.
Former Transport Minister, Mac Maharaj; Constitutional Court judge Zac Yacoob and Mr Gounden addressed the funeral service about his social, community, political and sporting contributions to the realisation of the new democratic order in South Africa.
Born into a humble working-class family at Umzinto on the KwaZulu-Natal south coast in 1929,  Mr Singh became actively involved in the struggles for social, economic and political liberation while still a student at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban.
He played an active role in the Students Representative Council and came under the influence of  Dr Monty Naicker who was then president of the Natal and South African Indian Congresses in the 1940s and 1950s.
During this period he took part in many of the campaigns initiated and led by Dr Naicker.
He qualified as an attorney in 1958 and immediately became one of the progressive lawyers who made himself available to take up the legal struggles of many political activists and organisations facing harrassment at the hands of the former apartheid regime.
For more than two decades Mr Singh operated from the centre of the former Grey Street "Indian" area in Durban in partnership with the late Pat Poovalingham and Mr Vahed. The law firm was known as: "D K Singh, Poovalingham and Vahed."
Over the next 40 years he became actively involved in the anti-apartheid civic, political and sporting struggles.
He became an executive member of the Natal Indian Congress when it was revived in the early 1970s, served as president of the Asherville Ratepayers Association for 23 years, was one of the founding members and president of the Durban Housing Action Committee(DHAC) for 12 years, president of the David Landau Community Centre for 14 years and president of the Amateur Swimming Union of Natal for five years. Mr Singh was also secretary of the Durban Citizens Action Committee, which assisted activists detained by the former notorious security police; represented victims of the Group Areas Act; and provided free legal service for the Aryan Benevolent Home and the Durban Blind and Deaf Society.
At the same time Mr Singh assisted trade union organisations such as the former Durban Integrated Employees Society(DIMES).
For all his legal work for the civic, political and trade union organisations, Mr Singh did not charge a single cent in legal fees.
This correspondent, who had known Mr Singh since the early 1970s, had the opportunity of interviewing him a few years ago when he had retired from his legal work and his active community, social and political work.
He told me that he became an activist during the apartheid era because he could not just sit back and allow the apartheid regime to continue with its discriminatory and repressive policies.
"Well repression itself caused me to take an active interest in various community affairs," he told me.
"I saw the the injustices being done to our people and without thinking about it I felt that I had a duty to our people both locally and nationally."
One of the features of his life was that he did not charge any legal fees for the work he had undertaken on behalf of activists and social and community organisations. I had asked him why had he not done so and this is what he had said:
"How can I even dream of charging any fees for the defence of comrades who played such an active role in promoting our freedom and in trying to get a better deal for the community generally?"
I had also questioned Mr Singh about the new democracy and he was of the view that South Africa had come a long way although there was still a lot of work to do.
This is what he had said: "The country is doing fairly well. We still have immense problems which we have to solve - the housing backlog, the employment problems. All these things need to be attended to. But I think the Government is trying its best and I am sure given the time they will achieve much more than they have already achieved."
Mr Singh was of the view that the young people had to take an active interest in the future of the country because it was the new generation that would inherit the new democracy.
"The young people must carry the struggle forward for social and economic equality.
"They must take an active interest in the problems of the country. They must ensure that they make a meaningful contribution to the development of the country and to the attainment of a truly-rainbow nation where everybody has equal rights," he told me.




                                                                 

(MR SWAMINATHAN GOUNDEN, WHO PAID TRIBUTE TO MR SINGH AT HIS FUNERAL IN 2010)

In his speech at the funeral service Mr Gounden, who had worked with Mr Singh for more than 30 years in the social, political and community fields,  summed up the feelings of the people when he said:
"In the long period of our oppressed peoples' history, many have come into the folds in their desire to serve the community, many have come and served for a little while, others for the better part of their lives, yet others whose long presence have made their name synonomous with the organisations that they have served - and so it is with Comrade D K Singh.
"I have no doubt that the life this remarkable man will continue to inspire all of us in the community. In the life of our community he played a noble part and there can be no doubt that his memory will live long and that by his deeds alone he has left monuments to the everlasting memory of one who lived simply but loved deeply." = ends - Marimuthu Subramoney