KAY MOONSAMY – WHO – LIKE NELSON MANDELA – ALSO SACRIFICED 67 YEARS OF HIS LIFE, INCLUDING HIS FAMILY, IN THE ANC STRUGGLES FOR A FREE, NON-RACIAL AND DEMOCRATIC SOUTH AFRICA A TWO-PART RADIO DOCUMENTARY ON THE LIFE OF THIS HUMBLE FREEDOM ACTIVIST BY SUBRY GOVENDER

(KAY MOONSAMY WITH FELLOW ACTIVIST, SWAMINATHAN GOUNDEN)

On the 21st June 2017 – one of the country’s lesser known freedom activists – who spent 27 years of his life in exile – died at the age of 91 at his home in Chatsworth, Durban, after the serving the cause for freedom for 67 years. I compiled this two-part Radio Documentary on his life in 2009 after interviewing at his home in Chatsworth. One of the political activists and struggle stalwarts who like, Nelson Mandela, sacrificed 67 years of his life for the freedom we enjoy today is little-known 90-year-old Kay Moonsamy of Chatsworth in Durban. This correspondent had the opportunity of interviewing Mr Moonsamy at his home in 2009 when he had retired from active politics after serving 10 years in parliament as a member of the ruling ANC. He had earlier spent 27 in exile, working for the ANC in Botswana, Swaziland, Zambia, India and the Soviet Union. PART ONE: is about his early life as a trade unionist, involvement in the Natal Indian Congress, removal of the conservative Kajee-Pather group from the leadership of the NIC, and his arrest as one of the Treason Trialists in 1956 when he met for the first time Nelson Mandela and other leaders.

PART TWO: is about is about his flight into exile in 1965, his work in exile, his return to the country 1991 and his involvement in helping to build the ANC into a political party.