How I unearthed my heritage
FOUND my grandfather’s indenture records at the then University of Durban-Westville (UDW) Documentation Centre.
It was an intensely emotional moment. This was my mother’s father, who arrived from North Arcot as a little boy in 1896.
On my father’s side our indenture origins go back much further.
The documentation centre focused on recording and archiving material related to South Africans of Indian origin.
It was housed in the basement of the UDW library where it still is.
As undergraduate students then, we shunned the documentation centre. It was an apartheid institution like the Indian university itself.
The generations before mine justified attending the university in order to turn it into a site of struggle.
The documentation centre was a deathly silent place with usually more staff than researchers.
In the same vein the sports centre was avoided for a considerable time because it was not affiliated to the anti-apartheid South African Council on Sport (Sacos).
Many of us also actively boycotted the graduation ceremonies as we refused to bow before the Broederbond-appointed chancellor.
When close friends and classmates, dressed in their finery and trekked to the main hall to graduate, I was among those standing on the sidelines shouting abuse and political slogans.
It was dreadful that I would be calling people, in whose homes I had eaten, sellouts. Needless to say, I paid the fine and collected my degree certificate.
It is quite a contradiction then, that I would venture into the documentation centre and trawl through its records.
I tried at all costs to avoid its director, Dr Cosmo Henning.
Our first conversation started with his polite greeting and his peeking over my shoulder. From then on, he scurried about pulling up all kinds of interesting documents that fascinated me.
Here was a knowledgeable man who was genuinely helpful. In deference to his age and learning, I set aside my prejudices about authority figures of the apartheid regime.
Henning waived the charges for printing the microfiche copy of my grandfather, Vasantharajulu Naidu’s documents.
As a student who hitchhiked come sun, wind rain or shine, I would not have covered that even if it were a few rand.
Another goldmine of information was the librarian who, to this day, I only know as Chetty.
There was also a buxom Gujarati woman there who reminds me of the Indian actress, Lillete Dubey, who played the mother in Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.
Kogie Chinnapen was a hugely valuable resource, work that she continues at the 1860 Heritage Centre in the city.
A complete shift in the political orientation of the documentation centre came when Dr Narissa Ramdhani was appointed as its director in the mid-1990s.
Renamed the GandhiDocumentation Centre, it took on the profile of a struggle history archive.
By this time I had become a beneficiary of affirmative action and moved up several pay scales as member of the university management.
One of my assignments from the vice-chancellor, Dr Mapule Ramashala, was to work closely with the documentation centre and the Gandhi-Luthuli Peace Institute.
Ramashala did not attract universal love but, as one who was her regular date for almost five years, there can be no doubting that she valued the Indian contribution to the freedom struggle and the building of the university.
Ramdhani was a breath of fresh air. She was not only an ideas person and energetic, but also very well connected.
Earlier, in her role as part of Nelson Mandela’s kitchen cabinet, she could sashay into his home at any time.
One of the iconic exhibitions that the university hosted was that of Mandela’s gifts from around the world.
His original Nobel Prize and gold medal were publicly displayed at the documentation centre.
To avoid a brouhaha over security, the gold medal travelled on a regular SAA flight in Ramdhani’s handbag.
Also in that exhibition was Mandela’s favourite portrait of himself by Cyril Coetzee, which later appeared on one of the most popular South African stamps.
During the period of Ramashala’s tenure, she nominated ANC and SACP veteran, Phyllis Naidoo, for an honorary doctorate.
Naidoo was gracious in accepting but in true form handed back the specially tailored and expensive academic gown, to be worn by a student who could not afford one.
All she left with was the certificate in a cardboard tube.
At the graduation ceremony Naidoo insisted on keeping a grass basket by her feet on stage.
It was in the way of the posh photographs of the university troupe in their regalia, and the protocol staff were in a tizz. She would have none of it.
That basket had biscuits, water, an instamatic camera, her address book and a change of underwear.
She was to tell me afterwards that from her years in exile and being bombed, one had to be “ready to run if the Boers came shooting”.
Ramdhani convinced Naidoo to donate her thousands of letters and personal papers to the documentation centre.
The Phyllis Naidoo Collection is one of the most valuable of the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s special collections, along with the Alan Paton Struggle Archives and the Killie Campbell Africana Collection.
An extraordinary aspect of the Phyllis Naidoo Collection is that she had the presence of mind to make carbon copies of the letters she wrote.
Letters to prisoners on Robben Island for instance would have been clipped or blacked out in parts by prison censors.
Thanks to Naidoo’s records, researchers can construct a much fuller picture.
The curation of that collection fell to another struggle stalwart, Vino Reddy, who spent several years patiently and lovingly cataloguing that collection.
She was ably assisted by a bright young archivist, Mwelela Cele, who has since gone on to be the librarian at the Steve Biko Foundation after a stint at the Luthuli Museum in Groutville.
The documentation centre should be port of call during this Heritage Month, even if it is only out of curiosity.
You will find there the very helpful Thiru Munsamy and Siya Narie, who work under the able direction of Dr Praversh Sukram and Joyce Myeza.
Just ask a few questions and you will be amazed at what you might find.
I found my grandfather there, leading to the discovery of hundreds of years of my family’s history and heritage. Kiru Naidoo is chairperson of the advisory board of the Gandhi-Luthuli Documentation Centre at the University of
KwaZulu-Natal