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‘He was the last of a golden generation of freedom fighters’
“GONE before getting old,” chortled Marcus Solomons on the phone line from Cape Town.
The former Robben Islander sentenced for armed resistance to apartheid called me to convey his condolences to the family of Sonny Venkatrathnam.
His fellow prisoner passed away last week a few months short of his 85th birthday.
Venkatrathnam was laid to rest at the Clare Estate Crematorium on Sunday, but the sparkling wit and playful humour of his comrades was just the antidote to the loss felt by all.
“Quiet Diplomacy” was the name United Democratic Front (UDF) cofounder, Paul David, lent him in the early 1960s. Venkatrathnam was many years David’s political senior.
When asked by the young student about the Unity Movement whose political philosophy he found attractive, Venkatrathnam replied: “I know a little bit but go ask Kader Hassim.”
For David, that confirmed the humility of the man who by then was a Marxist luminary and deep in the throes of taking up arms against a violent state.
For this valour, Venkatrathnam was later sent to prison, first at Leeuwkop and then six years on Robben Island.
David is no stranger to prison himself, having shared a cell with another resolute freedom fighter, Archie Gumede. Nor is retired Judge Thumba Pillay, who became familiar with Modderbee prison for his political activism.
Pillay chuckled that his Shakespeare-loving friend, since their mid1950s student days, had climbed the stairway to heaven on the Ides of March.
March 15 was made famous in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar where a soothsayer warns the emperor about his impending assassination.
Venkatrathnam, by contrast, met his maker enveloped in the love of those dearest to him. A passage from Julius Caesar was selected by Nelson Mandela as his choice of reading from Venkatrathnam’s now universally acclaimed Shakespeare Bible that he kept while in prison.
Venkatrathnam was born on July 27, 1935, in Seaview, Durban.
He took his last breath in the early hours of last Friday. He might have wished it had been a smoke, which he was seldom without.
Venkatrathnam’s grandparents originated in South India and were indentured to the plantations of colonial Natal by the British.
His first-generation South African parents were vegetable hawkers who raised a tight-knit family of 12 children. His politicisation in the 1950s came at the black section of the then University of Natal. Contemporaries included Judge Pillay, Professor Mazisi Kunene, Kalakhe Sello, Pat Samuels and Phyllis Naidoo.
In a family that struggled to make ends meet, he was the only one sent to university. Former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Judge Navaneetham Pillay remarked in her touching eulogy that Venkatrathnam lamented never having eaten a good fruit. All they had was the damaged fruit left over from the day’s sales.
University study, albeit under oppressive conditions, fostered a deep love for literature, which was an abiding passion throughout his life.
While the Congress Movement dominated the period, he was drawn to the Unity Movement and the African People’s Democratic Union of South Africa.
His political activities drew the attention of the notorious Security Branch, and he was repeatedly harassed along with his comrades.
In 1972, he was the 14th accused in a terrorism trial after vehemently refusing to give evidence against his comrades despite being tortured. He was convicted and sentenced to Robben Island. On the Island, he was first held in the communal section with Jacob Zuma and others but later moved to the single cells. Predictably, he had become troublesome to the authorities for mobilising prisoners there.
Cell mates in the single cells included Dr Saths Cooper, Strini Moodley, Walter Sisulu, Dr Neville Alexander and Nelson Mandela.
In spite of their diverse ideological beliefs, firm friendships developed which lasted well into later decades. Prior to his release, he asked fellow prisoners to
sign sections of his Collected Works of Shakespeare. This story is eloquently immortalised in Professor Ashwin Desai’s Reading Revolution – Shakespeare on Robben Island.
Following his release, he travelled with his wife, Theresa, and young children to refuge in the US, where he took a higher degree at Columbia University. He studied for a BCompt with Unisa while imprisoned. Work assignments while in the US included organising the celebrated Amnesty International human rights concerts.
On his return to South Africa, he taught political economy at the then Durban-Westville. He was active there in trade union and university structures. Lasting friendships were built with staff; from professors to cleaners. He especially relished being among young people who actively sought to enrol in his classes. His
remarkable political experiences were weaved into his lectures.
He was an enthusiastic gardener with a special interest and expertise in rose cultivation.
Venkatrathnam’s close comrade and wife, Theresa, pre-deceased him. At the height of apartheid, she challenged the minister of police in the courts and succeeded in winning important rights for political prisoners.
Venkatrathnam is survived by daughter Zinaida, sons Ravel and Nolan, six grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
He is fondly remembered as being among the last of a golden generation of freedom fighters who sacrificed the best years of their lives for the liberation of our people.
Naidoo worked with Venkatrathnam at UDW in the 1990s and recorded a documentary of his political life