Shirish Nanabhai: Lenasia’s struggle pioneer
UMKHONTO weSizwe veteran Shirish Nanabhai, who died on April 1, was an early recruit to the armed struggle.
In 1963, Nanabhai, Indres Naidoo and Reggie Vandeyar were arrested while attempting to blow up a signal box at Riverlea railway station in Johannesburg. They were sentenced to 10 years on Robben Island. All three have died within six months.
Born on March 1 1938, Nanabhai grew up in Fordsburg, Johannesburg. His father’s stories of the Congress Party resisting British rule in India inspired him to fight apartheid.
Nanabhai joined the Transvaal Indian Youth Congress in his teens and was elected to its executive in 1956 when he was 18.
He was involved in the 1955 Congress of the People, where he served soup to senior delegates. He was a keen dancer in his youth and in old age. He also read newspapers avidly.
He went to London in 1957 to study aeronautical engineering, but returned a year later. Under the 1960 state of emergency, Nanabhai was detained for several months at Johannesburg’s Fort prison (now the Constitutional Court).
In the early ’60s, he was a clerk at a clothing store in Johannesburg. During this time he helped ANC and SACP leader Joe Matthews to escape to Botswana, driving him to the border.
After Vandeyar recruited him into MK in 1962, Nanabhai spent lunch breaks at protests or meeting his comrades to plan sabotage operations.
Nanabhai, Naidoo and Vandeyar were the first MK cadres of Indian origin to be arrested in the then Transvaal. They were convicted under the Sabotage Act.
They were first held at Leeuwkop prison, which Nanabhai remembered for its cruelty. The trio were transferred to Robben Island in December 1963.
He was part of the island’s prison football team and helped to make goal nets out of material collected on the shore.
Placed under house arrest after his release, Nanabhai persuaded local children to warn him when the police were around.
He flouted his banning to meet comrades and to court his childhood friend Rajula. They married in 1978 and their son Kamal was born in 1980.
Nanabhai was again jailed in the Fort in the early ’80s for hiding escaped political prisoner Stephen Lee. He was beaten and tortured with electric shocks, but managed to hide the burn marks from his guards.
His lawyers used the wounds as evidence to have his sentence reduced. Nanabhai recently admitted to his family that he experienced nightmares about the torture in prison.
Rajula’s death in a car accident in 1985 left Nanabhai to raise their son alone.
A well-known figure in Lenasia, Nanabhai routinely walked around the suburb, claiming the exercise was good for his health. He carried with him plastic bags tied to his belt. These were regarded as his trademark.
He often went out of his way to help former comrades, offering lifts to those who could no longer drive.
Although a pensioner, Nanabhai patronised the casinos at Gold Reef City and Montecasino, where he also indulged his abiding passion for dancing. In 2014, Nanabhai, Naidoo and Vandeyar were honoured with the Order of Mendi for Bravery.
Nanabhai had a love for children and gave blankets to the children in his family. Many blankets are still treasured by their recipients, now adults.
Through the leadership training he conducted with the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation on Robben Island, Nanabhai reminded participants, like Vuyelwa Mantje, a youth co-ordinator at the foundation, “that young people have the utmost power to bring positive change to society”.
Nanabhai is survived by his son, Kamal. At his funeral on Monday, Gauteng premier David Makhura and Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan called on the ANC to rediscover the integrity and selflessness which characterised Nanabhai’s generation. — Ayesha Kajee