Hamba kahle, Mewa, you brought us all closer
were in a state of fear, intimidation and inactivity. And the apartheid government was co-opting leaders into ethnic politics with the Indians being encouraged to join the South African Indian Council.
The only political activity was restricted to the student movement at Natal University as the ANC and all resistant movements were banned, with the resultant birth and growth of the Black Consciousness Movement under Steve Biko.
During this period Ramgobin served on the Students’ Representative Council and frequented the Natal medical school, where we met in the mid60s.
The Phoenix Settlement, which
te of being banned, Ramgobin sponsored R300 to get the organisation off the ground.
This went towards the printing of the letterheads carrying the colours of the banned ANC.
Ramgobin and his then spouse, fellow comrade Ela Gandhi, threw caution to the wind even though they had small children.
Both suffered banning orders and was in a semi-rural environment, is where he and Ela lived and operated a clinic two days a week. We medical students were co-opted to render services at the clinic regularly.
They used community and social development to politicise society, making the Phoenix Settlement an agent of change.
This grew into a consciousnessraising exercise for us too, and provided a “safe haven” for political development as it was an opportunity to meet away from the surveillance of the security police.
And while the South African Students’ Organisation was being consolidated at student level, Ramgobin extended the consciousness-raising initiative persistent house arrest, but refused to be cowered during one of the most oppressive periods in South African history.
The political vacuum left by the banning of the ANC in 1960 spurred Ramgobin to revive the Natal Indian Congress in 1971.
The NIC had been founded by Ela’s grandfather, Mohandas K Gandhi, in 1894, laying the foundation for the mass political movements that were to follow. Having planted the seed, Gandhi had returned to India in 1914 to take up another historic role on the front line of the Indian independence movement.
The Ramgobins used the Phoenix Settlement as liberated space, hosting a variety of workshops, seminars and strategy sessions that brought all races and ideological strands to the homestead. The couple regularly housed and enjoyed a firm comradeship with Steve Biko and Rick Turner, among others.
Though not banned, the NIC became dormant as its leadership, like doctors Monty Naicker and Kesaveloo Goonum, faced banning orders and arbitrary detention.
Banding together with both seasoned and younger activists like Swaminathan Gounden, Farouk Meer, Jerry Coovadia, Rabbi Bugwandeen, George Sewpersadh and later Pravin Gordhan, Ramgobin presided over an energised platform that worked primarily in the Indian community but appreciated fully the merits of a non-racial platform.
Ramgobin was not born into politics but became politicised during his youth as he listened to the leaders of the Congress Alliance in the 1950s give reports to the community on political programmes like the Freedom Charter and the great potato boycott which propelled the firebrand stalwart Lilian Ngoyi to international prominence. into the broader community by reviving the Natal Indian Congress in 1971.
All this required intense discussions and planning, at his office in CNR House, which also housed the Saso “record library”, and the offices of lawyer activists such as Louis Skweyiya, DK Singh, and Ranji Nowbath.
Nearby were Rabbi Bhagwandeen, NN Naicker and others. Frequent visitors were Jerry Coovadia, Farouk Meer, Rick Turner, Saths Cooper, Strini Moodley, Steve Biko, George Sewpersadh, Omar Badsha and many others.
Ramgobin played a key role in mobilising our people at a time when it was very difficult to do so.
Ramgobin was born in Inanda in 1932 where the formative influences of his youth tuned him into the racial cleavages of the society around him.
Inanda was one of the few swathes of freehold land in Durban where both Africans and Indians could own land. While the two communities lived side by side, fault lines existed. Ramgobin was among those determined to build a bridge espousing a line of thinking we now call social cohesion. He stands out as one of the great activist sons of our province, driven by a deep passion for justice, uniting our people and building a non-racial society.
Following the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960, he was among those who embarked on a protest fast at Phoenix Settlement in the Gandhi tradition.
A student activist, he was elected president of the Students’ Representative Council at the University of Natal in the offensively named Non-European Section as the university did not allow black students onto the main campus nor into the library.
He also served on the executive of the National Union of South African Students (Nusas).
Ramgobin was soon to attract the attention of the apartheid security branch, which led to banning orders for 17 years and house arrest for 12 years.
His young family escaped death when a parcel bomb was sent to him in 1973.
A gifted orator and writer, Ramgobin was the author of Waiting To Live and Prisms of Light. He also served as national vice-president of the Congress of South African Writers.
He was a founding co-treasurer of the United Democratic Front in 1983. In 1984 he was detained without trial. After that detention order was
The discussions revolved around strategies, policies, mobilisation and campaigns.
During the revival of the NIC, there were frequent trips to Newcastle, Pietermaritzburg, Stanger and Port Shepstone to establish branches.
There were several other projects leading into the Free Mandela Campaign, protest against the assassination of Ahmed Timol, the anti-Tricameral Parliament campaigns and finally the establishment of the United Democratic Front and mass democratic movement.
Ramgobin worked tirelessly to render the country ungovernable, supporting sanctions and a change in government. But his contributions were always within the paradigm of peace, Satyagraha, non-violence and non-racism.
For all his contributions he had to pay a price. Though he was not jailed on Robben Island, he was harassed, banned, put under house arrest for long periods and his movement was restricted to the extent that it affected his employment and earning ability.
He was even charged with treason before he and fellow comrades sought asylum in the British consulate.
So his remembrance today should perform a pedagogic service. And it must be seen with a view to developing an active citizenry for forgiveness, reconciliation, peace, non-racism, declared invalid, he sought refuge in the British consulate in Durban with fellow stalwarts and NIC executive members Archie Gumede, George Sewpersadh, Paul David, MJ Naidoo and Billy Nair.
David shares fascinating anecdotes that the impeccably groomed Ramgobin, accustomed to creature comforts, found the harsh environment of the consulate difficult at first. However, he soon learnt to sleep on the floor using his shoe as a pillow.
The occupation of the consulate was a masterstroke of political strategy while the regime of PW Botha was in close alliance with UK prime minister, Margaret Thatcher. It drew worldwide attention to the struggle against apartheid in the mid-1980s, fitting neatly into the ANC’s four struggle pillars, namely mass mobilisation, the underground, international solidarity and armed struggle.
This combination drove the apartheid system into a deep crisis and the regime was forced into negotiations.
Ramgobin served as an ANC Member of Parliament from 1994 until 2009. He also chaired the Phoenix Settlement Trust and was responsible for overseeing the reconstruction of the Gandhi homestead after it was razed to the ground by apartheidinspired violence in 1985.
He is survived by his wife Mariam, former wife Ela Gandhi, and children Asha, Arthi, Ashish, Kidar and Imthian. His son Kush died before him.
Mewa Ramgobin, a hero of South African freedom, will be laid to rest in Verulam this afternoon. Hamba kahle qhawe lamaqhawe.
• Pillay serves on the ANC’s provincial executive committee and is MEC for Human Settlements and Public Works. redress, transformation and social justice, as was the vision of these leaders.
His views were an opening of attitudes, an exploration of cultural diversity and a questioning of authority.
Ramgobin worked towards society’s cohesion and sense of mutual solidarity in the struggle against apartheid and was concerned with the intellectual raw material for cultural and political mobilisation.
The revolution he made may not have been what he intended, but the reasons should be important to the current generation to decide how today’s leaders should be elected and held accountable. And this depends on how much of the past is remembered. Hamba kahle, Comrade Mewa. • Naidoo was NIC general secretary and a close comrade of Ramgobin.