South Africa mourns veteran freedom fighter Shanthie Naidoo

Johannesburg, Jul 24 (PTI) South Africa is mourning the passing of anti-apartheid activist Shanthie Naidoo, who died peacefully on Friday at the age of 91.

A central figure in the liberation struggle, Naidoo was one of the grandchildren of Gandhian lieutenant Thambi Naidoo, as the then young lawyer Mohandas Gandhi, later to become the Mahatma, led the fight against laws discriminating against Indians at the turn of the 19th century.

During the height of the apartheid-era state repression, Naidoo endured 371 days of solitary confinement and brutal interrogation, yet steadfastly refused to betray her comrades, most notably her friend and political sister, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, the former wife of Nelson Mandela.

Naidoo was born in Pretoria on

March 6, 1935, directly into the frontline of South African resistance.

Her grandfather, Thambi Naidoo, was a key lieutenant to Mahatma Gandhi during the early satyagraha campaigns, and her parents, Roy and Ama Naidoo, made their family home in Doornfontein known to all activists as ‘The People’s House’.

The house was frequented by the Mandelas and many other freedom struggle veterans.

Reflecting on her youth in an interview for the book 200 Women: Who Will Change the Way You See the World in 2017, Naidoo recalled: “Living up to my mother’s principles and what she fought for also matters to me. My little brother used to stand on a bench and say, ‘The white people brought us to this country to work in the sugar plantation, now they won’t let us taste it.’” It was therefore no surprise when Naidoo stepped into leadership herself, joining the Transvaal Indian Youth Congress, the Federation of South African Women (FedSAW), and the African National Congress (ANC).

Naidoo’s lifetime of activism culminated in one of the most infamous state crackdowns of the apartheid era. On June 13, 1969, Security Branch officers arrested her under the brutal Terrorism Act. She was locked in solitary confinement at Pretoria Central Prison and the Old Fort.

The regime sought to break her spirit to use her as a state witness in the Trial of 22’, a flagship prosecution targeting top underground ANC leaders, including Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Joyce Sikhakhane and Rita Ndzanga.

Isolated in a frozen cell with no contact with the outside world, Naidoo sustained herself through daily exercise and by singing ancient Hindu prayers early in the morning.

When the state attempted to force her testimony against Madikizela-Mandela and her fellow trialists, Naidoo stood before the court and delivered a defiant, unforgettable refusal: “I have two friends among the accused. I don’t want to give evidence because I will not be able to live with my conscience if I do.” The judge rejected her moral plea and sentenced her to further imprisonment. For her refusal to collaborate, she spent over a year in solitary confinement.

Naidoo also recalled the torture she suffered at the hands of security officers during interrogation in her statement to the court.

“I was forced to stand for five days and nights, while they fired questions at me. I lost all sense of time… I also began to lose hold on reality towards the end of the interrogation. I had terrifying hallucinations, like nightmares, in which the questions became all mixed up with broken dreams. I didn’t know what was happening.” Even after her release in June 1970, the state kept her under strict banning orders, prohibiting her from meeting with more than one person at a time or even speaking to her own family members.

It was only in 1972, after intense international pressure and intervention by MP Helen Suzman, that she was granted an exit permit.

Naidoo spent 19 years in exile, working tirelessly for the ANC and the International Defence and Aid Fund (IDAF) in London, and later at the Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College in Tanzania, where she met her husband, Dominic Tweedie, who survives her. The couple had no children.

She returned home in 1991 following the un-banning of liberation movements. Rejoining her mother after nearly three decades apart marked what she described as “the most joyous moment of my life”.

In the same book interview, when asked what word she identified with above all else, Naidoo replied simply: “Freedom, of course! What matters is that I no longer have to look over my shoulder – that I’m not being watched wherever I go. I value that freedom.” Naidoo will be cremated on Sunday in Johannesburg. PTI FH GSP GSP