Mandela’s two Malayali comrades

Book cover of Mandelayodoppam Poradiya Randu Malayalikal

Billy Nair and Paul Joseph, born to Indian migrant workers in South Africa, fought against discrimination and persecution during the apartheid regime, enduring imprisonment, torture and deprivation. Nair spent twenty years in the infamous Robben Island prison alongside Mandela and passed away in 2008 at 79 after having won wide recognition and being elected twice to the South African parliament following the end of apartheid. Joseph, 94, now lives in London. Both were colleagues in the African National Congress (ANC), South African Indian Congress (SAIC) and the South African Communist Party (SACP). They were also leaders of the armed guerilla group -uMhkonto wiSizew (MK)- that the ANC launched with Mandela as the Chief Commander, giving up its Gandhian non-violent resistance and joining hands with SACP. This shift by the ANC followed the shooting down of its 69 peaceful protestors by police at Sharpeville town (“South Africa’s Jallianwalla Bagh”) in 1960. The MK launched several bomb explosions during this time, triggering even more brutal repression by the government. Nair was MK’s provincial Commander in Natal.     

Nair's father Krishnan Nair was from Kundalassery in Palakkad district and arrived in Natal, as a contract worker in a cargo ship during the 1920s. His mother Parvathi was the daughter of Kothanar Ramaswami Pillai, a migrant from Puthukkottai, Tamil Nadu. He had six siblings. Joseph’s mother Annamma had migrated from Vazhakkulam in Ernakulam district to South Africa as a young girl. His father Veerasami was a Tamil worker from Puthucherry in Johannesburg. 

Both Nair and Joseph were among the 21 Indian activists who were co-accused with Mandela in the notorious Treason Trial of 1956. They were accused of conspiring to overthrow the South African government and replace it with a Communist state. However, the case was dismissed as baseless, five years later, even by a White jury. In 1964, Nair was interned with Mandela and many others in the infamous Robben Island prison for over two decades after ANC and SACP were banned. Like all others, they suffered extreme forms of physical and mental persecution which further cemented their mutual friendship. In 1961, while functioning underground, Nair met and married Elsie, a Black textile worker and trade unionist. She had braved much persecution from the police while Nair was in prison. Even after his release, police did not stop harassing Nair because the ban on ANC continued until 1994. Once Nair was stopped on the street and when he resisted, a police officer slapped his ear, damaging his eardrum.  An enraged Elsie filed a case and the white judge found the police guilty and ordered compensation for Nair, shocking the apartheid regime. 

Elsie died in 2011 and their only daughter lives in London. According to Tom Lodge, the SACP’s historian, Durban was the bastion of South Africa’s trade unions and a model for the global labour movement which was built by Nair. 

Shaheed’s research on Billy Nair began in 2019 when a friend told about him after visiting Robben Island Prison which is a museum now.  Names of every anti-apartheid activist who was imprisoned there were written in front of their respective cells alongside their fingerprints and other biographical details. Seeing Billy Nair’s surname, Shaheed's friend asked the authorities whether Nair was from Kerala. But they had no clue more than that he was from India. 

Shaheed’s journalistic curiosity was enkindled to begin his search which he never expected to be so daunting at the beginning. The first person he contacted was Gopalakrishna Gandhi, Mahatma’s grandson and India’s first High Commissioner to independent South Africa. But though he had heard much about Nair, Gandhi had no information about his Kerala background. However, he gave Shaheed the email address of his aunt, the 82-year-old Ela Gandhi, (daughter of Manilal, Gopal Gandhi’s father Devdas’s brother), a senior political activist based in South Africa. However, though she knew Nair very well for a long time, she said that all Indians in South Africa were known by their Indian identity and so was unaware of his Kerala connection. 

But, Ila had a piece of crucial information. Billy’s brother Jay Nair and elder sister Kalyani Nair were living in Canada and Germany respectively and she gave Shaheed their email addresses. In the meanwhile, MP Veerendra Kumar, senior politician and Mathrubhumi’s Managing Director was excited about Shaheed’s project and made inquiries with his contacts about Nair. Kumar also asked Shaheed to undertake a trip to South Africa which, however, did not materialise because of the outbreak of COVID. Nair’s Kerala background remained elusive even after Shaheed contacted many journalists, historians, diplomats and academics who had worked in South Africa and searched in several books and documents. Prof Padre O’Malley’s biography on Mac Maharaj, a prominent Indian leader of the ANC who was Transport Minister under Mandela, said that Nair was a South Indian. Maharaj who was also an inmate in Robben Island had told his biographer that in prison, Mandela and Nair called each other, “Thampi” and “Anna”. Shaheed spoke to Maharaj who was in his eighties, many times on the phone. Though Maharaj gave a lot of details about his close friend, Nair, he could not confirm if he was from Kerala. 

Billy’s brother Jay wrote to Shaheed much about Billy and their parents, but there was no mention of the Kerala connection. Finally, the reply from Billy’s elder sister, the 94-year-old Kalyani Nair for the first time contained the most precious information: their father Krishnan Nair was from Kundalassery and their mother’s parents were from Tamil Nadu. She also informed him that Billy had four younger siblings-  Natarajan, Anjali, Jay and Shad of whom the first two were no more. Shad lived in Switzerland. 

In April 2021, Shaheed had another windfall. Mathrubhumi’s librarian sent him a 1978 clipping of an interview with ANC’s representative in India, Munuswami who had said, “Among those imprisoned for fighting apartheid in South Africa was a Malayali named Billy Nair”. 

Shaheed came across Paul Joseph’s name in “Young Mandela”, a book by the British journalist, David James Smith. From Joseph’s name, Shaheed got a hunch that he could be from Kerala. But there was no mention of his Indian roots in any of the books and documents which contained much about Joseph. Both Ila Gandhi and Maharaj, who knew Joseph well, never had any clue of his Indian roots. However, when Shaheed called, journalist Smith confirmed Joseph’s Kerala roots. Though Smith knew Joseph lived in London, he didn’t know where exactly or how to contact him. However, a week later, Philip Abraham, the first Malayali Mayor of Luton City near London, gave Shaheed Joseph’s telephone number. This led to many calls between Shaheed and Joseph who told him about his native Vazhakulam which he visited once in 1980. Joseph’s autobiographical account, “Slumboy from the Golden City”, also contained much about his mother Annamma and also, briefly about her native village, Vazhakkulam near Muvattupuzha.

Annamma was brought to South Africa when she was 10 years old from Vazhakkulam by her uncle and aunt who didn’t have children. Annamma grew up there and married Doraisami, an Indian migrant worker who was from Puthicheri and they had five children. After Doraisami died, Annamma married Veerasami, a horse coachman with whom she had five more children, including Paul Joseph who was born in 1930 in Johannesburg. 

Suffering racial discrimination and deprivation from his young days, Joseph was attracted even as a boy to the local resistance movements. He joined the Communist Party and partook in its trade union activities and later the South African Indian Congress and the ANC’s struggles against discrimination.  He became personally close to Mandela, Maharaj, Nair and many others and often faced severe persecution by authorities. Accused along with Mandela and Nair in the Treason Trial, he was arrested. Joseph also participated in the MK’s guerilla activities braving extreme repression. During the 1960s, when ANC was banned and most leaders arrested, Joseph and Adelaide escaped to London with the help of Amnesty International to get medical assistance for their seriously sick son, Anand. Though Anand died later, the couple stayed on in London with their daughter. Joseph worked with an insurance firm and assisted in campaigns against the apartheid. In 2008, Joseph and Adelaide were overwhelmed with joy when Mandela visited their house in London on his 90th birthday. 

Shaheed traced Joseph’s relative Reethamma, a school teacher in Vazhakulam in 2023 who knew much about Joseph and Annamma. The house Reethamma’s father George built in Vazhakulam was known as “Africa House” because it used to be visited by her grandfather Varkey who took Annamma to South Africa. 

Shaheed was unable to communicate with Joseph after November 2022, as the latter became completely indisposed after the death of Adelaide, a few days earlier. We owe Shaheed our gratitude for bringing to light the Kerala roots of two remarkable persons who fought against one of humanity’s most heinous practices.