Opinion: For much of his life, Nelson Mandela embraced a modicum of Indianness. I have no doubt about this.
He had a certain affinity for all things Indian. As they would say in Fowl Aunty’s shebeen in Chatsworth: “The ballie smaaked charous.”
Mandela appreciated India’s rich heritage; he venerated Gandhiji; he engaged Indians during much of his life in meaningful relationships; he craved a good curry; and he made no deliberate effort to separate Indians as a distinct race group.
How I wish Julius Malema subscribed to POST. Perhaps the realisation would then dawn on him and his EFF coterie of how their lives too can be enriched by collaborating with Indians.
After Mandela was expelled from the University of Fort Hare where he was enrolled for a BA degree, he left the place of his birth in the then Transkei to escape the arranged marriages an uncle was planning for him and his brother.
He arrived in Joburg in 1941 where he befriended Walter Sisulu who arranged for him to work as an articled clerk with attorney Lazar Sidelsky, while he completed his law degree through Unisa.
Life as an articled clerk was tough. Money was in short supply. His starting salary was £2 (R4 in those days) a month.
He owned one hand-me-down suit given to him by Sidelsky. Sometimes he would walk 8km to work to save on bus fare so he would have more money for food.
In 1943, Mandela enrolled at Wits to begin his bachelor of law course part-time, in the hope of becoming an advocate. That was when he befriended the first group of Indians who were to become lifelong friends.
Fellow students Ismail Meer, JN Singh, Ahmed Bhoola and Ramlal Bhoolia were all part of a tight-knit group who met regularly at Meer’s flat, which had become the unofficial headquarters for the untiring politicians and activists in the making.
Recalling his time at the university, Mandela said: “Wits opened a new world to me, a world of ideas and political beliefs and debates, a world where people were passionate about politics.
"I was among white and Indian intellectuals of my own generation, young men who would form the vanguard of the most important political movements of the next few years.”
Mandela would often sleep on the floor in Meer’s flat when the heat of a conversation carried them late into the night.
“There we studied, talked, and even danced until the early hours in the morning,” he wrote in his autobiography.
In 1946, as a 28-year-old, he witnessed the political agility of Indians, which he likened to an Indian revolution and which “recast my whole approach to political work”.
The Smuts government had enacted the ghetto act which curtailed the free movement of Indians, restricting where they could reside, trade, and their right to buy properties.
The Indian community was outraged and considered this a grave insult.
Housewives, priests, doctors, lawyers, traders, students and workers took their place in the front lines of a massive protest campaign. For two years, people suspended their lives to take up the battle. Mass rallies were held; land reserved for whites was occupied and picketed. At least 2000 volunteers went to jail.
Mandela said he had witnessed “an extraordinary protest against colour oppression in a way that Africans and the ANC had not”.
“The Indian campaign became a model for the type of protest that we in the ANC Youth League were calling for,” he recalled.
Mandela was also moved by the sacrifices made by his friends: Meer and Singh suspended their studies, bid goodbye to their families and went to jail. Another friend, Ahmed Kathrada, who was only in high school at that time, did the same.
“If I had once questioned the willingness of the Indian community to protest against oppression, I no longer could,” he said.
This rebellion also introduced Mandela to Yusuf Dadoo, president of the Transvaal Indian Congress and Monty Naicker, president of the Natal Indian Congress, both of whom, along with Alfred Xuma, signed the Doctor’s Pact in 1947.
This was a significant move towards the unity of the African and Indian movements and the group left a lasting impact on Mandela.
Over the years of his political activism and during his arrest and incarceration on Robben Island and Pollsmoor Prison where he spent 27 years and eight months until his release on February 11, 1990, Mandela could count on strong support from Indian anti-apartheid activists.
Kathrada, Meer, Chota Motala, Dadoo, Kay Moonsamy, Billy Nair, MP Naicker and Monty Naicker were serial detainees for the cause of freedom.
To escape arrest and so that they could mobilise anti-Pretoria forces from abroad, many men and women such as Abdul Minty, MP Naicker, Phyllis Naidoo, Kader Asmal, Sam Ramsamy, Essop Pahad and Aziz Pahad, went into exile.
Many Indians joined Umkhonto we Sizwe, including Billy Nair, Ebrahim Ebrahim, Nato Barbenia, Sunny Singh, George Naicker, Siva Pillay, Kay Moonsamy and Kisten Dorasamy.
They, together with Ahmed Kathrada, Mac Maharaj, Lalloo Chiba, Strini Moodley, Saths Cooper, MD Naidoo, Indress Naidoo and many other Indian activists earned Robben Island prisoner numbers, like Mandela’s famous 46664.
In South Africa and abroad, Indians featured prominently in the “Free Mandela” campaign.
Indian food made a huge impression on Mandela. He grew to love spicy and fragrant Indian dishes.
When he and Oliver Tambo ran a law practice in Joburg in the 1950s, they would lunch daily on a minced meat curry at Kapitan’s restaurant.
One day in 1957, Mandela took a beautiful young woman called Winnie Madikizela for a first lunch to an Indian restaurant. It was chicken curry, mutton curry and rotis, and she had never eaten anything so spicy. “I would take one spoon, swallow and drink Coca-Cola, then attempt another. By the time we finished eating, I had tears in my eyes and was sneezing,” she once recalled.
Indian food became even more important as the apartheid government started prosecuting the activists in the Treason Trials from 1957 to 1960. Local families took turns to supply the activists with food. Mandela looked forward to curries and rice.
One woman, Thayanayagee Pillay, was such a dedicated and good cook that Mandela and the others wrote her a joint letter of appreciation and gave her a sari in the ANC’s black, green and gold.
Years later when Mandela came out of prison, he called Pillay again and she rushed to meet him, wearing that sari and carrying a fish curry.
Indian food was also useful when the activists were in prison in Joburg. Adelaide Joseph, a Transvaal Indian Congress activist, would bring them Indian food, including rotis with messages tucked in between.
And she told the policemen to ask them to send uneaten food back since they were poor and had a dog to feed. The return messages were in the rotis for the dog.
When Indian priests went to cater to the spiritual needs of the Indian prisoners on Robben Island, one managed to smuggle chillies, the only spices the men ever got.
They also brought sweets and special foods for festivals. When Eid or Deepavali came, everybody was suddenly converted to Hinduism or Islam. But for Mandela, the interest in the religious festivals was real, and not just about the food.
While it was impossible to smuggle food on to Robben Island in the 1960s and 1970s, the regime relaxed somewhat in the 1980s and Mandela’s lawyer, Dullah Omar, would smuggle his wife Farida’s samoosas, rotis and curries in to Pollsmoor Priso.
Mandela was an avid follower of Mahatma Gandhi’s teachings, although he was selective. Unlike Gandhi, he didn’t consider non-violence as a self-standing principle and favoured a more active, militant style of protest.
After he was released from prison, Mandela made many visits to India for he considered the country and its people close to home. He respected India for leading the anti-apartheid movement. Mandela was conferred the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian honour.
Mandela respected all religions and visited many temples and mosques, strictly observing customs and traditions.
When he married Graça Machel in 1998, priests of several religious denominations blessed the couple. Pandita Prabhawathi Nanackchand performed the Hindu marriage rituals at Mandela’s multi-faith wedding ceremony.
An Indian also played a cameo role in Mandela’s romantic life. In her autobiography, Amina Cachalia, widow of veteran ANC activist Yusuf Cachalia, revealed an intimate and affectionate side to the relationship between her and lifelong family friend.
She said Mandela had made an offer to marry her, but she dismissed his declarations of love. “I was not in love with Nelson. I loved him dearly and yet I could not bring myself to want him as I did Yusuf, even in our old age,” Amina wrote.
Mandela would often go out of his way to please his close associates. When movie mogul Anant Singh married Vanashree at the Durban ICC, Mandela attended as the chief guest of honour. Coincidentally, Vanashree and Mandela share a birthday.
When Minority Front party leader Amichand Rajbansi clashed with ANC members, Mandela visited Rajbansi at his Chatsworth home to iron out differences.
When Mandela formed the first democratic government, he ensured political struggle heroes who had been incarcerated on Robben Island formed part of his cabinet. Despite there being only 30 positions, five Indians, Dullah Omar, Jay Naidoo, Mac Maharaj, Kader Asmal and Ahmed Kathrada, were given leadership roles in recognition of their Struggle credentials.
Yusuf Surtee was Mandela’s long-time tailor. His physician was Dr Vejay Ramlakan.
Vimla Naidoo was protocol officer and personal assistant to Mandela. It is clear Mandela was colour blind as far as Indians were concerned - unlike some politicians of today who are wont to regularly spew anti-Indian rhetoric.
As we celebrate the centenary of Mandela’s birth, the greatest tribute we can pay to this man who has made an impact on his country, his continent and humankind is to live out the rest of our own lives applying his universal ideals.