Thumba Pillay - the firebrand activist who became a judge

IT'S only fitting that retired judge and human rights campaigner, Thumba Pillay's birthday falls in April - what we in South Africa call Freedom Month.

Freedom, after all, has been the watchword epitomising his impeccable character, strong values and unyielding principles all through his life.

Some people say it runs through the veins of this 89-year-old veteran.

Barathanathan Thumba Pillay was barely 10 years old when, travelling by bus from his Clairwood home to the Durban city centre, his curiosity was drawn to a crowd of protestors at a Passive Resistance rally in Gale Street, calling for an end to racial discrimination.

That's when the first seeds of his political awareness were planted.

And it later grew during his schooldays when he avidly followed radio reports of global political developments, including the struggle for independence in India by leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chander Bose.

He recalls his first clash with authority came when he received six of the best for being part of the leadership of a school stay-away to celebrate India's independence in 1947.

After completing high school at Sastri College, the young Pillay embarked on his university career and that's where he began to see more starkly the evils of apartheid in all its rawness.

"That's when the political bug caught me," he recalled.

Opportunities were abysmally limited for people of colour at the time.

He was forced to attend lectures in what was called the non-European section of the old University of Natal.

These consisted of makeshift prefabs separated from the main white campus at Howard College.

"I realised that the system of separate and unequal education violated all the values that a true university represented," he said.

The budding activist

With political resistance to racial discrimination and white minority rule intensifying, it was inevitable that the young firebrand would be drawn into political activism, especially after coming into contact with political stalwarts like Mac Maharaj, Griffiths Mxenge, MJ Naidoo, Kader Hassim,  and Lewis Skweyiya, to name a few.

His zealous spirit, strong leadership qualities and staunch commitment to the campaign for liberation soon saw him catapulted to leadership positions in student politics and later, the Natal Indian Congress where he rubbed shoulders with the likes of MP Naicker, Kay Moonsamy, Phyllis Naidoo, Ebrahim Ebrahim, Billy Nair, Nathoo Barbenia and RD Naidu. 

The former judge has always made it clear the NIC was not an end in itself, but an integral component of the wider Congress Alliance, which included the other congress organisations, the unions, the Communist Party and the Congress of Democrats.

That period saw increasing Indian participation in the underground structures of the African National Congress (ANC) and in the founding of the historic Freedom Charter.

In fact, Indian participation in the founding of the Freedom Charter was substantial.

He recalls joining a team of volunteers who went door-to-door collating responses from people about what they would like to see included in that historic document.

He also remembers that when Nelson Mandela returned to the country incognito in 1961 after his foray into Africa, he relied almost entirely on comrades from within the NIC to facilitate his meetings with Chief Albert Luthuli and other activists who formed the first Natal Command of uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK).

Of the 20 odd people who were first arrested as part of the Natal Command - 16 of whom were later imprisoned on Robben Island - nine were Indians.

Clampdown on resistance

The early '60s saw the intensification of the apartheid regime's clampdown on resistance to its policies, including increased censorship and the implementing of draconian laws that saw the banning and detention without trial of many anti-apartheid stalwarts.

With the leadership hit by bannings and arrests, Pillay was called upon to assume an even greater leadership role as he crisscrossed the province addressing public meetings and acting as spokesperson for various organisations in defiance of the regime's policies.

His growing profile in resistance politics did not go unnoticed by apartheid's notorious apparatchiks and he was served with his first banning order on New Year's day, 1963.

This confined him to the Durban magisterial district.

It also prevented him from attending public gatherings and severely restricted his movements, his practice as an attorney and the freedom to meet people.

A second banning order followed at the end of 1968 and he also served a term of imprisonment on Robben Island..

Unkindest cut

Perhaps the unkindest personal cut of all came when those severe restrictions actually prevented him from attending his own wedding reception.

To punish him for his resistance to the government's policies, apartheid's secret police (the Special Branch) had one look at the couple's wedding invitation list and feared political stalwarts like JN Singh, Monty Naicker and Fatima Meer, who they branded as communists, were likely to attend.

So, the authorities allowed him only one hour to attend the religious ceremony and then leave promptly, with his wife Dolly remaining to take charge of the rest of the day's proceedings.

When he was later asked by a journalist whether his wife was upset about the rudely truncated wedding, he quipped good humouredly: "She knew what she was getting into when she agreed to marry me."

Pillay looks back at his role in the launch of the United Democratic Front in 1983 with much pride, especially because it represented an alliance of the ANC faithful and more than 400 public organisations, including trade unions, student unions, women's and religious organisations from a wide cross-section of South Africans.

The UDF's role was to establish a united, non-racial South Africa, freed from all institutionalised racism, and  its mass mobilisation campaign heralded the first stages of the country's transition to democracy.

Fall of apartheid

It was only after the fall of apartheid and the release from imprisonment of Nelson Mandela and other prominent political stalwarts in the early '90s that Pillay was accorded the recognition he so fully deserves for his unflinching service to the country of his birth.

In 1998, he was appointed by Mandela as a judge and also served in the judicial Inspectorate of Prisons in KwaZulu-Natal.

He also had the honour of accompanying Mandela to Oslo in Norway when the former president was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Although the transition saw an end to formal apartheid and the birth of  democracy, Pillay still maintains a critical eye on developments in the new dispensation.

He is known to have been unhappy about the controversial "list process" during the first democratic elections and growing cronyism in the ranks of the new leadership which gained momentum in subsequent polls.

Even more disillusioning has been evidence of unbridled corruption, maladministration and government's failure to meet the service delivery needs of millions of people.

Happy retirement

Now happily retired and  living in an upmarket uMhlanga apartment with his wife, Dolly, Pillay dotes on his grandchildren and still accompanies them to their sporting events around the city.

He loves keeping up with the news and spends many hours each day working on his memoirs.

And when time permits, he turns his hand to cooking "crab and lamb shank are two of my favourite dishes", he said.

He also tends to his plants in their family's garden, plays golf with his mates and is a regular at the local gym.

But if you think he's hung up his "struggle" boots and is now resting on his  laurels, you're grossly mistaken.

Pillay believes he still has an important role to play in our new democracy and is involved in several civil society organisations, including the Active Citizens Movement, to implement change and hold the government and public figures to account.

What does however give him sleepless nights, he says, is how deeply the fangs of corruption have dug into the fabric of our society in South Africa.

Most shocking and disturbing were the revelations of the commission of inquiry into state capture headed by former Chief Justice Raymond Zondo.

"I get worried and would sometimes lay awake at night thinking about what the apartheid laws did to us, to our families and to our freedom. And the thoughts of how corruption  has become the new problem in our country after apartheid. The revelations made at the commission of inquiry show the extent of corruption," he recently told reporters.

A sharing spirit

What I have personally admired him for is his meticulous archiving of material and documents relating to the liberation Struggle, especially his own political escapades, thanks largely to the now declassified files of the apartheid government's National Intelligence desk.

"All of this information and documentation is available in numerous lever arch files I compiled after my retirement. They are available to anyone interested in Struggle history," he says.

This willingness to share information with the public was also seen when he donated a series of documents relating to Nelson Mandela to the Nelson Mandela Foundation's archives in 2010, which included a letter to him written by the former president and smuggled out of Robben Island during his incarceration.

"I would like my grandchildren and children throughout South Africa to benefit from these documents," said Pillay.

When he was once asked by a journalist whether he had ever considered emigrating, he answered "no" with little hesitation.

"We made a decision as a family to never leave. We know our place is here in South Africa.

"Lots of families have left but we took a principled step not to emigrate. I wanted my children to be educated here," he said

A glorious innings, Thumba. So, when can we expect the launch of your memoirs?

Dennis Pather is a retired newspaper editor, author and columnist.

** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media. 

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