Billy Nair

Billy Nair (27 November 1929 – 23 October 2008) was a South African politician, trade unionist, and anti-apartheid activist.

His father was an illiterate ship cargo man and mother supplemented the income by owning a vegetable stall in the Indian market.

During his school year, he also worked part-time as a shop assistant from 1946 - 48 for a timber merchant of Indian origin and as a bookkeeper for an accounting firm.

[5] Nair was among the first group of resisters who were arrested at the Berea station with 21 other fellow-protesters for entering a "Europeans only" waiting room.

[8] After the banning of ANC in 1960, Nair became a member of the underground organization Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) which was led by Mandela.

[9] On 6 July 1963, Nair was arrested and charged with sabotage and attempting to overthrow the government by violent means and sentenced to 20 years on Robben Island along with other members of the Natal Command of MK, including Curnick Ndlovu, Ebrahim Ebrahim, Natoo Barberina, Riot Mkwanazi, Albert Duma, Eric Mtshali and 12 others.

Upon release, he remarked on this, "when I came out of prison in 1984 I actually publicly said that these Coopers, the AZAPOS, the Strini Moodleys and the whole shoot of them actually came into a five star hotel.

[6] Meanwhile, the UDF mounted a successful campaign to protest the 1984 elections to the new Tricameral Parliament, provoking a stringent state response.

Nair was arrested in August 1984 with several other UDF leaders, held under the Internal Security Act, 1982 and accused of trying to "create a revolutionary climate".

[14] After a judge ordered their release in early September, Nair and five others – Archie Gumede, Mewa Ramgobin, George Sewpershad, M. J. Naidoo, and Paul David – sought to avert their re-arrest by taking refuge in the British consulate in Durban.

[16] Although he escaped treason charges, Nair was detained again in late August 1985 and held under the Internal Security Act, 1982.

[18] Nair left hiding after the ANC and SACP were unbanned in February 1990 at an advanced stage of the negotiations to end apartheid.

[19] During his subsequent detention, Nair suffered a heart attack, and he was released shortly after undergoing double bypass surgery.

[6] After his release, he served on the interim leadership corps of both the ANC and the SACP, which were working to re-establish their legal structures inside South Africa.

Gaining re-election in June 1999, he served two terms in his seat before retiring from Parliament at the April 2004 general election.

[22] S'bu Ndebele, the Premier of KwaZulu-Natal and Nair's former neighbour on Robben Island,[22] granted him an official provincial funeral,[23] which was held on 30 October 2008.

[6] He was admitted to the Order of Luthuli in 2004, receiving the award in silver for "His contribution to the struggle for workers' rights and for a non-racial and non-sexist South Africa.

[6] Finally, in April 2009, he received a posthumous honorary doctorate from the University of KwaZulu-Natal; Pravin Gordhan accepted it on behalf of Nair's family.

[27] In December 1960, Nair married Elsie Goldstone, a trade unionist who was his sister's next-door neighbour.