Kesval Moonsamy (5 July 1926 – 21 June 2017) was a South African trade unionist, politician and anti-apartheid activist.
The son of an indentured labourer, Kesval Moonsamy was born on 5 July 1926 in Durban, then part of the Union of South Africa's Natal Province.
He supported Monty Naicker's leadership of the progressive faction of the organisation and was part of the formation of the "anti-segregation council" in opposition to the conservative Kajee-Pather bloc of the organisation which sought to exclusively focus on the issues of Indian South Africans and not be affiliated with the African National Congress (ANC).
[1] The NIC then united the Transvaal Indian Congress in coordinating the 1946 Passive Resistance campaign against residential segregation.
[3][4] The National Party of South Africa came to power after their victory in the 1948 general election and began instituting the policy of apartheid.
[1] Despite Indian South Africans not being allowed to become members of the ANC, Moonsamy went into exile in 1965 at the request of the party.
[1] Having left South Africa on 29 June 1965,[4] he lived in Botswana for three years before going to the ANC's headquarters in Lusaka in Zambia where he helped organise the party's 1969 Morogoro Conference in Morogoro, Tanzania, at which the party's membership was opened to South Africans of all races.
[5] Following Limpho Hani's resignation as a Member of the National Assembly of South Africa in August 1999, Moonsamy was elected to take up her seat in parliament.