He was an early collaborator of Mahatma Gandhi leading many protests in then South Africa against racial discrimination targeted at the Indian community.

Naidoo was born in 1875 in Mauritius as the youngest son into a family of Tamil migrants from Mattur (in present day Thanjavur district), in then Madras Presidency of British India.

He led a protest march to the Johannesburg Municipal Council, and was a part of the delegation to meet president Paul Kruger with a petition against the law.

[1] From 1906 to 1913, he collaborated with Gandhi in the South African Indian communities as they struggled against pre-Apartheid racial repression by the local white and the colonial British authorities in Durban.

[4] Naidoo collaborated with Gandhi, as the latter firmed up his political actions against Jan Smuts, the then South African prime minister.

He led protests against some of the discriminatory legislations of the period including the Transvaal Asiatic Land Tenure Act and the Licences (Control) Ordinance.

Four of his sons including Roy were sent to India along with Gandhi, and studied under poet, Nobel laureate, and Indian independence activist Rabindranath Tagore.