MILESTONES
1910 - Birth of Mohambry (Monty) Naicker to Papiah Gangathura, a fruiterer, and Dhanamal, of Leopold Street, Durban.
1917-1926 - Attended the Carlisle Street Boys School, graduating from it with a junior school certificate.
1927 - Enrolled at Marine College and prepared for his Matric.
1928, March 10 - Left for Edinburgh to study medicine, enrolled at Skerrys
Tutorial College where he prepared for the entrance exam to the Edinburgh University. Dr Goonam was a fellow student.
1929 - Admitted to the medical school of the Edinburgh University.
1930-34 - The years of the gay student who pursued social and sporting activities as earnestly as he did his studies. He became an executive member of the Edinburgh Indian Students' Association, edited its handbook and played in its lawn tennis, table tennis and cricket teams. He excelled in ballroom dancing and was very popular with the girls. He met Dr Yusuf Dadoo, a fellow student, during this time.
1934 - Awarded the M.B.Ch.B. degree of the University of Edinburgh and returned to South Africa .
1935 - Established medical practice in Short Street and founded the Hindu Youth Movement which concentrated on social and sporting activities. His medical practice attracted a large number of poor Indians, mainly from Magazine Barracks and he found himself becoming involved in their social and economic problems.
1936 - Married Mariemuthu Appavu of Port Elizabeth , in the Umgeni Road Temple , Durban .
1938 - Birth of daughter, Vasugee.
1940 - He joined the Liberal Study Group, a multi-racial organisation and became exposed to radical ideas. This group laid the foundations of his political orientation and provided him with a nucleus for his future political action.
1941-45 - He drew close to the Indian trade union movement and identified himself with a number of strikes.
1943 - He confronted General Smuts's Pegging Act, the first South African Act passed by the United Party Government imposing spatial segregation on the Indians of Natal. Following stringent reaction in India , this Act was modified into the Pretoria Agreement in terms of which the then leaders of the Natal Indian Congress, A.I. Kajee and P.R. Pather, undertook on behalf of the Indian people to accept residential segregation voluntarily in exchange for unhampered and free economic enterprise. Dr Naicker challenged the bona fides of this Agreement.
Birth of son Kreesan.
1944 - The Anti-Segregation Council was formed with Dr Naicker at its head, to organise the Indian people against segregation.
1943-45 - Dr Naicker built up mass Indian support for his programme of complete equality and forced the Natal Indian Congress, through a Supreme Court order, to hold the long overdue conference of the NIC.
1945 - The NIC held its general meeting at Curries Fountain, Durban . The existing officials failed to turn up, and an enthusiastic crowd of 12,000 unanimously voted Dr Naicker as head of the NIC
Dr Naicker called for a United Front of all South African democrats for the achievement of a non-racial democracy in South Africa.
1946 - The United Party Government passed the Indian Land Tenure and Representation Act, the forerunner of the Group Areas Act, imposing spatial segregation on Indians throughout the country.
March 31 - 6,000 people led by Monty Naicker marched in protest against the Act following a mass meeting addressed by Indian, African and Coloured speakers.
1946 – Natal and Transvaal Indian Congresses launch passive resistance against the Asiatic (“Ghetto”) Act. Dr Naicker led the first batch of resisters occupying a plot of municipal land in Durban reserved for Whites.
The Government at first ignored the violation but when a group of Whites subjected the resisters to nightly assaults, the resisters were arrested. Dr Naicker was sentenced to imprisonment.
Marie Naicker, wife of Dr Naicker, led a resistance batch and was imprisoned for one month. By the end of the campaign 2,000 had defied segregation and suffered imprisonment.
Dr Dadoo gained control of the Transvaal Indian Congress and strengthened Dr Naicker's leadership.
India, urged by the Natal Indian Congress, took up the issue of racial discrimination at the first session of the UN General Assembly and defeated General Smuts. The issue of racism in South Africa became an annual UN issue thereafter and laid the foundation for the present international movement against racism in South Africa.
1947 – Drs Naicker and Dadoo, and Dr Xuma, president of the ANC, signed an agreement for joint co-operation between the Indian Congresses and the ANC.
Drs Dadoo and Naicker visited India and obtained official recognition from Gandhi, Nehru and Jinnah. They attended the Asian Relations Conference in New Delhi and held discussions with delegates of many countries.
1948, January - Passive Resistance entered its second phase. Dr Naicker led a batch of 15 resisters across the border into the Transvaal at Volksrust. He was sentenced to a further six months imprisonment.
September - The Nationalist Government confiscated the passports of Drs Naicker and Dadoo to prevent them from attending the third session of the UN General Assembly in Paris.
Dr Naicker was elected president of the South African Indian Congress (SAIC).
1949 - Violence broke out in Durban when impoverished and highly frustrated Africans were provoked to attack Indians following a rumour that the latter had killed an African lad.
Dr Naicker and his Congress worked in close co-operation with the ANC to restore calm and later when a commission of inquiry was appointed the two organisations jointly briefed council. They later withdrew from the commission when it ruled against their right to cross-examine witnesses.
1950 – The SAIC set up a Joint Consultative Committee with the ANC to plan a new resistance campaign.
1952 - Dr Naicker led the first resistance group in Natal in the Defiance of Unjust Laws campaign. He occupied a White waiting room and was sentenced to one month's imprisonment.
1953-54 - Dr Naicker threw himself behind the massive move to convene the Congress of the People.
1956 - Banned for three years.
1956, December - Dr Naicker together with 155 others, including the then president of the ANC, Chief Albert Luthuli, was arrested for treason. The trial continued for three years.
1960 - Dr Naicker played a key role in planning a mass civil disobedience movement. The initiative was taken by the ANC and the PAC which called on Africans to revolt against the carrying of passes.
The Government retaliated by declaring a state of emergency. Dr Naicker was among the hundreds who were detained.
In Durban, the court found a technical fault in the detention order and the detainees were temporarily released. Dr Naicker and J.N. Singh were advised by the movement to work underground for the duration of the emergency.
Dr Naicker, disguised as a Muslim merchant, spent five months organising from the “underground”.
1963 - Banned for five years.
1966 - Sentenced to imprisonment for breaking his banning order by sitting down to dinner with his daughter and his friend, Dr Alan Paton. All, save one week of the sentence was suspended.
He was finally forced to move out of his house in Percy Osborne Road in terms of the Group Areas Act. He had lived in that house for 20 years. Dr Naicker had refused to move out and had to he finally ejected. He had made no alternate plans and lived in hotels for a while before settling down in Asherville.
1968 - Served with another banning order.
1973 - His third banning order expired and his release from captivity was celebrated at the Vedic Hall by over a thousand jubilant supporters.
1974-75 - He supported local groups opposed to apartheid and spoke from their platforms.
1971 - He supported the students at the University of Durban-Westville in their protest against the June police shooting in Soweto.
1977 - He led the Anti-SAIC (South African Indian Council) and began a campaign to conscientise the people against government structured apartheid institutions.
1978, January - Died peacefully after a short illness at the St Aidens Mission Hospital.
Fatima Meer