MONTY NAICKER, between reason and treason

534 pp., illus., paperback, Pietermaritzburg, 2010

A biography of Dr Gagathura (Monty) Mohambru Naicker, a key political figure in the Natal Indian Congress (NIC) and the Congress Alliance. Dr Naicker was born in Durban in 1910. In 1945 he was elected president of the NIC, a post he held until 1963. In the 1950s he was president of the South African Indian Congress (SAIC). He was one of the accused in the Treason Trial of 1956-1961, although the charges against him were withdrawn in 1958. He was imprisoned several times and between 1956 and 1968 served with banning orders which effectively put an end to his political activities. He died in 1978.

"This book is more than a biography of Monty Naicker. While Monty's sterling contribution is recorded with a sure hand, this is essentially the political history of Indian South Africans in the critical period from the 1940s to the 1970s; more pointedly, it is the history of the Natal Indian Congress, an organisation founded by Mohandas K.Gandhi in 1894 and nurtured into the beginnings of non-racialism during these decades." Fatima Meer

Ashwin Desai is Associate Professor of Sociology at Rhodes University.
Goolam Vahed is Associate Professor of History, Uhniversity of KwaZulu-Natal.