Interview with Billy Nair Interview with Billy

INTERVIEW WITH BILLY NAIR INTERVIEW WITH BILLY NAIR INTERVIEWED BY P. BONNER. B HARMEL NEDBANK GARDENS, DURBAN 13 JUNE 1994 PART TWO TRANSCRIBED BY COLLEEN BARKER PB The point you were making about Chief Luthuli and Moses Kotane and the encompassing issues, particularly the move to violence one. BN Moses Kotane and Chief Luthuli were very close friends apart from the fact that Moses was the regional secretary of the underground South African Communist party and Chief Luthuli was President, they exchanged confidences and as a matter of fact one of the first people to actually read Chief - the speech that he was to deliver at Oslo upon receiving the Nobel peace prize - was Moses Kotane. Moses used to travel regularly to Braadville to meet Chief Obao, Moses was restricted to Johannesburg at the time, he used to travel clandestinely to meet Chief and go back. The issue of violence, or rather the issue of violence and the formation of what ultimately led to the formation of Umhonto was canvassed by both Chief Luthuli and Moses Kotane, even before the formation of Umkhonto, that is, there was a thorough going analysis and then they debated the issue and form and then brought the issue to'the joint congresses for discussion and debate. And so with all other important policy matters were first canvassed between Moses and the Chief. Moses may have, in the eyes of the ruling block, Moses was regarded as a tyrant always, but he was the most deep going thinker in the entire movement. He played a very important role in the ANC, and played the role of winning over the various factions that developed during the course of the struggles. He brought together left and right and put down any form of extremism that became manifest in the movement. The Bafabagia, all the people die dancing, who wanted to die dancing that were in the ANC in the days gone by, or on the other hand, the ultra-militant group within the party that emerged from time to time. He was able to, through reasoned argument, help bring those factions together, solved problems that arose within the Congress Alliance, the issue of violence and all the broad strategy and tactics was always canvassed between Moses and other leaders, Chief Luthuli, Dr. Mike and others. Even people like Michael Harmel or Braam Fischer, although Michael Harmel used to be, was always, one of our leading theoretician in the party, but he made bold to argue his case in the Congress Alliance and never in fact for one moment held back his true passion, or his true feelings on issues, and he was actually liked for his forthrightness. It was fantastic that people like Chief or, on the other hand, some who were conservative were won over by the force of his arguments on many important issues. Nothing was actually foisted on members of the Alliance, people in the party had the benefit of prior discussion at times on issues, or you may have had party members who were more theoretically sound on some issues, they never foisted this, they argued it, discussed it and thrashed this out in all the forums, the assemblies and so on,and so with the ANC conferences. This went for even people like Rev. Ntlalata, or you take the old guard, J.B Marks was also widely accepted in the Democratic Congress. So that party members, take David Bopape or Dan Mshume, Moses Kotane, J.B Marks and Braam Fischers and all the Michael Harmels, they were always accepted as dominant characters, on the contrary, as equals, and their arguments, or rather their contribution to the building of the organisation, the development of the broad democratic struggle was always lauded. Yussef Dadoo played a very important role. Party members were not seen as outsiders imposing their will, on the contrary, they were accepted as equals and as people who had played a valuable role both in the trade union movement and in the National Democratic struggle. Hence Nelson, when he was asked by Peter Mboka when he was at Victor Verster Prison that he should eschew violence and also break the alliance with the Communist party he dealt with that forcefully and had rejected the suggestion that the Communists were imposters or people who were imposing their will on the ANC or were in control of the ANC as was .......... from Peter's argument. He wrote at length, while in prison, on both these issues and .......... that both are addressed, again reiterating the standpoint of Chief Luthuli and others who were in the national movement. I recall Chief had the ............ trying to bait Chief Luthuli at a mass meeting of white liberals here in Durban, and Professor Cooper was actually chairperson of that meeting when Chief Luthuli decided to leave the chair - he was actually asked to chair that meeting, or rather Professor Cooper was chair of that meeting - and he left that to put the question on communism, indicting the ANC for having promoted communists to key positions in the ANC, among others he named Moses Kotane, Marks and others. This was in the 50s, before the banning of the ANC. Chief Luthuli, in response, actually said that he was very proud of the contributions made by those communists and he challenged Professor Cooper and others of the Liberal party to try to equal, or try to outdo the contribution made by those communists and they will earn a place in the ANC National Executive as well. It is through dint of hard work and sacrifice they earned their positions in the top in the ANC and the Congress Alliance .......... So it was not through intrigue or any surreptitious work that they got on the place, on the contrary, it was just the reverse, it was recognition of their hard work. PB I know that the decision to go towards armed struggle created real tensions within the Indian Congress. Was there much support among the Indian Congress in Natal or in Durban for that decision, or did most people go against it. So this is two issues, the influence of dandyism on you, that one. BN In my formative years, yes I was influenced by the underground movement and looked upon it as a unifying force, as one of the tactics that had to be employed to unite the people, and hence, I wasn't active at the time merely a supporter of the Congress movement, I attended all the rallies and meetings, took part in the marches, but did not actively participate in the ......... campaign of 1946 and 1948, but subsequently took part in the Defiance campaign which was also active resistance in a sense, in its element. That was the tactic that was being employed, influenced by Ghandi's .......... At the same time the form passive resistance took in South Africa was slightly different in the sense that we employed the Defiance campaign, then there was a Congress of the people, there were mass strikes, economic attack on the state through boycotts of particular products such as tobacco and certain selected products, and of course the potato boycott which was union wide. It led up to a violent form of struggle against the state. These were all tactical, tactics and not to be confused with principal. What I was opposed to elevating .......... to one of a fine principal, which had to be adhered to at all costs. Now this was fundamental in the sense that on reading the situation in India itself Ghandi himself in 1929 opposed initially the violent form of struggle undertaken by the Shitager Army invaders, for instance, and later on during the war years he was opposed to the idea of violence all together, against the British government. So this I basically differed with and felt that it could have actually brought an end to British rule if it had been adopted, because the Indian navy and there was a formidable army recruited by the British government which took part in the last .......... war, it was important to defeat Hitler, but at the same time it would have defeated the British army at home. So that would have actually brought an end to British rule and liberated India sooner. Basically it was the problem of sticking to .......... as a principal. The Indian Congress, there was disquiet and they felt like quite a number of others, even some of the ANC members or people like Roley Arenstein in the Congress of Democrats, who felt that it was wrong, we had not exhausted the normal methods of struggle. What was argued forcefully is that increasingly there was no room, or rather there was very little scope for non-violent struggle even a simple strike by the workers on an industrial basis, or, on a factory basis was brought down heavily. So, increasingly the state was turning to violence as the only option, not to concede, not to make any concessions what so ever. They regarded everything, practically, as revolutionary and it had to brought down heavily leaving us with no alternative but to resort to violence as a means to undo the apartheid system. PB At that point still my impression is that, I'm not sure whether it is completely accurate, but the majority of the Indian Congress would have been opposed to the armed struggle. I was wondering which bit would have been in support of it, which people would have been in support of the move to armed struggle? BN You can say quite a sizable section of the leadership, yes, but not necessarily all of them, but the ranks, the rank and file, especially the worker, the more conscious, those who were politicised over the years, they saw the need for a violent form of struggle.

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