Special Report Transcript Episode 58, Section 2, Time 05:23

The Naidoo’s of Doornfontein have been involved in the struggle for four generations of their family. Their involvement in politics dates as far back as the 1920s. // Our family has actually been involved in struggle for well over a century. My grandfather already in the latter part of the last century was involved in the struggle. He was a founding member of the Transvaal Indian Congress, in fact the first president of the Transvaal Indian Congress. He was a very close colleague and collaborator with Mahatma Gandhi and the two of them organised a number of campaigns in the latter part of the last century and the early part of this century. My grandfather has got a proud record of going to prison fourteen times. In fact, on the fourteenth time they threatened to expel him, kick him out of South Africa, but despite that he went back to prison. My grandmother, who’s also been to prison on a number of occasions in fact, gave birth while in prison to her last child. My father’s been to prison in 1936 during the historical Defiance Passive Resistance. He went again to jail in 1946 during the Passive Resistance. He went to jail again in 1952 during the Defiance Campaign. // I was first detained in 1965 on my way to visit Indres on Robben Island. I was arrested at the airport in Cape Town and was held overnight in a dark, filthy cell in Roeland street prison. The next day I was taken to Swartskop Aerodrome in Pretoria in a light military aircraft. I was driven to Pretoria Central Prison and stripped naked and searched. // I was detained in 1969 under Section 6 of the Terrorism Act and I was held for two weeks at the Fort here at the Women’s section prison. // I was arrested for the first time in my house in Lenasia at 5 am on the 27th of November 1981. Within hours of my being detained a Major Abri grabbed me and smacked me, he beat me up, banged my head on the desk and he said to me that I must give him the names of the people who belonged to the internal reconstruction and development department of the ANC or I will die. // The fourth generation have been totally involved in the struggle and they’re all active today, with the ANC Youth League and the various youth movements.

Notes: TRC testimony: Indres Naidoo; Magde Naidoo; Shantie Naidoo; Prema Naidoo; Indres Naidoo