Ahmed was an internationalist. He wrote in his autobiography, “Our struggles at home were inevitably linked with the struggles in Africa and in the wider world. In Africa, the victories of the national liberation revolutions; the aggression of Suez and Bizerta by the Imperialist powers; the Algerian War of Independence and other acts of heroic struggles to rebut Imperialism clearly showed who the real enemies of the people were.” His internationalism was tinged by the Cold War propaganda of the era: “On the other hand the undertaking to construct the Aswan Dam in Egypt by the Soviet Union, also its persistent condemnation of reactionary policies in the international councils of the world and above all, with the launching of the first sputnik demonstrated strikingly the fantastic scientific and technological achievements of the Soviet Union under the growth of the productive forces of Socialism.”
A DECADE OF STRUGGLE
It was Dr Yusuf Dadoo who was the critical factor in the political development of Ahmed Timol. As Essop Pahad has noted in his unpublished biography, “Dr Dadoo was exceptionally busy on a wide variety of political issues and his popularity and stature and influence were such that any call by him for mass political action was certain to receive the serious consideration of the national liberation and working class movements.
“From the late Thirties Dr Dadoo remained the single most influential political figure within the Indian community. The Defiance Campaign, in which over 8 000 disciplined volunteers courted imprisonment, had been a mighty demonstration of the strength of the African people and of the united front of all revolutionary forces. It signalled an irrevocable break with the old, fruitless, cap-in-hand restrictions of the struggle confined only to deputations, petitions and pleas to the authorities for justice; it marked the decisive shift to unremitting mass struggles including the greater use of the strike weapon. In his presidential address to the
ANC (Transvaal) Conference in 1953, Nelson Mandela introduced the ‘M’ Plan (named after himself). This plan intended to build a mass membership that was organised into cells at grassroots level and, through a hierarchy of leaders at intermediate levels, would be responsive to direction without the necessity for public meetings. This also allowed for a tighter, more disciplined organisation, closer to the grassroots of the people – an organisation designed for mass action in a hostile and increasingly repressive atmosphere.”
Essop Pahad notes in A People’s Leader, A Political Biography of Dr Yusuf M Dadoo: “The experience of Sharpeville, the illegalisation within days of the African National Congress and Pan Africanist Congress (the Communist Party had been banned since 1950), the massive use of armed force and intimidation to suppress all popular struggles, made it inevitable that the movement should reconsider its reliance on non-violent forms of struggle alone. The revolutionary forces had to find alternative forms of struggle against fascist terror. From this reconsideration of their role was to come Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation), the military wing of the ANC, formed on the joint initiative of the ANC and the South African Communist Party. At the first sign of Umkhonto activity the regime counter- attacked with draconian legislation for detention without trial and legalising the torture and murder of detainees: it subsequently increased its military expenditure, and instituted a system of unrestrained police terror. South Africa had become a police state.”
In the book A Long Night’s Damage: Working for the Apartheid State, Eugene de Kock tells Jeremy Gordin that: “Born less than a year after the National Party took power in 1948, I was brought up to believe that police action was justified if its goal was to protect the system. The Sharpeville shootings of 1960, for example, made an enormous impression on me. I may have been 11 years old but I understood that the state mechanism had been used in the defence of a political system.”
The tough-talking justice minister John Vorster had come to power after the assassination of prime minister Dr Hendrik Verwoerd in 1966. This repressive atmosphere set the tone for what was to happen to Ahmed in detention. Vorster’s security chief Hendrik van den Bergh made it clear, in remarks to a commission of inquiry (remarks that the government tried to conceal at the time), that his men would stop at nothing if the security of the state demanded this. There can be no doubt about a pattern of deliberate state assassination of comrades in the struggle, something which is highly relevant to the Timol case.
THE TURN TO ARMS
It was in conditions of political emergency that the foundations were laid for the activities that led to Ahmed’s death. After the declaration of a State of Emergency in March 1960 following the Sharpeville massacre, thousands were arrested including most of the leading members of the national liberation and working class movements. But Dadoo, Moses Kotane, Harmel and others evaded the racist net. The Communist Party of South Africa, banned in 1950, had been recast as the South African Communist Party (SACP); its existence was kept secret from all apart from its own members. Now it was decided to make the existence of the
Party public. Leaflets were clandestinely distributed throughout the country at an agreed date and time. While underground, Dr Dadoo vigorously argued the case for a radical departure in the tactics and strategy of the national liberation and working class movement – a turn to armed struggle.
Ahmed wrote in his autobiography, “The planning for the new stage of struggle commenced immediately and in 1961 the beginning of an armed struggle was on the agenda of the South African Revolution. As a direct response to the emergence of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the military wing of the ANC that was given the task for sabotage acts directed against the economic pillars of apartheid and the offices and places of discrimination, the ruling authorities introduced the 90-day law.
Hundreds of activists were detained in solitary confinement and subjected to barbarous treatment.
“The security of the underground movement was penetrated at several points and numerous trials followed, the famous one being the Rivonia Trial where our leaders comrades [Nelson] Mandela, [Govan] Mbeki, [Ahmed] Kathrada were sentenced to life imprisonment.”
Pahad describes how new repressive laws were rushed through the white Parliament, and the first arrests and detentions, incommunicado, were made under these laws. “90-days”, “180-days”, “sabotage suspect”, “detention without trial”, “solitary confinement”, “ torture” – a whole new vocabulary was becoming current in legal-political talk, and with it new images of what was really happening in the country. From prisons and detention centres all over the country horrific accounts of police brutality and consistent tortures began to emerge through information smuggled by the victims to friends or relatives outside.
The involvement of Indians in this new phase of struggle was dramatically underlined in April 1963, when five men, Laloo Chiba, Sirish Nanabhai, Indres Naidoo, Reggie Vandeyar and Abdulhay Jassat were arrested and charged with sabotage. Chiba was subsequently released and Jassat, together with another detainee, Moosa Moola, escaped from prison (with detainees Arthur Goldreich and Harold Wolpe) and left the country, but the other three were convicted of attempting to blow up electricity pylons. They were sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment. Chiba was to be arrested again in 1964 and sentenced to 20 years.
A significant degree of unity was maintained in the Indian community, despite differences on the new strategy – a unity stretching to communist and non- communist, workers, shopkeepers, teachers, nurses, doctors and students. Within the underground itself, this was demonstrated as a unity in which people of African, coloured, Indian and white descent had been successfully integrated, and they were functioning at every level of Umkhonto we Sizwe – not as representing national groups or organisations, but as revolutionaries, functioning under a single unified leadership. The outlines of a future non-racial society were becoming more apparent.
The arrest of a part of the leadership at Rivonia dealt a great blow to the liberation movement. It did not, however, destroy it. A year later, shortly after the Rivonia accused had been sentenced, a fresh wave of sabotage rocked the country and sporadic acts of sabotage continued until 1965. In August 1967, armed
combatants of the ANC joined members of the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) on combined operations inside Zimbabwe against a combined force of the Pretoria and Salisbury regimes. Things were getting very serious.
Dr Dadoo had been asked by the South African Indian Congress (SAIC) and the SACP to leave South Africa to strengthen the external mission of the movement. Dadoo was not happy with the decision and argued vigorously that his place was in the underground. He was overruled and, disciplined communist and revolutionist that Dadoo was, he carried out the collective decision and left the country in 1960. But he was in South Africa long enough to make a deep impression on student Timol.
After the banning of the ANC, during 1960-1963 volunteers from the Transvaal Indian Youth Congress (TIYC) began producing and distributing ANC pamphlets and posters. South Africa was in a state of ferment. The struggle against the Group Areas Act was the main form of struggle by the Indian Congress. The country was under a State of Emergency and the ANC was banned. The underground network was now being built. Ahmed continued having contact with Essop and Aziz Pahad, Ahmed Bhabha and others. Political ideas started maturing in his head.
Aziz and Essop were banned for five years in January 1964. Although sharing a bedroom they had to get special permission from the then minister of justice to speak to each other. They both went into exile in December 1964.
Sampie Essack recalls, “Before Aziz and Essop Pahad departed the country, they mentioned to me that we must keep in contact. When I arrived to teach in Roodepoort, I was requested to send the addresses of parents through the various grapevines. I was in charge of the admission register at school. Herbie Francis (who went to Canada) was in charge of the register previously, and the responsibility was then handed over to me. I would regularly write down the names and addresses of the parents on a page and post it to them in London. Aziz and Essop would then send newsletters of the ANC’s activities to the people in South Africa. When I was transferred to MH Joosub High School in 1974, I did the same thing. Later, at Nirvana High School, also in charge of the admission register, I once again did the same thing. This was how the ANC in London kept the local communities informed about the ANC’s political activities.”
The Roodepoort Indian High School incident book on Wednesday, 9 August 1972 contains the following entry: “Warrant Officer Van Tonder of the Security Police called at school. He took statements from Mr I Loonat and myself, regarding the pamphlet ‘Bangladesh’ by YM Dadoo which had been posted to and arrived at school for Mr I Loonat and Mr AS Solomons, a former member of staff, now on the staff of Nirvana High School.”
These were the formative years of solidifying Ahmed’s political thinking.
Ahmed was a loyal and dedicated member of the Congress Movement.
Essop Pahad recalls, “Ahmed was a very good Congressite from the beginning and totally supported the policies and principles of the Congress Movement. The membership of the ANC was limited only to Africans until the Morogoro Conference in 1969. Many political discussions took place but Ahmed was not yet drawn into the underground networks.”
One of Ahmed’s students, Naeema Khota (now Jassat), was in Standard Seven in 1966 and remembers Ahmed as a good, caring and very helpful teacher. While softly spoken and reserved, he never hesitated to speak his mind and his activism was not limited to the expression of opinions. He collected food parcels for political detainees and encouraged his students to volunteer to bake foodstuffs.
In teaching history lessons, Ahmed constantly reminded his students of the hardships of the apartheid system. The lessons on Napoleon and the Allied effort in World War II against Nazism were used by Ahmed as a backdrop to the struggles of the South African people.
Ahmed’s meagre teaching salary went to his family. He spent very little money on himself. Even when teaching in England, Ahmed sent money home to his family in South Africa. His father was semi-blind and unable to work full-time.
Outside their school activities, Jo Jo Saloojee and Ahmed were involved with the movement at large. Jo Jo was regularly visited by the Security Branch and taken to the Security Police Headquarters at The Gray’s for questioning and interrogation. Jo Jo and Ahmed had lengthy discussions and were aware that the time was near when they would not be in a position to continue their political work effectively. They had decided that the time had come for them to leave the country. Jo Jo departed for Zambia where he established contact with the ANC.
Before long Ahmed too was to go abroad and sadly when he and Jo Jo went their respective ways they lost contact with each other. They knew in their hearts that, though physically far apart, emotionally they were together and would continue the struggle wherever they were.
Meanwhile, life went on as usual for young Ahmed – politically focused, angry at apartheid, concerned for social equality. But he had domestic imperatives to deal with too. He was considerably concerned about his mother’s health. When she went into a severe depression in about 1966, Ahmed and his cousin Dr Farouk Dindar took her to private hospital psychiatrists. She received a few sessions of electroconvulsive therapy, little knowing what horrific tensions lay ahead for her.
Ahmed was Farouk’s best man at his wedding in December 1966. The photographer took the wedding party to a white family’s private garden to take photographs. While they were there Ahmed whispered into Farouk’s ear: “Look at the extravagance.” This caused Farouk some anguish, and his facial expression during the photographs showed that.
Farouk and his wife Jameela left for Zambia soon after the wedding – Farouk did his medical internship in Kitwe. He was hungry to read leftist literature but none was readily available in Zambia.
Ahmed’s younger brother Ismail had matriculated in 1964. Ismail obtained a bursary from the Kholvad Madressa and went to India to do a BA at Aligarh University in 1965. It was at Aligarh where his father Haji Timol and Dr Dadoo had studied in the 1920s.
Life during these years had become extremely difficult and unbearable for Ahmed. His closest friends Essop and Aziz Pahad were in exile, his good friend Jo
Jo Saloojee was in Zambia. Ahmed told his cousin Farouk that he needed to get out of South Africa but that he would return.