BACKGROUND
ELA
GANDHI
Ela Gandhi, the grand-daughter of Mahatma Gandhi,
was born at the Phoenix Settlement (district of Inanda, Durban)
where she spent some of the most important and formative years
of her life. Ela read for a BA degree at Natal University and
thereafter obtained an Honours in Social Science through UNISA.
She subsequently practiced as a social worker at the Verulam
Child Welfare.
Ela’s father was involved in the
defiance campaign and when she was 15, in 1955, he attended
the Kliptown Conference which gave birth to the Freedom Charter.
He wrote a piece on the meeting in the Indian Opinion which
later appeared in the UN documents. He courted imprisonment
and was arrested several times. Ela’s mother, on the other
hand, equally challenged the apartheid laws. She started a non-racial
school for children at the Gandhi house in Phoenix but was asked
by the authorities to close it down as it went against the grain
of apartheid policies.
Ela continues the Gandhian family tradition
of passive resistance. At the very young age of 12, she joined
the defiance campaign marches, which marked the beginning of
a dedicated and courageous life in politics. She participated
in many boycotts, marches and fund-raising events. In 1971,
together with Mewa Ramgobin and others, Ela helped revive the
Natal Indian Congress, of which her grand-father, Mahatma Gandhi
was a founding member and its secretary. She was duly elected
the Vice President of the Natal Indian Congress. In 1975 she
was banned and house arrested for 8.5 years, but this did not
deter her from continuing her community and grassroots activism
underground. Ela was actively involved in the UDF. She served
on the Transitional Executive Council before the elections in
1994 and served as an Member of Parliament in the newly led
ANC government.
In her interview Ela talks of her life at the Phoenix settlement,
her early education and employment, of the repressive apartheid
laws, her activism, the impact of banning orders on family life
and of her political affiliations. She makes extensive references
to her role as social worker amongst the poor in the Black Townships
and Indian communities and touches upon Gandhi’s philosophy,
the economy, globalization and the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission.
Compiled by K. Chetty
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