Two unsung heroes with Kerala roots fought alongside Nelson Mandela against apartheid

A few yards from the cell where former South African President Nelson Mandela was imprisoned on Robben Island—a 30-minute boat ride from Cape Town—visitors will find another small room. On the wall beside its window, a black-and-white photo displays a balding man with a white French beard. Guides explain that this man, Billy Nair, was a prominent leader of the African National Congress (ANC). He fought alongside Mandela in the struggle against apartheid and the broader freedom movement, eventually becoming an MP. What many people don’t know, however, is that Nair’s roots trace back to Kerala.

Billy Nair, born in Durban in 1929, and Paul Joseph, born in Johannesburg in 1930, were two fiery leaders of ANC who worked with Mandela during the fight against apartheid. Both were driven to politics by the racial discrimination they faced from a young age and were deeply influenced by Marxist ideology. Yet, their Kerala connections—Nair’s ancestors hailed from Kundalasseri in Palakkad, while Joseph’s roots were in Vazhakulam village, Muvattupuzha—remain largely unrecognized. This is a story of near misses until a curious tourist visiting Robben Island in 2013 noticed the surname “Nair” and decided to investigate.

Billy Nair was no ordinary ANC cadre. He was one of the founding leaders of uMkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation, or MK), the ANC’s armed wing, which Mandela established after peaceful protesters were massacred by police in Sharpeville in 1960—a tragedy often compared to India’s Jallianwala Bagh.

Nair paid a heavy price for his activism, spending 20 years in prison from 1964 alongside Mandela. The two shared a close bond, with Mandela affectionately calling Nair “Thampi”, while Nair referred to Mandela as “Anna”. Both men were imprisoned for nearly two decades, their cells just a few yards apart. Paul Joseph, meanwhile, worked underground after the ANC was banned and later fled to the UK, where he continued his activism. His connection with Mandela was so strong that Mandela’s wife, Winnie, and their children stayed with Joseph’s family during Mandela’s incarceration.

Despite their significant roles in the freedom struggle, their Malayali heritage was rarely discussed. Thousands of people of Indian origin were involved in the ANC, and their regional roots in India were seldom highlighted. Around 21 individuals of Indian origin, including Nair and Joseph, were tried and convicted alongside Mandela for treason.

The Kerala connection remained obscure even in India. When Nair was awarded the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman in 2007, no one investigated his Malayali roots, despite his distinctly Kerala surname. It wasn’t until writer G Shaheed conducted nearly four years of research that the story came to light.

Shaheed managed to contact Nair’s brother, Jay Nair, who revealed that their father, Krishnan Nair, had migrated to South Africa as a contract worker in the 1920s. He married Parvathy Pillai, a woman of Indian origin with roots in Tamil Nadu. In an email, Nair’s sister, Kalyani, said that her mother’s name was Parvathy Pillai, daughter of Kothanar Ramasamy Pillai. Kalyani said Nair had five siblings but the family scattered across the UK, Canada, Germany, and Switzerland after Nair’s arrest and their parents’ deaths.

Nair’s political journey began as a trade unionist in 1953. After his release from prison, he was elected as an MP in South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994. Colleagues like Mac Maharaj and Ela Gandhi, granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi, remember him as a disciplined and inspiring figure. In an email to Shaheed, Gandhi described him as a key player in transforming South Africa’s trade union movement. Nair, who was honoured him with the Gandhi Satyagraha Award, passed away in 2008.

Joseph’s connection to Kerala is tied to a small tile-roofed house in Vazhakulam called ‘Africa House.’ His mother, Annamma, lived there during her rare visits to Kerala.

“My grandfather, Varkey, took Joseph’s mother, Annamma, to South Africa when she was very young. He would visit Africa House on holidays, dressed in a suit, trousers, and a hat, drawing curious onlookers in a village where Africa was still a mystery. That’s how the house got its name. I met Annamma when she visited in the mid-60s,” said Joseph’s cousin, Reetamma.

In long phone conversations with Shaheed, Joseph, now retired in the UK, recalled that his mother, Annamma, married his father, Veerasamy, who cared for carriage horses. However, he doesn’t remember her parents or grandparents. He does recall that she attended primary school in Vazhakulam before moving to Johannesburg, where she later married.

Joseph made attempts to trace his roots but could only gather vague details from his mother. He grew up with nine siblings in a two-room house in a Black suburb of Johannesburg, where he faced racial taunts from White children, experiences that drew him into politics and the Communist movement. Joseph later became associated with ANC and joined its armed wing. When ANC was banned, he hosted secret meetings for its leaders, including Mandela. “He would arrive secretly just before dawn, bring money to buy mutton, and compliment Adelaide on her delicious mutton dishes, which they would serve at the meeting,” Joseph told Shaheed.

Shaheed, who first wrote about the two Malayali associates of Mandela in his book ‘Mandelayodoppom Poradiya Randu Malayaligal’, said tracing their Kerala roots was extremely challenging. “It was my friend Sudhakar Ravindranath who first noticed Nair’s name and wondered if he could be a Malayali. But no one confirmed the connection. I took up the task after he exhorted the need for it,” explains Shaheed.

Those efforts led to the rediscovery of Kerala’s connection to South Africa’s independence movement and its key figure, Nelson Mandela.