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This resource is hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation, but was compiled and authored by Padraig O’Malley. It is the product of almost two decades of research and includes analyses, chronologies, historical documents, and interviews from the apartheid and post-apartheid eras.

Naicker, Marimuthu Pragalathan (M.P.)

1920 - 1977

He was a leading organiser for the Natal Indian Congress (NIC) and the SACP in the 1950s. M.P. then became Durban branch editor of the left-wing newspaper New Age and was vice-president of the NIC from 1945 until 1952. He was involved in the organisation of the 1946 passive resistance campaign and was imprisoned twice during the campaign. In 1952 he was joint secretary with M. B. Yengwa in the Defiance Campaign of the ANC (Natal) and joint secretary of the Congress of the People campaign in Natal from 1954-1955. He was one of the 156 Congress leaders charged with treason in 1956 and was detained again during the 1960 emergency. He later left South Africa and was active in the Congress movement in exile, serving as an editor of Sechaba and as the ANC's London publicity and information director. M. P. was responsible, together with his comrades, particularly George Ponen and the late H. A. Naidoo, in organising the Indian workers into trade unions and leading them into militant strikes. He died in England in 1977.

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