Naransamy Roy Naidoo

Who was Naransamy Roy Naidoo?

Thambi Naransamy Naidoo or Roy Naidoo was a South African political activist and freedom fighter. He was of South African Indian Tamil descent. He is the son of an early collaborator of Mahatma Gandhi, Thambi Naidoo. He was married to another activist Amma Naidoo

He was born in 1901 in Pietermaritzburg, he was adopted by the family of Mahatma Mohandas Gandhi and went to India for his education, where he studied under the poet Rabindranath Tagore. He became a trade unionist and leader of bakery workers on the Rand.

In 1946 he helped organise the campaign by Indians against the Asiatic Land Tenure and Indian Representation Act; he served two terms of imprisonment for passive resistance. He was active again in the 1952 Defiance Campaign and also served as vice-president of the Transvaal Indian Congress and chairman of the Transvaal Peace Council. He died in 1953. He was the father of Shanti Naidoo and Indris Naidoo, both active opponents of the South African regime.