Kesaveloo Goonam

Kesaveloo Goonam studied medicine at Edinburgh University from 1928 to 1936, returning to South Africa to become the first Indian woman to set up a medical practice in South Africa.   

On her return to South Africa, Kesaveloo became a driving force in campaigns for women’s emancipation and desegregation, eventually becoming the vice-president of the Natal Indian Congress, an organisation established to fight discrimination against Indians. Along with fellow activist Monty Naicker, she created the Passive Resistance Campaign to resist state-sanctioned expropriation of Indian property and laws that prohibited Indians purchasing municipal land. Women became a leading force in this movement.  

Kesaveloo was imprisoned at least 17 times for resisting Apartheid laws as part of the Passive Resistance Campaign and faced harassment from the security forces. She moved to England in 1978 for her own safety but returned to South Africa to vote in the first democratic elections in 1994, when all adults, regardless of race, could finally cast their vote.