E.S. Reddy, Who Led U.N.’s Efforts Against Apartheid, Dies at 96

E.S. Reddy, an Indian-born acolyte of Gandhi who spearheaded efforts on the United Nations to finish apartheid in South Africa, died on Sunday in Cambridge, Mass. He was 96.

His demise was introduced by President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, who hailed Mr. Reddy’s “dedication to human rights” and his epitomizing “social solidarity.”

From 1963 to 1984, Mr. Reddy oversaw the U.N.’s efforts towards apartheid first as principal secretary of the Particular Committee In opposition to Apartheid after which as director of the Heart In opposition to Apartheid.

He campaigned for boycotts and different financial sanctions towards the white South African authorities, which segregated and oppressed Black folks and subordinated the nation’s giant inhabitants of Indian immigrants.

He additionally lobbied relentlessly for the discharge of Nelson Mandela, the imprisoned anti-apartheid chief who was lastly freed in 1990 after which elected South Africa’s first Black head of state 4 years later.

“There is no such thing as a one on the United Nations who has performed extra to show the injustices of apartheid and the illegality of the South African regime than he has,” Sean MacBride, a former U.N. commissioner for Namibia and a Nobel Peace Prize winner, stated of Mr. Reddy in 1985.

In a 2004 interview for the e book “No Straightforward Victories” (2007), Mr. Reddy, influenced by Gandhi’s technique of nonviolent resistance to India’s British colonial rulers, defined the genesis of his curiosity in South Africa:

“I used to be already within the anti-apartheid motion within the 1940s, when the wrestle in South Africa took on new varieties and Indians and Africans had been cooperating within the wrestle. Through the Second World Conflict, the USA and Britain talked about 4 freedoms within the Atlantic Constitution, however these freedoms didn’t apply to India or South Africa.”

The huge pool of Indian contract employees who had immigrated to South Africa beginning within the late 19th century had discovered frequent floor with Black residents as one other oppressed minority there. India was among the many first international locations to affix what turned a global motion to isolate South Africa via business and cultural boycotts, and to exert financial leverage by pressuring companies, universities, foundations and pension funds worldwide to divest themselves of holdings in South African firms.

Mr. Reddy embraced that effort.

“He needed to face many obstacles and antagonisms, coming from the Western Powers primarily,” Mr. MacBride stated, “however he had the talent, braveness and dedication essential to beat the systematic overt and covert opposition to the liberation of the folks of Southern Africa.”

Enuga Sreenivasulu Reddy was born on July 1, 1925, in Pallapatti, a village in southern India about 90 miles north of Madras. His father, E.V. Narasa Reddy, ran a mining firm that exported mica. His mom was a homemaker.

His father was jailed for taking part in Gandhi’s protest campaigns, and his mom bought her jewellery to lift cash for Gandhi’s efforts on behalf of India’s lowest caste, the so-called untouchables. Enuga himself led a strike as a highschool scholar.

After graduating from the College of Madras in 1943, he meant to earn a sophisticated diploma in chemical engineering in Illinois, however the scarcity of ships instantly after World Conflict II delayed his arrival in the USA till the center of the semester.

When he lastly did arrive, in New York, he determined to remain within the metropolis, deciding that he may higher maintain abreast of occasions in India from there. Having forgotten by then a lot of the mathematics he had discovered as an undergraduate engineering scholar, he switched to political science and earned his grasp’s diploma within the topic from New York College in 1948. He continued his research at Columbia College.

He married Nilufer Mizanoglu, a translator of the poet Nazim Hikmet. She survives him, together with their daughters, Mina Reddy and Leyla Tegmo-Reddy; 4 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

Totally broke after a two-month U.N. internship, Mr. Reddy was employed by the then-fledgling United Nations in 1949 to conduct analysis as a political affairs officer.

Within the late 1940s, he turned lively within the Council on African Affairs, a gaggle led by Paul Robeson and W.E.B. Du Bois. It initially drew mainstream progressive help however pale after the federal government declared it a subversive group in 1953 as a result of a few of its leaders had Communist ties.

By then, India had gained its freedom from the British, a second, Mr. Reddy stated, that ought to have been the start of the tip of colonialism.

“I had a sense that I didn’t do sufficient,” he stated within the 2004 interview. “I didn’t make sufficient sacrifice for India’s freedom, so I ought to compensate by doing what I can for the remainder of the colonies.” When he joined the U.N., he added, “that feeling was at the back of my thoughts.”

After he retired in 1985, by then holding the title of assistant common secretary, Mr. Reddy wrote histories of the Black liberation and anti-apartheid actions and the hyperlinks between India and South Africa.

He was awarded the Joliot-Curie Medal of the World Peace Council in 1982. In 2013, he obtained the Order of the Companions of O.R. Tambo from the South African authorities, an honor named for the previous African Nationwide Congress president-in-exile.

When Mr. Reddy celebrated his 96th birthday final July, the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, a South African group against racism and corruption, congratulated him for a lifetime of “working tirelessly in help of the liberation motion” and “forging an unshakable bond between South Africa and his homeland, India.”