Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Born in Durban in 1888 to Indian immigrants, and a member of the educated Indian elite, Sigamoney was raised a Christian and worked as headmaster at Estcourt Indian High School, then as a teacher at St. Aidans' Boys' School in the 1910s. A keen sportsman, he was elected vice-president of the Durban and District Indian Cricket Union in 1910, and served on the South African Colored Cricket Board from 1913. Sigamoney is notable mainly for his role in the revolutionary syndicalist movement in the 1910s. During World War I, he became increasingly involved in politics, addressing public meetings on the growing food shortages in Durban, and coming into contact with the local section of the revolutionary syndicalist International Socialist League. The International Socialist League launched a revolutionary syndicalist Indian Workers' Industrial Union in Durban, along the lines of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) , in March 1917, and Sigamoney soon joined. Within a few months he was the key figure in the union, which organized a wide range of workers. Sigamoney also joined the International Socialist League, and became Durban's most prominent Indian unionist and socialist. In 1918, the authorities investigated Sigamoney for his alleged role in the African railway workers' strike that broke out in July, but he was cleared. He was an active supporter of the independent Tobacco Workers' ... log in or subscribe to read full text