Prominent Phoenix-based community activist and socio-religious leader Seelan Achary has thrown his hat in the ring in the forthcoming make-or-break elections and he will be vying for the plum political position as KwaZulu-Natal’s premier candidate for the newly-launched African Movement Congress
The AMC’s founding leader and presidential candidate, wealthy Mount Edgecombe-Phoenix businessman, Roy Chockalingam Moodley, announced Achary’s candidature: “Seelan Achary is an outstanding premier candidate especially with his excellent track record at the coalface of the community. His towering presence and uncompromising, but fair and firm leadership stance, standing and profile will prove that as our key provincial candidate he will make some powerful changes to the parliamentary political system.”
“He will drive the AMC’s policies on the ground and at grassroots level to ensure that the people of Phoenix and the rest of the province will no longer have to put up with empty promises and the sheer shenanigans of politics as we know it in the past three decades.”
Moodley said he was pleased with his newly-selected provincial running mate who enjoys a positive profiling with a strong community-based track record – a striking example of the calibre of political leaders that will be at home with the AMC.
Entering politics officially has been a long time coming for Achary, who has been consistently at the frontline of community issues for almost 40 years, especially in his native battle grounds of Mount Edgecombe and Phoenix.
Since the 1980s, Achary has enjoyed top leadership positions with large footprints in the country’s 1.4-million Indian-origin citizens. His forte has been his rock solid community contribution as a fierce critic of the colonial-apartheid systems and the shoddy, inhuman treatment his forebears – the 1860 Indian indentured labourers – had received when they toiled from dawn to dusk in the sugar cane plantations and were confined to a communal housing barracks with poor facilities: “When our forefathers arrived on these shores, they toiled long hours in the sugar cane fields every day. Because all their colonial masters were practicing Christians, the only time they had off from work was during the Easter period … to make offerings and pray for forgiveness and basically keep the faith during this very dark era of the 1860 indentured labourers.”
As a long-standing chairman of the landmark Shree Mariammen Temple Society, Achary has contributed his time selflessly and tirelessly over the decades. He has ensured that all the events – the annual Easter pilgrimages by 100 000 Hindu worshippers each year and the prestige Ammen Awards for high-achieving individuals and organisations – are well funded through donations and sponsorships. In these dire straits of tough economic conditions, Achary and his officials and volunteers, including Mount Edgecombe Arts Hindu Trust chairman, Selvan Naicker, remain totally committed to preserving the legend and legacy of one of the country’s biggest Hindu shrines and arranging feeding schemes for armies of poverty-stricken and jobless residents.
In the 1990s, Achary provided invaluable support for the ruling ANC, and had honoured and garlanded governing party leaders, from President Jacob Zuma, former Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development, Jeff Radebe, and successive ANC Premiers and MEC – including Ambassador Nomusa Dube-Ncube, currently the Premier and MEC Ravi Pillay and other ANC and IFP political leaders at the holy shrine and awards ceremonies.
“The time is high for community leaders to get involved in the politics of the day, politics of bread and butter issues that affect the townsfolk and millions of previously disadvantaged men, women and children who are constantly on their back foot in the past 30 years of democratic. The ruling elite of the ANC has lost the political plot and have progressively marginalised the Indian and black communities from the mainstream economy and politics,” said Achary.
‘’Every Easter weekend, devotees tell us that they cross all ticks in the boxes in their worship and religious offerings and prayers, but yet and their children cannot secure jobs and business people cannot get government tenders and procurement. The ANC has abandoned the Indians with its notorious black economic empowerment and cadre deployment policies. They must stop lying to us as we use our votes to make meaningful changes in these crucial elections.”
“Like many of the cohorts of supporters, I had joined African National Congress as a member in good standing in January 1994. Over the decades I have witnessed how the ANC has changed its political postures and stances and it is now time to call out the ANC and other opposition parties and ensure that residents of this giant township no longer to suffer under the strain of poor service delivery, rising municipal costs, poor governance and corruption,” he said.
Family man Achary is going to the polls for the first time in one of the busiest ballots with a towering track record. His political candidacy comes out of a historic involvement in the broader communities: he cut his teeth in school protests and politics since 1980, and led the student protests against inferior education policies and poor teacher salary. He turned to football management and coaching, Collegians, Blue Stars , Oceans and Young Springboks since 1987; head of the Shri Mariammen Temple Society since 1997; and served the Phoenix Child Welfare Society, Phoenix Youth Centre, Phoenix Interfaith Forum, North Coast Diwali Celebrations Committee and has been the face of the 1860 Commemoration Council since 1999 – his recent criticism of the ANC provincial government and city council to erect a bell, budgeted at R10-million 10 years ago, rather than a bronze statue to honour the 1860 semi-slaves who had contributed to growing the sugar industry economy.
Family man Achary is going to the polls for the first time in one of the busiest ballots with a towering track record. His political candidacy comes out of a historic involvement in the broader communities: he cut his teeth in school protests and politics since 1980, and led the student protests against inferior education policies and poor teacher salary. He turned to football management and coaching, Collegians, Blue Stars , Oceans and Young Springboks since 1987; head of the Shri Mariammen Temple Society since 1997; and served the Phoenix Child Welfare Society, Phoenix Youth Centre, Phoenix Interfaith Forum, North Coast Diwali Celebrations Committee and has been the face of the 1860 Commemoration Council since 1999 – his recent criticism of the ANC provincial government and city council to erect a bell, budgeted at R10-million 10 years ago, rather than a bronze statue to honour the 1860 semi-slaves who had contributed to growing the sugar industry economy.
Friends and loyalists say Achary had single-handedly created almost 300 full-time jobs during his tenure in community and civic movements.
Over and above his weighty contribution, the iconic shrine founded by the semi-slave Indians remains closest to Achary’s heart and work.
- In 2016 when the former temple trust chairman David Marie alleged a raft of maladministration, malfeasance and theft of millions of Rands, Achary and his co-officials and legal teams launched a major defence of the reputation of the temple, and were vindicated after Durban High Court Judge, Rashid Vahed, dismissed the case after three days of hearings. Anonymous documents were circulated widely in SA and abroad of the alleged misuse and raiding of funds that prompted the former chairman to issue summons against the temple, arts and culture council and the temple trust.