Vella Pillay

Vella Pillay (8 October 1923 – 29 July 2004) was a South African international economist and a founding member of the British Anti-Apartheid Movement. He was a member of the South African Communist Party and coordinated the party's overseas activities from London when it was banned by the South African government. As a chairman of the editorial committee of Anti-Apartheid News, he wrote extensively on the South African economy under the apartheid regime.

Pillay studied at the University of the Witwatersrand before receiving graduate degrees from the London School of Economics and University of London. He returned to South Africa in 1992 before the first non-racial elections in 1994 and coordinated with other economists as a part of the African National Congress's (ANC) Macroeconomics (MERG) to produce a forward looking framework for South Africa's macroeconomic policies. The report, Making Democracy Work: A Framework for Macroeconomic Policy in South Africa (1993), however, was rejected by the African National Congress.

Early life and education Vella Pillay was born on 8 October 1923 in Johannesburg into a family with six children and a low income. Pillay was of Tamil descent and later classified as an Indian by the South African Population Registration Act, 1950. In his early childhood, he went to a racially segregated school that was designated for Indians and Coloureds. During this time, he would help his mother sell vegetables to meet their financial needs. In 1948, Pillay was awarded a bachelor of commerce degree from the University of the Witwatersrand. He was enrolled as a part-time student while working as a bookkeeper for an Indian company.

Activism During Pillay's time at the University of the Witwatersrand, he was a member of the Progressive Students Federation and was a participant in the Transvaal Indian Congress. As a result of the Sino-Soviet split in the 1960s, Pillay's position at the Bank of China was viewed with suspicion by the SACP, which remained loyal to the Soviet Communist Party. In 1960 or 1961, Pillay was confronted by a representative of the SACP (possibly Michael Alan Harmel (1915–1974), a political mentor and friend of Mandela) on a boat on a river in Moscow and told to leave the Bank of China or face expulsion from the SACP. Pillay refused and was side-lined by the SACP. He had declined an offer of an equivalent position at a proposed Soviet bank thinking his job with the Chinese was more secure.

In 1960, Pillay was the founding member of the British Anti-Apartheid Movement, after organising a boycott of South African goods in 1959, and worked closely with the British Communist Party. He served in several roles within the organisation up until 1994. He was the organisation's vice-chairman between 1980 and 1986, and had served as the treasurer of the organisation. As the chairman of the editorial committee of the Anti-Apartheid News, he wrote extensively on the economy under the apartheid regime, labour and trade policies, and operations of the South African administration. Pillay received an honorary doctorate, for his contributions with the MERG, from the University of Natal in 1995.

On the occasion of Pillay's 80th birthday President Thabo Mbeki sent him a message which, in part, read "your outstanding contribution to the liberation of our people will always be remembered with fondness – particularly your role in establishing one of the greatest solidarity movements of our time, the British Anti-Apartheid Movement". Truebig was of Austro-German descent. He had met her earlier during his time with the SACP. The couple married in Mahikeng in the Cape, where marriage was permitted across races at the time. The couple had two sons including mathematician Anand Pillay.