Maggie Govender

Govender was born in Durban in present-day KwaZulu-Natal (then Natal province) and grew up in Durban Central. When she was eleven years old, her family was forcibly resettled to Chatsworth, a township designated for Indians under the apartheid-era Group Areas Act.{{Cite web |date=23 April 2021 |title=Magasvarie Govender |url=https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/magasvarie-govender |access-date=2023-01-26 |website=South African History Online}} She matriculated at Chatsworth Secondary School and enrolled in a medical degree at the University of Durban-Westville. In her second year at the university, she transferred to a humanities degree and also became politically active through the student representative council, the Natal Indian Congress, and the Chatsworth Housing Action Committee. She later joined the United Democratic Front.

She qualified as a teacher and began work at a school in Chatsworth in 1984. She remained active in the anti-apartheid movement and was detained without trial for four months during the 1986 state of emergency. After her release she moved to a different secondary school in Umkomaas, where she worked until she resigned in 1988. She subsequently worked for three years as an education officer at the Garment Workers' Union, which during her tenure affiliated to the ANC-aligned Congress of South African Trade Unions, and then as a coordinator at the Community Research Unit, before she returned to teaching. She joined the ANC and the allied South African Communist Party while the organisations were still banned by the apartheid government, and she was an underground operative for the ANC's Operation Vula. She attended the Convention for a Democratic South Africa as a delegate.

After the end of apartheid, Govender joined the KwaZulu-Natal Legislature, representing the ANC. Pursuant to the 2009 general election, Premier Zweli Mkhize appointed her to the KwaZulu-Natal Executive Council as MEC for Human Settlements and Public Works.{{Cite web |date=11 May 2009 |title=Statement by Dr Zweli Mkhize at his inauguration as the Premier of the Province of KwaZulu-Natal |url=https://www.gov.za/statement-dr-zweli-mkhize-his-inauguration-premier-province-kwazulu-natal |access-date=2023-01-08 |website=South African Government}}{{Cite web |last=Naidoo |first=Nalini |date=2009-10-11 |title=Life by Maggie's rules |url=https://www.citizen.co.za/witness/archive/life-by-maggies-rules-20150430/ |access-date=2023-01-26 |website=Witness |language=en}} She held that office until November 2011, when Mkhize announced a cabinet reshuffle in which she was sacked and replaced by Ravi Pillay.{{Cite web |date=18 November 2011 |title=Ravi in, Govender out |url=https://www.iol.co.za/thepost/news/ravi-in-govender-out-1181682 |access-date=2023-01-26 |website=IOL |language=en}}

However, she remained an ordinary Member of the Provincial Legislature, and she was re-elected to her legislative seat in the 2014 general election, ranked 21st on the ANC's provincial party list, and in the 2019 general election, ranked 28th.{{Cite web |title=Magesvari Govender |url=http://www.pa.org.za/person/m-govender/ |access-date=2023-01-26 |website=People's Assembly |language=en}} She was co-opted onto the Provincial Executive Committee of the ANC's KwaZulu-Natal branch in 2018 but was not re-elected in 2022.{{Cite web |date=10 August 2022 |title=Indian activists absent in ANC structures |url=https://www.pressreader.com/south-africa/post-south-africa/20220810/281736978225555 |access-date=2023-01-26 |website=Post |via=PressReader}}

Govender was married to Pathsarvasvaran Samotharan "Charm" Govender (9 April 1961 – 22 March 2021),{{Cite web |last=Moodley |first=Janine |date=May 26, 2021 |title=/anti-apartheid-activist-charm-govender-remembered-for-selflessnessreliability |url=https://www.iol.co.za/thepost/news/anti-apartheid-activist-charm-govender-remembered-for-selflessnessreliability-c7a52f94-b0f3-4d34-ad7b-31ce840065c5 |website=IOL}} whom she met as a student activist at the University of Durban-Westville and who worked at the South African Revenue Service after the end of apartheid.{{Cite web |last=Moodley |first=Janine |date=26 March 2021 |title=Anti-apartheid activist Charm Govender remembered for selflessness,reliability |url=https://www.iol.co.za/thepost/news/anti-apartheid-activist-charm-govender-remembered-for-selflessnessreliability-c7a52f94-b0f3-4d34-ad7b-31ce840065c5 |access-date=2023-01-26 |website=IOL |language=en}}{{Cite web |last=Omar |first=Yacoob Abba |date=30 March 2021 |title=Charm Govender: activist committed to non-racialism and fighting inequality to the end |url=https://www.news24.com/citypress/voices/charm-govender-activist-committed-to-non-racialism-and-fighting-inequality-to-the-end-20210330 |access-date=2023-01-26 |website=City Press |language=en-US}} They married in 1984 and had two sons, Megalen and Yeshelen, born in the 1980s.

{{reflist}}

• {{People's Assembly (South Africa)|m-govender|Ms Magesvari Govender}}
• [https://kznlegislature.gov.za/members/hon-m-govender/ Hon. M Govender] at KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Legislature

{{KwaZulu-Natal MPLs}}

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Category:Living people

Category:Year of birth missing (living people)

Category:Members of the KwaZulu-Natal Legislature

Category:African National Congress politicians

Category:21st-century South African politicians

Category:Politicians from Durban

Category:University of Durban-Westville alumni

Category:South African politicians of Indian descent