Message issued by Tamil nationalist Pazha Nedumaran congratulating Navanethem Pillay, a woman of Tamil descent, on being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize!
`An upright, graceful walk and a direct gaze
And no crooked ways for anyone on earth,
Because of the proud wisdom that stands tall,
Virtuous women do not fail in their conduct.
In the darkness of deep ignorance,
To reject and cast aside a life lived without art, in misery,
Is said to be the virtue of womanhood.
Have you heard what the dawn maiden says!
This is the poem about the “new woman” that Bharathi imagined 104 years ago. The dream he saw has now become a reality. Navaneetham was born into a poor laboring family that had migrated from Tamil Nadu to South Africa to work in sugarcane plantations, forced to leave their homeland because there was no way to live there. With the help of families like her own, she completed her law studies and made it her life’s purpose to fight in the courts for those affected by the racist oppression of South Africa’s white government.
She became the first woman to begin a legal career in the Natal province. Following Gandhi, who had served the Black people in South Africa, she decided to continue that same service and kept fighting on the legal battlefield through nonviolent means.
The white government of South Africa aggressively enforced a racist policy against Black people and Indians. They were forced to live outside the towns. They were not allowed to sit together with white people on trains, buses, and similar transport. They were permitted to travel only by sitting in the spaces set aside for them. In this way, Black people were marginalized in every field.
Those who fought against this racist policy of the white government were arrested and imprisoned. For this purpose, a separate prison was built on an island called Robben. No one else was allowed on that island. Many political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela, the incomparable leader of the people of South Africa, and his comrades, had to live in the prison on this island. From a young age, he joined the team of lawyers who tirelessly fought in the courts for their rights and rescued them from those cases, and served selflessly.
Just as Gandhiji was subjected to the government’s insults and oppression while advocating for those affected by the South African government’s racist policies, Navaneetham too faced the same. But she never gave up her struggle. On the battlefield of protest, she married Navi Pillai. For the sole reason of marrying her, Navi Pillai too was subjected to the government’s repression.
In 1995, on the recommendation of South African Justice Minister Dullah Omar, Nelson Mandela was appointed as South Africa’s representative on the UN Security Council. He was later appointed as a judge of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. From 1999 to 2003, he also served as the tribunal’s chief judge. In 2003, he served as a judge of the International Criminal Court and as a member of the Appeals Chamber. In 2008, he was recommended by the UN General Assembly and appointed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. He was appointed as the head of a UN international commission to investigate the genocides carried out by Israel in occupied Gaza, part of Palestine.
He also served on the commission of inquiry set up regarding the massacre of the Rohingya people in Myanmar. In 1995, after South Africa gained freedom, he was appointed a High Court judge by Nelson Mandela, who was elected as the country’s first president. At that time, Nelson Mandela himself went directly to his home and conveyed his appreciation.
The human rights violations carried out by the Sinhala government in Sri Lanka in 2013 after the civil war, and the repression it waged against Eelam Tamils, proved that it was an authoritarian government. Therefore, she urged that strong action be taken against that government. When she condemned it in her capacity as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Sinhala government accused Navanethem Pillay of making such false allegations because she was a Tamil. Not only that, a Sinhala minister publicly insulted the widowed Navanethem Pillay by saying that he himself would remarry her and give her a life to live.
Moreover, he gathered details about the genocide carried out mercilessly by the Sinhala army against the Eelam Tamils in Sri Lanka in 2009. In his capacity as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the report he submitted was accepted by the UN Secretary-General, who then formed a panel of three experts based on it and released that panel’s report as a UN report. The world was shocked. Many countries insisted that the UN should set up a criminal investigation tribunal to investigate the Sinhala government. However, at the intervention of the Indian government, it was decided that the Sinhala government itself should appoint an inquiry committee and conduct the investigation. The Indian government itself is responsible for this injustice, in which the murderer was appointed as the judge.
During the 8-year period in which he served as a member of the International Criminal Tribunal established to investigate the genocides in Rwanda, and later as its president, he delivered two important rulings.
1. Rape and sexual violence against women should be regarded as an inseparable part of genocide.
2. Hate propaganda carried out through radio and newspapers against the Tutsi people, the minority ethnic group living in Rwanda, should be regarded as the crime of inciting racial hatred.
In September 2025, she stated the following unequivocally about the genocide carried out by the Israeli government in the Palestinian territories-
The Israeli government has committed four of the five acts defined as genocide in the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Starving the Palestinian people and preventing food or other aid such as medicine from reaching them is equivalent to genocide.
She established, in international legal terms, that no other heinous crime can justify genocide, and by doing something no one had done before, she startled the racist imperialist countries and made the world know that she was the modern woman envisioned by Bharati.
On July 24, 2008, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed Navanethem Pillay as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. The United States, which had initially strongly opposed her appointment, later backed away from its opposition after seeing countries around the world rally in support of her. While serving in this role, she urged in 2009 that caste-based discrimination must be completely eliminated. She also passed a resolution stating that no discrimination of any kind, whether based on caste or gender, should be practiced in the UN Human Rights Council.
Having continuously carried out humanitarian service that no one dared to undertake, and considering his noble qualities such as the sense of justice he displayed in advancing international legal and order issues, integrity in action, and fearless courage, the Norwegian Nobel Committee decided to award him this year’s Peace Prize.
In this period, when on the world stage various countries are launching unilateral wars with little regard for international law, and powerful nations are intimidating weaker nations into submission, it is commendable that the Nobel Prize Committee has firmly decided and announced that Navanethem Pillay is the one fully deserving of the Peace Prize, with the noble aim of upholding international law and justice.
By loudly proclaiming that he alone was fully deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize, U.S. President Trump, and by harshly criticizing the award being given to Navanethem Pillay, we can understand the mindset of imperialist countries.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee stated the following reasons for awarding the peace prize to Navanethem Pillay-
“The service rendered by Navanethem Pillay in properly establishing law and order among the nations of the world is immense. At a time when wars and conflicts are increasing among various countries around the world, the service she has rendered in preventing them honestly and impartially is unparalleled. In particular, political interference in international law and order issues has increased. War criminals are interfering in the international legal system and rendering it ineffective. Against this backdrop, her service in standing firm without fear of anyone or anything, and without deviating from impartiality, against genocide and gender crimes is highly commendable,” said the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
At the time it was announced that this year’s Nobel Peace Prize would be awarded to Navanethem Navi Pillay, she was attending an international conference held in Room 600 of the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg. It was in this very room that Nazi leaders who committed heinous crimes during the Second World War were put in the dock, tried, and sentenced—a historically unforgettable event.
He has noted, “If Bharati were to see that the innovative woman born of his imagination has today received the Nobel Prize in the form of Navaneetham, he would undoubtedly have danced with joy.”