It's a truism that revolutions are the mothers that eat their young. Has the South African revolution turned on Satyandranath Ragunanan "Mac" Maharaj? Or is he venal and corrupt as accused?

As prosecution authorities continue to keep alive their interest in Mac and his wife Zarina, the questions are far from being satisfactorily answered.

This weekend sees the national launch of Maharaj's autobiography, Shades of Difference: Mac Maharaj and the Struggle for South Africa by historian and political analyst Padraig O'Malley. After reading this thought-provoking book, you are left with another view of Mac Maharaj - although that is not necessarily one which exonerates him in any way from the aspersions currently being cast upon him.

Sitting there now, play the word association game with the name Mac Maharaj. What comes up? Corrupt? Probably. Cunning? A strong possibility. Untrustworthy? Maybe.

Courtesy of the media - and newspapers have been prominent - your picture of Maharaj has been shaped by the unsavoury information leaked about him. About his supposedly corrupt behaviour, his family's tax-dodging, even - going back to 1990 - his alleged plot to assassinate Nelson Mandela as negotiations with the Nat government were getting under way.

He has been linked with the distasteful side of South African politics. (Distasteful, that is, to those who view President Thabo Mbeki and the ANC's current Thatcherite economic policy as the country's saviours). Maharaj has been inextricably linked with the "dodgy" Shaik family and, by association, with Jacob Zuma - a man whose possible ascendancy to the South African throne pushes the International Monetary Fund into paroxysms of fear.

In all the dust of publicity, Maharaj's own accusations - of abuse of power by government structures and organs which may, or may not, be directed by Mbeki; or may, or may not, be working to further his interests - have all but vanished.

Even now - now that he has been brutally sidelined by the movement to which he gave the bulk of his life - Maharaj voices those concerns in a disciplined, even muted way. His attitude is: I'm not important, because if this happens to me, it can just as easily happen to you.

(Remember the poignant words about the Nazis: "When they came for the Jews, I didn't do anything, because I wasn't a Jew; when they came for the gypsies, I didn't do anything because I wasn't a gypsy; when they came for the communists …")

Less constrained by party and personal loyalties is the author of the book, respected journalist, historian and political analyst O'Malley.

In this tome he provides a stand-back analysis which, though it must undoubtedly be tinged by more than a decade of interviews and a strong relationship with Mac (the way he is referred to throughout the book), is still incisive and makes you think.

Mac Maharaj and the Struggle for South Africa is two books in one - books which tell the same story from different angles, which tell two different stories.

At heart it is the human story of Satyandranath Ragunanan "Mac" Maharaj, from the time he was born into a poor Indian family in the KwaZulu Natal town of Newcastle on April 22 1935, until today, when he is in the shadows of South African life, teaching at an American college.

In between it is the story of a man, and his people, who fought back against the injustices of apartheid. He underwent horrific torture at the hands of the notorious Security Branch of the police and spent more than a decade imprisoned on Robben Island, in the company of struggle stalwarts including Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu.

It is the story of how his jail sojourn made him more determined to see South Africa free and how he threw himself without reserve into ANC and SA Communist Party activities on his release.

It is a portrait of a driven man - his steely, dedicated eyes remind one of a younger Leon Trotsky in the spring of the Russian Revolution - who had a low tolerance for fools and incompetence.

And perhaps therein lies the seed of Maharaj's later misfortunes. Some time after his release from Robben Island, when he was appointed to a senior position in the ANC, he was handed a folder which should have contained details of operations and policies in a certain sector. It was empty and Maharaj, true to form, raged against those responsible, believing he, as an Indian, had as much right to complain about African incompetence in the movement as any other form of substandard work.

The man in charge of the section which should have filled that folder: Thabo Mbeki.

Point to ponder: Does the Chief have a long memory?

Maharaj's all-out commitment to the struggle has exacted a terrible personal price, to say nothing of the political toll. Save to say, one should read the book in its entirety to understand how his obsession with seeing a free, democratic SA irreparably damaged his family - his first wife Tim, and second wife Zarina and their two children.

But the threads which weave the whole narrative together are O'Malley's assessments and analyses, which paint a picture of modern-day SA which needs to be seen before revisionist history-writing, driven by the likes of Mbeki and his hagiographers, refuse to acknowledge the revolution's warts.

But, more than anything, O'Malley's analysis of events past enables us to appreciate the current state of our country and the underlining tensions within the ANC and its allies in the tripartite alliance, Cosatu and the SACP.

Just one passage illustrates why there might be some frustration among the union leadership and remnants of the Mass Democratic Movement of the 1980s which, together, were effectively the reason why the Nat government eventually released Mandela and came to the bargaining table. This was not the achievement of the ANC nor its ineffective armed wing, Umkhonto weSizwe.

O'Malley writes: "As unrest within South Africa grew, the ANC was dragged into the fray, responding to what was happening rather than fomenting or controlling it. The people were not going to wait for a hand-me-down revolution. The people moved, took matters into their own hands and began to organise their own revolution. In the end, the ANC was astute enough to grab its coat-tails and eventually claim ownership of the coat itself."

Reading that, you get some sense of what is happening in the current strikes and in revolts over issues like service delivery and boundary disputes.

If you are interested in where this country has come from and where it may be headed, then this book is required reading.

Shades of Difference is published by Viking at R143.

With acknowledgements to Brendan Seery and The Star.