Ahmed Kathrada, Nelson Mandela’s Trusted Indian-South African Comrade: India Forgot This Towering Leader Of The Anti-Apartheid Revolution
By
Sudheendra Kulkarni
16/DEC/2022
All The More So Since India’s Freedom Struggle
Had Such A Defining Influence Over South Africa’s Liberation Struggle. Furthermore,
The Values For Which He Struggled All His Life – Non-Racialism, Non-Sexism,
Inter-Religious Harmony, Equality, Justice And Human Dignity – Remain
Universally Relevant Even Today.
------
Ahmed Kathrada. Photo courtesy: Ahmeda
Kathrada Foundation
-----
When Walter
Sisulu – a giant among South Africa’s anti-apartheid leaders who spent 25 years
in jail – passed away on May 5, 2003 at the ripe old age of 91, India’s then
prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee said in his tribute: “We shall remember him
for his warmth and personal simplicity. He was a rare political personality who
had a stature that did not depend on status.”
This
tribute appears in the autobiography of another legendary personality in the
same struggle, Ahmed Kathrada, who venerated Sisulu as his mentor and “father”.
Indeed, Vajpayee’s words accurately describe Kathrada’s personality too. For he
belonged to that golden generation of South Africa’s selfless freedom fighters
to whom transitory status meant nothing; their immortal stature was formed in
the crucible of lifelong struggle and sacrifice for the lofty dream of building
a better world.
When it
comes to celebrating high achievers among members of the diaspora, we Indians
are so status-obsessed that we often ignore, even forget, those with stature
that does not depend on power or wealth – especially if they are not from
Europe or America. For example, Kamala Harris, Rishi Sunak, Sundar Pichai and
Satya Nadella have become household names in our country. True, they have
remarkable accomplishments to their credit.
But does
anyone remember Ahmed Kathrada? The name is unfamiliar to most Indians. Even a
vast majority of people in our political and media establishments would be
dumbstruck if asked about him. This is extremely sad. All the more so since
India’s freedom struggle had such a defining influence over South Africa’s
liberation struggle. Furthermore, the values for which he struggled all his
life – non-racialism, non-sexism, inter-religious harmony, equality, justice
and human dignity – remain universally relevant even today.
Kathrada (right) regarded Walter Sisulu,
a stalwart of the African National Congress, as his ‘father’. Photo courtesy:
Ahmed Kathrada Foundation
-----
A Communist
‘Satyagrahi’ Since The Age Of 12
Kathrada
(1929-2017), a person of Indian origin in South Africa – his Bohra Muslim
parents hailed from the village of Lachpur in Gujarat – was a towering leader
of the anti-apartheid movement. He was one of Nelson Mandela’s closest
comrades. In terms of struggle and sacrifice, he almost equals the globally
revered icon of South Africans’ epic fight against over three centuries of
oppressive white minority rule. He spent 26 years in apartheid prisons – that
is, just one year less in incarceration than his leader. For 18 years, he was a
jail-mate of Mandela in the notorious apartheid prison on Robben Island near
Cape Town. In the remaining six years in Pollsmoor Prison, too, Mandela and he
were companions.
One of the
heroes of the revolution along with Mandela, Sisulu and Oliver Tambo (who
served as the ANC President from 1967 to 1991), he was also a highly respected
intellectual and writer. His Letters from Robben Island (1999) and his Memoirs
(2004) are among the finest chronicles of the battle against tyrannical white
rule.
Kathrada
began his political activism at the tender age of 12 – as a member of the Young
Communist League of South Africa. “From the moment I became involved in
politics as a schoolboy,” he would write many years later, “I realised that
unacceptable as my own circumstances were, the lot of my African colleagues and
leaders — Mandela, Tutu, Sisulu, Tambo, Mbeki — who would become household
names, was infinitely worse.”
His
childhood hero was Dr Yusuf Dadoo, a respected leader in the Indian community.
Though a communist, Dadoo accepted Mahatma Gandhi “as our guide and mentor”.
Gandhi, who lived in South Africa for 21 years (1893-1914), had started the
non-violent satyagraha or passive resistance in 1906 against laws that
discriminated against people of Indian origin. Mandela, Sisulu and others in
the African National Congress were deeply influenced by Gandhi’s non-violent
struggle in India. (The name of ANC itself was inspired by INC, the Indian
National Congress.)
When
Kathrada was 17, he was arrested for the first time for his participation in
“passive resistance” against the “Ghetto Act” (Asiatic Land Tenure and Indian
Representative Act), which segregated the Indian community from others. For
some time, he worked as a journalist with The Passive Resistor, a newspaper
edited by Ismail “Chota” Meer, a brave leader of the South African Indian
Congress. In 1943, he collected funds for the Bengal famine relief. More about
Meer and his wife Fatima Meer a little later.
Agit-Prop
Activities Of The ‘Picasso Club’
The
savagery of the Second World War made the young idealist in Kathrada a
passionate participant in the anti-war campaign of the Non-European United
Front. He writes in his memoirs: “The atrocities and carnage of the Second
World War, the premeditated cruelty that it exposed us to, encapsulates the
great moral tragedy of the twentieth century.”
This was
the time when he was influenced by left-leaning singers, poets and artists like
Paul Robeson, Pablo Neruda and Pablo Picasso. During the 1946 Passive
Resistance Campaign, Kathrada and some of his friends formed what became known
as the “Picasso Club” in Johannesburg. He had probably read Picasso’s article,
“Why I became a communist” (1945), in which the renowned painter wrote:
“My joining
the Communist Party is a logical step in my life. Through design and color, I
have tried to penetrate deeper into a knowledge of the world and of men so that
this knowledge might free us. In my own ways I have always said what I
considered most true, most just and best and, therefore, most beautiful. But
during the oppression and the insurrection I felt that that was not enough,
that I had to fight not only with painting but with my whole being…I have become
a Communist because our party strives more than any other to know and to build
the world, to make men clearer thinkers, more free and more happy.”
Besides
distribution of pamphlets, and putting up posters, the Picasso Club took to
political graffiti. One of their slogans that caught the attention of both the
public and the authorities was “Let Us Black Folks Read” along the walls of the
Johannesburg Public Library, which was for the exclusive use of whites. The municipality erased it. After some days, Kathrada and friends
returned to the wall and painted a new slogan that said, ‘We Black Folks Ain’t
Reading Yet!’
The slogan painted by the Picasso Club
on the walls of a Whites-only library in Johannesburg. Photo courtesy: Ahmed
Kathrada Foundation
------
He Marched
Fearlessly To The Prison In Robben Island
Kathrada
was jailed 18 times. The last was in 1964, when he was sentenced to life
imprisonment in the Rivonia Trial, along with Mandela, Sisulu, Govan Mbeki and
other ANC freedom fighters. Incidentally, Mandela, Sisulu and Kathrada are the
only three leaders who appeared in the three major trials that form inspiring
chapters in the history of the anti-apartheid movement: the Defiance Campaign
(1952), Treason Trial (1956-1961) and the Rivonia Trial (1964).
Kathrada
was fearless in the advocacy of his principles. For proof, read some of the
answers Kathrada gave in his cross-examination at the infamous Rivonia Trial,
which is regarded as “the trial that changed South Africa”.
Q: Did you have confidence in those
irresponsible leaders of the ANC?
A: I have said that I regard the leadership of
the ANC as responsible. I have the fullest admiration for their courage.
Q: You are a member of the Communist Party?
A: I am.
Q: Whose aim and object is to secure freedom
for what you call the oppressed people of this country?
A: For what are the oppressed people in this
country.
Q: Which involves the overthrow of the
government of South Africa?
A: That is so.
Q: By force and violence if necessary?
A: When and if necessary.
Kathrada
knew the price he would have to pay for his fearlessness. Prison became his
home for the next 26 years, 3 months and 4 days – 9,593 days. After he had
served some years in jail, the apartheid government offered to release him –
but not other black leaders of the ANC. He refused the offer, saying, “I do not
want to be freed alone. All my comrades should be released.”
Last month,
I visited Robben Island near Cape Town. Desolate and dreary, its very location
makes it look far away from civilisation. Even in prison, the apartheid regime
enforced discrimination. Life was harsher for blacks than for Indians and
Coloured people.
“If I had
to use a single word to define life on Robben Island, it would be ‘cold’,”
Kathrada writes in his memoirs. “Cold food, cold showers, cold winters, cold
wind coming in off the sea, cold warders, cold cells, cold comfort…Contact of
any kind with the outside world was minimal…In all the years I spent on Robben
Island, I only once looked up at the night sky from outside my cell. It was on
the night of the earthquake, when all our cells were unlocked and we were moved
outside into the courtyard.” During daytime, prisoners had to do hard physical
labour.
Prison life
steeled his relationship with the two leaders he admired the most. “In half a
century of knowing Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu, I came to know one sure
thing: it is impossible to speak of the one without mentioning the other. Two
distinct and unique individuals, these two struggle leaders were inextricably bound
by their foresight, courage, wisdom and shared experiences.”
He narrates
an interesting fact about how he, Sisulu and other prison mates helped Mandela
write his autobiography on Robben Island, with a plan to have it published for
his 60th birthday in 1978. Mac Maharaj, a senior ANC leader kept in the same
prison, was due to be released in December 1976. He was tasked with smuggling
the manuscript out. Mandela began
working on the manuscript in January 1976. But, as Kathrada writes, it was a
risky plan.
“Chronicling
Mandela’s life was illegal and dangerous. Discovery would result in harsh
collective punishment…knowledge of it was to be limited to those directly
involved. Because most of the writing
would have to be done at night, Mandela feigned illness and was excused from
the daily work schedule. He slept for a few hours while the cellblock was
deserted and wrote deep into the night…Early morning he would give Walter and
me the written pages for comment. The final draft was then transferred to
sheets of rice paper by Mac Maharaj and Laloo Chiba in miniscule script…
Madiba’s originals were rolled up inside empty cocoa canisters and buried in
our garden.” (Madiba is a title of respect for Mandela, deriving from his Xhosa
clan name.)
Although
Mac Maharaj successfully managed to smuggle the manuscript, it could not be
published for Mandela’s 60th birthday. The efforts, however, were not
fruitless. The manuscript formed the basis of his internationally celebrated
autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, published in 1994.
Mandela’s
Comrade, Friend, Advisor
Kathrada
was released in 1989, just four months before Mandela. One of his abiding
interests after his release was Robben Island. Knowing this, Mandela, who
became South Africa’s first democratically elected president in 1994, appointed
him as the chairman of the Robben Island Museum Council in 1997. Designed with
a keen focus on both history and aesthetics, it quickly earned recognition by
UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. It has now become a must-see place for foreign
tourists coming to South Africa. The museum prominently displays Kathrada’s
wise words that express its raison d’etre:
“While we will not forget the brutality of
apartheid, we will not want Robben Island to be a monument of our hardship and
suffering. We would want it to be a triumph of the human spirit against the
forces of evil, a triumph of wisdom and largeness of Spirit against small minds
and pettiness; a triumph of courage and determination over human frailty and
weakness; a triumph of the new South Africa over the old.”
After the
triumph of the struggle against apartheid, and the installation of the ANC
government, some extreme left-wing black activists started criticising
Mandela’s legacy and his vision of South Africa as a “rainbow nation” in which
the whites too had an equal place. He had famously said, “I am opposed to white
oppression. But I am also opposed to black oppression.” These extremists were
exploiting the anger among poor black Africans, who suffered from
underdevelopment and lack of economic opportunities. What Kathrada said about
this situation, in an interview to National Public Radio (NPR) in the US a few
months before his death, is a testimony to his wisdom.
“Anger,
revenge, are negative emotions. If one harbors those emotions, you suffer more.
And that is where our very progressive policy of forgiveness [came from], in
which the ANC started with the transformation from apartheid to democracy –
forgive. Don’t harbor hatred and revenge.”
He made
another perceptive observations about whites in Africa. “We live in a South
Africa [where], unlike other colonial countries where the colonists went home
after freedom, our oppressors were South Africans, born and bred in South
Africa. And not a few thousand, but a few million. So we had to get our people
to understand that these are not a few thousand that you can drown in the sea.”
Kathrada
also played a key role in the establishment of the Nelson Mandela Foundation in
Johannesburg in 1999. In his ‘Foreword’ to Kathrada’s autobiography, Mandela
writes: “Ahmed has been so much part of my life over such a long period that it
is inconceivable that I could allow him to write his memoirs without my
contributing something. Our stories have become so interwoven that the telling
of one without the voice of the other being heard somewhere would have led to
an incomplete narrative.”
The two
comrades addressed each other affectionately as ‘Madala’ or old man. Mandela’s
death on December 5, 2013 was a profound personal loss for Kathrada. In a
moving eulogy, he said:
“Madala,
while we may be drowned in sorrow and grief, we must be proud and grateful that
after the long walk paved with obstacles and suffering, we can salute you as a
fighter for freedom in the end. Farewell, my dear brother, my mentor, my
leader. With all the energy and determination at our command, we pledge to join
the people of South Africa to perpetuate your ideals. When Walter died, I lost
a father, and now I have lost a brother. My life is in a void and I don’t know
who to turn to.”
‘Heroes of Freedom’: Mandela , 27 years
in jail with Kathrada, 26 years in jail, and Sisulu, 25 years in jail. Photo
courtesy: Ahmed Kathrada Foundation
-----
The Umbilical
Cord Connecting Gandhi And The Anti-Apartheid Struggle
In recent
years, some academics and black activists in Africa have painted Gandhi as a
racist. They deny any Gandhian influence over the struggle against apartheid.
Therefore, I would like to add here a few lines about Kathrada’s editor, Ismail
Meer, and his illustrious wife Fatima Meer, both of whom were Mandela’s close
associates in the anti-apartheid movement. They were also Kathrada’s lifelong
friends. This digression is necessary to recall the now largely forgotten, and
even falsely contested, umbilical cord that connected the anti-racist struggle
of Indians under Gandhi’s leadership in the early part of the 20th century and
the subsequent larger struggle of the ANC against apartheid.
Fatima
Meer, acclaimed Gandhian scholar and anti-apartheid activist, authored Nalson
Mandela’s authorised biography. Photo: By arrangement
Fatima’s
father, Moosa Meer, a migrant from Gujarat, was a trusted associate of both
Gandhi and Mandela. He was the editor of Indian Views, a newspaper that opposed
the white-minority government. Fatima and Ismail Meer played a pivotal role in
cementing the relationship between the Indian community, ANC, and important
black leaders such as Mandela, Sisulu, Tambo and Chief Albert Luthuli (who
headed the ANC from 1952 to 1967, and was awarded the 1960 Nobel Peace Prize
for his role in leading the non-violent anti-apartheid movement).
As Ismail
Meer, who was greatly influenced by the writings of Jawaharlal Nehru, has
recorded in his autobiography, A Fortunate Man, “It was the Passive Resistance
Campaign of 1946 by Indian South Africans against the Asiatic Land Tenure and
Indian Representation Act that laid the seed for the 1952 Defiance Campaign
(the largest scale non-violent resistance ever seen in South Africa and the
first campaign pursued jointly by all racial groups under the leadership of the
ANC and the South African Indian Congress); the 1955 Congress of the People
(which brought together the African National Congress, the South African Indian
Congress, the South African Coloured People’s Congress, the South African
Congress of Democrats and the South African Congress of Trade Unions into a
non-racial united front); the birth of the Freedom Charter (which visualised
the abolition of all racial discrimination and the granting of equal rights to
all, with its electrifying slogan, ‘Freedom in Our Lifetime’); and the Treason
Trial of 1956 (in which 156 people, including
Mandela, were arrested and subsequently found not guilty; however, some
of the defendants, including Mandela, Sisulu and Kathrada were later convicted
in the Rivonia Trial in 1964).”
Fatima Meer
(1928-2010) herself forms another close and proud link between Indians’ and
black Africans’ struggle against racism. She was imprisoned for working closely
with Winnie Mandela (Nelson Mandela’s first wife) in the Black Women’s
Federation. She authored Mandela’s authorised and internationally acclaimed
biography, Higher Than Hope. She was also a renowned Gandhian scholar-activist.
She gives a perceptive description of how South Africa transformed Gandhi, in
her book Apprenticeship of a Mahatma – A Biography of M.K. Gandhi:
“On the 18th of July, 1914, twenty-one years
after his arrival, Mohan accompanied by his family, left South Africa. He had
come to the country as a young man of twenty-three, a semi-Englishman. His
host, on meeting him, had wondered how he could afford to keep such an
expensive-looking dandy. His tastes had continued to be expensive for a while,
but they had changed through the intermingling of thoughts and experiences. Now
he left the country bearing all the signs of a man who would soon be recognised
as a saint — As Christ became the Saviour, Muhammed the Prophet, Gautama the
Buddha, the little boy frightened of the dark became the Mahatma and paid the
price of all Mahatmas.”
I had the
privilege of meeting her in Durban, when I accompanied Prime Minister Vajpayee
to attend the Non-Aligned Movement Summit in 1998. The precious gift she presented
to me at her home – South African Gandhi, a 1200-page book edited by her – has
preserved for me memories of this courageous and gentle-faced fighter for human
freedom and dignity.
Kathrada in
his memoirs writes with deep affection about Ismail and Fatima Meer. “The
passing of Ismail Meer on 1 May 2000 not only left a vacuum in my life but, as
I wrote to his widow Fatima and their family, ‘left South Africa poorer. May
the example of his life serve to nourish the ideas and practices for which he
devoted so much of his time and energy.”
Mahatma Gandhi’s nonviolent satyagraha
had a profound influence on Nelson Mandela. An exhibit at Mandela-Gandhi Museum
in Johannesburg. Photo: Sudheendra Kulkarni
-----
Embodiment
Of Modesty, Humility And Incorruptibility
Kathrada
personified not only courage but also modesty and humility, qualities that come
to those who have walked in the shadow of death and are transformed by the pain
of prolonged jail life. He never hankered after power. After the success of the
revolution in 1994, President Mandela offered him a ministerial position in his
Cabinet, which he refused. Instead, he chose to serve Mandela as his
Parliamentary Counsellor. Both his leader and he retired from state office in
1999. Thereafter, till the end of his life he continued to be an influential
voice committed to taking South Africa along the path of non-racialism,
non-sexism, and pro-poor governance free of corruption.
Such was
his moral courage that, a year before his death on March 28, 2017, he publicly
criticised South Africa’s then President Jacob Zuma (who belonged to the
African National Congress) when the latter got embroiled in corruption
scandals. Two Indian businessmen, Rajesh and Atul Gupta, who were extremely
close to Zuma, were the kingpins in these scandals. Kathrada wrote an open
letter asking Zuma to resign: “Dear Comrade President, don’t you think your
continued stay as president will only serve to deepen the crisis of confidence
in the government of the country?”
Zuma was
ultimately forced to resign in 2018, and was also arrested in June 2021. His
arrest sparked violent attacks on the Indian community in Phoenix and other
parts of the country. Before Kathrada died, he told his wife and a close
colleague to communicate a message to President Zuma to stay away from the
funeral. In accordance with his wishes, he was buried with Islamic rites. Also,
in line with his belief in multi-religious unity, his funeral commenced with
Muslim, Christian, Hindu and Jewish prayers.
This is not
surprising because Kathrada had friends and comrades who belonged to different
religions. His closest friend, also his jail mate, was Ishwarlal Laloo Chiba.
After his release from prison, he married Barbara Hogan, who had herself been
sentenced to ten years of imprisonment in the early 1980s for her participation
in the anti-apartheid struggle. “I support the freedom of people to worship as
they see fit, but I believe in a secular state,” he writes in his memoirs.
Ahmed Katharda with his wife Barbara
Hogan, who was jailed for ten years for her participation in the anti-apartheid
struggle. Photo courtesy: Ahmed Kathrada Foundation
------
India’s Cultural
Pluralism Fascinated Him
Kathrada’s
autobiography is replete with praise for Gandhi, Nehru and India in general. He
especially admired India’s plural culture. “My own views on multiculturism,” he
wrote, “are best summed up in a passage by Gandhi: ‘I want the culture of all
lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be
blown off my feet by any.’”
Throughout
his prison term he received letters from friends who had travelled to India.
“Without exception, they had been profoundly impressed and excited by what they
found there. I could not understand what they found so pleasant. Born and
educated in South Africa, they had all grown up, as I did, with a mental
picture of a vast country besieged by famine, malnutrition, disease,
undesirable poverty, communal strife, lawlessness, corruption and filth.”
He then
writes: “It was only when I went to India myself, after my release, that I
understood the enchantment, and realised that the picture sketched by the media
in the West was grievously distorted, with so much emphasis on the negative
aspects of the country that we were ignorant of the hospitality, warmth,
simplicity, cultural richness and beautiful architecture of the subcontinent.
Unfortunately, Third World countries all too frequently fall victim to slanted
reporting that relies on sensationalism and unfavourable news at the expense of
the positive.”
My visit
to Ahmed Kathrada Foundation in Johannesburg
We Indians
should keep alive the memory of this great freedom fighter not only because he
was of Indian origin, not only because he was Mandela’s alter ego, but for
another reason that is important for both contemporary India and contemporary
South Africa. And I came to know about this reason when I visited the
headquarters of the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation in Lenasia, Johannesburg, which
is devotedly carrying forward his mission to “deepen non-racialism and to
promote the values, rights and principles enshrined in the Freedom Charter and
the Constitution of South Africa”.
One a cool
morning last month I drove from my hotel in Sandton, the main business district
of Johannesburg, to Lenasia, some 40 kilometres away on the city’s outskirts.
The apartheid regime created this township exclusively for the Indian community
in the days of racial segregation. Even today a majority of its residents are
people of Indian origin. Although they have been living in South Africa for
many generations, the streets are still named after Kashmir, Lucknow, Bombay,
Bangalore, Mahanadi and so on.
The office
of the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation was buzzing with activity – young volunteers,
both black and Indian, female and male, were immersed in their tasks. It has 30
youth clubs across the country and aims to create 100 of them within the next
few years. Here I met two leading office-bearers of the Foundation – Neeshan
Balton, its executive director, and Ismail Vadi, its board member, a former
member of parliament and provincial minister. They told me that the African
National Congress, which successfully led the struggle against apartheid, is no
longer what it was in the days of Mandela and Kathrada. “ANC is faction-ridden.
Economy is not in a good condition, especially for the poor. Youth unemployment
is as high as 50%. There is racial tension between Indian and African
communities. Moreover, the corruption scandal involving the Gupta family and
former President Zuma has badly damaged the reputation of Indians. Therefore,
we need to build a new generation of leaders committed to the better values of
the liberation movement – integrity, honesty, welfare of all South Africans
without any distinction or discrimination. We cannot live in the past.”
Religious leaders carrying South African
flags walk near a looted shopping mall as the country deployed the army to
quell unrest linked to the jailing of former South African President Jacob
Zuma, in Vosloorus, South Africa, July 14, 2021. Photo: Reuters/Siphiwe
Sibeko/File Photo
------
If this is
the contemporary South African situation that necessitates preservation of the
legacy of noble souls like Ahmed Kathrada, there is also something happening in
contemporary India that has created the same need. “Unfortunately, the politics
of communal polarisation in India is creating divisions between Hindus and
Muslims in the Indian community in South Africa,” Balton and Vadi said to me.
“Some Hindutva forces are active here. The Muslim community has become
inward-looking. Its Muslim identity has become stronger and its Indian
identity, especially among the youth, is becoming weaker.”
It was
painful to hear this because unity of the Indian community across religious,
caste and linguistic lines was one of the proud achievements during Gandhi’s
time in South Africa and the subsequent period of the anti-apartheid movement
under Mandela’s leadership. Surely, the Indian government, India’s political
parties (especially the BJP), our religious-cultural-business organisations,
our Gandhian organisations and all other civil society organisations have a
major responsibility to cement the cracks that have surfaced both between black
Africans and the Indian community and also within the Indian community itself.
Prime
Minister Narendra Modi met Ahmed Kathrada during his visit to South Africa in
July 2016, and tweeted: “Dr. Ahmed Kathrada is a hero and a great source of
inspiration. So delighted to meet him.” In January 2017, the Government of
India donated two million rands (about Rs 90 lakh) to Ahmed Kathrada Foundation
“in recognition of the important role it plays in South Africa and to support
the Foundation in fulfilling its activities”.
Narendra
Modi
@narendramodi
India
government official.
Dr. Ahmed
Kathrada is a hero & a great source of inspiration. So delighted to meet
him.
--------
This
gesture was laudable. But certainly more needs to be done, especially in India,
to preserve the memory of this great Indian-South African. Why not an Ahmed
Kathrada University in Gujarat? Why not a Gandhi-Mandela Museum for
India-Africa Friendship with a gallery devoted to Kathrada? Why not an award in
his name to honour those South Africans rendering great service in furtherance
of the common ideals of India and South Africa? Why not invitation to members
of the youth clubs of Ahmed Kathrada Foundation to visit India – and reciprocal
visits by India’s youth leaders? Letting his name go into oblivion in India
would be a disservice to the ideals that animated our own freedom movement and
that ought to guide our nation’s future.
-----
Sudheendra Kulkarni served as an aide to
former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and is the founder of the ‘Forum for
a New South Asia – Powered by India-Pakistan-China Cooperation’. He is also the
founder of Gandhi-Mandela Centre for India-Africa Friendship. He is the author
of Music of the Spinning Wheel: Mahatma Gandhi’s Manifesto for the Internet
Age.
URL:
https://newageislam.com/islam-politics/kathrada-nelson-mandela-african-comrade-apartheid/d/128652
New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism