Last Tuesday Ahmed Kathrada breathed his last in Donald Gordon hospital in Johannesburg, aged 87. Anti-apartheid activist of Indian origin Ahmed Kathrada was one of the closest aids of Nelson Mandela. He was sentenced to life imprisonment along with Mandela after the infamous Rivonia Trial of 1964. He was offered a chance to appeal against his sentence as a non-African. It could have reduced his sentence but Kathrada refused. Consequently, he spent next 26 years and three months of his life in prison. He was in the notorious Robben Island prison for 18 years.
Kathrada was a true South African who believed in humanity. He was born on August 21, 1929 to immigrant Indian parents in the small town of Schweizer-Reneke in North West Province. His parents Mohamed and Hawa Kathrada originally hailed from Surat in Gujarat. They were Bohra Muslims.
Kathrada had tasted racism from the very beginning. He had to move to Johannesburg at the age of 8 because children of Indian-origin were not allowed to attend local primary schools in Schweizer-Reneke. Johannesburg had an Indian school where Kathrada started his studies while living with his aunt Fatima.
Mahatma Gandhi's Transvaal British Indian Association or Transvaal Indian Congress, as it was later known, had influenced Kathrada deeply. It was founded by Mohan das Karamchand Gandhi in 1903 to fight discrimination against Indians in South Africa. It played the role of a political school for Kathrada who served his first jail at the age of 17 in 1946 for civil disobedience.
He later became the general secretary of Transvaal Indian Congress and prepared a way to bring it closer to African National Congress. During this time, he came close to Nelson Mandela and they became friends. Kathrada respected Mandela as an elder brother and that is how South Africa remembers the two; brothers who fought for the freedom.
Zenani Mandela, daughter of Nelson Mandela said at Kathrada's death that he was her other father. She said, "There are people who come into your life and never leave, because they are truly special. They have what we call presence, that rare ability to loom large in our lives so that their impact on our lives is multiplied a thousand times over. He was my other father."
Mandela had mentioned Kathrada more than once in his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom (1994). He recounted that in court, “Kathy, in his sharp-witted testimony, denied committing acts of sabotage or inciting others to do so, but said he supported such acts if they advanced the struggle”.
Kathrada was a strong willed and just leader. He believed in what he did. He could complete his studies because of freedom struggle. But he obtained four university degrees during his time in prison.
In October 1989, just months before Mandela was freed from Jail, Kathrada was freed at the age of 60. And he remained politically and socially active for the rest of his life. In 1994 Mandela was elected president of South Africa. He chose Kathrada as his parliamentary counsellor. Mandela used to call Kathrada one of his two 'mirrors'. The other was Walter Sisulu who was with them in Jail.
Kathrada was honoured with Pravasi Bhartiya Samman in 2005. Now that he is no more, non-resident Indians have an icon before them who had Indian blood in his veins and lived and died a true human being.
