Indian-origin anti-apartheid stalwart passes away at 87

Johannesburg, March 28

Ahmed Kathrada, the veteran Indian-origin South African activist who was sentenced to life along with Nelson Mandela during the apartheid era, died today at a hospital here after complications following a brain surgery. He was 87.

Kathrada was one of the longest serving political prisoners in the country. President Jacob Zuma condoled the death, praising him for serving “selflessly throughout his adult life”. He declared a special official funeral for him.

The President instructed that the national flag fly at half-mast throughout the country from today until the evening of the official memorial service. The family has requested a private funeral ceremony. 

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Kathrada, who frequently referred to Mandela as his ‘elder brother’, was among the three political prisoners who were sentenced to life imprisonment together with the South African anti-apartheid icon after the infamous Rivonia Trial of 1964. The other two were Andrew Mlangeni and Denis Goldberg.

They played major roles in shaping the country’s policies after Mandela’s election as the first democratic President of South Africa in 1994.

Kathrada was born on August 21, 1929 in Schweizer-Reneke, a town in the North-West Province of South Africa, and introduced to politics as a young boy when he joined a non-racial youth club run by the Young Communist League.

He was among 2,000 people who were arrested and imprisoned for defying a law that discriminated against South African Indians. Kathrada spent 26 years and three months in prison. Kathrada also received the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award in 2005 from the President of India. — PTI