Let’s remember South Africa’s unsung heroes – like ML Sultan

HISTORY judges people by their contributions towards making the world a better place, especially in the face of the political stumbling blocks often erected.

We know so much about Luthuli, Gandhi, Tambo, Sizulu, Yusuf Dadoo et al.

History somehow inadvertently shrouds those who stayed out of political activism and who rather quietly went about their way far from the spotlight to make a difference to coming generations.

In 1948 the Nationalist Party wrested political control and fine-tuned the colonial legacy of whites’ controlling levers of power, to become known as apartheid.

In the jaws of that we find visionaries who refused to be treated as inferior citizens and decided to do something about the future. This was what philanthropist and humanitarian Hajee Muluk-Mahomed Lappa Sultan, the founder of ML Sultan Technical College, now the flagship of the DUT, was all about. The likes of PR Pather also feature in this unsung narrative.

Unschooled himself, ML Sultan must have witnessed the arrogance of colonialism, the forerunner to apartheid, and astutely knew the only road to freedom was through education.

He must have seen that colonially imported Indians could be seriously hamstrung and confined to being serfs to the colonial masters.

Hajee ML Sultan, as he became known, founded the ML Sultan Technical College as it was initially known.

In today’s monetary value, he donated the equivalent of R300 million for the founding of this institution.

It lies close to the epicentre of my beloved Casbah. It is like an acorn that is now a solid oak tree, proudly proclaiming that nothing is impossible if you are willing to invest and bank in the future. He who dares, wins, as the cliché goes. SABER AHMED JAZBHAY

Durban