Struggle stalwart Dullay dies in Denmark

POLITICAL activist and scholar Prithiraj Ramkisun Dullay, 73, died on Thursday in Denmark after a battle with cancer.

His wife, Mala, and daughters, Simmi and Sureka, were with him at the end, said his niece Nirvana Dullay Nankoomar.

“We are all taken aback by his passing. He had left South Africa for a couple of years (ago) to care for his daughter who had been in a serious accident.”

She said her uncle wanted to come back to Port Shepstone.

“When we last spoke he said that he wanted to come home. My aunt told me that he wished for his ashes to be in his hometown,” said Nankoomar.

The ANC in the province released a statement and message of condolence to Dullay’s family.

“We record his name in the struggle annals of South African freedom as a comrade who gave everything for his country, for our democracy. We join his family and loved ones in grieving his passing and extend our condolences.”

Dullay got into politics through the Black Consciousness Movement and became a confidant of Steve Biko.

His grandparents were imprisoned during the 1913 strike of Indian indentured workers on the sugar plantations. His father was active in the Natal Indian Congress. As a young student at Springfield College of Education, he was a SRC member and was arrested for the first time in 1968.

Dullay’s political work, associated with the 1976 Soweto Uprising, saw him face further Security Branch harassment and arrest.

He and his wife fled into exile in 1978 and joined the ANC where they worked in various places like the Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College in Tanzania.