Tom Lodge

The death of South African freedom struggle stalwart Essop Pahad (84) on 6 July 2023 prompted tributes from his former comrades. There were also less respectful obituaries referring to him as Thabo Mbeki’s “consiglieri”, because of his role as the former president’s “right-hand man”.

Any examination of Pahad’s full political record will take you back to the heroic phases of South Africa’s liberation history, when prospects for a democratic South African government seemed very remote. As a teenager in the 1950s he was busy in the Transvaal Indian Youth Congress. This was the equivalent of the youth league of the liberation movement, the African National Congress (ANC), for Indian South Africans. In those days, reflecting apartheid’s distinctions, even radical resistance to it was racially differentiated.

He was one of a small group of activists who, in the 1950s and early 1960s, made a decisive contribution in pulling the