Amina Cachalia


Amina Cachalia, OLB was a South African anti-Apartheid activist, women's rights activist, and politician. She was a longtime friend and ally of former President of South Africa Nelson Mandela. Her late husband was political activist Yusuf Cachalia. Her son, Ghaleb Cachalia, is a politician in the Democratic Alliance.

Early life

Cachalia was born Amina Asvat, the ninth of eleven children in Vereeniging, Transvaal, South Africa, on 28 June 1930. Her parents were political activists Ebrahim Ismail Asvat and Fatima Asvat. Ebrahim was a close friend of Mahatma Gandhi and he was also chair person of Transvaal British Indian Association which later goes by the name of Transvaal Indian Congress. Her sister, Zainab Asvat, was an activist.
At first, Cachalia doesn't realize her racially prejudiced environment in South Africa. Under the influence of her tutor, Mervy Thandray, a communist teacher teacher who belonged to the Communist Party of South Africa. Cachalia grows her awareness about condition on South Africa Later, she was transferred to the Durban Indian Girls’ High School. She returned to Fordsburg and decided not to continue her formal education. She began to learn shorthand and typing to get a job and became politically active.She began campaigning against Apartheid and racial discrimination as a teenager. She became a women's rights activist, often focusing on economic issues, such as financial independence for women.

Political involvement

Her first political involvement start when she wanted to take part on women’s passive resistance campaign, but rejected cause she was too young and frail to go to prison.Then, she join Transvaal Indian Youth Congress as an active member. TIYC actively doing task such as distributing leaflets, putting up posters, selling TIC's newspaper, and mobilising Indian community to support the movement. She met his future husband, Yusuf Cachalia, secretary of TIC through her political activity. Cachalia was a volunteer for the Peace Council and a founding member of Women’s Progressive Union which was affiliated to the Institute of Race Relations in 1948. The Union taught women literacy, dress-making, secretarial skills, baby care, and basic skills in nursing in order to help them became economically independent.

Defiance campaign

In the early 1950s, she joined ANC and worked hard to help Defiance Campaign becaming a successful movement by distributing leaflets, making home visits and recruiting volunteers to join the movement.On 26 August 1952, Cachalia participate on Germiston march batch led by Ida Mtwana. The Germiston march consist of twenty-nine women in all: eleven Indian, one Coloured, and seventeen African women. All participator of the march was arrested and sentenced to 14 days in Boksburg Prison
On 17 April 1954, Federation of South African Women was founded in Johannesburg from the idea of Rachel Simons to found women’s organisation which was included all woman from all race and colour. The organisation was led by Helen Joseph, Lillian Ngoyi and Amina Cachalia as the steering committee for the organisation. Cachalia was the treasurer of the Federation of South African Women and a leading supporter of the Federation of Transvaal Women. FEDSAW decided to organise women’s march to Pretoria on the Union Building on 9 August 1955 to protest against the pass law. At that time, Amina was pregnant with his son, Ghaleb. Amina becames one of the 20,000 marchers.
During the treason trial in Johannesburg on 1956, she helps her sister, Zainab Asvat, to support the trialists and their families which had been left impoverished by the lost of their main wage earner by collecting food an money for them. Amina Cachalia and Yusuf Cachalia were friends of Nelson Mandela before his imprisonment at Robben Island in 1962. She became a staunch anti-apartheid activist. After the treason trial, Cachalia spent fifteen years under house arrest throughout the 1960s and 1970s

The period after house arrest

After her house arrest ended, Cachalia immediately join to oppose government's plan to allow Indians to elect their own representative without giving the same right to black South Africans by forming Anti-SAIC committees to oppose the sham election. Though, the majority of Indians boycotted the election, government still keep on to their plan by proposing Tricameral Parliament system. The controversy resulted in the formation of the United Democratic Front and she became one of active member of this organisation. In the 1990s, Cachalia served as the committee of PWV and Vaal Triangle ] region on African National Congress Women’s League after the organisation was resuscitated.
In 1995, Mandela asked Cachalia to marry him. At that time, he had been separated from his wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. Cachalia turned down Mandela's proposal because she said that "I'm my own person and that I had just recently lost my husband whom I had enormous regard for". Mandela divorced Madikizela-Mandela a year later and married Graça Machel in 1998.
Cachalia was elected to the National Assembly of South Africa in the 1994 South African general election, the country's first with universal suffrage.

Death and funeral

Cachalia died at Milpark Hospital in Parktown West, Johannesburg, on 31 January 2013, aged 82. The cause of death was complications due to a perforated ulcer.
Her funeral was held in her home in Parkview, Johannesburg, according to traditional Muslim customs. It was attended by South African President Jacob Zuma, former Presidents Thabo Mbeki and Kgalema Motlanthe, ANC Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, former First Lady Graça Machel, former Finance Minister Trevor Manuel, and fellow activist Ahmed Kathrada, among others.

Honor and Legacy

In 2004, she was awarded the Order of Luthuli in Bronze for her contributions to gender and racial equality and democracy. On the same year, she was also conferred by University of the Witwatersrand with a Doctor of Laws degree, honoris causa.
After her death, in March 2013, her autobiography When Hope and History Rhyme was published.