In July 1957 when Prince Karim Aga Khan IV succeeded his grandfather Sir Sultan Mahomed Shah Aga Khan 111 as Imam (spiritual leader) of some 15 million Ismaili Muslims worldwide, massive changes were taking place in the world. In Africa the “Wind of Change”, referring to the decolonisation process, was blowing across the continent. The Soviet Union had launched Sputnik 1 which ushered in the space age giving rise to a major geopolitical rivalry between the USA and the Soviet Union- a factor that was going to have a major impact on Africa in the years to come.
The Ismailis in East Africa spread out in 4 countries, Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika and Zanzibar were part of the larger Asian minority numbering some 360,000 whose fate was undecided in the new unfolding political drama. Here the Aga Khan’s remit as Imam was to secure the wellbeing being of his followers both spiritually and in terms of the quality of their lives. His advice was simplethey owed their secular allegiance to the countries responsible for their wellbeing while their spiritual allegiance was to Islam and its Shia Imami Ismaili persuasion. At a micro level his advice to parents was pragmatic. “Put your children to bed by 7pm each day”, reminding them of the value of good sleep and rest for growing children. He exhorted good education for their children (both boys and girls) and stressed that particular attention be paid to basic health care. The years ahead were spent in upgrading the numerous initiatives and institutions in social and economic development which were pioneered by his grandfather under the old colonial systems and which needed revamping to meet the requirements of the new nation states yet to be born. In this process education played a key role. New multi-racial, co-educational secondary schools were built staffed by some of the best teachers from everywhere. Aga Khan 1V built the first multi-racial hospital in Kenya which would go on to become a leading teaching hospital in the years to come.
What is remarkable is that during his immediate sabbatical from Harvard University, Aga Khan 1V visited his far flung community across the world even going to Hunza in the Northern Areas of Pakistan bordering on China. In certain inaccessible areas he went on donkey back. His concern did not stop just with the Ismaili community. He realised that the plight of marginalisation was endemic to the whole region and as Imam his remit extended to all those among whom his community lived and who were in need. Over the years he established the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme which went on to become the model for rural development in many countries of the world.
A global visionary who thought in mutigenerational terms, Aga Khan IV underpinned his vision with practical action combined with deep philosophical reflection. He was a great listener and was always ready to consult, realisingthat people themselves were the best judges of their needs and that giving them agency was the most effective way of guaranteeing their progress. He ignited their spirit of hope and determination. All his programmes embraced this hallmark in addition to basic care for the environment.
Aga Khan IV did not view human developments in simple binary terms and approached the decolonisation process in East Africa with great empathy throwing his lot in with the African governments by trying to understand their predicament in dismantling the colonial systems that they had inherited in which the Black people were systemically deprived on the basis of their race. At the same time, he saw the predicament of the Asian minority communities as a fault line issue to the extent that they were unfairly seen as prosperous middle men in the economy, imported by colonial governments and perceived as blocking the upward mobility of the aspirations of the majority of the indigenous people. Here, he was adept at thinking in pareto-optimal terms in enlarging the pie so that more people could benefit from it. He did this firstly, by ensuring greater African articulation of their political aspirations on a platform which they could genuinely call their own. For this he established the Nation Newspaper Group in 1959 in response to an observation made to him by the then leading political activist in the Kenyan freedom movement, the late Tom Mboya. Aga Khan IV was not sparing in introducing the state of the art printing technology, the web offset, making Kenya the first Black African country to have access to this technology at that time. The Nation Group thus became an important regional media organisation ready to play its role in nation-building activities. He gave local shareholders a stake in the enterprise and the newspaper went on to play an important role in the engendering of a culture of responsible reporting in East Africa. The media endeavour also became a fore runner to the Graduate School of Media and Communications of the Aga Khan University which he developed in the years to come.
Secondly, and importantly, Aga Khan IV advised his followers to relinquish the retail trade which was the main bone of contention with the majority of the populace. He encouraged his followers to go into small scale industrial enterprises through the Industrial Promotion Services (IPS) which he then set up and which went on to become part of the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development (AKFED) which today is the main arm of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) with regard to economic development activities globally.
Thirdly, and equally critically, he advised his followers to take up local citizenship and make each of these countries of East Africa their home which a large majority did. He advised his followers to access the best education they could muster locally and also aim for higher education overseas. A longitudinal thinker he encouraged pluralistic dialogue from the beginning and shared a common concern about just and equitable development with leading global thinkers of the time, one of whom happened to be a Canadian visionary called Pierre Elliott Trudeau whom he befriended over the years.
The post-colonial hope in East Africa was severely undermined by local tensions engendered by geopolitical rivalries and the hoped for East African Federation which the various nations aspired for, never materialised. In 1971 there was a coup in Uganda with the emergence of Dictator Idi Amin who on 4 August 1972 passed an edict giving the 80,000 Asians of Uganda an ultimatum to leave the country within 90 days. Ismailis, who formed a minority of this group, were largely citizens of Uganda. Regardless of this fact, Amin’s decree held and it was at that point in time that the Canadian government, which had begun to change its immigration policy, decided to admit people from non-European areas of the world. Here, the Aga Khan was able to leverage his connection with Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau and through the Ismaili community and its organisational structure in Uganda help the Canadian team in Uganda hasten the process of Ugandan Asian resettlement in Canada. The Ismaili volunteers in Canada, many of whom had only recently arrived in the country, were able to muster local support to help displaced persons who had just arrived. In this context what is not much known is the unique role the Aga Khan and his uncle Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, the then UN High Commissioner for refugees, played in devising what the UN refers to today as “alternative pathways to resettlement”. These endeavours over time helped Ismailis as well as other displaced Asians to settle mainly in the countries of the Western hemisphere.
Aga Khan IV advised his community in Canada on his first official visit to the country in 1978 to make Canada their definitive home. He advised his younger followers, both girls and boys, to take the best education that Canada was able to offer. But he also reminded them that in the years to come he would call upon them to play a contributory role in the development of societies which were less privileged than theirs. He told them that he will call upon their time through the institutions of the Imamat. Today some 50 years later many Ismailis who arrived as displaced persons are playing an important civic role at the highest echelons of the Canadian government and are also involved withthe Aga Khan University which has faculties in 6 countries- three of which are in East Africa. Ismailis and others also serve through the AKDN the global network dedicated to improving the quality of life of those in need mainly in Asia and Africa irrespective of their origin, faith or gender. The Aga Khan IV’s vision was always underpinned by a deep sense of self-effacement. Asked by one of the leading Canadian TV journalists Roy Bonisteel how he would like his legacy to be remembered one day, his response after a moment of deep reflection was categorical. “Not by face or by name” but if the projects he was setting up were to benefit those for whom they were meant, then his life will have been fulfilled. His successor, his eldest son, His Highness Prince Rahim Aga Khan succeeded him as the 50th hereditary Imam of the Ismaili Muslims worldwide. As Aga Khan V, Prince Rahim has committed himself to serve his widely dispersed community spread today in some 35 countries of the world through a network his late father built and with which he has been closely associated for the past two decades.
