By Vinod Tailor MBE (former High Sherif of Bedfordshire, supporting various voluntary sectors for the alleviation of poverty, Trustee of Peace Child International)
It was July 1957 and I was yet to be born in a small village in Eastern Uganda called Kaberamaido which even today is not known by many. Its population then was no more than a thousand. My father was a humble tailor — hence my name “Tailor”. Like in many other towns of East Africa there was a small Ismaili jamatkhana nearby which had some very basic facilities. It was run by a teacher called Aly Mohamed Master who also happened to teach in the government school at which I was a pupil. Looking back as I grew up, I came to realise that 1957 was a significant year. The decolonisation process (Wind of Change) was taking place across Africa and the Soviet Union had launched its first satellite called Sputnik1. We had entered the space age. It was against this backdrop that, Sir Sultan Mahomed Shah Aga Khan III, Imam (spiritual leader) of the world’s 12 million Ismaili Muslims, passed away having appointed his 20-year-old grandson Prince Karim, then an undergraduate at Harvard University, as Aga Khan IV, the 49th hereditary Imam of the Ismaili Muslims worldwide. Aga Khan III wanted a young man to succeed him as the Imam of the Atomic Age.
Our life in the village was simple. My father lived a hand to mouth existence. I was the eldest of two boys and we had three sisters. East Africa was beginning to feel the effect of the “Wind of Change”. The Asian minority felt extremely vulnerable as African nationalism became more strident and viewed the Asian shopkeeper as blocking their upward mobility. Aga Khan 1V deferred his studies at Harvard University and took over a year off as a kind of sabbatical to reorient his life towards redeeming his pledge to his community whom he undertook to serve. In this retrospective, I reflect on how Aga Khan IV impacted my life as a non-Ismaili and my multiple identities. I realise now that he was not only an Imam to the Ismailis but he was also the voice of the voiceless of whom I was one.
Aga Khan IV as one who navigated the “Wind of Change”
At a time when some 360,000 Asians in four East African countries were wondering whether to stay in East Africa or to leave, Aga Khan IV advised his community to take up local citizenship. But this was not as an expedient. He advised them to live simply, educate their children, and contribute towards nation-building in the moment of post-colonial hope. In his vision for a new Africa he was not alone but found a kindred spirit in a dynamic Canadian whose cosmopolitan vison was resonant — Pierre Elliott Trudeau who would later serve two terms as the Prime Minister of Canada. As fate would have it they became good friends.
Connection with India
Despite the Ismaili Imamat in the last millenium being a-territorial, Ismailis have a very strong sense of belonging and deep bonds with their Imam regardless of how geographically scattered they may be. India for most diasporic Ismailis who lived in Africa was their cultural background. Aga Khan IV’s great-great-grandfather (Aga Hassanaly Shah Aga Khan I) came to India in 1846 and established his residence first in Calcutta and subsequently in Bombay. His son (Aga Ali Shah, Aga Khan II) succeeded him and he in turn was succeeded by Aga Khan III who rose to eminence as India’s representative to the the various Round Table conferences between 1930–1932 that aimed to determine the future political shape of India. Aga Khan III left India in the 1930s and went on to become the President of the League of Nations (the forerunner to the United Nations) a position he held for two terms.
Aga Khan IV consolidated the social welfare activities of his community in India in 1980 when he established the Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) India whose first Chairman was Indian diplomat Rajeshwar Dayal. Through the AKF, Aga Khan IV established the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP) India that has for the past 40 years been serving the most marginalised sections of the population- mostly non-Ismailis. Enlisting the engagement of outstanding Indian visionaries such as the industrialist Sir Rattan Tata and the leading Indian architect Charles Correa, the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), the umbrella organisation under which all developmental activities are conducted today, has been involved in activities ranging from early childhood and general education, health care, rural development and economic activities to major cultural regeneration programmes such as the restoration of the tomb of Humayun and the Sunder Nursery in New Delhi. It must be noted that Aga Khan IV in 1969 donated the Yerwada Palace, which was owned by his grandfather and where Mahatma Gandhi was once incarcerated, to the Indian Government. The building today houses the Gandhi Museum.
While Aga Khan IV was advising his own community to play a constructive role in East Africa, sadly, the conditions in post-independence East Africa changed radically as a result of various factors including cold war politics in which the region became embroiled. Ideological differences became problematic, resulting inter alia in the 1972 expulsion by Idi Amin of some 80,000 Asians from Uganda with just a 90-day notice. I was a mere 15-year-old boy at the time. I did not have much education. Various countries to which the Asians were affiliated in some way or the other, renounced their responsibility for the Asians of East Africa who became in political economist Yash Tandon’s words ‘stepchildren of the colonial empire’. We were desperate, penniless. We had no hope whatsoever. It was at that time that Aga Khan IV and his uncle Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, the longest serving UN High Commissioner for Refugees, elaborated what is known as ‘alternative pathways to resettlement’ to help people like myself. Aga Khan 1V was able to enlist the support of the Canadian Government through Pierre Elliott Trudeau, and Canada opened its doors to an unprecedented wave of non-white immigration. Prince Sadruddin on his part, ensured that all those persons displaced from East Africa were able to move to transit camps where they could wait for governments across the world to open a door for them. I was one of those to whom the Imam and his uncle gave hope and a new life. In Aga Khan’s own words uttered in another context he ‘ignited the spirit of human enterprise and determination’ in me and my family. He inspired us not only to survive, but beyond that, to excel.
What I have learned as a Diasporan
Despite the Aga Khan’s followers being expelled from Uganda, the institutions he established in Uganda continued to operate. In 1988 Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni agreed to hand the properties of the Imamat back to Aga Khan IV. When he met President Museveni, Aga Khan IV was touched by the Ugandan President’s acknowledgement that these assets of the Imamat had been unlawfully expropriated. In a gesture of supreme magnanimity, Aga Khan IV assured the President that he would use the Imamat properties once again in the service of the country. According to Mohamed Keshavjee, accompanied Aga Khan IV when he went to see President Museveni some 36 years ago, “in accepting the restitution to the Imamat of the jamatkhana building in Kampala (where his installation as Imam had taken place), Aga Khan IV ensured that the people squatting in the building were given reasonable alternative facilities.” Today, Uganda is the sixth country where the Aga Khan University has a faculty, and every year hundreds of local citizens, mainly Black Africans, qualify in fields that are relevant to their countries’ needs A visionary par excellence, Aga Khan IV, who succeeded to the Imamat before my birth, inspired me to serve humanity. About him I can only say, “vision without action is a dream. Action without vision is just passing time. Vision with action changes the world.” Aga Khan IV was committed to changing the world, and he kept working for the betterment of this world right until the end of his life. His funeral reflected what he stood for- simplicity and elegance coupled with service before self.
