I am writing to describe the Zarina Patel I knew and loved and the role she played in my awakening to Kenyas post-independence struggles to restore the democratic constitution we inherited on December 12, 1963.
It is hard not to begin without recording the outpouring of grief from leaders, academics and ordinary Kenyans on the death this week of this indomitable writer who fought for the poor and marginalised.
Within that framework fell her devotion to the cause of womens liberation, and prolific writings which brought out of the shadows the politically buried achievements and sacrifices of the Kenyan Asian community in our freedom struggle.
Vital chunks of that critical early history of African-Asian anti-colonial alliances would have been lost had she not chronicled them in masterfully written histories of Makhan Singh, one of the most formidable leaders of Kenyas trade union movement; of Manilal Desai of the EA Indian National Congress (EAINC), who was freedom pioneer Harry Thukus closest friend and adviser and coordinated anti-British activities.
The EAINC in turn had been founded by Zarinas grandfather Alibhai Jeevanjee to confront colonial injustices. He also founded the East African Standard and donated Jeevanjee Gardens to Nairobi. No other writer has remotely done as much as Zarina in highlighting the communitys political contributions, which helped our winning freedom much quicker. Those contributions also helped prevent a Rhodesia-like (now Zimbabwe) situation in which Kenyas settlers might have grabbed power.
In an introduction to Zarinas book on Manilal Desai in 2010, then-Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga wrote that her work had made an immense contribution by Kenyans of Asian origin to our nations freedom, which was not widely known as little of it had been documented.
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He hailed her contributions to our second liberation.
Above these efforts and labours, Zarinas overall commitment was to a global liberation struggle which transcended race, colour and gender. Kenya and East Africa have lost an irrepressible fighter for justice and equality.
Let me turn to Zarinas personal story with the day in 1977 when my wife Patricia and I went to pick her up at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. She was thrilled to be home and was brimming with stories about her two years in the US, where she had received her first university degree, a Masters in Education, at the age of 40, made possible by fellowships from the Ford Foundation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard.
Among Zarinas most fascinating stories was a discussion she had with two elderly American women about the turbulent period of change in the US. Zarina was pleased that the two were fully aware of the problems bedevilling the country: poverty, racism, the high cost of living, lack of discipline in the young and increasing violence, including the assassinations of President John Kennedy, his brother Robert, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and a host of other progressive Black leaders.
Zarina was keen to know what the women thought were the causes of the problems. They answered almost jointly: its the Communists. Zarina was stunned but didnt try to dissuade them. She said their answer dramatically brought home to her more strongly than ever the enormous influence of the news/entertainment media and other institutions in diverting attention from the central causes of American woes, which included the inordinate power of the rich and powerful over government policies. Even now, anyone who proposes peace talks rather than giving Ukraine billions of more military dollars for its unwinnable war, is branded a Russian/Vladimir Putin stooge.
Her studies and encounters also led her, she said, to becoming more conscious of the need to address the grossly disproportionate power the West exercised in preventing developing countries from pursuing independent, home brewed economic policies. Zarina later wrote that she returned from America in 1977 a thoroughly convinced socialist/Marxist and feminist.
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Zarina had in fact been a progressive activist long before her time in America. When we launched Viva magazine in 1974, aimed mostly at women interested in following socio-political developments at home and abroad, I asked Zarina to write a leading piece on womens rights, an issue she already cared about deeply.
Her article, entitled Just Call Us Ms provoked an equally fiery response, including from women who abhorred the idea. Even in the West, most women still thought the prefix Ms a rad
