The history of the Mohamedally and
Maniben Rattansi Educational Trust can be traced back about 150 years ago to
the coming of Mohamedally Rattansi to Kenya.
Mohamedally Rattansi was born in 1882 in Chavand, a village in Kathiawar, India. His father Rattansi Nanji, a Shia Ismaili, owned a small shop
selling basic merchandise, such as salt, sugar, and dates to villagers and
neighbouring farmers in India.
Sandwiched between the Great Raan (desert) of Cutch and the
coast, Kathiawar suffers aridity and an extremely varying rainfall. A prolonged
drought, which plunged the rural community into a state of crisis, occurred in
that part of Northwestern India when Mohamedally was a boy. Crops failed, food was scarce, and the
inhabitants lacked money to buy; even, bare necessities were lacking. Rattansi Nanji, did not only make money but
he also lost it as well, through supplying his neighbours on credit. When his
son, Mohamedally, began to earn an income, he always sent some of it home to
sustain his father and his altruistic shop, however small the amount was.
Arising from the effects of drought
and famine in Kathiawar, there was high migration from rural to urban
areas. One of Mohamedally’s uncles had
already migrated and settled in the vast city of Bombay. When barely in his teens, Mohamedally left
his village and moved to Bombay to join his uncle in search of a job to better
his life.
So many people were continuously
flooding into Bombay causing the jobs to become scarce. Mohamedally learnt,
however, that there were opportunities in British East Africa (Kenya was part
of it). In 1897 the British began to build a railway line from Mombasa to Lake
Victoria to open up the hinterland for trade and administration. A great number of Indian indentured
labourers, eventually numbering about 32,000, were recruited to build the
line. The work started in Mombasa and
soon, the small Swahili port became a bustling town. Mohamedally’s cousin, Javer Kassam, had already migrated there
and ran a small shop.
In 1899, the railway reached the
swampy area which the Maasai called ‘the place of cool waters’, or
Nairobi, and a town was beginning to develop.
At the same time, Asian traders, having established themselves on the
East African coast, were following the rail line and penetrating deeper into
the hinterland. It was those intrepid pioneers who introduced the exchange
economy as the British administrators raised the flag of the Empire and
established small administrative centres or bomas.
The Asian traders set up small
shops, known everywhere as dukas (from the Indian word dukan).
The first shops were no more than tents, sheets of canvas propped up on
poles. They were soon replaced by
thatched huts, and later by corrugated iron-sheet buildings, with the shop in
front and living quarters at the back. As Sir Winston Churchill wrote: “It is
the Indian trader, who, penetrating and maintaining himself in all sorts of
places in which no white man could earn a living, has more than anyone else
developed the early beginning of trade (in East Africa) and opened up the first
slender means of communication.” Such
were the humble beginnings of every town in the hinterland.
The most enterprising of the Asian
entrepreneurs was a Shia Ismaili by the name Seth Alidina Visram. By the turn of the century, Visram had
established a chain of dukas
stretching from the Coast to the Nile.
There was a great demand for young and adventurous fellow Ismailis to
steward the shops. Seeing this
opportunity, Javer sent a message to his young cousin Mohamedally, telling
him: to ‘Come to Africa. I shall help you find a job.’
Mohamedally’s initial intention was
to go to Bombay to find a job. However when his cousin called him to Africa, he
departed without informing his parents.
His parents were therefore, worried and his mother fasted for one month
wondering where her son was. Finally,
word arrived from Visram that their son Mohamedally was in Kenya with him.
Mt. Kenya
Just at the turn of the century,
young Mohamedally boarded a dhow from India and docked at the old harbour in
Mombasa. With Javer’s help he got a job
with Alidina Visram. The firm sent him to run a shop in the newly established
administrative centre of Nyeri in Central Kenya. It lay in the heart of Kikuyu country, in a valley nestling
between the ranges of the Aberdares and Mount Kenya. He arrived there after journeying several days from Nairobi
through Naivasha over the Aberdares, with the porters who had carried his
trading goods. They walked along
footpaths and animal trails, covering about ten miles per day, resting each
night in a forest clearing. He was to make the journey on foot dozens of times
over the years until the advent of motor vehicles and roads.
Shop in Nyeri with
Petrol pump outside
His first customers were Kikuyu
farmers living around the new boma. As he got to know the surroundings, he made
trips farther afield and traded with the Wandorobo hunters inhabiting the dense
forests of the Aberdares.
Barter remained the predominant form
of trade at the time, although the Indian rupee was already officially in
circulation. He bartered beads, salt,
sugar, amerikani (cotton cloth) and
blankets with the Wandorobo hunters, for ivory, rhino horn, hides and skins in
exchange. He then transported these goods to Nairobi himself by portage, and
returned with a replenished stock of trading goods. So successful was the barter trade that he soon employed about a
hundred porters, each carrying the standard load of 18.16kgs of merchandise.
(Strict rules already regulated the maximum weights porters could carry,
and the wages they were to be paid.)
After Mohamedally had been in Nyeri
for several years, Seth Alidina Visram died.
His now expansive business empire (he was known as the ‘uncrowned King
of Uganda’) was inherited by his son Abdulrasul, but it soon began to
crumble. Mohamedally joined forces with
a fellow Indian, Osman Allu, who had managed a shop in neighbouring Fort Hall
(Murang’a), and they bought up the Nyeri shop in partnership. It then operated under the name of Osman
Allu.
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Photo of Osman Allu Shop in Nyeri
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In the meantime, European settlement
increased in that area by leaps and bounds.
Mohamedally and his partner Osman gave up barter with the indigenous
people and now turned to satisfy the needs of these new settlers. Their profit
margins in those days remained infinitesimal.
For instance, when they sold sugar scoopful by scoopful out of a sack,
the empty sack was the profit. Slowly,
however, they made a success of the business.
They extended the shop-cum-house, and built a mill for grinding maize on
the Chania River where it flows to Nyeri.
Mohamedally acquired several properties of his own in the growing
township and in neighbouring Karatina too.
The partnership continued to
prosper. Mohamedally had a flair for business and looked after the customers,
while Osman Allu superintended the transport - at first ox teams and wagons –
and later the mill. A setback came in
the 1920s when the settlers plotted rebellion and threatened not only to
overthrow the colonial administration but to `drive all Indians into the
sea’. The partners took the precaution
of sending their families temporarily to India, while they kept the business
going with the help of loyal employees.
In 1930, they dissolved the
partnership and went their separate ways. Each established a business under his
own name. Mohamedally proceeded to
become one of Nyeri’s most prominent Asian merchants. He was a member of the Town Council, which later named a street,
where he had a ‘shamba’ property, after him.
(The ‘Rattansi Street’ sign, however, has vanished over the years and
has not been replaced.)
Standing from left to right
Badru, Haider, Roshan, Hassan, Sultan
Seated from left to right
Shirin, Mohamedally Rattansi,
Kulsumben, Pyarali, Malekben, Mrs. Maniben M. Rattansi, Zarina (1942)
In spite of a tragic initial setback, the young
Mohamedally’s family prospered. A few
years before he left home, Mohamedally was ‘married’ to Maniben, a girl from a
nearby village. It was a traditional
Indian child-marriage as he was then twelve, and his bride only ten. They had not, of course, lived
together. After settling in Nyeri,
Mohamedally wrote to the girl’s parents asking them to send her to join him in
Africa. Mohamedally’s uncle, Javer, would arrange to meet her when the ship
docked at Mombasa.
Javer Kassam had never set eyes on
the girl, and many questions ran through his mind. How was he to recognise her?
Maniben later used to tell her children how she anxiously waited at the
dockside with growing despondency, watching all the others being met and moving
off, until she alone was left there.
She felt utterly abandoned. Only
then did a man approach and asked her if she was Maniben. By elimination, Javer had inferred that this
forlorn girl must be his nephew’s bride.
And he had been proved right.
Javer sent Maniben to Nairobi by
train. There, the young man she had
married and now only half-remembered met her.
She then accompanied him on the first of her many trips through the
forest and mountain ranges to Nyeri.
Maniben and Mohamedally Rattansi
outside their home in Nairobi (1953)
In due course, she gave birth to a
girl, delivered (as all of their family were) by an African midwife. When the little girl was only a few weeks’
old, Mohamedally undertook a trading trip on the Aberdares. He took his wife and baby with him. Mother and child travelled comfortably
enough in a doli, which was a hammock
slung on poles, carried by the porters.
They spent a night in the Aberdare forest with his Wandorobo barter
customers. The night grew bitterly cold
and the child fell suddenly ill and died during the night. The grief-stricken parents buried their
first child there, in the Aberdares.
Maniben never forgot the name of the area (Kiandongoro) and Mohamedally never used that route again.
Undaunted by this setback, the
Rattansis went on to raise a large family, indeed one that may seem incredibly
large by today’s standards. They bore
five sons and five daughters. They were
Malek, Haiderally, Kulsum, Hasanally, Badruddin, Roshan, Sultanally, Pyarally,
Shirin and Zarina. Thus Mohamedally may
appear to have pioneered Kenya’s population explosion too! Family patterns were quite different from
the present one. Manpower was scarce.
‘Each child brings one mouth - and two hands’ enshrined the folk wisdom
of the day. Infectious and epidemic diseases, many now eradicated, kept life
expectancy at birth depressingly low.
That all of the children, except the first-born, survived childhood was
by medical standards of those days, the exception rather than the rule. Indeed,
it was almost a miracle.
Left to right
Pyarally (baby), Haiderally ,Badrubhai and Sultanally in 1930
Standing: Mr. Mohamedally Rattansi
Sitting: left to right Mrs. Maniben
Rattansi and daughter Zarina
So the Rattansi family grew up in
Nyeri, in the shadow of Mount Kenya, except for a brief interlude between 1923
and 1926, when Mohamedally sent the family (five at the time) to India when
threats of settler rebellion made him uneasy.
How Maniben was able to feed the family has remained a mystery to her
children to date. Her budget was
shillings 20/- per month, out of which she had to feed not only a growing and
hungry family, but also a staff numbering four to five.
Maniben Rattansi (1886-1965)
As the saying goes that behind every
successful man, there is a very hard working woman, this is very true of the
Rattansi family. Maniben was one such
woman.
Equally, Maniben had lived a full
life in Kenya. At Nyeri she had learnt
Gikuyu from Kikuyu women, vegetable and produce hawkers and her domestic
servants. On top of this, she had added
a little English. Pretty and well dressed, she kept an immaculate house in
which she welcomed many a visitor. She
used to host so many visitors that meals had to be eaten in shifts! Above all,
she embraced visitors of all races. For example, Indian as well as African
children would romp around freely in her compound, which was unusual in those
dark days of racial segregation. Moreover in Nairobi, she was Chairperson of
the Ismaili Women Committee, which engaged in charitable work.
Mohamedally Rattansi had only enjoyed
a few years of formal schooling, up to about the third or fourth standard in a
village school. He recalled practising
reading by the post-office lamp. The
only language in which he was proficient when he arrived in Nyeri was
Gujarati. He picked up Kiswahili, of
course, and also Kikuyu. When he
decided to change his business and supply provisions to European settlers in
Nyeri, he realised that a knowledge of the English language was indispensable. He persuaded a friendly postmaster, a Mr.
Wilcock, to tutor him, and subscribed to an English-language Indian journal, The India Review. Thus he became
proficient in the English language. He read extensively, across a wide range of
literature, from the Indian epics, poetry, and biographies, to religion and
philosophy. He had a finely developed
sensitivity to language, and wrote family letters and voluminous diaries in an
elegant Gujarati style. He taught
himself Sanskrit and many years late,r encouraged the youngest two sons to
attend Sanskrit classes after school to improve their command and appreciation
of Gujarati. He must have been one of
the few in Kenya at the time to own a complete set of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. A
self-taught person in the main, he placed the highest premium on education. He
wanted his children to obtain the best education he could provide for them.
In those days, education was
structured on racial lines, with designated schools for Europeans, Asians,
Arabs and Africans. The amount
allocated per head by the colonial government to students from each racial
group varied widely. The government
made no provision for Asian schools in the rural areas. In
any small township, Asians typically clubbed together to hire a teacher or two
from India, and set up their own schools.
Often a leading merchant would provide rooms in his house to serve as
classrooms. Only when enough
Asian families had moved into a town was the community large enough to
contemplate putting up a proper school.
Education at such rural schools typically went up to about Standard
Three. If the pupil wished to continue into secondary education, he or she
would be sent to Nairobi or a larger town in order to do so.
In Nyeri, the Asians were in the
initial phase of just such a development.
For many years, Mohamedally’s deep concern for education made him set
aside part of his properties. He
availed the shamba on what later came
to be named Rattansi Road, for housing the school. This was a corrugated
iron-sheet structure with cement floors. It included teachers’ quarters and
accommodation for servants besides the classrooms. The desks and benches were made by local carpenters.
Haiderally, one of the sons, had to
leave school at the tender age of thirteen to help Mohamedally run his business
after he dissolved his partnership with Osman Allu. Hassanally was however luckier.
At the age of ten, after completing whatever schooling Nyeri could
offer, he came to Nairobi as a boarder and attended the Government Indian
Senior Secondary School now called Jamhuri High School. This school prepared
students up to the London Matriculation standard.
The
youngest three members fared best academically. All three were able to go to
England for further education. Shirin,
Zarina and Pyarally were the lucky ones. Shirin chose photography as her
career. Pyarally, was to enjoy a
distinguished academic career abroad. After obtaining his B.Sc and Ph.D at the
London School of Economics, he made the history of science his specialty. He
was successively: Leverhume Research Fellow and lecturer at Leeds University; a
Visiting Professor at Chicago University; a Fellow of King’s College,
Cambridge; and a Visiting Professor at Princeton University. In 1971, he became
the youngest person appointed to the professorship in the History and Philosophy
of Science at the University of London and head of department in that subject at
University College, London.
Another member of the family with a
successful academic career was Dr. Ali Rattansi, the son of Haiderally. He
studied Economics at Manchester University, obtained his Ph.D. at Cambridge
University, was appointed a lecturer in Sociology at Leicester University and
is now at the City University in London.
He has a particular interest in Race
and Education and has been associated with the Open University in the
United Kingdom, a leading institution in distance education. Both Pyarally and Ali Rattansi feel that the value placed by Mohamedally on
literature and learning provided a profound formative influence on each of
them, even though they represent two different generations of the family.
Love for education and learning was
something that the family imbibed from Mohamedally. There were many other preferences and values he imparted on his
children.
In 1936, one of his sons,
Hassanally, passed the London Matriculation Examination which was the passport
to university entrance. Being good at
chemistry, he was keen to go to the United Kingdom to study medicine or
pharmacy. However, it was not to
be. His younger brothers and sisters
were outgrowing the small Nyeri Asian School (now housed in its own
premises). Hence his father decided to
move to Nairobi so that they could continue with their schooling and as such
Hassanally had to let go off his dream for that movement to further his studies
in the United Kingdom.
Hassanally and his elder brother
Haiderally were left with the responsibility of taking care of the Nyeri
business. Their father moved to the capital city and founded a large grocery
and provisions store on the premier avenue, Government Road (now Moi
Avenue). A young man, Madatally Manji,
accompanied him from Nyeri. Madatally
eventually founded a vast Kenyan enterprise, the House of Manji. At that time, he had been staying with the
Rattansi’s as one of the family and worked with them in the Nyeri business -
earning 35/- a month!
Shop in Nairobi (Moi Avenue)
The business in Nairobi prospered,
with the astute assistance of Madatally Manji, who proved himself a born
entrepreneur. Soon, Mohamedally
summoned Hassanally to Nairobi to assist in the fast-expanding enterprise. Alas, his ideas and dreams of studying
abroad were then quashed for good!
Hassanally increasingly assumed
responsibility for the Nairobi store. Consequently, his father had the leisure
for his many other interests. He became
a patron and an active member of a society for the promotion of Gujarati
literature and a number of other cultural organisations. He also expanded his business interests to
Uganda by participating in a cotton-ginning venture in there. He became a partner with Mr. (later Sir)
Eboo Pirbhai and Mr. Ibrahim Nathoo (later a Member of the Legislative Council
and eventually one of the first non-European Ministers in the Kenya Government)
in cotton-ginneries in Uganda. As his
active presence in Uganda was necessary mainly during the three months of the
ginning season, it let him free to cultivate his cultural interests in Nairobi.
However, he grew increasingly
enamoured of Uganda. He greatly enjoyed
his encounter with its lush vegetation, broad rivers, and raging
cataracts. He had a great gift for
making friends with people in all walks of life. He won the friendship of
Ugandans of all races. A close
friendship in particular, was with Mr. Muljibhai Madhvani, who established the
great sugar works at Kakira and many other enterprises.
When in time Mohamedally
disentangled from his ginning interests in Uganda, his thoughts turned to a
large estate that he had fortuitously or providentially bought many years
during his very first visit to Uganda, in the days of his partnership with Mr.
Osman Allu. He had been offered a
640-acre freehold plot in Masaka, near Lake Bukakata, for Shs. 30,000, and
surprised himself by buying it. It had
lain undeveloped all these years. He
decided that it would be the most fitting place for his retirement. He moved to it just before the end of the
Second World War.
It did not, of course, prove to be an easy-going retirement. He began to grow papayas on a commercial basis
for the extraction of the digestive agent pepsin. When the market in pepsin slumped, he grew tea on the estate and
relished the challenge of clearing the land and planting tea. It was not an ideal site for tea growing as
the rainfall was inadequate. He was later to say that it gave him far greater
satisfaction than trade ever could, since he felt he was producing something
where there had been almost nothing before.
He enjoyed the long walks around the huge estate, the hard work it
demanded, and the peace and contentment of evenings spent amidst a rural
scene. He had the company of the many
Baganda friends he made in the locality.
He could indulge his passion for reading and continued his literary
group activities whenever he came to Nairobi for a brief sojourn.
By this time, all members of the
family were well settled in life. The
eldest son, Haiderally, had a garage business in Uganda. Hassanally had sold
the grocery business in 1949 and started a new one dealing in sporting goods,
much nearer his own interests. Another
son, Badrudin, ran the original Nyeri business, and Sultanally had joined his
father at Masaka in Uganda. The youngest son, Pyarally, was completing his
Ph.D. at the University of London. The
two elder sons, Haiderally and Hassanally were also married and raising their
own families.
Mr. Mohamedally Rattansi (1882-1957)
Mohamedally’s fondness for the
beauty of nature to date remains an abiding memory whenever the family
remembers him. Nyeri’s setting was
idyllic for him, surrounded by hills and forests with the peaks of Mount Kenya
cascading majestically on the far horizon.
It was in these beautiful surroundings that he conceptualised his own
thoughts, ideals and philosophy.
He had a particular fondness for
trees. He often reminded the family of
the intricate analogy between human beings and trees - that human beings too,
grew roots as trees did, and that like them, they constantly reached out
upwards, as if seeking their Creator. He was a God-loving, rather than a God-fearing individual. Although an Ismaili, he believed in the
ultimate unity of all religions.
Secure in the cultural identity that
his traditional Indian background gave him, Mohamedally welcomed, at the same
time, all that he could learn from the modern western world. He had a passion for technological
innovations, which he shared with his eldest son, Haiderally. He installed an
electricity generator many decades before the power lines reached Nyeri. He had an engineer sent from Nairobi to
install a cinematography projector for the family. He was an early enthusiast
of the motor-car, from the early purchase of a model T Ford to a natty Chrysler
bought just before the outbreak of the Second World War.
He had passed his early life
surrounded by the Wandorobo, the Wakikuyu, the Wakamba, and the Maasai. This
experience impressed upon him the essential unity of humankind. His sympathy
with the struggle for independence on the Indian sub-continent convinced him
that only in a climate of freedom could human beings develop to their full
capacities. He could not, of course,
any more than other liberal-minded contemporaries at the time, foresee the
rapidity of the changes, which would later bring his adopted country to the
threshold of independence and nationhood in his own lifetime. He concluded that humane dealings with all,
imaginative sympathy and affectionate interest in them, and an intelligent
compassion would finally break down the barriers of tribe and colour.
He did not compromise his ideals of
truth, honesty and integrity. The simple and noble principles he tried to
follow throughout his life deeply influenced all members of his family. He taught them to try to live their lives in
fullest harmony with their natural and social environment, free from petty
prejudices of colour, race and religion.
That was Mohamedally’s most valuable legacy to his children.
In keeping with the abiding cultural
tradition of India, he strongly believed in dharma or final duty. He indicated that dharma places an
obligation upon us to ‘pay back’, to the fullest extent we can, all that we owe
to the society that has made it possible for us to mature and prosper. It is hardly surprising therefore that
Mohamedally involved himself in social and charitable activities early in
life.
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Picture of Tumutumu Hospital Rattansi Ward
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One of his first benefactions was at
Tumutumu, not far from Nyeri. There the
Church of Scotland ran a hospital - the only one in that area. Medical care was segregated, and a separate
ward was reserved for each of the three racial groups. Asians could visit
Tumutumu only as out-patients. There
was no accommodation for them if it was necessary for them to spend a night in
hospital. Mohamedally built an ‘Asian
Ward’ there. It cost him some ten
thousand shillings, equivalent to about half a million shillings today. This investment meant that he could not
afford a new pair of shoes for the next four or five years (they cost 17/- a
pair). One of his sons, Hassanally,
could still remember him having his only pair of shoes resoled for several
years!
Mr.
Mohamedally Rattansi was an ardent diary writer and continued to maintain this
throughout the rest of his life.
Despite his limited schooling in his ancestral village in Kathiawar, his
diaries are articulate, written in a script that is a delight to the eyes. His
love, respect and thirst for learning were his driving force. He achieved a
great command of literary Gujerati through his wide reading and love of the
language. His journey in life made him realize that education was a key factor
in every human being’s life.
Once they
had decided to set up The Maniben and Mohamedally Rattansi Educational Trust,
he narrated a very touching and spiritual summary of all these events in his
Diary by remarking that he had by then spent 53 years in Kenya. It had been an
extremely busy life, spanning many years in rural and wild forest regions. He
had raised a progeny, with many children and grandchildren, and now was the
time for him to return from whence he had been brought into the world. The
shades of evening were falling, and night crept near. If he succeeded in
accomplishing the most important tasks which still remained to be done by him,
only then he could leave with the satisfaction that it had truly been a
fruitful one and meet and merge into the great spirit which controlled the
universe [‘jaga niyanta neh pamih shuh kaiv]. ‘The forests, the mountains,
the green fields will endure the same for ever. For me it is time to bid
farewell.’ [In Gujarati, ‘Jangalo,
pahado, leela khetrero to temuj hasheh. Mareh toh haveh vidayagiri levih
joiyeh.’]
Excerpt from Mohamedally Rattansi’s Diary 1955
Dr. Hassanally Rattansi with his
wife Mrs. Vijoo Rattansi after receiving an honorary doctorate at the
University of Nairobi in 1998
Dr. Hassanally Rattansi was born in Nyeri, in a valley nestling between
the Aberdares and Mt. Kenya on 14th March, 1921. He was the fourth child, in a family of ten,
of Maniben and Mohamedally Rattansi. He
started his early education in a makeshift school in Nyeri. In those days, the government made no
provision for Asian schools in the rural areas. In small towns, such as Nyeri, Asians typically clubbed together
to hire a teacher or two from India and set up their own school. More often than not, a leading merchant
would make rooms available in his house for classes.
In 1931, Dr. Hassanally completed whatever schooling Nyeri could
offer. He then enrolled in the
government Indian Senior Secondary School, now Jamhuri High School, in
Nairobi. He passed his London
Matriculation Examination in 1936 and hoped to study medicine or pharmacy in
the United Kingdom. However, his
parents moved to Nairobi and left him and his elder brother, Haiderally, to
look after their Nyeri business. This
abruptly cut short his ambitions for further education.
From these humble beginnings, he developed an illustrious career as a
sportsman, businessman, civic official and philanthropist. Over the years, he played a leading role in
the development of sports in Kenya as a sportsman or sports administrator. He
held various elected positions in sports organizations dealing with cricket,
lawn tennis and badminton. For example,
he was Chairman of the Asian Sports Association in 1962, and Kenya Lawn Tennis
in 1965. He was also one of the founder
members of the Kenya Cricket Association and served as its Treasurer in 1965,
and the Kenya National Sports Council between 1966 and 1984. And between 1994 and 1997, he served as a
member of the Central Executive Committee of the Kenya National Sports Council.
Equally, he ably represented Kenya in the international arena. For instance, he was player-manager of the
first East Africa Cricket Tour of South Africa in 1957 and was also Team
Manager of the Kenya table tennis team to Cairo in 1962, and lawn tennis team
to the first African Games in Brazzaville in 1965.
Dr. Hassanally Rattansi and Ronald Muwenda
Mutebi II Kabaka of Buganda (2003)
His love for sports was exemplary.
It is this life-long commitment to sports that led the Rattansi
Educational Trust, of which he was a long-standing chairman, to offer financial
support to a variety of sporting bodies as well as purchasing sporting equipment
for many educational institutions.
Aga Khan Club Cricket Team, 1959-60 Season
Standing left to right: Karim,
Sidi, Kassamali, Noorali, Akbar, Salim
Sitting Left to right: Sherali, A. Sultan (Capt.), Hassan M. Rattansi,
Aziz (Vice Capt.), and Hirani
His civic duties were multi-faceted.
They included serving as a councilor in the Nairobi City Council
(1960-65) and being the chairman of the board of governors of Highway Secondary
School, Kenya High School and St Theresa’s Secondary School. He also served as a member of His Highness
The Aga Khan Nairobi Provincial Council and Nairobi Hospital Board.
Dr. Hassanally Rattansi seated with
Board Members of Highway Secondary School
Dr. Hassanally Rattansi took over the management of the Trust following
the death of his father, Mohamedally Rattansi, on 28th July, 1957,
and the Chairmanship in 1962. He
devoted his life to administering and developing the Trust, and together with
his wife, Mrs. Vijoo Rattansi, have made it into what it is today, 50 years
later.
Dr. Hassanally with his wife, Mrs. Vijoo Rattansi
Asked by the Standard Life Magazine what success meant to him, Dr. Hassanally
Rattansi responded: “To me success is
what makes you feel that what you wanted to achieve and understand, you finally
achieved and understood. That the
achievement has brought you happiness and a sense of fulfilment.”
Dr. Hassanally Rattansi was not only
a big-hearted man, but also a great humorist.
His story would not be complete without including some quips and quotes
captured during those light moments.
The following is a sample of them, said during different occasions in
his lifetime.
“Our greatest enemy is greed, which is the motivator of immorality,
corruption and selfishness. We can’t
remove it chemically through medicine but by education. Kenya needs moral education.”
“When my wife and I gave up the rat-race and sold most of our property,
we became happier. If you are in the
rat-race even if you win, you are still a rat.
We must involve young people by example. That is why we have given up most of what we owned to the
public.”
Differences, he says, are good “because this makes our culture a rich
blend of a beautiful rainbow. We must
work and live together.”
To improve racial
relations, we have to rely heavily on education – with children going to the
same schools “children have no
prejudices. It is adults who teach them
prejudices.”
According to Rattansi,
politicians are the culprits as far as tribalism and racism goes. Kenyans and the media must create forums for
challenging politicians. He regrets that “even sports pages in our
newspapers are filled with articles on corruption, intrigue and the evil nature
of man”
“We will never be able to get rid of poverty from the earth. Man is selfish by nature and it’s difficult
to change that. The greed in us may
reduce to acceptable levels though, if we discard arrogance and war.”
But he warns leaders and
all those involved in evil schemes that every action has a reaction: “That is God’s unwritten law. Files don’t go missing in God’s
Kingdom. Everything in the world is
destroyable but you cannot destroy the truth.” Greedy and irresponsible
leaders will eventually pay for their actions.
“My father gave me ample sense of humour. Without humour, life would be useless. Humour is the spice of life.
Humour is a very vital ingredient of life. You should be able to laugh even at yourself.”
But Kenyans are lucky,
he says, because people are still very spiritual. “For without love and
faith, one is empty and useless.”
Hassanally’s love for sport was
immeasurable. He also played cricket
for Kenya. In his heyday in the Kenyan Cricket team he was one of the best
wicket keepers. This has been witnessed
is said by numerous friends and fans who watched him play and still talk about
his amazing feats while keeping wickets.
In 1956, the Kenya Asian Cricket team was
invited on a tour by the South Africa Cricket
Board of Control to play in South Africa. Hassanally was
player-cum-manager of the team. The
team arrived in Johannesburg then wended their way through to Ladysmith,
Pietermartzburg, Durban, Port Elizabeth, Paarl, Cape Town and then finally
through Kimberley to Johannesburg and back to Nairobi.
When
the team first arrived in Johannesburg, they were given a tumultuous welcome. A superb dinner party
was held in their honour. All this in apartheid South Africa. The next day, the newspapers were full of
this incredible reception given in honour of the visiting Asian team from
Kenya. There was hue and cry all
mingled with a lot of criticism and shock just because white waitresses had
waited on “Asians”. This was not the
done thing. A resolution was passed the same day that white waitresses should
not serve these brown people again. At
the next function, Hassanally, being as vocal as he was, gave his usual thank
you address at the dinner for the visiting party. He delivered a very humorous
speech which he summarized by saying, “thank God we have very pretty and
pleasant coloured ladies serving
us today. The other evening the white
waitresses were so ugly that none of the food was palatable”.
He believed that helping others
opened values for him. In order to
effectively do this, he sold his own business in 1987 in order to devote his
energies and talents to the Trust. Even before they sold the business,
Hassanally worked for the Trust with a zest only he possessed and started to
realize his parents, dream. He did this
free of charge and on a daily basis for sixteen years, thus fulfilling his
dharmic duty.
Dr.
Hassanally with his wife Vijoo Rattansi in Morocco for a holiday
As a family man his children,
brothers and sisters remember him with a lot of love and affection. His sister, Shirin, related the following
with a lot of nostalgia “this
must be when I was about 10 years old.
I do not exactly remember. He got married in 1946 and I was born in
1932.
After closing the shop, he would go for a
run and come home. He would first consume large quantities of oranges which he
brought from the shop and which Roshan would peel for him. Even now when I eat
an orange, I associate that fresh smell of oranges with Hassanalibhai! Then both Zarina and I would sit on each of
his leg. Piyo would play the organ and we would all sing the latest film songs
together. We went to see a movie every Sunday and when we returned from school
on Monday, Baa (mother referring to Maniben M. Rattansi) would have been to
Assanand’s in the morning to get the set of records from the movie. Zarina and
I would hear the records a couple of times after doing our home work and sing
them. This routine went on night after night until he got married!
At the start of the new school year, I would cajole him into writing my
names in all the books because he had such beautiful handwriting! If I had any
problem with my home work, he would patiently help explain it. He was so proud
of me when I came home from school at the end of the term waving my school
report because I had done so well! He would give me something little from the
shop the next day.
With the Rattansi sense of humour, we were
always laughing. Even at the table during dinner time, some story or the other
was related with a funny angle when no one else could not see anything funny in
it! This was true of every one in the family. Everyone saw some humour in every
day occurrences, however mundane the occurrence!
If Zarina and I wanted something, we would
hug him and say, Hassanalibhai with such affection, he would straight away
come to the point and say, yes, what is it that you want?! We invariably got what we wanted.
I miss him very
much and still dream of him often. May his soul rest in eternal peace.”
Dr. Hassanally with wife, Mrs. Vijoo Rattansi
Hassanally was a
very caring, loving and generous husband, father and best friend all rolled
into one. His family was his heartbeat. He loved all his children immensely but
taught them to respect elders. He was not one to tolerate nonsense and although
he was lenient, if his patience was tested to the hilt, as far as good simple
manners and everyday discipline in life was concerned the disciplinarian in him
came to the fore. He did not believe in the rod but always had a friendly but
very firm chat with “the naughty one.” It always worked. Such a situation was very rare indeed.
Left to right
Back row: grandson Richard, daughter Rehana, Vijoo Rattansi, Dr.
Hassanally Rattansi, sons Riaz and Rafig, daughter-in-law Dorothy
Front row, granddaughter Leslie, grandson Nicholas, daughter Nadya, son
Imran and grandson Marc
He spent a lot of time with the children who
picked up all his good qualities, such as his love for all the beautiful things
Mother Nature has created and his love and respect for the human race
regardless of colour or creed. All this he usually did at bedtime
story-telling. An amazing story teller, he created the most amazing tales on
the spur of the moment, and narrated these with all the vivid details of his
childhood memories about his life in
Nyeri , with his parents, brothers, sisters and a lot other interesting people. His tales mesmerized not just the
children but me too. When he spoke, one could actually visualize the events
unfolding before his or her eyes.
If he was playing cricket or any other match
the children were there watching their father play. While they were little
toddlers it was toddler games. As they grew up it was tennis, squash and golf
and just doing things together. His love for sport and his sense of humour have
definitely transmitted into his five children.
Left to right
Dr. Hassanally Rattansi and sons Imran and
Riaz
In a few
words, Hassanally was the ideal parent and husband. A man with his qualities is
indeed a very rare find today.
Dr. Hassanally with his youngest son, Imran
His unfailing sense of humour once
came to the fore on the evening of Saturday 29th November 2003, the
night before his departure from this earth.
He looked at his youngest son Imran, and said to his, wife “the world will not be rid of me so
easily. In Imran we have a carbon copy
of myself, born on the same day, same time, but different years”. His famous hearty laugh followed that
statement. Although his children and
wife miss him tremendously, they also realize that they must follow the ideals
he stood for and must celebrate his life at the same time because he drank
deeply from the cup of life. The family
feels fortunate, privileged and humbled to have been part of his very full and
enriched life.
Curriculum Vitae of Dr. Hassanally M. Rattansi
Positions Held
·
Chairman Rattansi Educational Trust
East African Grant Makers Association
Board of Governors, St.
Theresa’s Secondary School
Kenya Lawn Tennis Association
Kenya Table tennis Association
Kenya Badminton Association
Muslim Sports Association
Aga khan Sports Club
Kenya Cricket Umpires
Association
Lions Club (Nairobi Host)
Board of Governors, Highway
Secondary School
Asian Sports Association
·
Trustee The
President’s Award Scheme (The Duke
of Edinburgh's Award Scheme)
Kenya Cricket Association
·
Member Kenya National Sports Council
Kenya High School
Nairobi Hospital
Presidential Probe Committee,
Nairobi City Council.
Central
Executive Committee, Kenya National Sports Council
H.H.
The Aga Khan Nairobi Provincial Council
·
Patron Nairobi Gymkhana
Awards
·
Honorary Award by Nairobi Provincial Cricket Association
Citation. "In appreciation of distinguished services to the game of
cricket in Kenya." (1988).
·
Honorary
Degree; Doctor of Letters from the University of Nairobi at their Graduation
Ceremony on 30th November, 1998. Citation reads, "in recognition
of his contribution to philanthropic support for education, social justice and
development of sports in Kenya".
·
The
Silver Star (S.S.) of Kenya by His Excellency President Daniel Arap Moi on the
occasion of Kenya’s Independence Day
Celebrations on the 12th December, 1998.
·
Appreciation
Award "in recognition of Distinguished Services." by Lions Club
Nairobi-Host during the 1998-1999 awards.
·
The Presidents
Award, Kenya, "in recognition of outstanding service to the Presidents
Award Scheme for young people" in January 1999.
·
Aga
Khan Sports Centre Appreciation Award for "Exemplary Service to the
sporting fraternity" in October 1999.
·
Honorary
Degree; Doctor of Humane Letters of Kenyatta University during the 17th
Graduation Ceremony on 18th October, 2002.
Selected to play
cricket for Kenya: In
inter-territorial games against Uganda and Tankanyika also visiting teams from
abroad.
Player-Manager First East African Cricket Tour of South Africa, 1957.
Kenya Team Manager Tennis, first African Games, Brazzaville,
1965.
Kenya Team Manager
and Delegate:
All Africa Table Tennis
Championships, Cairo, United Arab Republic
Kenya Sports
Council Delegate:
Afro-Asia
Table Tennis Conference and Championships,
Peking, China, 1971.
Kenya Sports
Council Delegate : All Africa Games, Algiers, Algeria.
Tour Manager K.L.T.A Tennis Team to Ethiopia, Aden and India, 1965.
Establishment of the Mohamedally and Maniben Rattansi Educational Trust
Rattansi Educational Trust Building
The idea of the Mohamedally and
Maniben Rattansi Educational Trust is rooted in the ancient, cherished Indian
tradition of Dharma, meaning final
duty. This is a cultural obligation to
repay in full, all that one owes to the society that has made it possible for
one to mature and prosper. The moment
had come for the elder Rattansis in the late 1950’s to reflect on their lives,
now that they were contented and happy in Kenya as their chosen country. Their thoughts focused on the final duty
that Dharma demanded of them. The year was 1956. Kenya was still a typical settler colony, divided along tribal
and racial lines. The end of the war
had unleashed forces that were rapidly changing the world. The attainment of
independence in India was followed by that of many other countries and the
winds of change were blowing over Africa, too.
Left to right
Dr. Hassanally, Mr. Haiderally, Mrs.
Maniben Rattansi, Sir. Evelyn Baring and Mr. Mohamedally Rattansi
The Rattansis rightly foresaw that
as the freedom movement in Kenya gathered momentum, education would be vital
for the advancement of both the individuals as well as of the emerging
nation. Having risen from very humble
beginnings themselves, they realised in full measure what it was like to
struggle for an education to equip the individual for the challenges of
life. Mohamedally Rattansi, therefore,
foresaw the great need for education and established the Mohamedally and Maniben
Rattansi Educational Trust to assist needy students.
With his mind set upon establishing
a trust, Mohamedally summoned a conference of family members, together with a
few of his close friends. He announced that instructions had been given to lawyers
to prepare a trust deed bequeathing all three of the prime properties that he
owned on Sadler Street (now Koinange Street) to the people of Kenya in
perpetuity, and dedicated them to educational ends. The Maniben and Mohamedally
Rattansi Educational Trust Fund Deed was thus drawn up and signed on the 17th
day of September 1956. On the second of
day of November, 1956, Mohamedally formally handed over the title deeds of the
properties to the Governor of Kenya, Sir Evelyn Baring, at a ceremony in
Government House, today State House, attended by many of Nairobi’s then
notables.
Right Mohamedally
Rattansi officially handing over the title deeds of the property to the
Governor of Kenya, Sir Evelyn Baring on 2nd November, 1956 at
Government House Nairobi.
The first board of directors for the
Trust ensured that all the different communities were fairly represented on the
Trust. The Directors were, therefore, appointed from each of the five
communities, besides the Director of Education of Kenya (or his nominee). They included the Founder, Mr. Mohamedally
Rattansi, and his son, Dr. Hassanally Rattansi, Mr. John S. Wilkinson, the Hon.
I. E. Nathoo, the Hon. A. B. Patel (soon succeeded by Mr. A. J. Pandya), Mr.
Zafr-ud Deen and Mr. Wanyutu Waweru.
The trustee was the Barclays Bank of Kenya.
Already stricken by cancer, an
illness he bore with great fortitude, Mohamedally Rattansi passed away on 28th
July, 1957. It was almost exactly a
year to the day on which he signed the Trust Fund deed. The minutes of the Ninth Meeting of the
Trust, held on 27th September, 1957 recorded that:
The Chairman [Mr. Ibrahim Nathoo] expressed his deepest regret at the
passing of Mr. Mohamedally Rattansi, the founder of the Trust, after a long and
painful illness and asked Mr. H. Rattansi to convey to his mother and her
family the Board’s sympathies on the occasion of her tragic loss. The Director of Education added his
expression of condolence. As a mark of
respect to Mr. M. Rattansi all members present and those in attendance remained
standing and observed a short period of silence.
Eight years later, the Minutes of
the Board’s thirty-fourth meeting recorded the passing away of the Trust’s
co-founder, Mrs. Maniben Rattansi, that:
The meeting stood in silence for one minute in
memory of Mrs. Maniben Rattansi, Widow of Mohamedally and co-founder of the
Trust and also Mother of the chairman, who died on 14th May, 1965.
After the
new Act prohibiting Banks from being trustees, the new trustees became Dr.
Hassanally Rattansi (until his death in 2003), Mrs. Vijoo Rattansi, Mr. Charles
Njonjo and Mr.Robin Mason.
Today the story of the Mohamedally and Maniben
Rattansi Educational Trust is inextricably interwoven with the story of the
life and times of Mohamedally Rattansi and his family. For fifty years now, any passer-by walking
along Koinange Street, near the University of Nairobi, must have seen a four
storey building bearing the words ‘Rattansi
Educational Trust’ blazoned across its façade.
The Rattansi Educational Trust is one of the leading charitable
organisations supporting post secondary education and youth programmes in
Kenya. It was established in 1956 as a
result of the philanthropic thoughts of Mohammedally Rattansi and his wife
Maniben Rattansi who strongly believed in social justice and the centrality of
education in the advancement of individuals.
From a single-storey building it is now a four-storey building.
Education lights the path
to development.
In line with the Rattansis’ belief that
education lights the path to development as expressed in the Trust’s vision,
the main aim of the Trust is to get Kenyans out of the quagmire of poverty and
help lift up their living standards.
The specific objectives are:
(i) To assist in the provision of
quality holistic education to Kenyans.
(ii) To assist in the provision of a well
rounded education for Kenyans to become good citizens.
(iii) To offer bursaries for needy Kenyans
at degree level.
(iv) To assist Kenyans train in courses
such as driving and dressmaking if this helps lift up family standards.
True to the founders’ ideals and
beliefs, the Trust has educationally benefited all the people of Kenya. The Founders’ ideas and beliefs set the
Trust radically apart from the few charitable trusts then in existence, which
aimed at particular races or even individual sub-communities. As was expressly set out in the original
Deed:
The name and income thereof shall be dedicated in perpetuity for the
promotion and encouragement of the education of the following East African
communities in the said Colony namely (a) European (b) African (c) Ismaili (d)
Muslim and (e) non-Muslim [Asians]...
The income of the Trust Fund shall be applied in establishing and
maintaining scholarships. . . with the object of promoting and encouraging
studies at any university, college, school or other educational or training
establishment approved by the Board . . . .
Each of the five communities was
assigned 20% of the total income. Great care was taken to secure fair
representation for the then most disadvantaged section of the population as
portrayed in the composition of the Board of Directors of the Trust. The Minutes of a meeting in February 1957
stated that:
Mr. Nathoo [in the Chair] stressed it was of the utmost importance that
the African member should attend on all occasions in order to safeguard the
interests of the African community.
When Kenya attained independence in
1963 and all racial barriers began to be dismantled, the terms of the Trust,
too, were altered to reflect the new situation. According to the Minutes of the
35th meeting, held in April 1965 it is indicated that:
Further consideration was given to the matter of varying the Trust Deed
in the light of the changed circumstances since the Trust was set up and the
secretary was requested to obtain the advice of the Trust’s lawyers on whether
the Deed could be varied so as to permit all monies to be held in one Fund
without a division between the various communities. . .
The lawyers concurred. After they
had ironed out the legal technicalities, judicial application was made to alter
the Trust Deed. In February 1967, the
High Court of Kenya at Nairobi decreed:
The Trustee is hereby empowered . . . to apply the funds of the Trust
without division between various communities . . .
At the same time, the terms under
which the Trust operated were broadened. They now gave the Board freedom to
support certain projects that, while not strictly educational in character,
were in keeping with the original guiding aims of the Trust. The changes also made it possible for the
Trust to borrow money in order to develop the property and generate greater
income for the future.
The Trust has contributed to the
education of many Kenyans. When it
first started, the Trust could afford to send people abroad since those days it
only required £250, per annum. However today, the training costs have spiralled
and the Trust now restricts its funding to institutions in Kenya. Among the beneficiaries are Institutions and
individuals. The institutions include
all the public universities namely: Moi University, University of Nairobi,
Kenyatta University, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology,
Egerton University and Maseno University.
Other institutions include: Catholic University, United States
International University, Machakos Technical College, Kenya Medical Training
College, Mombasa and Kenya Polytechnics.
Indeed on April 23rd, 1996, the then Minister for Education,
Hon. Mr. Joseph Kamotho, acknowledged
the Trust’s very considerable contribution to higher education in Kenya in the
following statement in Parliament:
“All the universities have set up active departments responsible for
assisting genuinely needy students to get sponsorship from private bodies. I would, therefore, like to thank the
Rattansi Educational Trust Fund, in particular, which is currently the leading
donor in this respect, and to request other donors to join it in assisting
students who cannot top up their fees for university education.”
On an individual basis, the Trust
has contributed to the education of many prominent Kenyans. To mention just a few, they include: Raju
Batavia (Batavia Enterprises Ltd., Mombasa), the late Justice J.M. Gachuhi
(Court of Appeal), Mohamed Hyder (former Professor of Zoology and Principal,
College of Biological and Physical Sciences, University of Nairobi), J.B.
Karugu (former Attorney General), B.E. Kipkorir (former academic and Kenya’s
ambassador to the United States) and Sadru Ramji (Wyco Paints, Nairobi). Many other individuals continue to benefit
from the Trust.
Above all, the Trust is also
instrumental in soliciting for support from different institutions and
individuals for those who are in need. The Trust is further credited for inspiring
some individuals in the society who have proceeded to establish Trust funds for
the benefit of the needy in society.
When originally deeded to the Trust,
the property was a single-storey building, contributing a rental income of some
Shs. 200,000/- per year. Over the
years, the late Dr. Hassanally M. Rattansi spared no effort to develop the
building. Today, it has been extensively re-developed and it is now a
four-storey building, attracting a wide range of tenants. It contributes a
rental income of about Kshs 17,000,000 per year, which is still rising.
During its first few years,
opportunities for higher education were well-nigh non-existent in Kenya. The
Trust granted bursaries to some ten to twelve students each year to study
abroad, mainly in the U.K. and the U.S.A.
The first bursaries were awarded at a meeting held on 5th
June, 1957 at the Secretariat, Nairobi.
The meeting awarded £1,455 to the first group of beneficiaries.
The numbers have vastly expanded
over the years. In 1996 for instance,
about 180 students were studying overseas with the assistance of the Trust.
These students were in various universities in the U.K., the U.S.A., Canada,
India, Pakistan, Europe, Australia and South Africa. Some 800 students were assisted with grants to study at various
universities, polytechnics, technical colleges, computer schools and other institutions
which now exist in Kenya. They too
received approximately Kshs. 6,000,000/-.
The total amount granted was in excess of twelve million Kenya
shillings. It is noted that these
impressive developments since the Trust was founded would have satisfied the
fondest dreams of the founders.
The Trust has instituted a fully
professional management. The Board of Directors takes all the decisions and
Barclays Bank Investment Services Limited manages the finances. They collect all the income and make payments
in accordance with the resolutions approved at Board meetings. Old Mutual Asset
Managers handle all the investments for the Trust. The accounts are looked after by Mr. Jim Birnie, formerly of
Coopers and Lybrand. All the Directors including the Director of Education,
Kenya Government, who is an ex officio
member, offer their services without any remuneration.
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Picture of current directors
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The very valuable contributions made
selflessly to the development of the Trust by its various Directors, without
payment or any special recognition, deserve to be placed on record. Their only reward is the knowledge that,
through their efforts, they help hundreds of young Kenyans to live meaningful
and independent lives to the benefit of their country and themselves.
As indicated in the Trust’s vision,
the Rattansi family believes that education lights the path to
development. In keeping with this
tradition, the Directors of the Trust board have followed suit.
As we embark on the 21st Century,
new challenges are continuously unfolding.
Sixty per cent (60%) of the population of Kenya is under 18 years of
age. Inevitably, demand for education
is placing a very heavy strain on the resources of our country. It is also anticipated that with the current
Government policy of free primary education, there will be an increase in the
number of students joining secondary and tertiary levels of education. This will also mean that the number of those
who will require support will rise.
What kind of education ought we,
however, to promote? Not simply
academic education to qualify for a profession, if we are to be true to the
Founders’ intentions. The founders
believed in what is now called holistic education, one nurturing an all-round
development of the individual's full potential. Today, traditional ways and values are disintegrating. Venality
and the unfettered pursuit of individual gain erode any concern for the larger
public interest. In this stressful
time, we need an educational programme that instils not only knowledge but
civic responsibility, skills of leadership, team work, moral and spiritual
values.
Sport, too, has a vital part to play
in such an all-round development.
Mohamedally used to say, ‘Your body is a temple for the spirit it
harbours’. Sport is a great character-building
influence and equaliser. Parental wealth and status counts for nothing in it,
personal ability is all that matters.
Given a fair chance the child born of the poorest parent can excel in it
- as the laurels won by Kenyan sportsmen internationally have proved again and
again. That is why the Trust supports
such programmes as the Outward Bound Schools, Boy Scouts and Girl Guides, and
the President’s Award Scheme (founded by the Duke of Edinburgh in 1956,
coincidentally, the same year as the Rattansi Trust).
In keeping with the spirit of the
ideals that inspired its founders, the Mohamedally and Maniben Rattansi
Educational Trust has continually reshaped its policies to meet the varying
challenges of education and development in Kenya. It is our fervent hope that it will continue to play a meaningful
and substantial role in those fields into the next century and beyond, thus
fulfilling beyond expectations the dreams of the founders Maniben and
Mohamedally Rattansi, together with their son Hassanally Rattansi.
