Goolam Hoosein Ismail Pahad

Pahad left India for South Africa in 1919, but returned to India with his father in 1922 to continue with his educational studies. When Dadoo came to India in 1925, they met once again and as friends became interested in the nationalist movement in India . They met Gandhi in 1925 and also organised a big reception for the Indian Congress leader, Maulana Shawkat Ali in the village Kholvad. But when his father died in 1926, he had to return to South Africa the following year to support the family.

When Gandhi launched his resistance struggle in 1933, Pahad went to India to participate in that campaign, but arrived too late. Once again, he met Gandhi, who advised him to return to South Africa, where militant youth were needed in that country. Whilst in India, he married Amina Tilley in 1933 and was elected in 1934 as Hon. Secretary of the Kholvad Madressa Anjiman Islamia, the youngest person to hold that position. He returned to South Africa in 1935 and was elected as a committee member of the Kholvad Madressa of the Transvaal . He remained a member of that committee until 1961, from 1943 to 1958 as its General Secretary, and in 1959 as President.

After working for three years, he bought a business in 1938. The shop was in Schweizer-Reneke, a small country town in the western Transvaal . He was one of the founders of the Nationalist Group of the TIC in 1959 and was the radicals' principal representative in Western Transvaal . At the same time he organised support for the NEUF in the same area.

In 1944 he sold the business and settled in Johannesburg . Until 1961, when he left South Africa, his main business interest was dealing in finance and wholesale agencies.

He was a member of the SAIC delegation, which was rebuffed by Smuts in February 1946, and which took the decision to initiate a passive resistance campaign. When a Passive Resistance Council was formed, he was elected to serve on that body. From 1945 to 1961, he was an executive committee member of the TIC. During this period, he was also an executive member of the SAIC prim ari ly concerned with the Finance Committee. He was present when the TIC and NIC executive met the ANC executive in 1946. This meeting led to the signing of the Dadoo-Xuma-Naicker Pact of 1947.

During the State of Emergency in 1960, he, along with other Congress leaders, was detained for a few months. Finally, he left South Africa in 1961 to settle in London .

Pahad has five children, and his wife Amina thrice courted imprisonment, twice during the 1946 Passive Resistance Campaign and once during the 1952 Defiance Campaign. Their flat in Johannesburg was a central meeting point for Congressmen. He has now retired from active involvement in politics and has business interests in India and the United Kingdom .