A Gujarati community worker who spent almost three decades caring for a crematorium - constructed after intervention by Mahatma Gandhi nearly a century ago - was honoured here.

The Transvaal Hindu Seva Samaj and the Brixton Hindu Crematorium Committee honoured Somdutt Nanabhai with a special award at the Mayfair Cultural Centre here on Sunday for over five decades of community work.

The crematorium was the first to be built in South Africa after the community was granted a piece of land following pleas by Mahatma Gandhi, who was then a lawyer here. It brought an end to open-air cremations that had been the norm since the first Indians arrived in the country in 1860.

In 1977 Nanabhai took over the administration of the crematorium.

He is the son of veteran freedom activist Jasmat Nanabhai, who received national orders from President Thabo Mbeki two years ago and then passed away late last year at age 98.

Although the majority of Indians settled in Durban, where they first landed, there was no crematorium there for several decades after this first one was constructed in Johannesburg.  In fact, the first cremation here was of a person from Durban.

After the advent of democracy in South Africa a decade ago, the crematorium was declared a national monument, even though it is still in daily use by all communities, not just the Hindu community which originally built it, as has been the case since its inception. 

Some of the well-known South Africans who have been cremated there include mining magnate Harry Oppenheimer and renowned Afrikaner political freedom activist Beyers Naude, who was shunned by his own community, which created and enforced apartheid for four decades.

Nanabhai said even though he had to do a lot of the work involved in administering the crematorium, his father always encouraged and supported him.
 
The highly respected community leader said he had decided to hand over the reins to a younger person as he looked forward to becoming an octogenarian soon.