Malukmohammed Lappa Sultan

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Malukmohammed Lappa Sultan , often ML Sultan or ML Sultan , varying first name Mulukmahomed (born February 15, 1873 Quilon in the Malabar district ; died September 6, 1953 in Escombe ) was a South African entrepreneur and patron of Indian descent . The educational needs of people living in poverty of all ethnic and religious groups received extensive support thanks to his philanthropic attitude and wealth.

Life

Sultan spent his childhood in India . At the age of 14, after his father's death, he left school and planned to emigrate to Ceylon . However, lack of money prevented this project. Instead, he turned to South Africa to find a way into working life as a contract worker. In 1890 he came to Durban on the Congella ship and, in order to fulfill his obligations under the Indentur Treaty, took on the job of a porter in Berea Road Station for the state railway company. After this contract period he looked for work in Johannesburg and was employed in a hotel ( Masonic Grove Hotel ). Sultan later returned to Durban and became a tobacco farmer in Bellair in 1918 . This activity did not produce satisfactory results for him, so he tried other business areas, in addition to real estate business, also with the cultivation of bananas , pineapples and papaya fruits in Escombe, Ayurveda products , the sale of betel leaves and a dairy .

Business success gradually emerged. As a businessman he was now present on Durban's Victoria Street . With his entrepreneurial activity in the real estate market, Sultan managed to achieve a growing income, which he increasingly used for charitable donations . Even with little education, he realized that he was at the mercy of the arrogance of colonialism , here ultimately the forerunner of the later apartheid conditions in South Africa. For him it was clear that the path to freedom could only lead through a better education and that he therefore had to get involved.

In a tragic circumstance in 1933, Sultan lost his wife. After this stroke of fate, he sought consolation and fulfillment in business. He expanded his business in wholesale and retail and set up production facilities for consumables , the company ML Sultan and Sons . The success associated with this enabled him to make further investments.

His life's work, which was characterized by charitable sentiments , culminated in 1942 when the ML Sultan Charitable and Educational Trust was founded with a total capital of 100,000 South African pounds , part of which was reserved for a future vocational training facility. Its main objective was to promote better training opportunities for Indians in what was then the province of Natal . In this way he participated in the development of a technically oriented vocational school. One of his main financial contributions in this sector was the support of the first teaching cycles, at that time still on the premises of Sastri College . After his death, this trust provided half of the funding for the construction of the ML Sultan Technical College in Durban, which opened in 1956 , and amounted to 33,000 pounds. The foundation stone for the college's own buildings was laid in 1954 by the Chair of the College Council and Principal of the Natal Technical College .

This school complex for vocational training has received additional funding from the South African government and Durban City Council . At that time, the school management agreed with the government's request not to allow black people access to full-time education. It became known that the state's Native Affairs Department plans to open more industrial schools for blacks in the country.

One of ML Sultan's basic attitudes was to create favorable conditions for a prosperous development within the multiethnic society of South Africa. This was expressed later in life in the fact that he had the deed of foundation of his trust changed so that blacks could also receive an education at this college in the future . By his death in September 1953, the necessary changes had not been made. This educational institution, which was initially started privately and still supported by donations, had branches in Pietermaritzburg as well as in Tongaat and Umkomaas on the north coast of Natal, which corresponded to the wish of Sultan when setting up his trust. Over 4000 people from all social groups were present at his funeral.

Personal

ML Sultan married Mariam Bee Shaik Emam in 1905. The joint marriage has four sons and six daughters.

Honors

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Leonard Leslie Bessant: Sultan, ML In: Lawrence Henry Ofosu-Appiah (Red.) Et al .: Encyclopaedia Africana. Dictionary of African Biography . Vol. 3, Reference Publications, Algonac (MI) 1995, pp. 228-229
  2. ↑ ML Sultan: ML Sultan . on www.mlsultan.com (English)
  3. ↑ a b c d e Ismail Suder: Operation Kerala: How ML Sultan family tracked down relatives in India after a century of separation . Posting on alqalam.co.za (English)
  4. ^ Durban University of Technology : 100 years of wisdom . online at www.dut.ac.za (PDF document p. 7, English)
  5. ^ Sastri College: History of Sastri College . on www.sastricollege.co.za (English)
  6. ^ Gopalkrishna Chetty: The Transformation of the South African Higher Education sector through Mergers - The Case Study of the Durban University of Technology . Durban University of Technology, Faculty of Management Sciences (Thesis: Doctor of Technology), Durban 2010, p. 92 (PDF document p. 112, English) DUT-Link
  7. ^ ML Sultan: ML Sultan Technical College . on www.mlsultan.com (English)
  8. ^ SAIRR : A Survey of Race Relations in South Africa 1955-1956 . Johannesburg [1956], pp. 205-206
  9. ^ ML Sultan: The Family . on www.mlsultan.com (English)
personal data
SURNAME Sultan, Malukmohammed Lappa
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sultan, ML
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Indian-South African entrepreneur and patron
DATE OF BIRTH February 15, 1873
PLACE OF BIRTH Kollam
DATE OF DEATH September 6, 1953
Place of death Escombe (South Africa)