Frene Ginwala, feisty feminist, astute political tactician and committed cadre of South Africa’s governing party, the African National Congress, has died at the age of 90. In a country blessed with exceptional leaders, Ginwala must surely count among the best. Typically for her, but unusually for the African National Congress leadership, she will be laid to rest in a private ceremony. While she was modest about her achievements, she has left an indelible mark on South Africa’s Constitution and democratic institutions.
Frene Noshir Ginwala was born in 1932 in Johannesburg. Her Parsi grandparents immigrated from Mumbai in India in the 1800s and made a life for the family in Johannesburg. Ginwala left South Africa after high school, to pursue an LLB degree at the University of London. She qualified as a barrister at the Inner Temple. Around this time her parents moved to Lourenço Marques (now Maputo) in Mozambique. She returned to South Africa after graduating and moved to Durban where her sister, a medical doctor, had settled.
Although she supported the African National Congress, she was not politically active in any significant way until 1960, when the Sharpeville Massacre set off a crisis for the African National Congress, and the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania, both of which were banned and many…
