MAHATMA GANDHI's great-grandson Satish Dhupelia, 66, has died of Covid-19 in South Africa on Sunday(22), a family member said.
His sister Uma Dhupelia-Mesthrie has said that Dhupelia died after he contracted the coronavirus in hospital where he had been under treatment for a month due to pneumonia just three days after he turned 66.
"My beloved brother has passed on after a month of illness with pneumonia, a superbug contracted in hospital and then Covid-19 also contracted while he was being treated. He suffered a major cardiac arrest this evening," she said in a social media post.
Besides Uma, Dhupelia has another sister Kirti Menon, who lives in Johannesburg.
They are descendants of Manilal Gandhi, who Mahatma left behind in South Africa to continue his work in India after spending two decades in the country.
A videographer and photographer, Dhupelia was very active in assisting the Gandhi Development Trust to continue the work started by the Mahatma at the Phoenix Settlement near Durban.
He was active in a number of social welfare organisations.
Dhupelia was also a board member of the 1860 Heritage Foundation, which on 16 November commemorated the arrival of the first indentured labourers from India to work on the sugar cane fields of Durban.
"Let us also not forget that we still need to stand together to achieve our final goals of equality for all and an eradication of poverty," he wrote on social media on that day.
"I am in shock. Satish was a great humanitarian and activist," political analyst Lubna Nadvi said about Dhupelia's death.
"He was also a great friend of the advice desk for Abused Women, and always assisted the organisation in whichever way he could."
