Kazim Khan obituary

My uncle Kazim Khan, Kaz to his friends, who has died aged 85, was a teacher and academic who carried out research into racism and drug misuse. He was also a local councillor in the London borough of Islington.

Kazim was the eldest son of Kaneez Ali and Mohammad Ameer Haidar Khan. His father, the Maharajkumar of Mahmudabad, came from a distinguished family of northern India whose members can be traced back to the Middle Ages. His recent ancestors were involved in the struggle for India’s freedom in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Although he belonged to a very privileged Muslim feudal family, my uncle rebelled against the system. A man of strong Marxist principles, he believed in the truth of the saying of Ali ibn Abi Talib, the fourth Islamic caliph and first Shia leader: “Never have I seen anywhere excessive riches, unless by its side there was a right denied.”

Kazim was born on the family estate in Mahmudabad, Uttar Pradesh. Educated at first in Lucknow, India, he was sent to Aldenham school, in Hertfordshire. He studied the history of south Asia and modern Europe at the School of Oriental and African Studies (now Soas University of London), graduating in 1969. That year he also married Lynda Cole. They had a daughter, Yumna, whom he brought up when the marriage ended in divorce.

During this period he was a special education teacher at Samuel Rhodes school (1974-82) in north London, gaining a master’s at Birkbeck, University of London in 1979. Then he became a teacher fellow at the new centre for multicultural education at the Institute for Education.

He served as a Labour member of Islington Council from 1982 to 1986, and as a chair of its race relations committee. In 1988 he joined the Standing Conference on Drug Abuse (which became DrugScope) and from there went to City University and Middlesex University to research Europe-wide racism and drugs issues. After his retirement in 2010 he co-authored a book, The Vanishing Indian Upper Class (2020), with Terry Williams, under a pseudonym, Raza Mohammad Khan.

A lover of good drink and food (he was an excellent cook), my uncle loved Russian literature, Urdu and American poets, and the cinema. He spoke several languages, including English, Urdu, French and Italian. Good-humoured and soft spoken, he was a wonderful friend and companion.

Kazim is survived by his second wife, Anita Nichols (nee Sadler), whom he married in 2001, and her two children and six grandchildren; by Yumna and his grandson, Jamie; and by his brother Mohammad Askari.