Rajbally was born on 25 February 1932.[1] Later classified as Indian under apartheid,she was the youngest of nine children;her father was a taxi driver.[2] Though raised in Edendale outside Pietermaritzburg,she left home as a teenager to complete her schooling at Sastri College in Durban.[2] From the age of 15,she funded her education by working part-time as a machinist at Ascot Clothing in Umbilo.[2]
Shortly after becoming a full-time machinist,she was promoted to become a supervisor and was also elected as a shop steward. She was the steward at her workplace for the next two decades.[3] In 1953,she took up a position as an organiser at the Garment Workers' Industrial Union.[3] She worked for the union until 1993,when she retired from organising.[4]
Political career
By the time of her retirement from union organising,Rajbally had struck up a friendship with Amichand Rajbansi,who was then a member of the House of Delegates;they had met at a public meeting in Durban in the early 1990s and she had agreed to help him prepare to form a political party,particularly by introducing him to labour audiences.[3][4] She was a founding member of Rajbansi's Minority Front (MF) in 1993.[5]
From 1996 to 1999,Rajbally represented the MF as a ward councillor and deputy mayor in Durban's eThekwini Municipality.[3] She left the council after the 1999 general election,in which the MF gained a single seat in the National Assembly;Rajbally persuaded Rajbansi to allow her to occupy it.[1] She served two terms in the seat,gaining re-election in 2004;from 2004,she was joined by a second MF representative,Royith Bhoola.[6]
Rajbally had retired from frontline politics by 2017,though she remained connected to the MF.[8] When the party was relaunched in 2018,she was elected to its national executive committee.[5] She is also an area coordinator in her neighbourhood of Chatsworth.[4] She has children and grandchildren.[4][8]
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