The Right Hon'ble The Lord Dholakia OBE PC JP Dl

Navnit Dholakia’s contribution to race relations in the UK are second to none. Born in Tanzania, he arrived in Britain to study at Brighton Technical College, now Brighton University. He joined the Liberal Party by accident – party activists were meeting at the first pub the young Dholakia had visited. They needed a quorum, and the rest is history.

Dholakia became the first south Asian Liberal councillor in Brighton. He met his wife, Ann, during his first job as a medical laboratory technician at Southlands Hospital in Shoreham-by-Sea. The young man asked her to accompany him to the mayoral ball. They faced immense racism, but they battled it to become a team which put campaigning equality at the heart of everything they did.

Dholakia was instrumental in helping introduce the 1976 Race Relations Act. Since that year, he held various roles as member of the Commission for Racial Equality, Sussex Police Authority, Police Complaints Authority and Howard League for Penal Reform. Currently, he is the chair of National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders and the Race Issues Advisory Committee.

In 1997, Dholakia was appointed a life peer as Baron Dholakia of Waltham Brooks in the County of West Sussex. He sits on the Liberal Democrat benches in the House of Lords, using his position to campaign for human rights. In 2004, Dholakia was elected a joint deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords. The peer was the first and only Liberal-Democrat of colour to be appointed to this role. He toured the country shoring up support for his political home.