[4] Pravin Gordhan was born on 12 April 1949 to an Indian South African family,[5] in Durban, and matriculated from Sastri College in 1967.

[12] In 1981 the Natal Provincial Administration dismissed Gordhan from King Edward VIII Hospital for his political activities while he was in detention.

[16] As a member of parliament from 1994 to 1998, Gordhan chaired the parliamentary committee that focused on the implementation of the new Constitution and the transformation of local government in the post-apartheid.

[19] In 2014, Gordhan was appointed the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs,[20] succeeding Lechesa Tsenoli who became Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly of South Africa.

[32][33][34] Since becoming Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Gordhan's middle name, Jamnadas, has been used extensively by critics, most notably on Twitter, as a pejorative term and dog whistle to highlight his Indian ethnicity in a racially prejudicial way.

[41] In September 2017, international auditing firm KPMG abruptly withdrew all of its findings‚ recommendations, and conclusions around its report into the SARS "rogue spy unit" which had implicated Gordhan.

[42][43] In October 2016, South Africa's state prosecutor levied fraud charges against Gordhan for allowing a former colleague at SARS to take early retirement and then re-hiring them as a consultant.

[44] In October 2016, Gordhan lodged an application in the North Gauteng High Court to rule that he may not interfere with the major banks' decision to close the Oakbay Investments accounts.

[45] In May 2019, Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane released a controversial report recommending that the presidency take disciplinary action against Gordhan for past allegations of fraud at SARS.

[47][48] In July 2019 the Gauteng Division of the High Court of South Africa ruled that Mkhwebane's action as Public Protector against Gordhan be suspended, pending a judicial review of Mkhwabane's report on the SARS "rogue unit".

[51] Gordhan had planned to sell the state-owned airline for ZAR 51 to the Takatso group, but the deal was scrapped after two years in the making.

[56] At a press conference on 12 September, ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula said that Gordhan was in a "critical condition" and receiving the best care in hospital.