Shantabai Nalini Appa

Shantabai Nalini Appa
NSA member	Lesotho 1992 - ????
ABM	Africa 1972 - 1991

Shantabai Nalini Appa is a Mauritian Bahá’í who served as an Auxiliary Board member and National Spiritual Assembly member.

Biography

Appa was introduced to the Bahá’í Faith at the home of Leland Jensen in Vacoas alongside her father. Her family began hosting firesides in their home before officially joining the religion which allowed her to learn about the religion before becoming a Bahá’í youth in 1958.

In December 1958 Appa married Pouva Murday which was the first Bahá’í wedding in Mauritius. Their home became a centre for Bahá’í activity and they hosted many Bahá’ís visiting the country from overseas. From 1959 to 1960 she served on the Mauritius Youth Coordinating Committee and in 1961 she was appointed secretary of the Ḥaẓíratu’l-Quds Committee and Area Teaching Committee serving until 1962. She and her husband made a teaching trip to Madagascar in 1960 and attended the First Bahá’í World Congress together in London, England, in 1963.

In 1966 Appa and her husband pioneered to Madagascar where they worked at a NASA Satellite tracking station. After a time the government of Madagascar denied them a visa extension so they pioneered to Reunion Island and the head of the NASA station assisted them in moving to the United States. From America Appa made several international teaching trips to Canada and the Caribbean teaching in the West Indies, Surinam, French Guiana, Guyana, Jamaica, the Virgin Islands, and Trinidad and Tobago. She also assisted with mass teaching efforts in the southern states of the U.S..

At some point Appa accompanied a team of American Bahá’í youth on a travel teaching trip through Switzerland then visited her brother in England and her parents in Mauritius and during this time she and Murday divorced. In 1972 she was appointed as an Auxiliary Board member for Protection for Southern Africa and she traveled to the Seychelles and Reunion Island to assist Bahá’í development. In 1973 she moved to Lesotho to assist the community in its pursuit of goals of the Nine Year Plan. She met Alaskan pioneer Kal Basin in Lesotho and they married in 1973.

In 1991 Appa completed her term as Board member but continued to serve the Lesotho Bahá’í community by facilitating children's classes and visiting Bahá’ís in villages across the country. In 1992 she was elected to the National Spiritual Assembly of Lesotho, serving until at least 2003, and she focused on external affairs establishing contacts for the Faith with government officials and the Royal Family of Lesotho.