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Gandhi in South Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Paul F. Power
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The centenary of Mahatma Gandhi's birth during 1969 (October 2) provides a reason for reassessments of the Indian leader's thought and career. Among the matters which deserve reconsideration is his South African phase, which began in 1893, on his arrival in Natal as a fledgling barrister, and ended in 1914, when he left for India by way of England to begin his main work as an Indian nationalist. A reappraisal of this period is needed principally because there is a tendency in biographical studies and Gandhi's own account of his South African years to romanticise or simplify the record and to leave unanswered questions about the development of his ideas and activities during a critical two decades of his life.1 A reappraisal is possible chiefly because of the recent appearance of Gandhi's Collected Works as a rich source for newer interpretations of what he said and did in Natal and the Transvaal.2 As an effort to contribute to reconsiderations of Gandhi's African phase, this article will examine his views of Europeans and Africans and his protest policies and tactics as they emerged over 21 years. Special attention is given to Gandhi's outlook on Africans and the circumstances surrounding his first disobedience campaign. A close inquiry into these matters helps to explain better Gandhi's role in modern South African history and the nature of his legacy to continuing issues in the continent.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 7 , Issue 3 , October 1969 , pp. 441 - 455
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1969

References

Page 441 note 1 An edition of Gandhi's recollections in the 1920s of his African years is Satyagraha in South Africa (Stanford, 1954).Google Scholar Most biographies depend on Gandhi's account. An exception is Ashe, Geoffrey, Gandhi (New York, 1968).Google Scholar Gandhi's secretary offers a reconstruction of the South African years up to 1896 in Pyarelal (Nair), The Early Phase (Ahmedabad, 1965), vol. I.Google Scholar

Page 441 note 2 The Government of India is the publisher of The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (Delhi, 1958–).Google Scholar Vols. I-XII, cover the African period. Their editors have selected and translated where necessary Gandhi's South African newspaper, Indian Opinion (Durban), the English edition of which the writer has surveyed.

Page 442 note 1 Gandhi, Mohandas K., Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule (Ahmedabad, 1939).Google Scholar

Page 442 note 2 ‘An Appeal to Every Briton in South Africa’, 16 December 1895, Collected Works, I, p. 285.

Page 442 note 3 Indian Opinion, II June 1903.

Page 443 note 1 Collected Works, V, 353.Google Scholar

Page 443 note 2 A clergyman who had aided Gandhi, Joseph Doke, recalled his impressions in Gandhi: an Indian patriot in South Africa (Madras, 1919).Google Scholar

Page 444 note 1 For the policies of the victor and how they affected Indians, see Sacks, Benjamin, South Africa: an imperial dilemma—non-Europeans and the British nation, 1902–1914 (Albuquerque, 1967), pp. 201–59.Google Scholar

Page 444 note 2 A third group, the Transvaal Jewish community, had a few active supporters of the Indians, among them Hermann Kallenbach, an architect who provided a refuge, Tolstoy Farm. The community, principally settlers from Russia, was criticised by Indian Opinion for not giving moral help. The newspaper suggested that they should recognise an analogy between discrimination in Eastern Europe and the disabilities imposed on Indians. Indian Opinion, 27 January 1906, 18 August 1906, 8 May 1907, and 28 November 1908.

Page 444 note 3 Gandhi, , Satyagraha in South Africa, p. 33.Google Scholar

Page 445 note 1 Collected Works, I, p. 199.Google Scholar

Page 445 note 2 ‘The Green Pamphlet,’ Gandhi's summary of South African Indian grievances, circulated widely in India. Ibid. II, p. 13.

Page 445 note 3 Ibid. I, p. 184.

Page 446 note 1 Ibid. II, p. 12.

Page 446 note 2 Indian Opinion, 13 January 1906. A different view of Gandhi and Africans is offered by Pyarelal, who writes: ‘He learned to understand and sympathise with them and missed no opportunity of rendering them whatever service he was capable of. He served them during the Zulu War.’ Pyarelal, , ‘Gandhiji and the African Question,’ in African Quarterly (New Delhi), II, 07–09, 1962, p. 77.Google Scholar Yet there is scant evidence of Gandhi's service. His volunteer work as a stretcher bearer in the Zulu revolt was politically motivated, notwithstanding his compassion for Zulu casualties.

Page 446 note 3 Collected Works, VII, pp. 1–2.Google Scholar

Page 446 note 4 Indian Opinion, 24 March 1906, and 13 January 1912; Collected Works, viii, p. 102;Google Scholaribid. IX, pp. 272–3.

Page 446 note 5 Indian Opinion, 9 September 1911.

Page 447 note 1 Tendulkar, T. G., Mahatma (Bombay, 1953), v, p. 169.Google Scholar

Page 447 note 2 Gandhi, M. K., Non-Violence in Peace and War (Ahmedabad, 1948), I, p. 193.Google Scholar Near the close of his career Gandhi vaguely endorsed an Indian-African front in South Africa, but the chief significance of this momentary stand was in a simultaneous call for Indians to teach non-violence to Africans. See Pyarelal, , The Last Phase, I (Ahmedabad, 1956), p. 247.Google Scholar

Page 447 note 3 Interview with Chhaganlal Gandhi, Sabarmati Ashram, Ahmedabad, 27 October 1966.

Page 448 note 1 Collected Works, I, p. 329.

Page 449 note 1 Ibid. XII, pp. 438–9.

Page 449 note 2 See Virasai, Banphot, ‘The Emergence and Making of a Mass Movement Leader: portrait of Mahatma Gandhi in South Africa, 1893–1914’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, c. 1967).Google Scholar

Page 450 note 1 In 1904 Gandhi wrote a tract which owes its title at least to Ruskin, John, Unto This Last (Ahmedabad, 1951).Google Scholar

Page 451 note 1 Collected Works, V, pp. 335–8.Google Scholar

Page 451 note 2 Ibid. p. 418. The editors of the Collected Works consider that the first evidence o resistance was shortly before 9 September, based on Gandhi's Satyagraha in South Africa, ch. II.

Page 451 note 3 Collected Works, V, p. 419.Google Scholar

Page 451 note 4 Ibid. p. 423. At the meeting a religious vow to resist was offered by Haji Habib, a Muslim merchant. Confirmed by Gandhi, the vow was taken by the assembly.

Page 451 note 5 Ibid. VI, pp. 8–9.

Page 452 note 1 Gandhi's wish to be a conspicuous prisoner was anticipated by Lord Selborne, the Transvaal's Governor, who in December 1907 told Smuts that he was not inclined to let Gandhi acquire ‘martyrdom’. Hancock, W. K. and Poel, Jean Van Der (eds.), Selections From the Smuts Papers (Cambridge, 1966), vol. II, p. 386Google Scholar. See also Booth, Alan R., ‘Lord Selborne and the British Protectorates, 1908–1910,’ in The Journal of African History (Cambridge), x, i, 1969.Google Scholar

Page 452 note 2 Pyarelal, , Early Phase, I, p. 205.Google Scholar

Page 452 note 3 See Hendrick, George, ‘The Influence of Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” on Gandhi's Satyagraha,’ in New England Quarterly (New Brunswick), XXIX, 12 1956, pp. 462–71Google Scholar

Page 453 note 1 Collected Works, v, p. 418.Google Scholar

Page 453 note 2 The controversy is reviewed and adjudged a misunderstanding in Hancock, W. K., Smuts (Cambridge, 1962), vol. I, pp. 333–8.Google Scholar The editors of Collected Works interpret the record as a proof of ‘betrayal’. Some critical Smuts-Gandhi discussions are unrecorded, i.e. those of 30 January and 3 February 1908. The pro-Smuts case is helped by Gandhi's letter to him of 28 January 1908 (Collected Works, VIII, pp. 40–1),Google Scholar which admits the difficulty of repealing the registration law and contains no mention of a bargain. Gandhians rely on Smuts' speech of 6 February 1908 (ibid. pp. 504–5), which implies that repeal would follow the voluntary registration of all Indians.

Page 454 note 1 Smuts Papers, III, p. 180.Google Scholar

Page 455 note 1 Ashe, op. cit. p. 125.