"Singly, he will be dangerous, but
in conjunction with others, he will do immense good. We therefore
want another leader to work with Mr. Gandhi." Leo R.
Gopaul, 1913
Much happened between the second
compromise in April 1911 and the resumption of the campaign exactly
two years later. There was growing anti-Indianism in the form of
Hertzogism, so called after Minister of Justice J.B.M. Hertzog
(1910-12) declared his intention to class Indians with Africans.
The Union government tightened immigration of Indians into South
Africa. What was earlier confined to each of the state governments
became a nationally coordinated policy after 1910. Gandhi needed
issues that could galvanize the majority of Indians behind his
faltering campaign. His use of cultural and religious symbols to get
the support of the Indians had some success, and he would continue
to use them. But he needed to go beyond such a strategy if he was
going to make any headway with the campaign. In Natal, he could not
get past NIC conservatives who became increasingly critical about
passive resistance while the emergent non-merchant class of
professionals did not trust his motives. If he was to succeed, he
needed to get around them. When the campaign was resumed in April
1913, Gandhi was not sure of how things would develop. This chapter
explores some of the dramatic developments that moved thousands of
Indians to support Gandhi by November 1913. He could not have
predicted these developments, but his creative use of opportunities
as they arose reflected his boldness and maturity as a leader of the
masses.
The first of the two issues that
helped to revive the satyagraha campaign came in March 1913
when the Supreme Court handed down a judgment on the legal status of
Indian marriages. The court’s decision came in the wake of the
immigration authorities' refusal to allow Hassen Essop's wife to
land in 1912 because she did not satisfy the requirements of a legal
spouse. In agreeing with the decision, Justice Searle ignored the
practice in India that did not require Hassen Essop to register his
marriage before an officer of the law. Even as these events were
unfolding, the Natal Supreme Court ruled that Hindu and Muslim
marriages were not "monogamous." Smuts inflamed Indian feelings
further by stating that divorce was easily achieved by Muslim men
who simply had to say "voetsek" (“get lost”) to their wives.
Gandhi saw an opportunity to connect
the Searle decision with the campaign when it was renewed. He argued
that the legal validity of marriages conducted according to Muslim
and Hindu rites was an existing right. If the imperial authorities
in India accepted such marriages as valid, South Africa was
unreasonable in denying their legitimacy. Gandhi used cultural and
religious symbols as he requested "every Anjuman, every Association,
and every Dharm Sabha" to call upon the government to make the
necessary adjustment to the Immigration bill to accommodate Hindu
and Muslim marriages. The Indian response was strong. Cachalia said
at a BIA mass meeting that the court's decision devalued Hindu and
Muslim religious institutions and struck at the heart of the Indian
family. The Koran required all Muslims to protect their
women, said a maulvi. The Tamil Benefit Society argued that
the decision was contrary to the sanctity of marriages as enshrined
in the Vedas and must be resisted to preserve Hindu honor. To show
its solidarity with Muslims, the Natal Brahaman Mandal argued that
polygamy was also allowed in the Hindu religion. Pragji Khandu Desai
saw the decision as an attack on Hinduism, intended indirectly to
promote Christianity.1 In spite of the emotional
outpouring, this issue on its own was not sufficient to arouse the
majority of Indians.
The second issue did. The ₤3 tax was a
long-standing issue that Gandhi could have embraced as a matter of
principle earlier but did not. A law passed in 1895 by the Natal
legislature required all indenture-expired Indians over the age of
sixteen to pay the tax with the purpose of keeping the contract
laborers locked into the system. This created great hardship on
freed Indian families after the law went into effect in 1901. At the
same time, it drew attention to the conditions under which
indentured Indians labored. Why was Gandhi slow in embracing the one
issue that was of serious concern to these Indians, and then only
after circumstances thrust it on him?
He favored the abolition of the
tax. But he was not prepared in November 1911 to advise its
non-payment. He wanted instead, as he wrote to A. H. West on
November 27, 1911, the NIC to send a petition to Natal’s prime
minister signed by at least 15,000 Indians. There should be a mass
meeting. If parliament rejected the petition, Gandhi continued, an
appeal should be made to the Imperial Government. The support of
other organizations in South Africa should be procured. If all of
this did not work, then only should people refuse to pay the tax.
“This thing cannot be taken up haphazard,” he warned. Gandhi wrote
again from Johannesburg on December 4, asking West to take the lead
in initiating and organizing the £3 tax issue with people because he
was then not in a “position to feel the pulse of the community there
[Natal].” Gandhi warned West not to take steps that in any way
“clash[ed] with what Aiyar [was] doing.” Gandhi wrote again on
December 8 asking West to collect statistics “in what cases the tax
had been remitted.” “It seems to me,” Gandhi concluded “that it is
possible perhaps to get Europeans in Natal to sign a petition for
its repeal, and, if we can get an influentially signed document, we
can certainly bring about repeal during the forthcoming session
without passive resistance.” Gandhi wrote on December 22 urging him
to press the leaders to take up agitation regarding the tax. He
continued, “Aiyar may be left to himself and he may have all the
credit and all the glory. We simply do the work if the leaders are
ready to
do their share of it.”2
Meanwhile, he devoted additional space
in Indian Opinion to the plight of the indentured Indians
from about the end of 1911. The many instances of abuses against
individual indentured Indians were reported, as well as the hardship
caused by the tax. For example, when fifty-two Indians went on
strike at the Balcomb Estate in Stanger, Indian Opinion
applauded their decision to choose jail rather than pay fines. The
editorial comment pointed to the "tremendous power that lies with
all workers to obtain just treatment from their employers by means
of passive resistance or soul force." In February 1912, the
newspaper slammed as "absurd" the Supreme Court decision to uphold
the law. It called upon the NIC "to defend these poor people."3
The NIC was prepared to intercede in individual cases as that
of V. Naik who had received forty to fifty summonses relating the
tax in 1911.4
Newly created bodies such as NIPU (f.
1908) and CBIA (f. March, 1911) made the tax an important issue. In
the forefront was P.S. Aiyar who used his African Chronicle
to highlight abuses against the indentured laborers. He had convened
a meeting in October 1911 at Parsi Rustomjee's Field Street
residence to discuss the tax. The group created a ₤3 League with
Vincent Lawrence as secretary. While NIC stalwarts like Abdulla
Hajee Adam and M.C. Anglia were present, most of the others in
attendance were colonial-born.5 Aiyar established the
South Africa Indian Committee (SAIC) in October 1911 whose sole
purpose was to secure the abolition of the ₤3 tax. Gandhi
showed little interest in Aiyar’s endeavors. If not much came out of
such attempts, it was, as S. Chetty was to reveal in 1913, the
committee had suspended possible action on the advice of “friends”
in India. If this was so, Gandhi may well have been privy to this
“friendly” advice which perhaps suggested to him that the tax would
be abolished in due course before the slate of other issues in the
campaign were resolved. In December 1911, Gandhi wanted Albert West
to lead the campaign against the tax.6 He had decided
possibly by the end of 1911 that Gokhale should play a leading role
in the abolition of the tax. After all, his mentor had been
instrumental in ending the indentured system. Indeed, if the South
African government had abolished the tax after Gokhale’s visit in
1912, the issue would never have arisen.
Gandhi’s hesitation may have reflected
his doubts about his ability to control the masses that could be
easily misled. Indeed, he thought the £3 tax cause was “the cause of
the helpless and the dumb,” as he wrote to Millie Graham Polak. He
thought of Aiyar as an opportunist capable of misleading people.
Gandhi knew him from the 1890s. In 1898, Aiyar introduced himself as
editor of Indian World and distanced himself and the
newspaper from Gandhi's controversial Green Pamphlet.7
Some seven months later, however, he was prepared to consult with
Gandhi as NIC secretary for possible financial aid to run a school
he had started in Verulam.8 Aiyar started the African
Chronicle around 1908, and used its columns regularly to air his
views. He was an ambitions person who saw himself as a champion of
indentured and free Indian interests. Thus he communicated with
Gokhale in the hope of influencing the Indian nationalist. On March
19, 1911, Aiyar wrote to Gokhale about inter-provincial travel
restrictions since Gandhi would not. He hoped Gokhale would raise
the issue with the South African government since public opinion in
Natal demanded it.9 Aiyar wrote again to Gokhale on
February 8, 1912, this time on behalf of the SAIC requesting him to
address the ₤3 tax issue. Although the committee had not authorized
him to talk about other issues, he nevertheless enclosed the text of
Immigration Restriction Bill and hoped Gokhale would examine it
before he came to South Africa.10
Gandhi thought of Aiyar as a “man of
the moment” who could not be trusted and who was given to
misrepresenting issues in African Chronicle. In a letter he
wrote to Chhaganlal Gandhi in September 1911, he said that Aiyar was
"innocent of what he had written..." During Gokhale’s visit, he
accused him of writing "violent articles.” Gandhi believed that the
colonial-born were easily misled, and therefore, one presumes, open
to manipulation by Aiyar.11 While we do not have a clear
idea of where Aiyar stood on the larger issues, one incident
suggests that he was likely open to the militant ideas of expatriate
Indians regarding British rule in India. When Gandhi refused to
reproduce V. Chattopadhyaya’s response to Tolstoy’s “Letter to a
Hindoo,” Aiyar published it in African Chronicle in an action
clearly aimed at the former.12
There is some ambivalence in the way
Gandhi reacted generally to the political endeavors of colonial-born
Indians. When the Colonial-Born Indian Association submitted a
petition in April 1912 for trade licenses as a matter of “first
claim,” Gandhi criticized the body for seeking preferential
treatment for colonial-born Indian because they were educated in
English and observed "European" standards. Why seek a privilege
denied the parents of the colonial-born? Gandhi said nothing about
the "Arab" traders who had elbowed them out of competition, and
about the NIC which mainly represented these "self-selected
settlers."13 Some of the differences between him and the
colonial-born would resurface toward the end of 1913.
While Gandhi found people like Aiyar
too independent for his movement, he worked with many colonial-born
Indians who supported the campaign under his guidance. One such
individual was Cambridge-educated Joseph Royeppen who was also
engaged in promoting the interests of the colonial-born. An attorney
by profession, he led a deputation to the Durban Town Council over
trade licenses for colonial-born Indians, racially motivated tramcar
incidents, beach segregation, and other matters. The Town Council's
attention was drawn to the fact the "localities inhabited by Indians
[were] much neglected in respect of roads, paths, streets, lighting,
and general clearance..." In 1911, Royeppen was also a voluntary
chairman of the group of about forty Indians, most of them
colonial-born, who sought to combat T.B. in Durban. He questioned
the need for the city to appoint a special NIC committee when he and
his group were already running the Indian Volunteer Health
Committee.14 Another individual who had Gandhi’s
confidence was Albert Christopher, who would take a leading part in
the campaign as it unfolded in 1913. Yet Christopher, like Royeppen,
was critical of the NIC, and accused it early in 1912 of
high-handedness in the way it conducted its meetings. Indeed, Gandhi
thought Royeppen was on the “wrong track” about the ₤3 tax issue,
and hoped that Polak, who was in India at the time, would “restrain”
him if he should come to
India.15
As we examine the course of the
campaign after it was resumed, it is clear that Gandhi made creative
use of opportunities as they arose. He did not necessarily have a
blueprint from which he proceeded. The campaign was re-launched on
April 28, 1913, at a BIA mass meeting. Various individuals and
organizations made known their opposition to the bill.16
The Immigrant Regulation Act went into effect on August 1, 1913, and
was opposed on four grounds: those with indentured background after
1895 appeared to lose the right to settle in South Africa; the right
of entry into the Cape of South African born Indians was being
curtailed; Indian marriages celebrated according Hindu and Muslims
rites were not being recognized, and the narrow definition of
"monogamous" would disallow a wife in India from joining her husband
who was legally resident in South Africa; and lastly, Indians
traveling through the Orange Free State (OFS) were required to sign
a declaration that they would not settle in the province. The law
also provided for the creation of judicial review through Appeal
Boards, and Indians pointed out that the participation of
immigration officials on the panels compromised the judicial
integrity of the process.17
The law imposing a tax of ₤3 became an
issue only after the South African Parliament, influenced by
interest groups such as the Natal Agricultural Union, failed to
repeal it. Gandhi had been thinking about its importance to the
campaign from early 1913, which is why, as he explains in
Satyagraha in South Africa, he moved from Tolstoy to Phoenix in
Natal where the law affected the indentured and ex-indentured
Indians.18 Besides, the fact that the government had
promised Gokhale to abolish the tax gave him further opportunity to
play up the imperial angle. The Government of India and Whitehall
would surely be drawn into the issue. It was also a matter of honor
to support his mentor, who, after all, had staked his personal
reputation in the matter. Gokhale came to symbolize a leader of
mythical proportions to Indians he had addressed on his recent
visit. Many of them may well have felt the need to respond to the
perceived “insult” to Gokhale. Gandhi wasted no time in arguing that
the government’s failure to abolish the tax was a breach of promise
that had been made to Gokhale. Organizations such as CBIA, Shri
Hindi Jigyasa Sabha, Zoroastrian Anjuman, Kathiawad Arya Mandal,
Anjuman Islam, and Gujarati Hindus all agreed with him. The NIC was
not among the organizations.19
The passive resistance campaign was
launched in September 1913, under these circumstances. The
letter by BIA's Cachalia dated September 12, 1913, became an
official declaration of the campaign. It told the Minister of
Interior that the Immigrant Regulation Act had placed new obstacles
on Indian immigration and domicile, and that the government had
failed to repeal the ₤3 tax as promised to Gokhale. An
"unrepresented and voiceless community ... which is labouring under
a curious but strong race prejudice ... can defend its honour and
status by a process of sacrifice and self-suffering."20
Gandhi had already been preparing the
Indians for the battle.21 There would be no shame this
time, he said, for those who did not step forward to participate
actively. "He alone can be a satyagrahi whose soul is
possessed of satyagraha." In an article under the heading
"Death Alone Can Raise Us," he argued that with satyagraha
even the most "hard-hearted man [would] melt as he sees the enemy
suffering in innocence." Theirs was a just cause. Remembering how
vulnerable traders had been to government reprisals earlier, he said
that only hawkers should engage because they had few goods that
could be auctioned. Anticipating resistance by some, Gandhi stressed
that those who could not join, need not do so. If they did not want
to go to jail, they could support in other ways by looking after the
business of those in prison, helping with the maintenance of the
families of the passive resisters, giving cash donations or sending
food grains, organizing meetings in every town to approve the
resolutions contained in the Cachalia letter, sending telegrams to
the government through public bodies, and contributing to the London
Committee. This time, he did not want to ask for money from India.22
The first party of sixteen resisters
left Durban for the Transvaal border in September 1913.23
When they failed to get arrested, they recrossed. They were
arrested, sentenced to three months jail hard labor, first in
Pietermaritzburg and later in Durban. Fatima Sheik Mehtab, wife of
Sheik Mehtab who was Gandhi’s childhood friend, her seven-years-old
son, and her mother Hanifa, protested the marriage issue by crossing
into the Transvaal illegally. They too were jailed.24
Groups of individuals courted arrested by hawking in Johannesburg.25
Bodies such as HIS, TBS, UPS, Transvaal Hindus, CBIA, Anjuman Islam,
Zoroastrian Anjuman, KAM, the Brahman Mandal, Newcastle Indian
Organization, Awakened Indian Society in the Cape, and various
organizations or groups of individuals in Pietermaritzburg, Tongaat,
Verulam, East London, and Germiston endorsed the Cachalia letter,
passed resolutions which were forwarded to the government, and
collected funds.26
But even as all these individuals and
organizations came forward to support passive resistance, there were
reports of dissension. An article in the Transvaal Leader
reported merchants who refused to support the campaign. A Parsi
merchant said, "We can't do anything. I might as well run my head
against the brick wall. Trade is not good, and we suffer much in the
past." A Muslim trader asked, "What have we got as the fruits of
this sort of thing? Nothing at all. The government has been fair to
us. They have treated us with justice. I have faith in our Empire.
Full justice will come, must come, without these methods. I am all
against this agitation..." The government had spent ₤800 giving them
a Gujarati school, hired teachers, and a physical culture
instructor, he added. Other merchants said that they were "tired" of
Gandhi.27
It was in Natal that a serious rift
occurred. Gandhi had been avoiding the NIC because of Anglia.
Trouble had been brewing from 1911, at least. Polak, writing to
Ritch on April 11, 1911, said that the "situation here [Natal] is
very bad. Anglia is doing his best to prevent his resignation and I
don't know what is going to happen. So long as he is the secretary,
no good work can be done."28 In his reply, Ritch echoed
the sentiments. "I quite understand," he said to Polak, "how ugly
the situation in Natal is, or rather, that it must be very ugly. Any
satisfactory solution of Indian difficulties is impossible so long
as these personal ambitions and disputes bulk so prominently among
those who ought to be guides and servants of the community." He said
that the situation in Cape Town was the same except there it had
"become somewhat better than it was." In Kimberly, the
Konkani community was "holding aloof."29 Three days later
Polak wrote to say that in Natal things seemed to be going "from bad
to worse." Then in a pointed reference to the person behind it, he
said, "The only dangerous man is Anglia, and he is a snake. For the
sake of his damnable self-esteem I foresee a feud that may split the
community for years."30
Gandhi’s relationship with M. C.
Anglia dated back to the 1890s. In 1897, Anglia announced his
presence by berating somebody who had made fun of his name by
calling him “Angliere.”31 Three years later he wrote to
Gandhi, who was then secretary of the NIC, seeking clarity on a
series of questions before he decided to join the organization. The
questions were not clearly defined so that it was hard to separate
them, but they can be reduced to an issue of central concern to
Anglia, namely, would the authorities not have allowed a qualified
form of franchise in 1894 if the NIC had limited its request to
include only the Indian upper classes. After all, Anglia went on to
point out, distinction had already been made between the merchants
and the indentured on passes. Anglia's questions were not neutral.
If anything, they were plainly provocative and intended to be
critical. For example, he asked if the votes had been given to the
Indians "wholesale," how many MPs would they have been able to send
to parliament. Or again, if Indians were not interested in political
power, why was all the agitation necessary. Was the NIC not engaged
in testing principles thus to have aroused such opposition among
Whites? Finally, was the NIC having a "bad effect" on Whites?32
We have no record of Gandhi's
response. In any event, Anglia went on to become the secretary of
the NIC in the mid-1900s. If the 1900 letter was any indication of
his later thinking, he had hoped to steer the NIC onto a more
conservative path. While in London, he wrote in the Times on
August 27, 1909, that while Indians did not seek political franchise
then, he did not discount it as a grievance in future. Anglia did
become actively involved in the Transvaal campaign by going to jail
in 1908, but he seemed to oppose an extension of this form of action
to Natal. For example, he did not like Gandhi’s advice to use
passive resistance against the Permit Office.
While there were no
serious differences until 1912 or 1913, it does appear as if Anglia
was at variance with Gandhi on broadening the campaign to include
issues that affected lower classes of Indians. The split was brewing
from April 1913 at least. In an article entitled "Gandhites
thoroughly beaten,” African Chronicle reported an NIC mass
meeting in Durban on April 26, 1913 with 500 in attendance when the
two secretaries, Anglia and Dada Osman, submitted their resignations
over the way money was being handled. Supporting Anglia and Osman
were people like J.L. Roberts, Mahomed Jeewa, and S.R. Pather while
others like H.I. Joshi and V. Lawrence opposed them. The decision
to accept the resignations was deferred.33
The breach between Anglia and Gandhi
was aired again at a public meeting in Durban on Sunday, October 12,
1913, under the auspices of Anjuman Islam with NIC's Dawad Mahomed
presiding. Gandhi wanted the NIC to support the struggle. It was a
stormy meeting that went from two o' clock in the afternoon until
ten at night. Anglia and Dada Osman showed their displeasure with
Gandhi by tendering their resignation. They charged Gandhi of having
misled Indians. His role was characterized as being “not only
worthless but highly injurious,” and he was accused of enticing
Indians “into slavery.” A sticking point with some including Anglia
was Gandhi’s heavy reliance on Polak, Ritch, Kallenbach, Albert
West, and other Whites. Gandhi’s response was that the resignations
should be accepted, but it was shouted down. Albert Christopher who
rose to speak in support of Gandhi failed to get heard in the midst
of all the commotion. Under these circumstances, it was decided to
call an NIC meeting the following Sunday, October 19, to decide
whether to accept the resignation of the two secretaries.34
At the meeting, Aiyar suggested a
South Africa-wide conference to gauge the strength of the action to
be taken. Gandhi, according to Aiyar, was evasive as he indicated he
would abide by a decision by the people if it was not in conflict
with his conscience. The African Chronicle said in response,
“We are not aware of any responsible politician in any part of the
globe making such a stupid reply as the one that Mr. Gandhi made the
other day.” “Mr. Gandhi’s superior conscience is pervading
everything,” said the newspaper sarcastically. Gandhi was accused of
showing “passive” not “active” love for his opponents. What hurt
Aiyar most was when Gandhi, in reply to Dada Osman’s question as to
why he had not supported Aiyar’s ₤3 campaign, argued that Aiyar and
three other Indians he named did not compare with Polak in “purity,
talents, ability, and ideals.” Gandhi thought of Polak as the
“purest ray serene”. Well, said Aiyar snidely in his columns,
Gandhi, Polak, Kallenbach, and Ritch had failed to “unearth the
secrecy of the immigration law.” He referred to Gandhi's supporters
as the local Indian "aristocracy" and his “trusted prime ministers,”
Kallenbach and Polak.35
The differences could not be patched
over at the NIC meeting on October 19, 1913. Anglia presented a
four-page closely typed document in support of his argument.36
The NIC decided not to accept the resignations of the two
secretaries. Its endorsement of their views meant a vote of no
confidence in Gandhi and forced him and his supporters to withdraw
from the organization. They marched in a procession to Parsi
Rustomjee’s residence where they formed a new body called the Natal
Indian Association (NIA), with Dawad Mahomed as president and Omar
Haji Amod Jhaveri the secretary. The NIA passed a resolution to
support the movement.37
Gandhi wrote to Kallenbach on two
occasions in October 1913 to speak about the differences in the NIC.
In a letter possibly dated October 20, 1913, Gandhi referred to "two
nice but stormy meetings yesterday."38 He was more
specific on October 27, 1913, when he wrote that Anglia and Osman
were "making much mischief." He said that he had requested Cachalia
and other Muslims like Imam Abdul Kader Bawazeer “to
counteract the mischief." In a subsequent letter he referred to an
"interview" with Osman. It was "a study...but otherwise it was not
of any use," he concluded.39
The Strike
Even as these events were unfolding,
Gandhi had decided to organize a strike among the indentured
Indians. With the NIA in place, he did not have to worry about
opposition from NIC members. His trusted supporters were able to
persuade the coal-mining indentured Indians in the Newcastle area to
come out on strike. On October 14, 1913, those in the Railway
barracks also went on strike; a day later, 36 of the coal miners at
Farleigh Colliery joined them. By the end of October, about 4000
indentured Indians working in nine coal mines in and around
Newcastle had joined the strike.40
Gandhi, together with Kallenbach and
Polak, visited the areas to speak to the passive resisters. He also
met representatives of coal, sugar, and agriculture in Durban and
assured them that the passive resisters would return to work if the
government promised to repeal the ₤3 tax. “It is not the intention
to ask them to join the general struggle at all,” he said. There
were other issues, so that even if the tax were repealed, the
campaign would continue. He said that they did not intend African
workers to join them. "We do not believe in such methods." He denied
that any intimidation was used against non-strikers.41
By the middle of November over 5000
Indians were on strike, about one-fifth of whom were women and
children. Organizations such as the NIA called upon the government
to honor the promise it had made in 1912 to Gokhale to repeal the ₤3
tax. Smuts denied that he had given any such pledge. The Union
government had indeed increased Natal’s subsidy in 1913 by ₤10,000
to compensate for the possible repeal of the tax, but there was
substantial opposition to its blanket repeal among groups that used
indentured labor.42
The NIA distributed food with some
difficulty in the face of hostile employers and the corps of special
police called essentially to force the strikers back to work. As
the strike spread to other parts of Natal, incidents between
strikers and the police increased.43 NIA members and
sympathizers in Durban like Bhana Parshotam, Odhav Kanjee, Sorabjee
Rustomjee, T.J. Sandhvi, Odhav Ragha, Parshotam Patel, M.M. Diwan,
and J.M. Lazarus collected money and provisions and often went to
the estates to speak to the strikers. Indians in Pietermaritzburg
raised money. Support also came from Johannesburg's Hindus,
Pretoria's dhobis, and from others in Cape Town, Port
Elizabeth, Cradock, and Volkstroom.44
Beside Anglia and Osman there were,
however, other Indians who were opposed to the strike. Many of them
believed that Gandhi's strategy was bound to create ill feelings
among the Whites. All of them supported the repeal of the ₤3 tax,
but stressed different reasons for their opposition to the strike.
Aiyar called it disrespectful and disloyal to the king. African
Chronicle reported violent action by strikers such as the
burning of cane. After the appointment of a commission was
announced, Aiyar wrote, “While we are one with him [Gandhi] in our
demands for respecting Indian sentiments…we have reason to believe
that the Indian community could have achieved this object long ago,
if he had adopted an attitude milder than that which he has now
adopted.” Gandhi, Aiyar felt, surely saw his mistake after the
death of some strikers. Aiyar hoped that Gandhi would give their
families money from the funds he received from India.45
Others like Bernard Gabriel and K.R. Nayanah were not only peeved that Gandhi should have upstaged them
on the tax issue, but seemed to imply that Gandhi had an ulterior
motive. How was it, asked Gabriel, that the tax was taking up so
much of his time when he had paid no attention to the ₤3 Tax
Committee when it was first created?46 "The fact is,"
said Nayanah, "that during the last twenty years of Mr. Gandhi's
political career in this country, I am not aware of any systematic
and organized effort made by him to give due prominence to the
question of this ₤3 tax." When the African Chronicle started
this movement, Gandhi did not raise "a single finger to help," he
stated.47 John L. Roberts simply thought of passive
resistance to be a "Hydra-headed blunder" that would have serious
consequences.48 Leo R. Gopaul argued that the strike was
neither justified nor spontaneous. But he expressed qualified
support for Gandhi. Gopaul's assessment was that Gandhi was "an
acute observer, but a poor reasoner." He continued, "Singly, he will
be dangerous, but in conjunction with others, he will do immense
good. We therefore want another leader to work with Mr. Gandhi."49
Did any of them encourage the strikers to return to work? Gabriel,
Nayanah, Aiyar, and S.R. Pather did go to Verulam to speak to the
strikers, but it is not clear from the reports what
their intentions
were.50
Whites who lived in constant dread of
an African uprising, disapproved of the campaign because it had set
a “bad example.” The labor shortage caused by the strike prompted
the Natal Sugar Association to request the help of the Chief Native
Commissioner in securing African replacements. The association
believed that the “moral effect upon the Indians would be enormous
and would do much towards breaking the present strike.” It also
hoped that African laborers would be available to the planters on a
permanent basis.51 A leading planter like Marshall
Campbell opposed the ₤3 tax but disapproved of Gandhi’s action. He
said that agents had provoked violence even if Gandhi did not
approve of it and that Gandhi had lost control of the movement. As
he wrote to Gandhi, "... many of those you lead are realizing the
weakness of your policy more and more everyday..." He described
indentured Indians as "contented but ignorant." Gandhi's "high words
and false hope [were] incapable of realization."52
By the end of November 1913, the
strike had spread to the north and south coasts of Natal. Durban
Corporation and Railway workers downed tools while hundreds of
Indians at the South African Refineries, Hulett's Refinery, Chemical
Works, Wright's Cement and Pottery Works, and African Boating
joined. Laundrymen, hospital, and bakery workers stopped working.
Even Indian bars closed. Extra police were brought in from
Johannesburg and Pretoria essentially to break the strike.
Confrontations occurred between the authorities and strikers.
Indeed, there were several serious instances when sporadic violence
caused death and injury. At Mt. Edgecombe, four Indians were killed
and two were seriously wounded; at Umzinto, two Indians were shot
dead, and among those injured nine required hospitalization; at
Reunion, Indians were severely beaten. Arrests and detentions did
not seem to deter the strikers.
Over 16,000 indentured Indians working
for sixty-six employers had gone on strike.53 Newspaper
reports rarely probed working conditions that underpinned the action
of such a large numbers of laborers. Rather they opted for anecdotal
stories that focused on how a “rajah” had instructed the strikers to
do so, and that the tax was not really the main cause of their
action. Some believed that Gokhale would send a regiment to defend
the strikers; others addressed Gandhi as rajah, Kasturbai as
rani, and their sons as princes. Those strikers who came to
Phoenix Settlement called it Gandhi Baba=s
home. There was a cultural and religious dimension to their
reactions. Those who marched with Gandhi from Newcastle to
Charlestown used religious slogans such as, “Dwarakanath ki jai,”
“Ramchandra ki jai,” and “Vande Materam.” Many sang bhajans
as they marched.54
The condition of work under which
indentured Indians labored became generalized into grievances. If
they responded to Gandhi’s call to strike, it was because they saw
the ₤3 tax as part of the same set of grievances they felt against
employers who were seen to be working closely with the government.
There are numerous instances of complaints by indentured Indians
against their employers. The Indian immigration files in the Natal
Archives Repository contain case after case from the 1880s to the
1900s about abuse by overbearing Indian sirdars or owners, overwork,
inadequate rations, Sunday work, withheld wages, and late payment,
to mention a few.
Indentured workers found it difficult
to lodge complaints. They could not easily come forward with
complaints in the presence of the employer when the Protector or his
deputy made their regular visits of the estates. The Indians
required passes to leave the estates to make complaints to the
Protector, and in many cases they simply left without permission.
But in doing so, they violated the law and were prosecuted. Requests
for transfer to other employers were generally refused except in
special cases where the punishment was cruel and unusual.55
This must account for the large number of desertions. On the other
hand, there are many letters by owners who requested transfers and
even deportations of Indians who were “troublesome.”
Conditions for indentured workers in
the coal mines were particularly hard. Over 2500 worked in six of
the main coal mines in 1908 and 1909. Those infected with pthisis—and 95 per cent came from the coal mines—were repatriated.56
Indians complained about the tedious nature of the work, besides
having to do excessive amounts of it even over the weekend. They
disliked “golvan” (underground) work.57 Subbaraya Mudaly,
aged 18, committed suicide in August 1909 when forced to do
underground work.58
There is sufficient evidence to
suggest that Indians acted individually and collectively to improve
their lot. Whatever the nature of their political awareness, they
defended their self-interests.59 There are many documents
that show that despite all the obstacles, they were able to make
their voices heard. They banded together to create communities for
social and religious interactions. We know of numerous pools that
were formed, known as the “chitti,” to share among them its benefits
even if their earnings were modest. Sometimes Indians who wanted to
return to India sought the advice of the Protector. In cases
involving marriages, they took the initiative in finding out
circumstances under which the union of two individuals could take
place, or as was also the case, when marriages should be annulled in
an abusive relationship. Indentured Indians showed leadership and
judgment in many such informal occasions.
There are also many formal instances
when Indians exercised leadership to confront owners about their
rights. They knew enough about the systems to do so. Such was the
case when five individuals emerged as
ringleaders
on the Reunion Estate in October 1910. Their employer Reuben A.
Swales wanted them transferred.60 In another case,
forty-two men and three women marched to Durban to complain against
H. Lavoipierre of Bellamonte estate. The five “ringleaders” were
Nagadu, Byagadu, Nayayen, Runga Pillay, and
Lutchman.61
Gandhi had not anticipated the
overwhelming response to his call for strike, and his close
associates could not keep control of such large numbers of strikers.
The NIA responded as best it could with rations and the like, but it
really had no access to the strikers or those who were their
immediate leaders. Eight of them—I.A.H. Moosa, Addool Haq Kazi,
S. Emamally, J.M. Lazarus, M.B. Lazarus, Sorabjee Rustomjee,
Arjoon Singh, A. Christopher, R. Bhugwan, C.V. Pillay, and Thumbi
Naidoo—were charged for inciting violence. In their letter of
November 25, 1913, to the attorney general in Pietermaritzburg, they
pointed to the police’s refusal to allow them perusal of the
affidavits. By December 1913, the attorney general had decided to
drop charges against them since by then Gandhi, Polak, and
Kallenbach had already been released. Charges against the NIA’s C.R. Naidu were also dropped.62
The commission that investigated the
strike focused on "ringleaders" who were generally seen as the
culprits by employers and police alike. Beyond the NIA members who
were politically motivated and thus likely had some information
about the conditions of work, there were others who came primarily
from among indentured Indians.63 The attorney general in
Natal wrote to public prosecutors in Durban, Verulam, Stanger,
Umzinto, Port Shepstone, Greytown, Camperdown, New Hanover, Mtunzini,
and Empangeni in November 1913 requesting them to take steps “to
ascertain who the ringleaders [were] and have them arrested.”64
One such individual arrested was Peter Jackson at the Elands Laagte
Collieries near Ladysmith. When the resident magistrate learned that
he had been supported by about 1300 strikers, he thought it prudent
to drop the charges since his prosecution could lead to "bloodshed.”65
The Pietermaritzburg corporation workers were organized by headman
Gunpat Singh.66
Events at the Ballengeich Colliery
compound near Estcourt offer insights into how free and indentured
Indians collaborated. Some 195 Indians were involved, most of whom
were apparently free. From the various depositions filed, it seems
that Indians were determined to take part in the strike over the ₤3
tax. They proceeded to the Transvaal but were brought back to be
confined in a make-shift jail. When the Indians were told they would
serve for six months in the mine as part of their jail sentence,
they rebelled. They disliked having to spend time behind the barbed
wire they saw before them. Instead, they chose to leave for the
Newcastle jail. As Sayed Batsha said in his deposition, they were
being fenced in just like the “Bambatta Natives.” An altercation
broke out. White managers, African constables, Wartskis butchers,
and others attacked the Indians with knobkerries, sjamboks, rifle
butts, and even fired with their guns in the air in effort to drive
them back into the compound. Eight of the Indians were bundled into
a separate room where one or more attackers assaulted them and
taunted them for having followed Gandhi. The next day all the
dissidents were tried in the Estcourt courts and found guilty, and
sentenced to six months jail or ₤5 fine. In a separate incident, one
Nagadu died on November 17 after being assaulted.67
In another strike-related incident,
Madhar Sahib, an indentured Indian, was severely assaulted by Robert
Johnson at the South African Colliery on November 11. It was not
merely his absence from work that triggered the abuse; he was
thought to be involved in the strike since he was accused of
intimidating the workers. But the attorney general filed no charges
against him.68 At Reunion Estate, eleven Indians were
charged with “unlawfully gathering to disturb the public peace and
security of or to interfere with the rights” to cause a riot by
using sticks and other blunt instruments. They were all freed
because they had no weapons on them before they assembled, and there
was some hesitancy to re-indict them.69
A batch of Noodsberg Indians came to
Tongaat and insisted on being allowed to proceed to Durban to see
Gandhi or the Protector in December 1913. When they were ordered to
return, the women put their babies in front of the horses, and they
themselves lay down on the ground. The police tried to disarm them,
but they defended themselves by using sticks and by lining up
back-to-back. Nobody was seriously hurt.70 Two
"recalcitrant" Indians were turned over to the Protector for
deportation. At Hawksworth Estate near Esperanza, a solicitor’s
clerk was accused of having incited Indians, and another described
as an "absolute fanatic" had worked 400 persons into a "howling
mob." At Blackburn Estate on the North Coast 12 Indian "ringleaders"
were arrested, some of them with wounds. In Avoca, “ringleaders”
destroyed or seized milk and vegetables that non-striking Indians
were selling.71
The March
Gandhi’s decision to open another
front was intended to take some control over the movement. He had
access to hundreds of indentured Indians who had walked away from
their jobs. If, therefore, he could use them under his supervision,
he might have some leverage in dealing with the government. He had
already organized a party of sixteen in September 1913 to cross
illegally into the Transvaal. In November he decided to implement
this idea on a grand scale for it was sure, he thought, to capture
the government's attention. Besides, he was afraid that the strike
might collapse, as he wrote to Kallenbach on October 23, 1913. He
decided to take about 2000 of the strikers across the Natal border
into the Transvaal. It was a daring idea, brilliant in its
conception, and creative in its implementation. As Parel says, this
padayatra, “slow motion by foot,” was an effective way to
raise consciousness and build unity. In India, it would be used in
nation-building.72
The plan was to take the marchers into
the Transvaal through Charleston and thus invite arrest. The march
was divided into eighteen stages from November 6 to 13. In the event
that they were not arrested, they planned to walk to Tolstoy Farm
near Johannesburg at the rate of twenty to twenty-five miles a day.
The government had no desire to ease the organizational problems
that Gandhi faced, nor did it wish to make martyrs of the marching
passive resisters. It was rather hoping that the movement would
falter
before arrests became necessary.
The organizers had a difficult time
controlling, feeding, and otherwise managing large numbers of men,
women, and children on the move. Gandhi had the support of people
like Kallenbach, Thambi Naidoo, P.K. Naidoo, Polak, and others. The
cost was ₤250 a day. The daily ration of bread and sugar needed to
be provided; and even though many Indians en route helped,
local funds were not adequate to cover the expenses. Much as Gandhi
had hoped otherwise, the funds had to come from India. Close to
₤1500 was received by December 1913, the largest donation of ₤660
coming from the Aga Khan.73
The details of the dramatic march are
given by Gandhi in his Satyagraha in South Africa and by
Kallenbach in his diary. It was not until November 10 that the
government decided to arrest the marchers by which time they had
reached Balfour, some fifty miles from Johannesburg, or about
seventy miles from their final destination, Tolstoy Farm in Lawley.
They were placed on three special trains and deported to Natal.
Meanwhile, Gandhi was sentenced in Dundee on November 11 to nine
months' jail with hard labor. From Dundee, he was taken to Volksrust
on November 13 to face the charge of aiding and abetting prohibited
persons from entering the Transvaal. In the next few days, Gandhi,
Kallenbach, and Polak were all found guilty and sentenced to three
months' jail in the Volksrust prison.74
As the authorities in Natal dealt with
leading NIA members and other supporters of the strike, there were
signs by the end of November that the strike was coming to an end.
Some were charged with inciting violence and others with desertion.
Since employers did not continue to provide rations for the
strikers, this too must have been a factor in spite of the action
taken by the NIA to step into the breach. Newspaper accounts
reported indentured Indians in almost all sectors returning to work.75
Solomon Commission
As Gandhi had expected, the increased
tempo of the passive resistance campaign was bound to attract the
attention of India. Viceroy Harding expressed strong support for the
movement in a speech he made in Chennai on November 26, 1913.
Gokhale who had just returned from England got busy organizing
another round of meetings and collecting money for the passive
resisters. He was responsible for sending Charles Andrews and W.W.
Pearson who traveled to major South African towns and cities to
appear at many public meetings and churches and to talk to many
influential Whites. The INC, meeting at Karachi on December 26,
strongly objected to the treatment of Indians in South Africa.
London newspapers talked about government blunders that had put the
empire at risk.76
The government responded to these
pressures by announcing the appointment of a commission. Even though
Gandhi, who was in jail at the time, found two of the three
commissioners unacceptable because of their known anti-Indian bias,
he believed that the government had shown sufficient good faith.77
He deemed the government’s regular communication with him as being
“consultation.” But Gandhi did not back down from his demand for the
removal of two commissioners after he and the other passive
resisters were released unconditionally. Indians repeated their
demands at an NIA meeting in Durban attended by 6000 to 7000, and
endorsed Gandhi’s decision to boycott the commission.78
In an interview Gandhi gave to
Pretoria News on January 9, 1914, he said that he did not want
to take advantage of the trouble that the government was then facing
with a general railway strike. In his letter to the secretary of the
Interior Minister, he virtually outlined what was to become the
settlement five months later. He agreed that the passive resisters
would forgo filing lawsuits; that all passive resisters would be
released in due course; that the ₤3 tax would be repealed; that the
marriage question would be fixed legislatively; that the Cape entry
issue would be settled by administrative relief; that there would be
verbal assurances with regard to the OFS restrictions; and, finally,
that there would be a just administration of laws toward Indians.
Gandhi explained his conditional agreement at an NIA mass meeting in
Durban on January 25, 1914, at which 3000 were present.79
Meanwhile, Sir Benjamin Robertson,
Chief Commissioner for the Central Provinces in India, was specially
sent by the Viceroy to speak to the commission. The importance of
the testimony was not what he said—it was ambivalent and
paternalistic—but that he spoke with the authority of the
Government of India.80 While the NIA boycotted the
commission, the NIC resolved at its meeting on January 28, 1914, to
appear before it. This meeting was not without procedural
difficulties. Sixty-nine individuals later claimed that the
majority
was against testifying.81 Others also denounced the NIC
decision.82
In any event, Anglia and Osman, who
appeared before the commission for the NIC argued for polygamous
marriages in addition to raising immigration and license issues.
Indian Opinion said that their testimonies had “done harm” to
the community by setting limits to Indian demands. They should have
consulted a “reliable lawyer” before presenting their material. It
was thankful that the two had refrained from “washing the dirty
linen of the community” in public, but on whose behalf had Anglia
spoken? Anglia reacted angrily to the comment about his
testimony, and challenged Indian Opinion to reproduce in
Gujarati his entire testimony. The editor promised to do this, but
it was not published. S.B. Sooker also spoke, but he was “carried
away by his pride” according to Indian Opinion. He had named
individuals who would give evidence about ill treatment by
employers; and as for P.S. Aiyar, Indian Opinion commented:
“What can we say? He has given evidence without thinking,” and he
only spoke for himself. Aiyar himself had a different take and
reproduced his entire testimony in African Chronicle.83
The commission contacted at least one person, namely D. Lazarus,
requesting his help to identify witnesses named by Sooker, but he
declined to assist.84
The commission produced a
thirty-eight-page report in March 1914, which highlighted
disturbances at Mount Edgecombe and Esperanza estates. Four Indians
were killed at the first, and two at the second. In both instances,
the commission cleared the police of any wrong-doing, even though
Indians claimed that they had acted under severe provocation. At La
Mercy estate near Verulam, three Indians were injured after African
constables attacked them with knobkerries. The commission
recommended the repeal of the ₤3 tax, and changes in the law to
allow for the legitimacy of marriages celebrated according to Muslim
or Hindu rites.85 Gandhi was pleased generally. He had
been preparing Indians not to overreach since they could “eat” only
according to their capacity, that is, that they should not ask for
anything for which they would not be able to mount a campaign. Be
patient, he had said a month before the report was published,
because the opportunity of the future would “far exceed the present
one.”86 Most of the English newspapers were positive
about the recommendations by the commission, and were glad to see
that it offered an opportunity to end the campaign. The Natal
Agricultural Union, on the other hand, was opposed to the repeal of
the ₤3 tax.87 Meanwhile, Indian strikers were charged
with unlawfully striking, and official inquiries were instituted in
instances where death had occurred. These trials highlighted how
brutally the indentured system operated.88
The commission’s report culminated in
the Indian Relief Act. On the marriage question, it restored the
status before the Searle judgment; it repealed the ₤3 tax; and
validated domicile certificates in Natal. In addition, the Act
provided for free passage to any Indian who was willing to renounce
all claim to domicile in South Africa. The Natal government had used
the tax to ensure indirectly the return of Indians who terminated
their indentures. The free passage provision was similarly aimed at
securing the repatriation of those Indians who selected it. As far
as Gandhi was concerned, the goals he had set out for himself had
been reached. He refused to allow the Gold Law, location trading
restrictions, trade license difficulties, inter-provincial travel
restrictions, and restrictions on ownership of land as part of the
campaign. These outstanding matters, he said, would require
“further and sympathetic consideration by the Government” some day
in the future. The settlement was agreed to, and for Gandhi eight
years of struggle had “finally closed.”89 In his
farewell, Gandhi advised Indians not to succumb to provincialism.
“All ideas of high and low which divide men into Brahmans, Kshtriyas,
Vaishhyas, and Sudras should be abandoned.” Get rid of dirty ways,
cease gold smuggling, drop addiction to alcohol, and stop calling
indentured Indians “colcha.”90
But there were critics. Indian
Views, established by Anglia and others in 1914, called the
settlement “farcical” and questioned Gandhi’s claim to be speaking
for all Indians. They pointed to the large numbers who opposed
passive resistance, and they reproduced the names of people who sent
telegrams opposing the settlement. Its July 24, 1914, issue stated
that the one lesson that Indians could learn from Gandhi’s
twenty-one years was to resolve issues “in a calm and constitutional
manner and not to resort to passive resistance, strikes and other
cut-your-nose-off-to-spite-your-face method.” It referred to the NIA
as a “relic of Gandhism.”91
In March, after the settlement was
announced, Aiyar commented, “…Gandhi can boast as much as he pleases
about his achievements, and the blunt truth of the matter is that
others made a case for him while his crew condemned, vilified, and
victimised these very same people, simply because they won’t pay
homage to his saintly honour, and blow trumpet for Mr. Gandhi’s
glorification.”92 After the Indian Relief Act was passed,
Aiyar derided Gandhi’s role in an imaginary dialogue. He accused
Gandhi of being arrogant and a false patriot who did not interest
himself in the welfare of the people. Gandhi was quick to attribute
failure to the government, according to Aiyar, a "slippery customer"
who “unblushingly” called the settlement a Magna Charta when it was
simply a “farce”. Gandhi said that only a “minority” opposed the
settlement. Aiyar commented bitterly that the “minority” did not get
money from India, or organize crowds for shouting down opponents, or
have the support of the "Junta” at Field Street.93
H.O. Ally who had accompanied Gandhi
to London in 1906 was the severest of his critics. The Rand Daily
Mail reported a meeting of Muslims who were concerned about a
variety of issues: on whose authority had Gandhi acted in signing
the settlement? What had Indians gained in the previous eight years?
Why had he taken money set aside for a hospital during the plague
scare in Johannesburg? Gandhi replied to each of the points raised
by his critics. He had acted on behalf of all Indians; he
believed that Indians had made definite gains, most particularly in
the respect that they had won; and he had taken money in 1904 that
was due to him for his legal services. He had hoped to use the money
to train himself as a doctor in
England.
Early in 1914, HIS had indeed written
to Sir Benjamin Robertson saying that the Indians wanted, among
other things, the removal of travel restrictions, a privilege then
enjoyed by the “Cape Coloureds, the Kaffirs, and the Hottentots,”
property rights, and township trading.94 HIS had taken a
resolution at a meeting in March 1914 at which it declared that
“Messrs Gandhi, Polak and their associates [had] no right or
authority to act for the Muslim community or any matter concerning
them.” V.M. Khamissa’s tone was communal: since Gandhi was a Hindu,
he had no business interfering in Muslim matters.95
At a meeting called by HIS in
Johannesburg, Gandhi responded to some of the charges leveled
against him. He said he had given full accounting to the BIA of the
Anti-Indian Law Fund, the Passive Resistance Fund, and funds from
Mumbai. Ally persisted in his criticism. How could Gandhi call it a
final settlement when there were "certain disabilities and
grievances that were killing the people,” he wanted to know. Gokhale
had not forbidden anyone to submit evidence to the commission, he
continued; instead Gandhi spent ₤200 sending a long cable to Gokhale
in Mumbai about the need to honor the oath to proceed with passive
resistance until all contested issues were settled. Had Gandhi bound
Muslims to only one wife? If so, this was a violation of law of God.
Gandhi should have called a public meeting before talking about “an
honorable settlement.” Had not Gandhi said in 1909 that he would
continue until all the children were free? How could he claim to be
speaking for all when HIS and the Hamdard Society had passed a
resolution on March 31, 1914, insisting that he and his friends had
no authority to act for them. Habib Motan raised a question about
₤1200 Gandhi had taken for Indian Opinion. These questions
showed how serious the disagreement was between Gandhi and some of
the Indians.96
References
-
Indian Opinion (IO)
3/22/1913, 4/5/1913, 4/12/1913, 4/19/1913, 4/26/1913,
10/15/1913, 10/22/1913; Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (CWMG),
vol. 12, p.15; see also Natal Mercury, 10/8/1913.
-
CWMG, vol. 96,
Supplementary vol. 6, Gandhi’s letters to A.H. West, pp. 94,
98, 99, 101.
-
IO, 2/2/1912, 2/17/1912.
-
Ibid., 2/24/1912.
-
Ibid.,
9/23/1911.
-
Natal Mercury 10/11/1913;
CWMG, vol. 96, Supplementary vol. 6, pp. 33, 101.
-
Newspaper Clipping SN 2796, August
20, 1898, Sabarmati, Ahmedabad.
-
SN 3077, August 20, 1898,
Sabarmati, Ahmedabad; Gandhi to Millie Graham Polak, November
12, 1913, in CWMG, vol. 96, Supplementary vol. 6, p.155.
-
Aiyar to Gokhale, March 19, 1911,
Papers of Gopal K. Gokhale, National Archives of India, New
Delhi.
-
Aiyar to Gokhale, February 8,
1912, Papers of Gopal K. Gokhale, National Archives of India,
New Delhi.
-
CWMG, vol. 11, p. 162;
Gandhi to Gokhale, 14 February 1913, CWMG, vol. 11, pp.
460-61; IO 5/20/1911, 4/1/1911, 4/15/1911, CWMG,
vol. 10, pp. 459, 465-66.
-
V. Chattopadhyaya accused Tolstoy
of selective and erroneous reading of history, and questioned
whether the great religions were centrally non-violent in their
teaching. How did love translate itself into “regulatory social
principle”? It did not automatically lead to non-violence. How
should violent men be reformed? If their malignant activity
could not be checked through morality, “death should be dealt
out as a gift of love so that our brother may die with at least
some attributes of a man. A violent plunderer is not a man but a
brute and cannot be treated like a social being.” African
Chronicle, April 9 and 16, 1910.
-
The president was K.R. Nayanah.
Others were R. N. Moodley, L. Gabriel, S. Emamally. S. Lutchman
Panday, and Albert Christopher. IO 4/20/1912, 5/11/1912.
-
Ibid., 11/18/1911,
8/19/1911, 1/20/1912.
-
Ibid., 1/27/1912, 2/3/1912;
CWMG, vol. 96, Supplementary vol. 6, p.307.
-
Those who opposed the bill were
colonial-born Indians in Johannesburg, Indian Women's
Association, European Committee, and such Durban bodies as the
Anjuman Islam, Zoroastrian Anjuman, Mastic Society, Shri Hindi
Jigayasa Sabha, Kathiawad Arya Mandal, Natal Brahmin Mandal,
Thakurdwara Hindu Temple Committee, and Anjuman Hedayatul Islam;
and in the Cape, the British Indian Union. The NIC remained
aloof. Indian Opinion, 4/19/1913, 5/3/1913, 5/10/1913,
5/17/1913, 5/24/1913.
-
Ibid., 8/9/1913,
8/23/1913.
-
Ibid., 1/18/1913;
Satyagraha in South Africa, Ahmedabad: Navajivan Press,
1928, p. 250.
-
IO 7/12/1913, 9/6/1913,
6/14/1913.
-
Ibid., 9/13/1913,
9/20/1913. CWMG, vol. 12, pp. 83-86.
-
CWMG, vol. 12, Gandhi to
Gokhale, 20 June 1913, pp.113-15; IO 6/7/1913, 6/28/1913.
-
IO 9/13/1913, 9/20/1913;
CWMG, vol. 12. pp. 196-98.
-
Their names were not released
immediately. They were Kasturba Gandhi, Kashibehn Gandhi,
Santokbehn Gandhi, Jayakunvar P. Mehta, Parsi Rustomjee,
Chhaganlal Gandhi, Maganlal Gandhi, Rawjibhai M. Patel,
Maganbhai H. Patel, Solomon Royeppan, Shivpujan Badri, V.
Govindrajulu, Coopoosamy Moonlight Mudaliar, Gokuldas Hansraj,
Revashanker R. Sodha, and Ramdas Gandhi. IO 9/24/1913,
special issue.
-
Ibid.,10/1/1913,
10/22/1913
-
They were P. K. Naidoo, Jivan
Premji (chairman, UPS), Mawji Premji (vice chairman, UOS),
Kunverji, Dulabhbhai, Dayal Parbhu, Jivanji Devji, Morar Kanji,
Parbhoo Chhana, Coopoosamy Naidoo, Narayansamy, Krishnaswamy.
Others were: S. B. Medh, P. K. Desai, Manilal Gandhi, Veerasay
Francis, Soopie Pillay, Anamaly, Khusal Morar, Bhaga Manchha,
Dhaya Parbhoo, Rajoo Nursoo, and Willy Morgan. Ibid.,10/8/1913.
-
Ibid.
-
Ibid., 10/15/1913.
-
Polak to Ritch, April 11, 1911, SN
5448, Gandhi National Museum and Library, New Delhi.
-
Ritch to Polak, April 15, 1911,
April 11, 1911, SN 5448; Ritch to Gandhi, March 14, 1911, SN
5288, and Ritch to Gandhi, SN 5413, Gandhi National Museum and
Library, New Delhi.
-
Polak to Ritch, April 18, 1911, SN
5472, Gandhi National Museum and Library, New Delhi.
-
Natal Mercury, 1/28/1897.
-
Anglia to Gandhi, 15, August 1900,
SN 3906, Sabarmati, Ahmedabad.
-
African Chronicle,
5/3/1913.
-
IO 10/15/1913, Natal
Advertiser, 10/20/1913.
-
African Chronicle
10/18/1913. See Gandhi’s letter to Kallenbach, March 21, 1914,
CWMG, vol. 96, Supplementary vol. 6, p. 177.
-
African Chronicle,
10/25/1913.
-
Interview to Rand Daily Mail,
reproduced in CWMG, vol. 12, pp. 245-47.
-
Gandhi
Letters: From Upper House to Lower House, 1906-1914,
edited by Gillian Berning, Durban: Durban Local History Museum,
1994, pp. 30-31.
-
Gandhi-Kallenbach
Papers, 1909-1946, National Archives of India, New Delhi; see
also CWMG, vol. 96, Supplementary vol. 6, p. 151.
-
Gandhi, Satyagraha in South
Africa, Ahmedabad: Navajivan, 1928; Gandhi’s trusted
lieutenants were T. Naidoo, Bhawani Dayal and Ramnaran, Mrs
Moorgan, Mrs. P. K. Naidoo, and Mrs. T. Naidoo. They were joined
by local individuals like I. Seedat, Abdial M. Ephraim, Amod
Vawda, D. Lazarus, M. R. Chetty, M. M. Pillay, M. R. Currian, M.
R. Tomy, Ebrahim Khaki, Suliman Seedat, and Amod Dawjee, IO
10/22/1913, 10/29/1913.
-
CWMG, vol. 12, pp. 253-54,
Gandhi’s interview with Natal Mercury on October 27,
1913.
-
Natal Advertiser (NA)
11/19/1913.
-
IO 11/19/1913; Natal
Advertiser 11/13/1913, 11/14/1913.
-
Others were the Durban Indian
Association, Colonial Born Hindu Benefit Society in Port
Elizabeth, Surat Hindu Association, and the Awakened Indian
Society in Cape Town. IO 10/29/1913, 11/5/1913,
11/12/1913.
-
African Chronicle
11/1/1913, 11/22/1913, 11/29/1913, 12/6/1913, 12/13/1913,
12/27/1913.
-
Natal Mercury 11/7/1913.
-
Ibid., 10/17/1913.
-
Ibid.
-
Ibid.,11/10/1013,
11/15/1913.
-
Ibid., 11/13/1913; Natal
Advertiser 11/15/1913.
-
NAR CNC 148, 2035/1913, David
Fowler, acting president of NSA to Chief Native Commissioner,
5/12/1913.
-
IO 1/7/1914.
-
The Protector of Indian Immigrants
Polkinghorne revealed this at the commission's hearings in
January 1914.
-
Sushila Nayar, Mahatma Gandhi:
Satyagraha at Work, Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House,
1989, pp. 678-79, 684; see also Raojibhai M. Patel, The
Making of the Mahatma, (Based on Gandhiji-ni Sadhna),
Ahmedabad: Navajivan, 1990, pp. 213-17.
-
NAR I 1104/1891 1/60. One such
case was that of William Sykes of Trenance Estate in Inanda who
was found guilty of branding Appasamy. His thirteen employees
were transferred to the Natal Sugar Company.
-
NAR I 1367/1911 1/181. 360 were
repatriated from 1907 to the middle of 1911.
-
NAR I 1181/11 1/180.
-
NAR I 1568/09 1/167.
-
While it is hard to determine the
collective consciousness of the indentured Indians, we seek to
give them more agency for their actions than the works by Swan,
Beall, and North-Coombes. See M. J. Swan’s Gandhi: The South
African Experience, Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1985;
and J. D. Beall and D. North-Coombes, “The 1913 Disturbances
in Natal: The Social and Economic Background to ‘Passive
Resistance’ “, Journal of Natal and Zulu History 6(1983):
48-81.
-
NAR I 1996/09 1/169. The five
were: Natha, Mallan, S. Venkuloo, Vella Mundin, and Lakshmanan.
-
NAR I 227/09 1/170.
-
NAR AGO 756/1913, 1130/1913; AGO
1/8/146 826/1913; AGO 1/8/146 824/1913.
-
Some of the others arrested were
B. K. Patel, R. H. Lazaraus, C. R. Naidoo, P. K. Naidoo, N. B.
Naik, and Dookie.
-
NAR AGO 1/8/146, 756/13.
-
NAR AGO 1/8/146, 756/13.
-
NAR 1 PMB 3/1/1/1/2 MC 382/13.
-
The ringleaders, all free Indians,
were Babhoo, Batsha, Abdool, Saibo, Manikum, Annamalay, Lutchman
Singh, and Mahomed. NAR AGO 1/8/146 764/1913.
-
NAR 1/8/146, AG 782/13 236A/1913.
-
The accused were Vallai Gounden,
Lachmon, Ramai, Jogyram, Parabhu, Ramdu, Coopoosamy, Muthu
Govinden, Abbu, Chinnabbu, and Chinnappa. NAR AGO 1/8/146
826/1913.
-
Depositions were made by Ramsamy,
Kanny, Munsamy, Venkatigadu, Govenden, B. Yelligadu, Anganay,
and Sukroo. NAR AGO 1/8/146 783/1913.
-
IO 12/3/1913; Natal
Advertiser 11/15/1913, 11/17/1913, 11/19/1913, 11/20/1913,
11/24/1913, 11/26/1913, 11/27/1913, 11/28/1913, 11/29/1913,
12/11/1913, 12/2/1913, 12/3/1913; Natal Mercury
12/5/1913, 12/8/1913, 12/28/1913.
-
Gandhi to Kallenbach, October 23,
1913, in CWMG, vol. 96, Supplementary vol. 6, p. 150. See
also Anthony J. Parel, "Gandhi's Idea of Nation in Hind
Swaraj," Gandhi Marg 13(1991): 265
-
IO 11/19/1913, 12/17/1913.
-
Gandhi, Satyagraha in South
Africa, Ahmedabad: Navajivan, 1928; Isa Sarid and Christian
Bartolf, Hermann Kallenbach: Mahatma Gandhi's Friend in South
Africa, A Concise Biography, Selbstverlag, Germany:
Gandhi-Information-Zentrum, 1997. Kallenbach kept a diary of
events as they unfolded. They are found on pages 38 to 61.
-
Natal Advertiser
11/19/1913, 11/26/1913, 11/28/1913, 12/1/12/1913, 12/2/1913,
12/3/1913.
-
Meetings of support also took
place in Chennai and Calcutta; and the INC’s meeting in Karachi
in December put the South African Indian question on its agenda.
IO 1/7/1914, 2/18/1914, 1/21/1914, 1/28/1914, 2/11/1914,
2/18/1914, 2/25/1914, 3/4/1914, 3/11/1914, 4/8/1913, 6/3/1914;
CWMG, vol. 12. pp. 400-01; Natal Advertiser
11/19/1913. See also Nayar, pp. 696-97, 703-05.
-
Polak claims it was he who
insisted to Gandhi that they should refuse to appear before the
commission unless at least one independent person was appointed.
He said, “At first he [Gandhi] was inclined to tender evidence
before the commission, but I felt strongly that the commission
as appointed was one-sided, with two of the three members
well-known anti-Indians, and there being no one to represent the
Indian community.” See Polak’s article, pp. 230-47, in
Incidents in Gandhiji’s Life, edited by Chandrashanker
Shukla, Vora & Co., 1949.
-
In place of Ewald Esselen and J.
S. Wylie, the Indians suggested Sir James Rose-Innes, and W. P.
Schreiner. Gandhi did not carry out his threatened march to
Pretoria on December 21, 1913, over the issue, and decided to
wait. IO 12/17/1913, 12/24/1913.
-
Ibid., 1/28/1914; CWMG,
vol. 12, pp. 327-29, 333-36. See also interview with Rand
Daily Mail on 24 January 1914, IO 2/4/1914,
1/25/1914.
-
Sir Robertson disappointed Gandhi.
He wrote to Gokhale, “He has done hardly any good and he may do
a great deal of harm. He is weak and by no means sincere. Even
now, he has hardly grasped the details. And he undoubtedly,
consciously or unconsciously, fosters divisions among us”.
CWMG, vol. 12, p. 360; and in a letter to Kallenbach on
January 19, 1914, he called Sir Benjamin “dangerous, weak, and
shifty man.” CWMG, vol. 96, Supplementary vol. 6, pp.
159, 165. See also IO 2/4/1914, 2/11/1914, 2/18/1914.
-
They wrote to the Natal
Mercury, “We, the undersigned, who were present at the
meeting and recorded our votes, deny the accuracy of the report.
The meeting, by a majority of 69 to 48, were against giving any
evidence.” M. C. Coovadia who had chaired the meeting,
“absolutely” refuted this. He disclosed that those for the
motion were Hassim Jooma, M. C. Anglia, Dr. Hira Maneck, Dada
Osman, K. R. Nayanah, Jeewa and himself. Those who opposed it
were J. M. Francis, B. Sigamoney, Karwa, and Vaidya. There was
no counter-motion, he said. IO 2/11/1914.
-
Indians in Stanger, Tongaat,
Newcastle agreed to boycott the commission. Other bodies that
joined the chorus of opposition were Mahomedan Mastic Society,
Kathiwad Arya Samaj, Maharastrian Sabha, Surat Hindu
Association, Hindu Hawkers Association, Zorastrian Anjuman,
Tamil Mahajan Sabha, and the Durban Hindu Women’s Association.
IO 2/11/1914, 4/18/1914.
-
African Chronicle,
1/31/1914, 2/7/1914, 2/14/1914, 2/21/1914, 3/7/1914, 3/14/1914,
3/21/1914.
-
IO 2/11/1914, 2/18/1914;
Indian Views, July 17, 24, 31, 1914.
-
Report of the Indian Enquiry
Commission, UG 16, 1914. See also communications in the Attorney
General’s office in Pietermaritzburg, NAR AGO 1/8/146, 756/13.
Resident magistrates sent information about the progress in
various parts of Natal.
-
IO 2/11/1914, CWMG,
vol. 12, pp. 349-51.
-
IO 4/29/1914.
-
Ibid., 5/20/1914,
5/27/1914.
-
Ibid., 6/17/1914,
7/8/7/1914; CWMG, vol. 12, pp. 438-39, 448-52.
-
“Colcha” referred to “coal” or was
a corrupt form of “coolies”. Gandhi was given reception by all,
including the Dheds in Durban. Durban communities, Verulam’s
residents, Johannesburg’s citizens, among whom he found his
most precious friends, and Pretoria’s Indians. Tributes were
paid to him by, among others, the following groups: Griqualand
Indians, Durban Reception Committee, Anjuman Islam, Durban
Indian Committee, Colonial-born Indians, Natal Zoroastrian
Anjuman, Hindu Women’s Association, Mastic Society, District
Association, Mayavant Association, Shri Hindu Jigyasa Sabha,
Gujarati Hindus, Verulam Indian Community, Verulam Tamil
Community, Pretoria Indian Community, Mahomedan Community,
Vereeniging, Madras Indian Association, Port Elizabeth Indians,
Parsi Community in Johannesburg, Pietermaritzburg’s Indians,
TBIA, Tamil Mahajan Sabha, Danhauser Indians, Ventersdorp
Indians, Transvaal Mahomedans, Germsiton’s Indians, Chinese
Community TBS, IWA, and Gujarati Hindus. CWMG, vol. 12,
pp. 481-86.
-
Indian Views, 7/24/1914,
9/25/1914.
-
African Chronicle,
3/25/1914.
-
Ibid., 7/14/1914,
7/25/1914, 8/1/1914.
-
SN 5939, 9 February 1914,
Sabarmati, Ahmedabad.
-
The supporters of the resolution
were H. O. Ally, Hajee Habib, Mal, Motan, Moulvi Abdool Gafoor,
M. M. Patel, Cassim Adam, V. M. Khamissa, K. I. Patel, H. I
Moola, M. Gathoo, M. M. Dadoo, Hassim Kara, M. Saloojee, and M.
C. Anglia. It is interesting to see Anglia's name in this list
because he was based in Durban. SN 5949, Newspaper
Cuttings, March 20, 1914 and SN 5951, Newspaper Clippings, no
date, Sabarmati, Ahmedabad.
-
CWMG, vol. 12, pp. 489-93;
IO 7/22/1914, 7/29/1914.
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