esson and until the:

)fight am'ong them selves the Trans~aa1e.r~

!ad little further troubre w ~ 4r ithe tribt?smen'[6{I]. Was this, in Fdct, the
case?
Five separate expeditions were launched against Mankopane: the
first in December lS55,the second in July 1856,the third in April 1858,
the fourth in March 1863 and the fjfih in July 1868. He defied and survived each until the Trekkers, wearied wilh the effort of fighting him,
acquiesced in the independence he had always claimed. They concluded peace and displayed, in their private correspondence, a more
than healthy regard in wanting to maintain that peace[61].
Mankopane, cast as the chief villain of the piece - the man putatively responsible for 'skinning Hermanus Potgieter alive7[62]- emerges from the story of the cave siege as a fierce but exemplary African
patriotl631. He lived to the ripe old age of seventy-two and never, between the twenty-three years spanning the attacks and his death, was
he ever subjugated.
Was the Siege of Makapansgat a massacre? Perhaps. Was it a
Trekker victory? Hardly.

VSTRC
3I WAS GANDI
UTHA
- - .---- .
TN,CF
_'IREDBYhYCE, CLASS UK NAY;IV,v;
.

.-

As he himself said, he grafted Snell on E p i f yto the Bhapvadgi-

ta.

R.A. Huttenback[l]
Gandhi came to South Africa in 1893 and left in 1914. He led, during
most of the twenty-one year span, strugles against the Natal Government, the Transvaal Government and the Union Government. What
irpas[be guiding principle, the driving force behind this fight? Was it a
civil rights struggle, a case of championing the cause of the Indians,
Colc~uredsand Africans against the racist politics of an all-white administration? Was it a class strugegle in the interests of the Indian trading class or, alternatively, of the Indian labouring class? Or was it a
nntionalist struggle in the cause of India and the Indian nation?

During his South African sojourn, Gandhi never questioned the right
01the whites to rule and regulate the destiny of South Africa. In July
1909he acknowledged that the Indians recogni7cd that thewhite population 'should remain predominant in South Africaq[2].He also, perhaps in a naive way, endorsed non-miscegenation when he noted, in a
political retort, that he too was committed to race purity, but protested
that purity of race should not be the privilege of only one sector of the
community[3].
He accepted white superiority but rejected black equality. Tn February1904 he complainedto the Johannesburgmedical health officer:
'Why, of all places in Johannesburg, the Indian Location should be
chosen for dumping down all the Kaffirs of the town passes my comprehension'. He urged that the Town Council 'withdraw the Kaffirs'
and lamented that the 'mixing' was unfair and an undue tax on the Indians' patience[4]. He complained when he and fellow passive resisters were classed, while in prison, with the AfricansfS]. He was critical

'

of the whites' ignorant and - careless use oithe term 'Coolie', yet his
own use of the term Kufir was no less ignorant and no less careless.
When in March ~ Wthe
J Coloured community circulated a petition,
addressed to the King, in which they complained of not having the franchise in the Transvaat and in the Orange River Colony, he wrote, justifying the Indians non-identity with the petition: 'We consider that it
was a wise policy, on the part of the British Indians throughout South
Africa, to have kept themseIvcs apart and distinct from the other Coloured communities in this country'. He admitted that the Co-loureda
and the Indians had common grievances but their respective claims, he
insisted, hadvery little in comrnon(6J.He also protested when the Natal
Government wanted to open Durban's Higher Grade Indian School to
Coloured children[7].
In 1406 some Zulu under a minor chief, Barnbatta, smarting undcr
an increased poll tau, protested. The white NataEans designated and
then treated their discontent as a 'rebellion'. The Colonial forces wcrc
mobilized and sent out to chastise the malcontented Zulu. Gandhi,
considering he was a British subject and a Natal citizen, was moved to
demonstrate his loyalty in a practical way: he offered to organise a
stretcher-bearer corps, as he had done during the Anglo-Boer War.
But during the voluntary service the cold-steel spite of the colonial
forces, their relentless tracking down of lhcir foe and their triggerhappy readiness to kill turned his stomach. Loyalty to the Empire, however, made him hold his tongue. He admitted later that he bore the
Zulu no grudge; that they had not. after aI1, harmed the Indians. Hc
also admitted that he had doubts about the 'rebellion' itself. But he upheld his conviction that the British Empire was there to serve mankind
and that loyalty prevented him from wishing it ill. His decision was
therefore not influenced by the legitimacy or otherwise of the 'rebellion'[8J.This statement, however, was made in 1927 - two decades and
more alter the event. In 1906 his choice was less ambiguous:
What is our duty during these calamitous times in the coiony? It is
not for us to say whether thc revolt of the Kaffirs is justified or not.
We are in Natal by virtue of British power. Our very existence depends upon it. It is therefore our duty to render whatever heip we
can [9].

The division between Indian and African was, in his eyes, not antagonistic yet both precise and proper. In a 1% letter he referred to

.l],c: cvlijcnr anu srlal p u

lulllL

undoubtedly
~
I
exlst
~
between
~
~
Brit~

jch ~ndiansand the Kaifir races'[lO]. In 1W he expressed his opinion

,,! (his question cleady and succfnctIy: 'We may entertain no aversion
,+ f<ailirs, but we cannot ignore 'the fact that there is no common
u,rnuncibetween

them and us in the daily aflairs of Iife'[IlI.

Gandhi, of course, was no racist. Writing of his prison experience,
hc reflected that not being classed with the whites was to a certain extent acccptable, hut being classed with the Africans was not. On thr,
hand, being with the Africans provided an opportunity of witnessing their treatment, of experiencing their conditions and of ohservIng their habits. In this light, he concluded, 'it did not seem right to feel
b3cl about being bracketed with them'Il21.
The Chinese - a small, recently arrived community of about a thonsand - acce.pted imprisonment, burnt their certificates and were
gcncrnlIy present at crucial moments of the Gandhi-led struggle in the
Transvaal (at least, between 1% and 1908);yet Gandhi always looked
upon them as being incidental to the fight. He never allowed their participation to become completely and truly part of the passive resistance
rnovcment[l3].
In the consequence of these various positions, it would be patentIy
false to maintkn that Gandhi was the champion of the underprivilcged
and unrepresented 'non-whites'. His fight was, beyond doubt, exclu:ivciy on behalC of the Indians; but which Indians: the traders or the labourers?

The Indians Gandhi found in Natal were a divided, heterogeneous

cmxnunity. A n attempt has been made recently to describe them sociologicallyas a mish-mash of 'merchants, migrants, commercial eIite,
new elite and underc1asses7[14].The description, although helpful, is
unsatisfactory - who, for instance, made up the 'non-commercial
elite', the 'old elite' and the'overclasses'? What is essential for the PUTPose at hand is to note that:
Most of the Indians came to NataI as indentured Iabourers as new
or temporary slaves[w; whereas a minority came as fee-paying passengers. This difference of origins, though affected by time and change,
remained crucial.
Most:of the passenger Indians were traders. They came with capi-

tat and many had businesses, or were linked with businesses, in Mauritius and India.
Most of the indentured Indians came from Madras, spoke Tamil
and were Hindus; most of the passenger Indians came from Gujarat,
spoke Gujatati and were Muslims.
The ex-indentured labourers, who did not re-indenture and who did
not return to India, took up small-scde cuitivation, became fishermen,
hawkers, waiters, small traders and - if they were educated -POlicemen, teachers, court interpreters and (exceptionalIy) lawyers. But
whatever trading success they attained, commerce always remained
marginal and was, distinctly and clearly, the preserve of the passenger
1nhians.
The passenger Indians came to trade and not to settle. They had no
identification crisis; they looked upon India as their country and did
not, during the whole of Gandhi's stay in South Africa, cease to regard
it as such. The ex-indentured Indians, in their majority, came to South
Africa in the hope of starting out again - came,in brief, as settlers. By
1908 one of their spokesmen could claim that he was colonial-born and
by implication not an 'Indian'[l6].
Gandhi aIways insisted that the Indians in South Africa, though
divided by caste, language, region and religion (not to mention class
and history), were united in their common bond to India. Being an Indian himself he could hardly help being aware of the many divisions
and the few but fundamental distinctions which made one Indian differ from the other, but he insisted, over and over again, that the Indians
were one:

,-i\~i]j~cd;
and just as naturally endorsed Cecil John Rhodes' anti-democ l a t i ~formula of equal rights for all civiIjzed men. In 1895 he wrote: 'I
am confident that the Indians [and he was, of course, referring to the
passenger Indians] have no wish to see ignorant Indians who cannot
F ~ ~ ~ ibeb expected
ly
to understand the value of a vote being placed on
[he Voters' List'[l9].
In 1mS he wrote that the Asiatic question was primarily a trade
qucstion[20J.Earlier, when a handful of colonial-born Indians (the socalled 'New Elite') dared to question the unrepresentative nature of
the Natal Indian Congress, he wodd scold them, charge them with
being ungrateful and admonish them for ignoring everything that Cong e s s had done for them. Emphases in Congress, he conceded, were
on trader interests (the dissidents thought traders and trader interests
too evidently monopolised the proceedings of Congress) but this he
considered inevitabIe and just:
If he Indian traders today loom Iarge at the Congress meetings, it
is because they are the most in danger; and if they were neglected
or allowed themselves to be neglected, who wilI sufkr? Certainly
the whole Indian community; for throughout the world it is the commercial class that supplies the sinews of war and even common sense
to the community or nation to which it belongsI211.
Two years later, in 1909,during the Passive Resistance Campaign, he

emphasized once again that it was the businessmen who shouldered

thc burden of the struggle. It was their stake which was most at risk because they enjoyed 'a higher status'; it was they who most acutely felt
the disgrace of discriminationl22].
This campaign knows no distinctions of Hindus, Muslims, Parsis,
When the Anglo-Boer War broke out in October 1899, Gandhi
Christians, Bengalis, Madrasis, Gujaratis, Punjabis and others. All
seized the opportunity to demonstrate the loyalty of the Natal Indians
of us are Indians, and are fighting for India. Those who do not realby nrganising an ambulance corps. The Indians, he declared, were igize this are not servants but enemies of the motherland[l7].
norant of arms but there were other battle-field duties, no less vital,
that they could and were wilIing to perform[23].
Yet he drew a line between the indentured labourers and the other InTo demonstrate loyalty to the British Empire was c1earIy one of the
dians. The indentured Indians were not, he believed, 'free men'. ~ n d
reasons why Gandhi wanted the Indians to participate in the War. A
even when they were free they came under the provision of special
second, perhaps subordinate, but certainly revealing reason - was to
lawsll8J.He therefore accepted that the~ewas a certain logic in checkrebut white sneers and accusations that the Indians were mere moneying their movements, and that a curfew law could, in their case, be jusgatherers and rank opportunists; that they would not in the event of an
tified.
mvasion render the slightest aid and that it would be up to the whites
His bias by upbringing, tradition and culture was with the trader
to defend them. H e therefore felt it was 'a golden opportunity' for the
class. He naturally identified with those who were clean, educated and

Indians to prove that the charges were groundless[24].

Gandhi evidently had in mind the passenger-traders. The white Na.
talians did not hold the same opinion of the indentured labourers; the
planter class, at least, recopised their importance and acknowledged
the beneficial effect their coming had had on Natal's economy. Gandhi himself was aware of this, for he had declared that Natal owed 'its
present prosperity to tiie indentured Indians'[25]. The stigma of opportunism waq never Ievelled at the indentured or ex-indentured labourers; on the contrary, their presence was regarded as a military
asset against the threat of a possible Zulu attackf26j.
The Ambulance Corps was formed with about three to four hundred ex-indentured and about seven hundred indentured Indians.
From the former group came the thirty-seven that served as Gandhi's
lieutynants. According to Gandhi, they were made up of barristers, accountants, masons, carpenters and ordinary labourers. All sections of
the Indian community were represented - all except the passengertraders[27].
At Spionkop, at Vaalkranz and at Colenso the Indian Ambulance
Corps, risking life and limb, worked under heavy fire. A British general
is reported to have said: 'These Indian fellow-subjectsof ours are doing
in Natal a work which requires even more courage than that of the soldier'[B].
The aim of physical participation in the War was to rebut the charge
that the trading class Indians in Natal were cowardly and avaricious.
Participation was to demonstrate that the traders were not only loyal
British sul~jectsbut also staunch defenders of home and able resisters
of invasion. Yet none of the passenger-traders assisted under battle
conditions - none of them actually participated in the Ambulance
corps.
They did, it is true, contribute the 165 to the Durban Women's Patriotic League, entertain the wounded who were under the charge of
the Ambulance Corps (with scarce cigarettes, cigars, pipes and tobacco), and provide the cloth that Indian women volunteers handmade
into pillow cases and handkerchiefs for the wounded soldiers[29]. Thc
traders thus gave money and goods, but an ex- indentured woman who
made a living from the daily sale of fresh fruit is reported to have emptied tbe contents of her basket into a lorry transporting soldiers from
the Durban wharf, saying that it was d she could give that day[30]. In
the light of the humble woman's gesture, the traders' contribution to
the War effort was modest indeed.

1..

~ h anticipated
c
goodwill and political reward which was supposedt o accrue from the sacrifice made, in the main, by the labourers, was
tined not lor the vindication of all the Indians but for the exclusive
jication of the traders. In this respect Gandhi championed the
~ t of
s the Natal traders.
' All commentators, Gandhi included, agree that the meeting which

look place at the Empire Theatre, Fordsburg, Johannesburg on Tues,lay, 11 September 1% marked the beginning of the Passive Resist.~ncemovement[31]. Gandhi recorded that 'the business of the meeting
was conducted in Hindi or Gujarati', and that 'credit' for organi7ing it
was due to the Hamidia Islamic Society. a Johannesburg Muslim hen-.,-Icnt
society that was established in July 1906. The Hamidia Islamic
L
V U
Socicty and the British Indian Association (a body formed in 1903)
lverc dominated by the Transvaal traders. The leaders of both organisalilons were often one and the same peoplc[32]. The moving spirit of
r he meeting was not Gandhi but Hajee Habib (or Sheth Haji Habib),
whom Gandhi described as 'a very old experienced resident of South
Africa'[?3J. Habib, more significantly, was also the brother of Dada
>AIXiulla. Dada Abdulla's extensive Natal-based busincss was one of
lilt biggest Indian commercial enterprises in South AfricaI34J.flabib
led; Gandhi, with some hesitation, followed. This is evident from the
T
.
.~nglish
translation of Habib's contribution:

I solemnly declare that I will never get myself registered again and
will be the first to go to goal. (Applause) I recommend the same
course to you all. Are you all prepared to take the oath? (The Assembly stood up to a man and said, 'Yes, we will go to gaol!') Only
I>y so doing shall we succeed. We tried this method in the days of
the Boer Government also. Some 40 of our men were once arrested
for trading without licenses. I advised them to go to gaol and not
seek release on bail. Accordingly, they all remained there without
offeringbail. I immediately approached the British Agent, who approved our action and ultimately secured justice for us. Now that a
British Government is in power the time has come for us to go to
"aol, and go we wi11[35].
Gan dhi might have suggested the tactic of gaol-going[%], and he did,
at least, help draft the all-important gaol-going resolution, but the tactic of defiance, and of going to prison was - as Habib's address testifies - a manner of protest native to the Transvaal traders long before

Gandhi ever thought of the idea. So at this stage Gandhi did not lead
the Transvaal traders; the Transvaal traders led him.
The Passive Resistance Campaign 'fed on jail sentences'13J. By
January 1908 one hundred and fifty-live were incarcerated and by
March 1909, one hundred and eleven[38]. But jail sentences, though
on occasion harsh, could not compare with deportations and withholding of trading licenses. Once the Transvaal Government started applying these, the movement lost its momentum, slid into a staIemate
and reached the doldrums by early 1909[39]. But whether the movement was at a crest or in a trough, the volunteers were nearly always
from the ex-indentured community a community that in the Transvaal
was in a minority[40].
A few traders, notably Ahmed Mohammed Cachalia, a Surri
Memon, 'one of the rarest among the Mahomedans' (as Gandhi dcscribed him), understood and met the sacrifices that had been dcmanded[4lj. But the vast majority of Transvaal traders supported the
movement on the understanding that it would protect them against
legislation seeking to destroy their businesses. By October 1907 it
dawned on them that they stood a better chance of preserving their
businesses with Smuts's Acts than with Gandhi's protests[42]. Hajee
Habib, the moving spirit, the firebrand of the all-important meeting at
the Empire Theatre, temporarily and conveniently left the TransvaaI
in December 19071431.
As early as November 1907, Gandhi was condemning the Memons
- the spearhead of the Indian trading class in the country districts of
the Transvaal for having given up the fight[44]. By March 1909 he admitted that with the exception of the Tamils and a handful of Parsis, all
the other sections of the community had abandoned the stmggle[45].
By June 1909the leaders of the Transvaal traders, anxious to terminate
the crisis, forced his hand and persuaded him, in spite of his reluctance
he was convinced his time would be better spent in jail - to lead a deputation to the British Government in London146l. He and Hajee
Habib - a recent adherent to the actual struggle, for he had not himself been to prisoa[47], and the initiator of the deputation idea - sailed
for England on 21 June 1909.
The hvo-men deputation failed to obtain a meeting with Generals
Botha and Smuts, who were there finalising the impending Union of
South Africa. But they did meet with Lord AmpthilI (the former Governor of Madras), who volunteered service as a kind of shuttle diplomat. Fromhis intelligence it was clear that General Botha was unwilling

bridge; and it was also clear that even if he were, hi5 white dectorwould persuade him to think again. General Botha, Lord Ampthill
:,SSUTF~ them, was prepared to concede unspecified reforms but these
categorically excluded the repeal of the Asiatic Act and the arnendnrcnt of the Immigration Restriction Act. Stubborness on the part of
rhe Indians, the General had added, would onIy invite trouble and increase hardship for themselves.
Habib's response, which was brief and a far cry from the uncumand moving September 1% Empire Theatre address, was
revealing and unedifying:

I accept General Botha's offer on behalf of the conciliatiorl party. If

he makes these concessions, we will be satisfied for the present and
luter on shugle forprinciple. I do not like the community to suffer
rtny more. The party I represent constitutes the majority of the community, and it also holds the major portion of the community's
wealthI481.
Candhi endorsed Habib's representative claim and admitted h a t he
himself spoke on behalf of the smaller and poorer section of the community, but emphasized that they were fighting not only for practical
relief but also for principIe, and that between the two he would prefer
to give up practical relief rather than concede principle. He asked Lard
Ampthill to convey their respective responses to Botha[49].
It is apparent that the two delegates entertained, as Gandhi himself
put it, 'divergent views7[50J.The meaning of this divergence is clear:
the traders had abandoned faith in passive resistance. They left Gandhi 10 s t r u d e on with his band of faithful followers - left him, as they
saw it, to bang his head against a walI[Sl].
It is true that the traders had accepted Gandhi's leadership - and
el cn his quixotism - as long as it did not touch their pockets, but when
hc kzgan to equate poverty with saintliness, they demurred. They told
him repeatedly that truth and business were incompatible. Religion,
they had stressed, was a spirituaI matter; separate and distinct from the
Practical affairs of business. How were they to react, how could they
react when Gandhi (who obviously had them in mind) preached - like
a Prophet and advised (to their minds) like a madman:
It is not enough to live by the laws of supply and demand. . .Bigger
fish prey on smaller ones.. they know not better. But God has en-

dowed man with understanding, witb a sense ofjustice. He must fo1.

low these and not think of growing rich by devouring others - by
cheating others.. .where Mammon [an obvious thrust at his fellow
Gujaratis] is God, no one worships the true God. Wealth cannot be
reconciled with God. God lives only in the homes of the poor.. .To
teach the people to get rich at any cost is to teach them an evil lesson[52].
Gandhi has been described as 'the chief representative of the Transvaal merchants' and as 'their strategist and tactician'[53]. This was so
initiallyhut even then only superficially; for the Transvaal traders were
out to protect their businesses while Gandhi was out to protect a principle. For a time, between 1904 and 1908, their respective interests
coincided but once these began to diverge the gulf between them hecame unbreachable.
Gandhi's struggle was obviously not inspired by merchant or trader
interests. Could it then have been inspired by the interests of the labouring class and by the educated class of colonial-horns could it have
been, in brief, inspired by the interests of the indentured and ex-indentured Indians?

Gandhi, as has been seen, was impatient with the educated, mainly cnlonial-born Indians - the spokesmen of the labouring class Indians.
who protested about the
Indian Congress
preoccupied
with trader grievances. As for the labourers themselves, Gandhi did
protest about the coercive f3 tax, an impossibly onerous measure dcsigned to force the labourers either into re-indenture or into repatriation; but there is no indication that he ever visited a sugar plantation.
a tea or coffee estate, a coal mine or any of the other places that housed
and emploved Indians in large nurnbers[541.
His attitude is perham nit difficult understand. for he believed
that whilc they were an asset to Natal's economy, they nevertheless 05'
their status, their appearance, their ignorance and their poverty gave
an un.: ..tering and disparaging impression of Indian; and he had implied as much when (in 1902) he observed that in a sense, the Indians
themselves were to blame for the feeling of hatred they engendered
among the colonials; for had theybeen followed or repreientcd 'by bet-

tb

Li,-classJndians', who could be the equals of the whites in every sphere,

,hc bad blood apparent then would not have arisen, would not have
bec11 present[55].

I-lis attitude towards the labourers, however, underwent a gradual

ch:cngc: first, when Balasundaram, an indenturcd labourer called at his
home in 1594 and complained that he had been beaten and maltreated
by his white employer - the wretched labourer still bore the traces of
his iniurv: two of his front teeth were broken and his mouth was bleeding[%~; ind secondly, when he later came to know the descendants of
tlleke labourers in the Transvaal. His faithful band of followers were
nearly all Tamil. Some were or had been petty traders, hawkers, peddlers. waiters or factory workers but most, even so, had links - whether
recent or remote - with the indentured experience[57].
The turning point, however, came with the arrival in October 1912
of G.K. Gokhale - 'the most revered Indian political leader of his
day'[58]. Gokhale met Botha and Smuts and assured Gandhi that the
contentious, restrictive measures would be repealed - along with the
iniquitous U tax.
The coupling of thegrievances of the labouring Indians of NataI with
the grievances of the trading Indians of the Transvaal was a feat exclusivelv and uniquely of Gokhale's. Gandhi admitted as much: 'If
~ o k h a l ehad not come over to South Africa, if he had not seen the
Union ministers, the aboIition of the fl tax could not have been made
a plank in our platform'I591.
Why was this so? Why had Gandhi not independently thought of the
f3 t,w grievance before 1912? He did, after all, protest against it when
it was first mooted in 1894, and he
to
against it when
,vas made law in 1896. In the Transvaal his concern and his
were,, excusably, engaged elsewhere; although - even then he did refer
t o a case involving the taxin April 1906,and wrote an article forIrtdian
Opi~ti
ion (as late as 1910) titled, 'The 3 tax againY[60].Yet in his Satrusru,ha in South Africa, first published in 1925, he lamely considered
why the tax had not formed part of the struggle before Gokhale's arrival:

,,n--

When a wrong, no matter how flagrant, has continued for a long

period of time, people get habituated to it, and it becomes difficult
to rouse them to a sense of their duty to resist and no less difficult
convince the world that it is wrong at a11[61].

However, in 1905he stated that there was 'no remedy' and that the onlv
solution was reconciliation with the fact of the law[62]. Later, upon hi;
return from the first deputation to England (in 19M), he made a stop
at Verulam, an ex-indenture stronghold. The welcome committee
wanted to know if there was any prospect of the tax being repealed.
Gandhi replied that they had put up a stiff fight when the tau was imposed but that at present it was very difficult tn obtain any redress in
the matter[63]. Familiarity, habit andfait accompli were not the real
reasons why thc tax was not 'a plank in the platform' of the passive resistance campaign before 1913.Gandhi, with his lawyer's mind and with
his conviction that law was religion and religion was law, had persuaded
himself that the distinction between an indentured and an immigrant
Indian was clear and sharp: free Indian immigration was a matter of
Imperial policy; indentured labour was a matter of 'contract and bargain'[64].
The U tax had no place in the strugle before 1913 because the
problems of the indentured labourers, the ex-indentured labourers and
the tax were, as far as principle was concerned, peripheral to India's
relations with Britain. To Gandhi's way of thinking, the tax was not an
Empire issue. It only became one when it was not repealed - non-repeal was a breach of faith with Gokhde and, therefore, an insult to
India. He appealed to the Indian miners of Newcastle to come out on
strike not because they had been abused and exploited (he had admitted that he had no quarrel with the rnine-owners) but because
India's honour had been put at stake. H e told a group of strikers, during one stage of the march, that they had come out 'not as indentured
labourers but as servants of India'[65].
Pay and conditions were not Gandhi's concern; the inspiration behind his struggle, whatever it might have been, was not a pro-labour
one.

re guilt, it acted on the opposite principle: the innocent manywere

,n;,,jc to suffer for the guilty few[&]. Besides, the Act was tantamount
,,, pass law; it carried a proviso for finger prints.
~ h registration
c
issue came to be embodied in the Immigration Retion Act of 1907. Opposition to this law was the generator of GandPassive Resistance or, as h e preferred to call it, 'Satyagraha'
rally, soul force) movement. From 1906 to 1914 Gandhi contested
a ,.-mber of different laws; but whether the law coerced the Indians
into finger-print registrations, prevented them from entering the
~ransvaalor denied them trading rights, he doggedly and consistently
opposed these laws because they violated the principle of equality betkicen white and brown Britislt.
In the aftermath of the Indian Sepoy Revolt of 1857 (the 'Indian
Mutiny' of British history), Queen Victoria made a policy statement
(hat came to constitute the Proclamation of 18.58; where, in part, she
declared:

,
*

V e hold ourselves bound to the natives of our Indian territories by

le same obligations of duty which bind us to all our other subjects,
nd these obligations, by the blessing of Almighty God, we shall
~ithfullyand conscientiously fuifil.
And it is our further will that, so far as may be, our subjects, of whatever race or creed, be freely and impartially admitted to offices in
our service, the duties of which they may be qualified by their eduation, ability, and integrity, duly to discharge.
7 their prosperitywill be our strength; in their contentment our seurity; and in their gratitude, our best reward[61.

Gan dhi's trust in this declaration, which he called 'the Magna Charta
of ttte Indians', and his faith in the British Empire ('Hardly ever have I
kn A n anybody to cherish such loyalty as I did lo the British Consti-tution') remained fast and fmed until 1919; that is, a full four years after
he had left South Africa[@]. In a 1908 speech he declared, 'The British Constitution taught us, it taught me when yet a child that every British 5iubject was to be treated on a footing of equality in the eye of the
law ~ 9 1 .
Flis years of study in England (1887-1891) reinforced his childhood
-victions. England was to him the centre of civilisation, the land of
ts, philosophers, intellectuals and statesmen - the land whose Emwas benevolent, altruistic, impartial and wlour-blind. These con01

A proposed law (the Draft Asiatic Law Amendment Ordinance) in

August 1906set out to control the residence of Indian men, women and
children by enforced registration on the assumption that every Transvaal Indian was guilty of having entered the Province illegally. To
Gandhi's mind, such procedure and practice were totally alien to
British justice, for instead of working on the assumption of innocence

victions, firmly held and sincerel; cherished, came under an unex

pected and severe buffeting in Natal; for here he was thrown out of a
train and forced to spend a night shivering in the waiting room of a for.
lorn and forsaken station. The experience, he once admitted, was the
most creative in his life[70]. The physical attack on his person, the rank
disregard for his constitutuion so unexpected, jolted his convictionr
To appreciate why this was so, one must understand that to his mint
Britishjustice, Brilish beneficence and British altruism were axiomatic
truths that put India's relations with Britain beyond wntention[71],
Now, for the first time, the connection between India and Britain wac
brutally spurned and ridiculed. The dim realization that the presence
of the British in India was a matter more of might than of right unbalanced him, scattered his convictions and sent him reeling morally.
The befriending of whites: JJ. Doke, H.S.L. Polak, A. Cartwright,
H. Kitchin and A. West (English-born for the most part) reassured him
and restored his faith. His belief in the Empire held. The Natal whites
were ignorant, he would inform them what 'true imperialism' meant;
he would make them realize that 'coloured British subjects' were entitled 'to be treated the same as the other British subjects'[72]. Thus
when in Durban he organised a wreath-laying ceremony to mark the
death of Queen Victoria (Febnlary 1901), he mentioned the Proclamation of 1858[73]. Later, he issued a souvenir brochure that had a picture of the late Empress and, alongside It, a caption bearing the
all-important section of the Proclamation[74].
An editorial of V i e Natal Mercury (18 January 1897), notwithstanding its recognition of the Proclamation's authenticity, dismissed it as a
futile attempt to get the Indians accepted in South Africa. It stressed
that there was a strong and deeply-rooted prejudice against the Indians, a hostility to their entry into the country and a repugnance
against their customs and way of life. It concluded: 'They may be British subjects bylaw, but they are aliens by what is stronger than law, viz.,
racial traditions and instincts'[7_sl.
Gandhi was fully aware of this argument. In his first-ever publication, a pamphlet entitIed 771eIndian fru~tchise:An appeal to evey Britot2 in Soutlr Afiica (1895), he pleaded:
Although the 'British subject' idea has been rejected by the Press as
a craze and fad, I have to fall back upon that idea. Without it.. .the
Indian would have been an impossibility in Natal . . . I, therefore,
appeal to every Briton in South Africa not to lightly dismiss the

ject' idea from his mind. The Proclamation of 1858was

F ~ G~ajesty's
T
act. . done, not arbitrarily, but according to the ad-

,ice of Her then advisers, in whom the voters, by their votes, had
,cpnsed their full trust. India belong to England and England doer
-7t wish to lose her hold of India. Every act done by a Briton tolrds an Indian cannot but have some effect in moulding the final
lations between Britons and Indians[76].
t c he abandoned reference to the Proclamation,realising that not

ordinary white South Africans but also responsible politicians

:d rhe view of 7?1eNatal Mercury editorial. Later, when Natal and
[he Transvaal became part of the Union OF South Africa, he would do
Ilrtttle not for the recognition of the Proclamation but for the ideal and
ihe spirit it embodied - for what he called 'the beautiful vision' of the
Eritish Constitution[77]. And it is because of this attachment to the
idcal of a colour-blind Empire that he chose to contest the Immigration Act of 1907. He wanted Act 2 of 1907 to be repealed and the Immigration Act to be amended. And he appealcd: let the amendment
allow any cultured Asiatic immigrant to entcr the Colony on equal
[crms with Europeans, and allow (by wav of an education test) no more
than six a year to enter the Colony and the 'British Indians will be satid-1cd'[78]:
The statutory six cultured Indians he sought admission for mystified
friend and foe alike. Gokhale thought it was 'largely 1heoretical'[791.
Lord Ampthdl thought it 'quixotic7[80]. W.P. Schreiner, who lent
Gandhi a patient ear, thought that providing for the entry of s k educstcd Indians, as a special favour, ought not to be an obstacle - an
opinion with which Smuts concurred[SI]. A recent historian, in comrormity with many of Gandhi's contemporaries, also judged his demand in this respect 'politically foolishYlX2].
Patrick Duncan, the first Governor-General of South Africa, was,
~L~~~ver, more perspicacious:

The position of the Indian leaders is that they will tolerate no law
which does not put them on an equality with Europeans in regard
t-o restriction on imrnigation . ..They insist on equality in the terms
of law itself. It is true that this claim is not always put forward in SO
many words. It generally appears in the demand for admission of a
small number of educated Indians. It is agreed - and the argument
deserves consideration that a community such as the Asiatic com-

munity of the TsansvaaE requires the services and the moral in.
fluence of a certain number of educated men. It is on this argument
that Mr. Gandhi appeals for sympathy to the European communitv
here and to the people of England. But behind it is the claim which
he has never given up nor abated that tlrere n~iutbe notlzing i t 1 the
law wlziclz imposes on the immigration ofAsiatics reshiclions which
are not imposed on Europeans[83].
Gandhi was aware of Duncan's views and he acknowledged, while specifically referring to the article that contained the passage just cited,
that Duncan had 'truly analysed the struggle't841. Gandhi, of course,
had no intention of 'flooding' the white-dominated parts of the British
Empire with British Asiatics, what he wanted to safeguard was not the
principle of Indian immigration as such, but the principle of Empire
equality. This to him was neither quixotic nor foolish but quintessential; for he made an important, though subtle, distinction between theory and practice: 'theory should be sound, though one may fail to carry
it out in practice'. Safeguarding theory was obeying the law of higher
nature; departing from it in practice was giving in to the temptation OF
base human natuseI851. However negative a practice may be, it shouId
never, he protested, be enshrined in law.
To Gandhi, allowing in theory an educated brown Briton to enter
South Africa like a white Briton put India's relations with Britain on a
par, ensured reciprocily and engendered mutual respect[86J.It is with
this ideal in mind thal he wrote: 'We are not fighting on behalf of the
educated or the highly educated but for India's honour'[87].
Preserving 'India's honour' meant, in one sense, that his view of the
Empire and the status of India's part in that Empire stood fast; and this
preservation was paramount because he sincerely and ardently believed that the meeting of Englishmen and Indians was providential:
an advantage not only lor themselves but also for mankind[@].
It is difficult to understand the motives of Gandhi's actions in South
Africa without taking into account the development of Indian nationalism in India. To cover the subject adequately would, of course, be inappropriate here, but it suffices to note that some of the principal
events between 1885, when the Indian National Congress held its
first meeting, and 1914, when the First World War broke out, coincide
remarkably with the rise of Gandhi En South Africa. In 1891 TiEak, a
'left nationalist' in opposition to the more moderate 'Iiberal nationalists' like GokhaIe, openly opposed the British authorities and accuscd

attacking Hinduism because they tried to interfere with the

,m of child marriages; in 1892 Congress, for the first time,

$ilicised representation through nomination; in 1895Tilak revived the

rcstjval of Shivaji, the hero and liberator of Maharashtra from the Mop]~
in ;1897 a British health officer was assassinated; in 1N.5the par1 of Bengal sparked off country-wide revolts, set in train the
,nuwide singing of Bmlde MaPamm (Hail Mother) - the Indian
eeiilaise - and transformed a sedate, elitist nationalist movement
lnL" a fiery, popular and country-wide unrest; in 1906 the Swadeshi
@oycott) movement was launched; in 1907 the Seditious Meeting Act
was passed, and there was an open split between the 'left' and 'liberal'
wings of the nationalist movement; in 1908 Tilak (the most important
nationaIist leader since 1906) was arrested and sent to prison for six
years, workers in a Bombay textile mill went on strike in protest and a
bomb was thrown at a British District judge; in 1909Curzon Wyllie, a
member of India House, was assassinated in London; in 1910 the Indian Press Act, which gamed the nationalist newspapers, was passed;
and in 1911 the Morley-Minto Reforms overturned the Bengal partition [S9].
Gandhi's thoughts and writing, while he was involved in South Africa, were never divorced from India; so that in 1909, while he was stiIl
enmeshed in the politics of the TransvaaI and still weighed down by the
dwindling passive resistance campaign, he wrote (on his return voyage
from England) a pamphlet titled Hind Swamj, which was later to constitute his credo, setting forth how and why Indian independence must
eschew violence and embrace 'satyagraha'[90]. The Transvaal struggle,
India and the British Empire were separate entities but never, to Gandhi's heart and mind, autonomous. As he said: 'The s t r u ~ l was
e not on
behalf of a handful of Indian residents in the Transvaal. It was on behalf of the whole of India. Indeed an behalf of the whole Empire'f911.
Transvaal anti-Indian legislation drew a sharp distinction between
brown and white British subjects. The Acts denied the moral contract
of India's association with Britain; a denial that undermined the very
basis of Gandhi's perception of that partnership. This explains the
high-toned and impassioned way he opposed these Acts:
The doctrine laid down by the Transvaal Government, and assented
to by the Imperial Government cuts at the foundation of the Empire
. . . If the doctrine. . .be true, the people of India cease to be partners in the Empire, and it is in order to resist this dangerous, immo-

ral and pestilent doctrine that we in the Transvaal are fightingI921.

Here was the true inspiration and the real spur of the struggle as Gand.
hi saw it in November 1909.And true and real it remained until the very
end. The report of his farewell speech in July 1914 (the month he left
South Africa for the filth and last time) noted:

;\ hb

1 1 3 E.A.
~
Walker (d.),
Camhndge h i s f n ofthe
~
British Emy'm, vol VITI, South Africa
( ~ , ,cd.
i Cmtrridge,

1963).

c,,V T / urise of South Afrira (bndon, 191h1930, repr. Cape Town, 1 %S), 5 vola.
"S .IS, I Dictionary ofSr~uth@ran h;ogrph., vol I. ed by WJ. & Kock ( C a p Town,

Behind that struggle for concrete rights lay the p e a t spirit which
asked for an abstract principle, and the fight which was undertaken
in 1906, although it was a fight against a particuiar law, was a fight
undertaken in order to cornhat the spirit that. . .was about. . . to
undermine the glorious British Constitution.
The choice, it went on to point out, was between 'two courses': either
he and his compatriots break with the British Empire or they fight to
preserve the ideal of the Constitution[93].
Gandhi's attachment to India was pious, his adherence to its nationalism was mystical and his commitment to itsimage as'motherland'
was devout. ? think of my love for the Motherland', he admitted, 'as an
aspect of my religion'[94]. T o him, serving India was equivalent to sening God. And since, as he often said, 'truth is God, or God is nothing
but truth'[951, fighting the good fight for India was equivalent to fighting the good fight for 'truth'. The fight that Gandhi led in South Af'rica was not a race or class strugle (nor even an individual or personal
struggle) but a national struggle - a struggle on behalf of truth, God
and India.

!Of+).

Dictiona!y $South m r a n hiograpb, vol

py&R,
gcr (CapeTow- 1972).

ed. by W.J. & Kock and D.W.

DSM,1U Dirfionary s$Sou#hAfiicon biagmphy, vot Ill, cd. by D.W.Krugcr and CJ. Bc,
E (
CavTown, 197).

DSAR, IV Dirtinmry of South Afnran hio~raphy.vol W.ed. by C.J. Reyers (Cape T o m

19s I ).

5W Tears C.F.J. Muller (ed.), Five hrr ndred year.7: A /isfor)-of Sordh Africa (2nd rev. ed.
Pretnna, 1975).
1Ii.toq G.M. Theal, Histoff cfSouth Africa. I 1 vols (London, 1888- 19 19, rep. Cape Town,
~!WJ.

CHAP?ER EIGHT

1. Gandhi in Smlk W c a : British imperialism and the Indian question, (Ithaca and Lon.
don.. 197 1 ,.
). 177.
2. Collected waorks of Mahatma Gandhi. I-XU (New Dclhi, 1858- I W ) , (hereafter refto as CTV), 'Statement of the Tramvaal Indian ca$e', 16 July 1906, IX,2%. Zle also sai4
'We certainly appreciate the sentiment that the country being suitable for European scule.
mcnl it should be kept for them so far 2s it is consistent with the %I!-being of thc Empire
as a whole'. 'With what measure', Indian Opinion. I I June 1903, CW. EI,337.
Indian Opinion, 24 September 1903, CW,Q
3. 'The labour question in thc Tr-vaal',
453.
4. 'Letter to Dr Porter', Indian Opinion, 9 April 1904, CW,TV, 1M)-I.
5. 'My experience in gaol[- I J', Indian Opinion, 7 March 1908, CW,VIII. 135.
6. 'The Coloured People's petition'. Indian Opinion, 24 March 1%. CW,V, 24 1-2.
7. 'Letter to Ministrr of Education', 5 September 1905, Indian Opinion, CW, V,
58-9.
8. M.K. Gandhi, An autobiography or my experiments with truth, (Ahmedabad 1927, mprinted. 1972). 235.
9. 'The Natal rebellion' Indian Opinion, 14 April 1906, CW, V, 282.
10. Letter to W.T. Stead 16 Novcmber 1906. CW, VI. 168.
11. 'My wcond e x ~ r i e n c eIn goal[-III]', CW. D(. 149: see also 'The fwt-path bye-law',
Indian Opinion, IV, 105 and 'Letter to W.T. Stead', V1, 168.
17. 'My experience in gaol[-I]', Indian Opinion, 7 March 1908, CW,VIII, 135.
13. Maureen Swan. Gandhi: The South African experience (Johannesburg. 1985),
137-8.
14. Maurcen Swan, Gandhi. chapter or=, 'Merchant? and migrants: social stratitication a d
politics', 1-37. Rut d ~ author
e
(in 'Ideology in organised Indian politics, 1891- 1948' in, The
olitics of race, class und Nationalism in twentieth rentrrry Sortth Africa. 182-204) rndifies
some of these categories and introduces furthcrdistinctions when she refers to 'lowermiddle
classes', 'emerging elite', 'big traders', 'petty traders' and 'the white-collar/pctiy-trader
elite' - the=, it seems. reveal theextreme fluidity andchallenge, not to say the incmsistcncies, of such sociological clratificatianr u definitions.
15. See Ii. Tinker, A new system of sfmwry (London, 1974).
16. See Maureen Swan, Gmdbi. 17. Later, when thc Transvaaf Gavcmment deported some
of these ex-indentured Indians because of h i t pawive rtsicfam, Gandhi would ask their
wives and children if they wanted to join their husbands and fathers in India ?heir indignant reply was: 'Ifow can we? We were brought to this country as children, and we do not ,
know anybody in India. We would rather perish here than go toIndia, which is aforeign land
o us.' 'letlor to G.K. Gokhale', CW,X. 232.
17. 'To Satyagrahis and other Indians', 13 October 1904 Indian Opinion, 17 October 198,
cw,IX,97.
in South Afrca, (Ahmedabad, 1928, reprint ad. 1972). 93 and
18. M.K. G a n d ~ iSaryograhn
,
22.
19. 'The Indian franchise'. I(< Decenther J895, CW, 1, 2734; see also 'Lord M i l r ~ on
r the
i a t i c question', l?zdianOpinion, l l June 1903, CU',111, 336.
20. 'Interview to The Trann~mlLeader', 21, 21 August 1908, Indian Opinion, 22 August
1908. CW,VUI, 468.
2 I . 'A mare's I K S ~ ' ,Indian Opinion, 26 January 1907, CW,VI,290- 1.
2. "k
Transvaal struggle', Indian Opinion, 2 Fcbruary 1909, CW,IX,184.
3. 'Thelndian offer' 19 October 1899, CW, 111, 1 13-4.

24. Gandhi, Sutyngraha in South Africa, 65.

25. 'petition to Chamberlain', 31 December 1898, CTY.m,27.

N, 'In 1865 a thousand muskets were odered from England to be s t d ready for issue to
coolies in an emergency.' L.M. Thompson. 'Indian inlmiptiom into Natal, 1860-1872'.
~,&ves v d r hrrnk ofSotdh +can
history (Cape Town 1952). II, 35.
27. .Thee was hardly any traders in the Corps.' Gandhi, Satyagrak in Souh m a .
70.
28. See 'the lndian ambulance cwp. in Natal', 14 March 1900, CW,Ill, 137.
79. Ihid. 140.
-.
30. Ihid. 141.
3 1. Saqagraha in.SouthAf.rira, 95: G. Bolton. The trugedy o f G o d h i . (London, 1934). 115;
~aatienhack.Gandhi in Sorttlr Afrra. 166. B. Pillay. British Indians in the Trann*aal(Low
don, 1976).'213; and L. ~ischei,The life of Gandh; (New York, 1950). 73-6.
-32.
- Maureen Swan, G a d h i . 120- 1.
33. Saryagmlra in South Afn'ra, 95.
34. Maureen Tayal, 'Indian passive resistance in the Transvaal 1906-08', in B. Bozzoli (ed.).
Town a d rountryside in the T r a r w ~(Johannesburg,
l
1983), 243.
35. 'Johannesburg letter', Indian Opinion, 22 September 1W6, CW,V,442.
36. As early as 1904, according to Maureen Swan, Gandhi, 117.
37. Fi.wher. The life of Gandhi. 86.
38. Ibid, 7% and Huttenback, Gandhi in South Africa, 204.
39. B. Pacha, 'The history of the "Indian Opinion", 1903-1914', The archives year hook of
South Ajiiran history (Cape Town, 1961). 49-50.
40. Maurun Swan, Gandhi, 170-1.
41. ' L e ~ r t o L . W . E k h ' , 8 A p r i l 1911.CW,XI. 16.
42. Sae Mmreen Tayal, 'Indian passive resistance in the Transvaal', 250.
43. Maureen Swan, Gandhi, 161.
44. 'Johanmburg letter', Indian Opinion, 2 February 1907, CV',VU, 328.
45. 'Mess= - to Tamil brethren', 25 February 1%)9,Indian Opinion, 6 March 1909, CW,
DL 199.
46. 'Letter to Transvaal Indians', 21 June 1909, Indian Opinion, 26 June 1909, CW, M,

..---

2-59-60.

47. M a u m n Tayal observes (in 'Indian passive resistance in tie Transvaal', 261) that
IIahib's 'lightening switch from conciliation to resister had ,secured him a nomination as
delegate'. Gandhi's comment on Habib's 'switch' is generous as well a? telling: 'it was a
mawr of regrct for many Indians that Mr Hajee Ilabib, who had served the comnlunity over
many yeam, had shown himselfweak. Now that he is if1full form again, the community feels
happy'. 'Deputation'. Indian Opinion, 19 June 1909. CW,IX, 2.57.
41). Sa@agraha in South Africa, 209 (emphasis addcd).
49. Ihid, 2 10.
50. Ibid, 21 I.
51. rhid, m.
5 2 'Sarvodaya[-Vm]', Indian Opinion, 4 July 1908. CW. VIII, 337-39.
53. Marmcn Swan, Gandhi. 178 and 108.
54. [hid, 1 14.
217.
55. 'Spcah at Calcutta meeting'. 19 January 1902,
56- See CW,I, 360; and AtrfohiograpI~~v,
I 1 4.
57. See Frene Ginwala, 'Class. cormciomness and control: Indian South Africans 18W
I % ' , PhD. thesis, Oxford. 1974. 1534.
58- Huttenback, G d t i in South Afiiro, 3 0 .

m,m,

59. Saqagraha in Soufhqfricu, 246. h is suggested that Ganr&i suddenly in 191I: that i?
before the coming oiGokhale, bccarne conscious of the f 3 Tax being 'the marit pmxsingof
South African Indians' problems' (Maureen Swan, Gandhi, 215). but the evidence for {hia .
contention is - if not mi.splaced - rather tenuous.
60. ' l i e indenture tax'. Indian Opinion, 7 April 1906, CW, V,257-9. C7):X.
6 1. Saiyagraha in S o ~ r Africa,
h
246.
62. 'Indentured Indians', Indian Opinion, 22 April 1905, CW,IV,417.
63. 'Reply to welcome addre%.at Verulam', 29 January I W , I n d i m Opinion, 5 January
1907, CW,W, 261.
64. 'An hqiatic policy', Indian Opinion, 19 May 1906, CW, V, 3 18. This was a reply to a
series of articles in the Rand Dai1,vMaiI by L.E. Neame, which was later expanded and pub
lished as The Asiafir danger in the c01onie.v (london, 1907).
65. 'The last satyagraha campaign: my expcrience', Golden number, Indian Opinion, 1914,
CW, X I , 5 12- 13.
66. '1,ord Ampthill'. Indian Opinion, 29 June 1907. CIV. VII. 62-3.
67. 'The Roclamation of IR58', I d i o n Opinim, 9 Juty 1903, CR'.
358. It should be
noted tha this adherence to the British Empire principle was not unique toGarwthi. Without
imprudence it would k fair to state that every nationalist in every British colony d h e d to
the same principle with the same degrcc of conviction. See. for example, tllc case of &
Kirnberley African elitc (conlemporarics of Gandhi) in B. Willan,'An African in K i n k r ley: Sol 'I: Plaatje. 1894- 1898' in Sltula Marks and R. Rathbone (4s.). lndruttidi.wli~n~nri
social change in Soulh Africa (London. 1982). 241-42.
128; and 14uttenback. Gandhi in Sor~tlrAfnca. 82.
68. Autobio~raph.~,
69. 'Speecll at m a s meeting', 23 August 1908, Indian Opinion, 29 August and 12 September 1908. CR: VQ 475.
70. Fixher. Thr [if4 ofMaha1ma GandIu, 4 1.
7 1. 'Thc Empire haq k e n built up a? it is on a foundation of justice a d equity. It ha- earned
a world-wide reputation for its anxiety ;vld ability to protect the weak against the strong. It
is the acts of peace and mercy. rather than those of war, that have made it what it is'. 'Tk
anti-Asiatic convention and the British Indian meeting'. Indian Opinion, 26 Novemkr 1904.
CR', rV,302.
it must also hE borne in mind that at the turn of the century two Indians: Dadabhai Naom
ji and Sir Manche j e e Bhownaggree. were able to win, and occupy seats in the British Parliament. See Huttenback, Gandhi in South Africa, VIU,
72. 'True imperialisnl', Indian Opinion, 2 July 1903, CW, In, 355. See also'lndia and Natal'.
'The Voice of India', 3 1 May 1902, CW, U1.252, wherc he s h k s : 'There can bz no true imperialism unless we have oneness, harmony and toleration among all classes of British sub
jecb'.
73. 'Tribute to Queen Victoria', The NalalAd~*er!iser,2 February 1901, CW,nI, 175.
74. See the illustration oppositc 184, in CU', 1U.
75. Quoted in 'Ihe tnemorial to Mr Chamberlain'. 6 April 1897. CW, 11, 282.
76. 'The Indian franchise', CW, I, 280.
77. 'Ihe second reading*,Indian Opinion, 17 May 1913, CW, XI, 72. Plaatjc in South hfrica. in 1917. referred to ttc 'wonderful serse of British justice'. See B. Willian~~olPlc&:
932. 2 13.
South Afncan n a t i o ~ l i s 1876-1
t
78. 'lxtter to J.C. Gibson', 6 January 1910, Indian Opinion, 10 Dccembcr 1910, CR'. X.
119.
79. 'Gokhale's speech in Bombay', 14 December 1912, Indian Opinion, 25 January and
February 1913, CIV. XI, 586.
80. Letter to Gandhi, l l September 1909, CW, IX,588.

m.

81. GarIdhi, in mfemng to Schmincr's offer, noted that though the Cape Politician was honet

~
to realiw - bcrauw he was convinced that
in hiIS opinions, he nevertklcs~w a unablc
ans were an inferior people - that it was insulting to allow six Miam to e n k r a5 a
ffmour. 'Deputation notcsf-m]', lndion Opinion, 18 September 1W. CW, DL.

urecn Swan, Gondhi, 109.

83. P.Ihncan, 'The Asiatic question in the Transvaal', The Slots. vol. 2, Eebruary 1'939,
171-2(e :mpharis added).
84. S Fech at farewell banquet, 14 July 1914, Ca:XII: see also 'Duncan's, views', I d a n
Opinion,, 13 February 1909. CW,IX,189-90.
Ihe second reading'. CW,XU, 72.
lee Frem G i n w a l ~'Claw, conxiousm.rs and control'. 146.
Deputation notes[-XI'. Indian Opinion. 2 October 1909. CW,IX.385.
poech at Y.M.CA., 18 May 1908,lndiun Opinion, 6 Jun: 1908, CW, VUI, 246.
'--details of the period and the events mcntioncd are ably provided by Py-arelal. M a 1(Y lnc
hama C;andhi, I, (Ahmedabad, 1965), 111- 170: and by A.R Desai, Social background of
Indian nlaliowlism (Bornhay, 1948, reprinted. 1966), 307-380.
90. See CW,X. 6-68. His other articlcs (before and after Hind Swara~)den~onstratinghis
for what was happening in India are too frequent and too marly to enumerate here
but tfle following arc representative: 'Indian National Congress and Russian Zemstovs a
C""'P arison'. Indian Opinion, 14 January 1905, CW,IV. 336-38: 'The heroic song of Bengal'. 1'ndianOpinion, 2 Decembcr 1905, C W , V, 156: 'India for Indians'. I d i n n Opinion, 18
AUVII
C W , V,396-7: 'Unrest in India'. Indian Opinion. t June 1907, CR: VII, 6-7:
. .. st 1%.
'Turnloil in India', Indian Opinion, 9 May INS: CW, VIIZ 2234; 'Preface to Indian Home
Rule' ,Indim Opinion, 2 April 1910, CW,X,382; and 'Hind Swaraj', Indian Opinion, 29
April 1914. CR; XI, 411-12.
91. S rrcfch at Johannesburg mass rnecting. 5 Decenlber 1909, Indian Opinion. I1 Deccrnber 14'
>,CW.X, 91. See also B.S. Cohn, 'Representing authority in Victurian India', in E.
Hohha-w m and T. Ranger (cds.), The invenrion of tradition (London, 1983). 209:
where he notes: 'The British idiom wa* effective in that it set the terms of discourse of the
national kt movement in its beginning phaws. h effect. dte ewly nationalisk were claiming
that tlx y =re more loyal to the hue goals of che Indian Empire than were their English ru-

...

0-

len'.

92. L
to the Indian press. 12 Novcnibcr 1909, CU: IX,538-9. Perhaps thc clcarest
=npre=ion of this idea hy Gandhi is to be found in the speech he made in London on 1'2
Novcrnlxr IYO9. 'He must pause and zsk hin~,selfwhat was he meaning of the British
Constit L tio on. Did it not confer equality upon the different membeo of tlx: Empire
compriscd in the British Con$titution? He could understand that. Ile could consent to
remain ;asubject of an Empire baxed upon this principle, but, in the light of hisex:,he must declare it waq utterly impossible for him to give his allegiance to an
in which t~ waq not to be h a t e d , even in fheory. as an equal of any other
of that Empire. If he way to be treated as an inferior. then lie would never
> a position of equaIity. I-Ie might bc contcnt to be a member of an Empire in
e participated to the extent even of one per cent share, but if he was to bc merely
rhen tlle Empire had absolutely no rrleanil~gfor him. lhe k n n British srhjerr
nvrr: meaningless to him, and it was this effect of that lyjslation that l r would
rnptcss upon tta meeting, and which they had k n feeling for the last throe
liis legislation of the Colony of the Transvaal was cutting at the root of the British
and in resisting tlx: doctrine iniplied by such legislation, they had been rendering
c not only to British India but to the British Empirc'. 'Spoech at farewell meeting'.

Indian Opinion. 1 I December 1909. CW.IX,542.

But Gokhale had aLra p r c m w e d similarly in 1894 when he said, in relation to a p& of
discriminatory legislation pan& by tlle British in India: 'The pledgm of equal b e a h ,
which England had given sapplied us with a high and worthy ideal for our nation. and
the= pledges are rcpudiatd, m e of tlle strongest claims of British rule to our attachmcnt
will disappear'. Quoted by Pyarelal, Mahamto Gandlii,.I 115.
93. Speech at fanwell banqmf 14 July 1914, CW,XII, 476.
94. 'My second experience in gaol[-V]', Indian Opinion, 30 January 1909, CW, D1. 179.
95. 'Triumph of truth', Indian Opinion, 8 February 1908, CW,VIII, 61.

f;