Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India

by Joseph Lelyveld

  1928 Back in politics, supports call for declaration of independence if self-government is not granted within a year.

  1929 Drafts Congress resolution for “complete independence.”

  1930 Launches nationwide campaign with Salt March, Ahmedabad to Dandi on the Arabian Sea. Jailed without trial as strikes spread nationwide.

  1931 Released after eight months, negotiates with viceroy, Lord Irwin. Sails for England, final trip out of India, to attend Round Table Conference to chart India’s constitutional future; no accord reached on special voting rights for untouchables, Muslims. Calls on Mussolini in Rome.

  1932 Arrested shortly after return to Bombay in response to his call for renewed satyagraha campaign. “Fast unto death” in Yeravda prison forces British and untouchable leader B. R. Ambedkar to relent on plan for separate electorates for untouchable representatives. Simultaneously calls for swift end to discriminatory practices. For a brief time, India seems to heed call.

  1933 Still at Yeravda, fasts again for twenty-one days over treatment of untouchables. Released and rearrested, released again after year’s second fast.

  1934 Barnstorms across India against untouchability, calling on caste Hindus to open all temples. Target of a bomb, first attempt on life, and demonstrations by orthodox Hindus. Resigns from Congress with the express aim of devoting himself to rural development, especially on behalf of untouchables whom he seeks to rename, calling them Harijans (children of God).

  1936 Settles at Sevagram, near Wardha, in impoverished area in center of country. New ashram rises there.

  1939 Writes letter to Hitler, never delivered.

  1942 Launches “Quit India” movement, demanding immediate self-rule in return for support of war effort. Arrested and imprisoned in Aga Khan Palace near Poona.

  1944 Wife, Kasturba, dies in detention at Aga Khan Palace. Suffering from high blood pressure, Gandhi is released ten weeks later on health grounds. Begins talks with Mohammed Ali Jinnah, leader of the Muslim League. Talks break down after eighteen days.

  1946 Participates in constitutional talks. Attempt made to derail train carrying him to Poona. Responding to eruption of mutual slaughter by Hindus and Muslims in Bengal, rushes to Muslim-majority area called Noakhali to plead for harmony, head off partition. Stays there four months, eventually trekking barefoot from village to village for eight weeks.

  1947 Visits riot-torn areas of Bihar where thousands of Muslims have been killed. Speaks against partition but doesn’t oppose Congress resolution in its favor. Shuns independence celebration, fasts in Calcutta for end to violence.

  1948 Fasts in New Delhi against expulsion and killing of Muslims. Violence ebbs, but two days after he ends fast, a bomb is thrown in the garden of Birla House, where he stays and holds nightly prayer meetings. Ten days later, on January 30, he’s shot to death by a Hindu extremist while walking briskly to prayer meeting.

  NOTES

  EPIGRAPHS

  1 “I do not know”: Gandhi to his son Harilal, Oct. 31, 1918, in Mahadev Desai, Day-to-Day with Gandhi, vol. 1, p. 260.

  2 “I deny being a visionary”: Mahadev Desai, Day-to-Day with Gandhi, vol. 2, p. 201.

  3 “I am not a quick despairer”: Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (hereafter CWMG), vol. 23, p. 4.

  4 “For men like me”: Gandhi to Nirmal Kumar Bose, cited in Parekh, Colonialism, Tradition, and Reform, p. 272.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  1 “have been trying all my life”: Pyarelal, Epic Fast, p. 323.

  2 “innumerable trunks”: CWMG, vol. 52, p. 399, cited in Brown, Gandhi and Civil Disobedience, p. 316.

  3 “He increasingly ceased”: Brown, Nehru, p. 106.

  4 “the starving toiling millions”: M. K. Gandhi, Village Swaraj, p. 4.

  5 “the emancipation”: Ibid., p. 6.

  CHAPTER 1: PROLOGUE: AN UNWELCOME VISITOR

  1 twenty-three-year-old law clerk: Gandhi had already qualified as a barrister in India, but saying he came to South Africa as a law clerk accurately describes his role in the case for which he was retained, as he himself later acknowledged: “When I went to South Africa I went only as a law clerk,” he said in 1937. CWMG, vol. 60, p. 101.

  2 “Just as it is a mark”: Meer, South African Gandhi, p. 121.

  3 “eternal negative”: Erikson, Gandhi’s Truth, p. 158.

  4 The Gandhi who landed: Tinker, Ordeal of Love, p. 151.

  5 “I believe in walking alone”: Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: Last Phase, vol. 1, p. 495.

  6 transgressing on the pavement: If this actually happened. T. K. Mahadevan suggests that the Indian who was pushed off the footpath may have been one C. M. Pillay, who wrote a letter to a newspaper describing an incident almost exactly like the one of which Gandhi complained. Mahadevan raises the suspicion that Gandhi read the letter and simply appropriated the experience. See Mahadevan, Year of the Phoenix, p. 25.

  7 However, according to the scholar: Hunt, Gandhi and the Nonconformists, p. 40.

  8 “I was tremendously attracted”: From an archival interview with Millie Polak broadcast by the BBC on May 7, 2004.

  9 It’s a theme Gandhi: Nayar, Mahatma Gandhi’s Last Imprisonment, p. 298.

  10 “Agent for the Esoteric”: CWMG, vol. 1, p. 141.

  11 The word “coolie,” after all: Henry Yule and A. C. Burnell, Hobson-Jobson (London, reprint, 1985), p. 249. The Oxford English Dictionary accepts this derivation, suggesting the term may have been carried to China from Gujarat in the sixteenth century by Portuguese seamen. Another possible derivation is from the Turkish word quli, which means laborer or porter and may have found its way into Urdu. In South Africa the term had a racial tinge and was used specifically to refer to Asians, usually Indians, as noted in the OED Supplement.

  12 “It is clear that Indian”: Meer, South African Gandhi, pp. 113–14.

  13 “the Magna Charta”: Ibid., pp. 117–8.

  14 In the many thousands: CWMG, vol. 8, p. 242.

  15 At first he spoke only: Swan, Gandhi: The South African Experience, p. 51.

  16 a fact of huge and obvious relevance: Bhikhu Parekh points out that it may have been easier to unite Hindus and Muslims in South Africa, for many of the traders Gandhi initially served there shared a common language and culture. See Parekh, Gandhi, p. 9.

  17 When Johannesburg Muslims: CWMG, vol. 3, p. 366.

  18 “We are not and ought not”: Ibid., p. 497, cited by Sanghavi, Agony of Arrival, p. 81.

  19 “Here in South Africa”: CWMG, vol. 5, p. 290.

  20 “The Hindu-Mahomedan problem”: Ibid., vol. 9, p. 507.

  21 By sheer force of personality: Ibid., vol. 35, p. 385.

  22 “I saw nothing in it”: M. K. Gandhi, Satyagraha in South Africa, p. 99.

  23 Calling on the community: CWMG, vol. 5, p. 417.

  24 “To give one’s life”: Ibid., vol. 60, p. 38.

  25 Speaking for a second time: Ibid., vol. 5, p. 421.

  26 close to endorsing that view: Brown, Gandhi: Prisoner of Hope, p. 268.

  27 “A man who deliberately”: CWMG, vol. 5, p. 420.

  28 Years later, upon learning: Ibid., vol. 12, p. 264.

  29 “criminal waste of the vital fluid”: Ibid., vol. 62, p. 279.

  30 A nephew suggested: M. K. Gandhi, Satyagraha in South Africa, p. 109.

  31 “I did not suggest”: Paxton, Sonja Schlesin, p. 36.

  32 “Our ambition”: Sarid and Bartolf, Hermann Kallenbach, p. 15.

  33 It also doesn’t demean Doke: CWMG, vol. 9, p. 415.

  34 “as naked as possible”: Erikson, Gandhi’s Truth, p. 153.

  35 “Mr. Gandhi’s ephemeral fame”: African Chronicle, April 16, 1913.

  36 “So far as I can judge”: Nanda, Three Statesmen, p. 426.

  37 Reminiscing, many years later: Nayar, Mahatma Gandhi’s Last Imprisonment, p. 380; see also Prabhudas Gandhi, My Childhood with Gandhiji, p. 142.

  38 The indentured Indians”: Indian Opinion, Oct. 15, 1913.

 
; 39 “It was a bold, dangerous”: Indian Opinion, Oct. 22, 1913.

  40 Later, back in India: Nirmal Kumar Bose, Selections from Gandhi (Ahmedabad, 1957) 2nd ed., pp. 106–7.

  41 “the numberless men”: Pyarelal, Epic Fast, p. 12.

  42 “I know that the only thing”: M. K. Gandhi, Young India, March 2, 1922, cited by Paul F. Power, ed., The Meanings of Gandhi (Honolulu, 1971), p. 71.

  43 “The poor have no fears”: M. K. Gandhi, Satyagraha in South Africa, p. 287.

  44 “the Natal underclasses”: Swan, Gandhi: The South African Experience, p. 242. Swan cites a letter from Gandhi to Kallenbach, dated July 13, 1913, that she located in the Sarvodaya Library at the Phoenix Settlement. The library was destroyed in the factional violence described in the author’s note at the beginning of this volume. As far as I have been able to discover, Swan’s quotation from this important letter may be all that survives from it.

  45 “I believe implicitly”: Rudrangshu Mukherjee, ed., Penguin Gandhi Reader, p. 207.

  46 “A Scavenger”: Nayar, Mahatma Gandhi’s Last Imprisonment, p. 254.

  47 “The idea did occur to me”: Mahadev Desai, Diary of Mahadev Desai, p. 185.

  48 most indentured laborers were low caste: Bhana, Indentured Indian Emigrants to Natal, pp. 71–83.

  49 “realized my vocation”: Gandhi, Satyagraha in South Africa, p. 338.

  50 “a sorry affair”: Nirmal Kumar Bose, My Days with Gandhi, p. 229.

  51 Indians lack a tragic sense: Naipaul, Overcrowded Barracoon, p. 75.

  52 “The saint has left”: Hancock, Smuts, p. 345.

  53 “that they have an instrument”: Ibid., p. 331.

  CHAPTER 2: NO-TOUCHISM

  1 “the least Indian”: Naipaul, Area of Darkness, p. 77 [my italics].

  2 “the quintessence”: Nehru, Toward Freedom, p. 189.

  3 “He looked at India”: Naipaul, Area of Darkness, p. 77.

  4 “I was face to face”: Gandhi, Autobiography, p. 196.

  5 “There were only a few”: Ibid., pp. 196–97.

  6 Even as a boy: Andrews, Mahatma Gandhi, p. 113.

  7 Just as racial segregation: Bayly, Caste, Society, and Politics in India, chap. 5, especially pp. 196, 210, 226.

  8 “pollution barrier”: Ibid., pp. 189, 233.

  9 Practices varied: The following studies have illuminating discussions on these points: Ibid., Dirks, Castes of Mind; and Mendelsohn and Vicziany, Untouchables.

  10 the coinage “Hinduism”: See Pennington, Was Hinduism Invented? p. 60, also p. 168.

  11 Gandhi was then warned: Jordens, Gandhi’s Religion, p. 56.

  12 “It was also a problem”: Prabhudas Gandhi, My Childhood with Gandhiji, p. 59.

  13 Three years later: Photostat of the certificate is on display at the Sabarmati Ashram Museum.

  14 The Bania in Gandhi: Doke, M. K. Gandhi: An Indian Patriot, p. 52.

  15 The prodigal son: Pyarelal, Early Phase, p. 281.

  16 “I would not so much”: Gandhi, Autobiography, p. 78.

  17 His standing with the Modh Banias: I am indebted to Narayan Desai, son of Mahadev, Gandhi’s secretary, for making this point in an interview in Barodi in April 2008.

  18 “Wherever you see men”: O’Hanlon, Caste, Conflict, and Ideology, p. 71.

  19 “We are all brothers”: Tolstoy, Kingdom of God Is Within You, p. 88. According to Professor Donald Fanger of Harvard, the literal translation would be “carries out my chamber pot.”

  20 What Is to Be Done?: Although the common English title of this Tolstoy volume is the same as that of a more famous tract by Lenin, the Russian titles are different. Professor Fanger says the literal translation of the Tolstoy would be “So What Must We Do?”

  21 “when men of our circle”: Tolstoy, What Is to Be Done? p. 272. I’ve here substituted “latrines” for “sewers” on the advice of Professor Fanger.

  22 “Gandhi,” Aurobindo said: Aurobindo, India’s Rebirth, p. 173.

  23 But an Indian scholar: Mahadevan, Year of the Phoenix, pp. 70–71.

  24 In any case, by August: Swan, in Gandhi: The South African Experience, pp. 48–50, casts doubt on the assumption that the young Gandhi provided the impetus for the formation of the Natal Indian Congress. She suggests that the traders who subsequently dominated the organization are likely to have employed Gandhi to advance their goals.

  25 “To inquire into the conditions”: CWMG, vol. 1, p. 132.

  26 “I lived in South Africa”: Ibid., vol. 33, p. 25.

  27 His wounds have been treated: Ibid., vol. 2, p. 20.

  28 It takes half a year: Meer, Apprenticeship of a Mahatma, p. 36.

  29 “A regular stream”: Gandhi, Autobiography, p. 135.

  30 “He emerged virtually”: Sanghavi, Agony of Arrival, p. 129.

  31 Gandhi himself doesn’t go on: According to the Durban lawyer Hassim Seedat, who attempted to trace Gandhi’s legal papers from this era through the successor firm that inherited them only to be told that they had been thrown out.

  32 “He will cause some trouble”: Britton, Gandhi Arrives in South Africa, p. 300. The location of this document isn’t specified in the book. Responding to an e-mail query, its author explained that he did his research “on and off for thirty years,” much of it in the archives of colonial Natal, in the branch of the National Archives in Pietermaritzburg, or in British Colonial Office files, now located at the National Archives in Kew.

  33 “have no wish to see”: CWMG, vol. 1, pp. 273–74, cited by Naidoo, Tracking Down Historical Myths, p. 137.

  34 “If that hatred”: CWMG, vol. 1, p. 143.

  35 In finely honed understatement: Ibid., pp. 142–63.

  36 “The class of Hindoos”: Critic, Jan. 11, 1895, as quoted in Pyarelal, Early Phase, p. 478.

  37 Or, since Pyarelal: Pyarelal and Nayar, In Gandhiji’s Mirror, p. 7.

  38 “The barbed shaft penetrated”: Pyarelal, Early Phase, p. 478.

  39 “Has not a just”: Fischer, Essential Gandhi, p. 251. See also M. K. Gandhi, Selected Political Writings, p. 118.

  40 “During my campaigns”: CWMG, vol. 13, p. 278.

  41 “dark and stinking”: Gandhi, Autobiography, p. 149.

  42 He then went into: Ibid., p. 150.

  43 “But to clean those used: Ibid., pp. 243–44.

  44 His pique becomes: CWMG, vol. 67, p. 2.

  45 “close touch with suffering Indians”: Gandhi, Autobiography, p. 177.

  46 “The Indians were not entitled”: Gandhi, Satyagraha in South Africa, p. 76.

  47 So while he has told us: Gandhi, Autobiography, p. 189.

  48 “General Buller had no intention”: Gandhi, Satyagraha in South Africa, p. 77.

  49 “For days they worked”: Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi, p. 63.

  50 “The agony of the General”: Pyarelal, Discovery of Satyagraha, p. 287.

  51 curtained palanquin: This thought is suggested by the drawing on a French weekly magazine cover on display in the Museum Africa in Johannesburg. Showing a palanquin used for ferrying wounded officers, the drawing has a legend that describes it as an “ambulance Indienne” in the “guerre au Transvaal.” See Le Petit Journal: Supplément Illustré, Dec. 17, 1899.

  52 detailed narrative of these events: Amery, “Times” History of the War in South Africa, vol. 1, pp. 245–97.

  53 “Streams of wounded”: Reproduced in New York Times, March 3, 1900.

  54 The recruits from the ranks: Meer, South African Gandhi, p. 751.

  55 In the event, no Indians: Ibid., pp, 749–50.

  56 At the time he finds: Gandhi, Satyagraha in South Africa, p. 78.

  57 “Bapu had found a use”: Mehta, Mahatma Gandhi and His Apostles, p. 248.

  58 In a contemporary send-up: Reprinted in African Chronicle, July 4, 1908.

  59 “high-caste men married”: Uma Dhupelia-Mesthrie, From Cane Fields to Freedom: A Chronicle of Indian South African Life (Cape Town, 2000), p. 13.

  60 “These two Indi
ans”: Bhana and Pachai, Documentary History of Indian South Africans, p. 26.

  61 Except for a rare academic study: Such as Ebr-Vally, Kala Pani.

  62 “without first trying”: Rolland, Life of Vivekananda and the Universal Gospel, p. 23.

  63 He condemned India’s: Parekh, Colonialism, Tradition, and Reform, p. 235.

  64 Their suppression depresses: CWMG, vol. 18, pp. 375–76.

  65 “into intimate touch”: Pyarelal, Discovery of Satyagraha, p. 396.

  66 “A purer, a nobler”: Mahadevan and Ramachandran, Quest for Gandhi, p. 344.

  67 “You will never know”: Shirer, Gandhi, p. 37.

  68 “converted the whole carriage”: Gandhi, Autobiography, p. 212.

  69 “in retrospect, Gandhi”: Pyarelal, Discovery of Satyagraha, p. 396.

  CHAPTER 3: AMONG ZULUS

  1 “We were then marched”: CWMG, vol. 8, p. 135.

  2 Similarly, he would later: Enacted in 1907 by the all-white provincial legislature as soon as self-rule was restored to the former South African Republic. (The 1906 Asiatic Law Amendment Act, passed during the brief period that the Transvaal was counted as a crown colony, had been disallowed by Britain.) The legislation once again barred Indians with no history of previous residence in the Transvaal.

  3 “The spirit of fanaticism”: Huttenback, Gandhi in South Africa, p. 198.

  4 It would violate: Natal Mercury, Jan. 14, 1903. The Orange Free State, one of the four provinces in the original Union of South Africa, barred Indians from taking up residence for nearly ninety years longer, until the dismantling of apartheid.

  5 “for the first time”: Rajmohan Gandhi, Gandhi, p. 126.

  6 Brought to Johannesburg: Doke, M. K. Gandhi: An Indian Patriot, p. 151; see also Meer, South African Gandhi, pp. 600–601; Itzkin, Gandhi’s Johannesburg, p. 30.

  7 “a Native lying in bed”: Meer, South African Gandhi, p. 601.

  8 “This refined Indian”: Doke, M. K. Gandhi: Indian Patriot, p. 152.