Gandhi Before India

by Ramachandra Guha

  On the 13th, Gandhi was interviewed by a representative of the Transvaal Leader. Asked to recall ‘the more remarkable incidents in his career’, he selected some from the recent march across the border. He spoke of how he had convinced the striking miners ‘that they would win, not by putting their sticks over the shoulders of others, but over their own’. He praised their doggedness, their ability to march days and days on meagre rations. Then he praised the Europeans who had helped them, such as the station-master who had offered the marchers milk, the woman shopkeeper who invited them to take what they wanted, the hotel-owner who said they would be warmer spending the night inside his premises – gestures made spontaneously and without asking for payment, proof of the ‘old British sense of sympathy’ present in some whites in South Africa.

  Gandhi told the newspaper that he was leaving for good, ‘with the intention of never returning’. If ‘I ever have to return to South Africa or leave India,’ he said, ‘it will be owing to circumstances beyond my control, and at present beyond my conception’. The definitiveness of this departure prompted an elegy for the man and what he represented. ‘So it is humanly certain’, remarked the Leader,

  that the most arresting figure in the Indian community in South Africa to-day is to say good-bye to a country in which he has spent many years, crowded with experience and exertion, his work on behalf of his countrymen at last crowned with success. When a man has been imprisoned so often that were his offences not merely political he would have qualified as a ‘habitual’, when he has time without number endured fatigue, and fasted with a smile, when he has moved steadily on over obstacles that might daunt the bravest, to the goal to which his eye has been fixed, you might picture him physically as an Apollo, and imagine his heart made of the fibre that belongs to martyrs. In the qualities of the heart and of the soul you may believe the best of Gandhi, but you would wonder, did you see him, that so frail a figure could house so vigorous a character.54

  Gandhi would surely have read this tribute. Swept along by its eloquence, did he recall that this was the same paper that, a bare nine months previously, had written off his leadership and his movement? In September 1913 the Leader had spoken of an ‘astonishing apathy’ among the Indians, of an ‘absolute distrust’ in Gandhi. It had suggested that the satyagraha campaign was ‘threatened with collapse’. Now, after the march and the mass strike, the arrest of hundreds of Indians (including women and children) and the acceptance of their demands by the Enquiry Commission, the supposedly failed leader had become a ‘most arresting figure’, his exertions ‘crowned with success’.

  The Leader was, as some newspapers tend to do, bowing and bending with the wind. The day after its reporter met Gandhi, a meeting in honour of the Indian hero was held at Johannesburg’s Masonic Lodge. Addresses were presented on behalf of the British Indian Association, the Cantonese Club, the Tamil Benefit Society, the Transvaal Indian Women’s Association, the European Committee, and the Gujarati, Mahomedan and Parsee communities of the city. In a dramatic gesture, Thambi Naidoo offered his four sons to Gandhi, to become under his guidance, ‘servants of India’.

  The details of some of these tributes have come down to us. That presented by the British Indian Association had as its first signatories A. M. Cachalia and Thambi Naidoo, respectively the foremost Gujarati and Tamil colleague of Gandhi in the satyagraha. It praised the leader’s ‘nobility, steadfastness, self-sacrifice, and indomitable courage’. It also offered salutations to ‘the dignified and silent devotion, to the cause of Indian Womanhood, of the Gracious Lady who shares your joys and sorrows’. Kasturba’s ‘wonderful self-surrender’, the tribute noted, had played a key role in mobilizing the Indians against the marriage laws, now amended in light of their struggle. For their part, the Cantonese Club of Johannesburg offered thanks for Gandhi’s ‘wise counsel’ and the ‘remarkable example’ of his ‘character and conduct’. Through the campaigns of which he was the ‘shining exemplar’, he had ‘raised the prestige of the Asiatic name not only throughout the Union of South Africa, but in the whole civilised world’.55

  Responding to the tributes, Gandhi gave a speech whose contents were noted by a reporter who was present. He lovingly marked his own memories of, and debts to, this city of gold, greed, conflict and conscience:

  Johannesburg was not a new place to him. He saw many friendly faces there, many who had worked with him in many struggles in Johannesburg. He had gone through much in life. A great deal of depression and sorrow had been his lot, but he had also learnt during all those years to love Johannesburg even though it was a Mining Camp. It was in Johannesburg that he had found his most precious friends. It was in Johannesburg that the foundation for the great struggle of Passive Resistance was laid in the September of 1906. It was in Johannesburg that he had found a friend, a guide, and a biographer in the late Mr Doke. It was in Johannesburg that he had found in Mrs. Doke a loving sister, who had nursed him back to life when he had been assaulted by a countryman who had misunderstood his mission and who misunderstood what he had done. It was in Johannesburg that he had found a Kallenbach, a Polak, a Miss Schlesin, and many another who had always helped him, and had always cheered him and his countrymen … It was in Johannesburg again that the European Committee had been formed, when Indians were going through the darkest stage in their history, presided over then, as it still was, by Mr Hosken.

  Having praised his European friends, Gandhi now turned to the Indians of the city who had given their lives in and for the satyagraha campaign. He singled out three names: all Tamil, all young; two men, one woman; two who had died in prison and one who had died while being deported to India. It was, said Gandhi,

  Johannesburg that had given Valiamma, that young girl, whose picture rose before him even as he spoke, who had died in the cause of truth … [I]t was Johannesburg again that had produced a Nagappen and Narayansamy, two lovely youths hardly out of their teens, who also died. But both Mrs Gandhi and he stood living before them. He and Mrs Gandhi had worked in the lime-light; those others had worked behind the scenes, not knowing where they were going, except this, that what they were doing was right and proper, and, if any praise was due anywhere at all, it was due to the three who died.56

  The meeting was followed by a dinner, the invitation for which has survived. It was advertised as a farewell to ‘Mr and Mrs. M. K. Gandhi and Mr H. Kallenbach’. The union of brown and white was symbolized by a portrait of a handshake. The chairman’s name was also printed: he was the Hon. H. A. Wyndham, M.L.A. The other side of the card contained the menu, this divided into hors d’oeuvres (‘various’), soups (milk and celery, tomato), main dishes (seven in all, including mashed potatoes, aubergine cutlets, macaroni with cheese, stuffed tomatoes, asparagus à la vinaigrette) and sweets (among them apple pie and custard, blancmange, plum tart and pastries). In deference to the chief guests, no alcohol was served (the drinks on offer being coffee and mineral water), and the food was wholly vegetarian. Still, the spread was substantial, and one wonders whether Gandhi and Kallenbach did anything other than pick at what was put in front of them. Perhaps, as was their custom, they feasted chiefly on two items also printed on the menu, namely, ‘fruits’ and ‘nuts’.57

  The next day, the 15th, Gandhi attended four meetings in Johannesburg. In the morning, he unveiled tablets at Bramfontein Cemetery in memory of Nagappen, who had died in 1909 and Valiamma, the young woman resister who had died in February 1914. Gandhi recalled the harsh conditions in which they perished, in jail, with ‘no feather mattress … simply the wooden floor’. He moved next to a meeting of the Transvaal Indian Women’s Association, where he asked for the blessings of his sisters for his work in India. A third meeting was of Tamils, whom Gandhi praised for having ‘borne the brunt of the struggle’. The majority of the deportees, passive resisters and women in jail were Tamil. The Tamils, said their grateful leader, ‘had shown so much pluck, so much faith, so much devotion to duty and such noble simplicity, and yet had been so self-effa
cing’. Gandhi turned to the terms of the settlement, stressing that ‘the £3 tax was now a matter of the past’, and that ‘all those dear sisters who had gone to gaol could now be called the wives of their husbands, whilst but yesterday they might have been called so out of courtesy by a friend but were not so in the eyes of the law.’ Despite his debts to the Tamils, Gandhi still had some advice for them. For ‘he had known something of Madras, and how sharp caste distinctions were there. He felt that they would have come to South Africa in vain if they were to carry those caste prejudices with them … They should remember that they were not high caste or low caste, but all Indians, all Tamils.’

  The most important meeting attended by Gandhi on this day, 15 July 1914, was held at that once familiar venue, the Hamidia Hall. Here, he heard a long harangue from his one-time comrade Essop Mia, who had worked shoulder-to-shoulder with him during their first satyagrahas, who had been with him when he was nearly beaten to death in 1908, and then suffered an assassination attempt himself. Now, six years later, Mia charged Gandhi with having obtained only one-and-a-half of the four points they had asked for. He had now ‘left them with the battle to be fought all over again’. Replying to these criticisms, Gandhi said the settlement had abolished the £3 tax, recognized wives and children, and clarified the Cape and Free State questions. Then he added, tellingly:

  The merchants had gained everything that the community had gained, and had gained probably most of all. The Indian community had raised its status in the estimation of Europeans throughout South Africa. They could no longer be classed as coolies by General Botha and others. The term had been removed as a term of reproach, silently but effectively. If they had not fought for the past eight years, no trace would have been left here of Indians as a self-respecting community.

  The ‘half’ point Essop Mia mentioned related to the absence of the explicit recognition of polygamy, a practice sacred to Islam. Another speaker, H. O. Ally – he who had accompanied the lawyer to London in 1906 – said he had told Gandhi ‘not to bind the Mussulmans with regard to one man one wife’, since ‘it was impossible for Mussulmans to break one syllable out of their holy Koran.’ Gandhi answered that the settlement had legalized monogamous marriages, and ‘all he expected the South African Government to do was to become tolerant of polygamy, but not to legalise it.’58

  The meetings with the Tamils and the Gujaratis were a study in contrast, one marked by a mutual respect and affection between the speaker and his audience, the other by mutual reserve, and even antagonism. The Gandhi of 1906 was supported morally and financially by Gujarati merchants; the Gandhi of 1914 was a leader largely of working-class Tamils. The contrast, implied and implicit, was made manifest in his last engagement in Johannesburg. Speaking to a group mostly of Gujarati Hindus on the 16th, he observed that ‘my Gujarati brethren have done a great deal for me and Mrs. Gandhi but they did not, I must say, render as much service in the cause of the struggle as the Tamil community did. I wish the Gujaratis to learn a lesson from the Tamils. Though I do not know their language, they have given me the greatest help in the fight.’59 On 16 July, Gandhi made a hurried trip to Pretoria, where the merchant Hajee Habib – who had accompanied Gandhi to London in 1909 – organized a party for him. In attendance was Montford Chamney, the long-time Protector-cum-Persecutor of the Indians. Gandhi recalled that

  he had certainly stood up against Mr Chamney and the management of his office, but there had been no personal ill-will on the speaker’s part, and he had always received the utmost courtesy at Mr Chamney’s hands. He appreciated the compliment Mr Chamney paid him by coming out to arrest him with only one man to assist, when the speaker was at the head of 2,000 men and women. It showed the confidence Mr Chamney had in him as a passive resister.60

  The same night, Gandhi, Kasturba and Kallenbach took a train to Cape Town. They arrived on the morning of the 18th, to be met at Monument Station by friends with garlands, who took them in carriages into the city. The procession was headed by a band playing music, marching under a banner wishing ‘Bon voyage to the great Indian patriot, M. K. Gandhi, and family, also Mr Kallenbach. God be with you until we meet again.’

  The Gandhis spent their last night in South Africa at the home of a Jewish couple who were friends of Hermann Kallenbach. Morris Alexander was a liberal lawyer and MP; his wife Ruth was a fiery radical from a family of learned rabbis.61 Gandhi ‘spoke long and earnestly of his mission for his fellow men, and begged that his small band of supporters [in South Africa] should continue to defend their interests’. What struck Morris Alexander was his guest’s simplicity – refusing the use of the master bedroom, he slept instead on the floor. His wife Ruth was moved by Gandhi’s patience with his hosts, by ‘how uncondemning’ he was of things (such as the ostentatious furniture) of which he must have disapproved. The Indian, she concluded, was one of the ‘three great souls’ she had known (the others being her father and Olive Schreiner).62

  The next day, the Gandhis and Kallenbach proceeded to the docks. Here addresses were presented to Gandhi on behalf of, among others, the Tamils of Cape Town and Port Elizabeth. He was also presented with a gold watch, while Kallenbach was given a pair of binoculars, presents that Gandhi politely yet publicly rejected as ‘inconsistent with his life here and with the life he had marked out for himself in India’. He disavowed the gifts but not the praise, here offered by Dr Gool on behalf of the Indian community, and Dr Abdurahman on behalf of the Coloured people of the Cape. In his own speech, Gandhi articulated the hope that with the settlement in place, the ‘Europeans of South Africa [would] take a humanitarian and Imperial view of the Indian question’. He was optimistic, for Cape Town itself had produced such people as the liberal MPs W. P. Schreiner and J. X. Merriman, and the great writer Olive Schreiner. Striking a personal note, he ‘expressed warm gratitude for what had been done for him by the Europeans of South Africa, and, turning to Mr Kallenbach, placed his hand on the latter’s shoulder and said that South Africa had done this for him – it had given him a brother.’

  After the speeches, the Gandhis and Kallenbach boarded the SS Kinfaus Castle, bound for London. A crowd of friends and admirers walked with them up to the ship, before – as a journalist on the spot reported – ‘coming down the gangway wiping the tears from their eyes’.63

  One person was conspicuously missing from that round of farewells for Mohandas and Kasturba Gandhi – their old friend and one-time house-mate Henry Polak. Polak had gone to England to spend time with his family. He sailed back to South Africa in July, and on board wrote an emotional letter to Gandhi, saying he was feeeling ‘miserable’ because of

  the probability that I shall not see you again for some years at least … There must be some peculiar bond between us that keeps us near each other in spite of these prolonged absences … I suppose that your Indian relation of elder and younger brother most nearly approaches it, and possibly I realise it more intimately because of my Oriental trend of thought. It is strange, this persistent turning to the East with me, and Millie’s equally persistent turning to the West. I suppose that it is this union of East and West that makes for the best of all human understandings.

  In case he returned after Gandhi had left, he asked him to spend an evening at their house and have ‘a heart to heart talk with Millie, so that she may know, and I may know, what you hope for, and what you propose to do’.64

  The letter was written on 14 July; since the Gandhis left four days later, they didn’t get to see it. They, and Kallenbach, were booked third class on the Kinfaus Castle. Gandhi himself had travelled in the lowest class often on trains, but never before on a ship. They mostly ate fruits and boiled peanuts, a diet to which Gandhi attributed his lack of sea-sickness.65

  Following the Gandhis from South Africa were a torrent of telegrams, sent from different people representing different interests in different parts of South Africa. These 132 telegrams of farewell lie in the National Archives of India. They came from Natal, Transvaal and the Ca
pe, from Hindus, Muslims and Parsis. Sorabjee Rustomjee of Durban, son of the brave and generous Parsee Rustomjee, said ‘we younger Indians who are colonial born look to your self sacrificing life as an inspiration to work in a similar spirit for the sake of motherland may almighty shower richest blessings upon your labours and grant long life health and strength to continue labour love for beloved motherland goodbye’. Sorabjee spoke for a particular generation (the young); others offered their wishes and admiration on behalf of groups such as the Catholic Indians, the Natal Zoroastrian Anjuman, the Anjuman-i-Islam, the Tamil Benefit Society of Johannesburg, the Gujarati Hindus of the same city and the Kathiawar Arya Mandal of Durban. From outside the community, there was a wire from a certain ‘Mulder’, secretary of the African Political Organization, who wrote that ‘members of Doornfontein branch wish you a hearty farewell and bon voyage to your motherland.’

  Among the wires sent by and on behalf of individuals were several sent by Muslims. ‘May Allah take you and Mrs. Gandhi’, said Abdurawoof Thangay of Vereeniging – a Tamil Muslim from the sound of his name – ‘to our holy fatherland and wishing you every success in future please express my thanks to Kallenbach goodbye’. Abdul Gaffar Fajandar from Johannesburg wrote that ‘your departure from this country has been a great grief to the Indian community who will never cease to remember your trojan like heroic and [sic] self sacrifice your personality will be ever idolised’. Other wires were sent by lovers of the Hindu epics. The Ramayan Sabha of Lugenberthy wired: ‘Our loss our mothers gain her care of us our comfort.’

  Perhaps the most emotional message came from Bughwan from Durban, who ‘was exited station could not therefore wish goodbye as my heart desired forgive our weaknesses pray for us’. The most evocative came from the ‘Farewell Committee’ of the same city, which observed that