Gandhi Before India

by Ramachandra Guha

  32. This paragraph is based on a walking tour of Durban in October 2009, in the company (and under the guidance) of the novelist Aziz Hassim.

  33. NM, 24 May 1893.

  34. Letter in NA, 29 May 1893, reproduced in CWMG, I, pp. 57–8.

  35. See Gandhi, An Autobiography, Part II, Chapters VIII and IX. I return to the significance of the train incident in Chapter 5 below.

  36. Gandhi, An Autobiography, Part II, Chapters X, XI and XIV.

  37. Bengt Sundkler and Christopher Steed, A History of the Church in Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 417–18.

  38. A. W. Baker, Grace Triumphant: The Life Story of a Carpenter, Lawyer, and Missionary, in South Africa from 1856 to 1939 (London: Pickering and Inglis, 1939), pp. 84–6.

  39. Gandhi, An Autobiography, Part II, Chapter XIV.

  40. Cf. Surendra Bhana and Bridglal Pachai, eds, A Documentary History of Indian South Africans (Cape Town: David Philip, 1984), pp. 33–4.

  41. NA, 19 September 1893, in CWMG, I, pp. 59–61.

  42. NA, clippings dated 19 and 28 September 1893, S. N. 37 and S. N. 40, SAAA.

  43. NA, 29 September 1893, in CWMG, I, pp. 63–4.

  44. ‘Guide to London’, CWMG, I, pp. 66–120.

  45. Gandhi, An Autobiography, Part II, Chapters XVI and XVII.

  46. See Burnett Britton, Gandhi Arrives in South Africa (Canton, Maine: Green-leaf Books, 1999), pp. 75–6, 80–83, 88; Swan, Gandhi, p. 38f.

  47. See CO 179/185, NAUK.

  48. As quoted in E. H. Brookes and C. de B. Webb, A History of Natal (2nd edn, Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press, 1987), pp. 172.

  49. John Robinson, A Life Time in South Africa: Being the Recollections of the First Premier of Natal (London: Smith, Elder, and Co., 1900), pp. 76–7.

  50. NA, 3 September 1894; Natal Witness, of the same date, respectively S. N. 107 and S. N. 99, SAAA.

  51. Quoted in Maynard W. Swanson, ‘;“The Asiatic Menace”: Creating Segregation in Durban, 1870–1900’, International Journal of African Historical Studies, 16:3, p. 411.

  52. Petition dated 28 June 1894, in CWMG, I, pp. 128–32.

  53. NM, 29 June 1894.

  54. Cf. Laughlin to Gandhi, 18 May 1896, S. N. 964, NGM.

  55. In CWMG, this petition to Ripon is said to have been signed by ‘Hajee Mohamed Hajee Dada and Sixteen Others’; however, the original petition, which I have seen on microfilm, says it was signed by ‘Hajee Mohamed Hajee Dada and 8,888 others’.

  56. This account of the petitions and letters written by Gandhi is based on the documents in CWMG, I, pp. 128–91.

  57. Minute dated 27 July 1894, in Natal Government House Documents, on microfilm, Reel 6, Accession No. 2179, NMML.

  58. Sir Hercules Robinson to Lord Ripon, 11 July 1894, in Ms. 43563, Ripon Papers, BL.

  59. See correspondence in Ms. 43563, Ripon Papers, BL.

  60. See CWMG, I, pp. 162–5.

  61. Gandhi, An Autobiography, Part II, Chapter XVIII; NM, 6 September 1894; NA, 20 September 1894, S. N. 149 and 159 respectively, SAAA.

  62. Natal Witness, 6 September 1894, S. N. 150, SAAA.

  63. Star, 26 December 1894, S. N. 204, SAAA.

  64. Natal Witness, 29 December 1894; NM, 7 January 1895, S.N 208 and 212 respectively, SAAA.

  65. NA, 7 January 1895.

  66. Times of Natal, 22 and 27 October 1894, S. N. 171 and 173 respectively, SAAA. Gandhi’s letter is reprinted in CWMG, I, pp. 166–7.

  4 A BARRISTER IN DURBAN

  1. CWMG, Supplementary Volume I (1894–1928), p. 14.

  2. Gandhi, An Autobiography, Part II, Chapter XXII.

  3. This incident is recounted, based on ‘personal information’, in E. H. Brookes and C. de B. Webb, A History of Natal (2nd edn, Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press, 1987), p. 185.

  4. See A. N. Wilson, God’s Funeral: The Decline of Faith in Western Civilization (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999); J. T. F. Jordens, Dayananda Saraswati: His Life and Ideas (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1978).

  5. Anna Kingsford, The Perfect Way in Diet: A Treatise Advocating a Return to the Natural and Ancient Food of our Race (6th edn, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner and Co., 1895), pp. 19, 76ff, 114.

  6. The Perfect Way, Or the Finding of Christ, was first published by Adams and Co. in London in 1882. Maitland published enlarged and revised editions in 1887 and 1890. I have here used an excerpt published in Kessinger Publishing’s Rare Reprints series.

  7. See Rene Fueloep-Miller, ‘Tolstoy: The Apostolic Crusader’, Russian Review, 19:2 (1960); Rosamund Bartlett, Tolstoy: A Russian Life (London: Profile Books, 2010), Chapters 11 and 12.

  8. Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God is Within You (1893) reprinted in The Kingdom of God and Peace Essays, translated by Aylmer Maude (reprint New Delhi: Rupa Publications India Pvt. Ltd., 2001).

  9. Gandhi, An Autobiography, Part II, Chapter XV.

  10. Cf. J. T. F. Jordens, Gandhi’s Religion: A Homespun Shawl (first published in 1998; 2nd edn, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2012), Chapter 2 and passim.

  11. NM, 28 November and 19 December 1894, S. N. 184 and 202, SAAA.

  12. This account of the correspondence between Gandhi and Raychandbhai is based on Mahatma Gandhi and Kavi Rajchandraji: Questions Answered (3rd edn, Ahmedabad: Shrimad Rajchandra Gyan Pracharak Trust, 1991 –translated from the Gujarati by Brahmachari Sri Goverdhandas). A different and apparently less reliable translation is published in CWMG, XXXII, pp. 593–602.

  13. ‘A Band of Vegetarian Missionaries’, CWMG, I, pp. 222–8.

  14. CWMG, I, pp. 229–44.

  15. These paragraphs are based on the correspondence between the Secretary of State for the Colonies and the Natal Government in Natal Government House Documents, on microfilm, Reel 6, Accession No. 2179, NMML.

  16. S. N. 890 and 958, SAAA.

  17. Natal Witness, 9 February 1896, S. N. 753, SAAA.

  18. Undated editorial from a Natal newspaper, entitled ‘Durban Doings’, c. August/September 1895, S. N. 529, SAAA.

  19. CWMG, II, pp. 16–8.

  20. Gandhi’s legal career in Durban, c. 1895–6, is covered in depth in Burnett Britton, Gandhi Arrives in South Africa (Canton, Maine: Greenleaf Books, 1999). This is a little-known privately published work, but immensely valuable nonetheless.

  21. Charles DiSalvio, The Man Before the Mahatma: M. K. Gandhi, Attorney-at-Law (NOIDA, UP: Random House India, 2012), pp. 65, 80–82.

  22. Report from the Natal Mercury, cited in Britton, Gandhi Arrives in South Africa, notes section, p. xviii.

  23. Ian Morrison, Durban: A Pictorial History (Cape Town: C. Struik, 1987); Monica Fairall, When in Durban (Cape Town; C. Struik, 1983).

  24. The term ‘neo-Europe’ was coined by Alfred Crosby in his Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).

  25. Walter Hely Hutchinson, ‘Natal: Its Resources and Capabilities’ (address to the London Chamber of Commerce, 8 June 1898), copy in File 2399, L/P&J/6/497, APAC/BL.

  26. Cf. the biographical information provided in David Dick, Who Was Who in Durban Street Names (Durban: Clerkington Publishing Co., 1998).

  27. See table dated 13 April 1904, prepared by the Town Clerk, Durban, in Natal Government House Records, on microfilm, Reel 6, Accession No. 2174, NMML. In the decade of the 1890s, the proportion of Indians in trade increased from 0.8 per cent to 5 per cent. c. 1900, the per capita income of Indians in Natal was roughly six times that of Africans, but still one-sixth that of Europeans. See Zbigniew A. Konczacki, Public Finance and Economic Development in Natal, 1893–1910 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1967), pp. 5, 27.

  28. Robert A. Huttenback, Gandhi in South Africa (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1971), pp. 38–9.

  29. Letter dated 7 March 1891, in Correspondence Relating to the Proposal to Establish Responsible Government in Natal (London: HMSO, 1891 – C. 4687), pp. 40–41.

&nb
sp; 30. CWMG, I, pp. 245–51.

  31. Gillian Berning, ed., Gandhi Letters: From Upper House to Lower House, 1906–1914 (Durban: Local History Museum, 1994), p. 44; interview with Azim Hassan, Durban, October 2009.

  32. Quoted in Britton, Gandhi Arrives in South Africa, pp. 256–7.

  33. See ibid., pp. 296–300.

  34. Cf. André Odendaal, Black Protest Politics in South Africa to 1912 (Towota, NJ: Barnes and Noble Books, 1984), Chapter 1, ‘African Politics from the Earliest Years to 1899’.

  35. NM, 18 and 25 October 1895, S. N. 572 and 595, SAAA.

  36. Cf. S. N. 606, 611, 628, 629, 639 and 650, SAAA.

  37. ‘The Indians in the Transvaal’, editorial in NA, 19 November 1895, S. N. 640, SAAA.

  38. Clipping dated 4 November 1895, S. N. 612, SAAA.

  39. Cf. ‘Sixty Years Memoir of Vincent Lawrence of 67 Gale Street, Durban, Natal’, typescript in E. S. Reddy Papers, NMML.

  40. Paul Tichman, Gandhi Sites in Durban (Durban: Old Court House Museum, n.d.), pp. 17–8; Gandhi, An Autobiography, Part II, chapters XXIII and XXIV; Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi, I: The Early Phase (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Press, 1965), pp. 491–3. So as not to embarrass Mehtab’s family, Gandhi did not name him in his text, referring merely to a ‘friend’.

  41. ‘The Indian Franchise’, CWMG, I, pp. 266–90.

  42. W. W. Hunter to M. K. Gandhi, 13 May 1896, S. N. 948, SAAA.

  43. H. K. Khare to M. K. Gandhi, 11 July 1896, S. N. 743, SAAA.

  44. Natal Witness, 25 December 1895; South African Times, 25 December 1895, respectively S. N. 699 and 703, SAAA.

  45. NA, 11 January 1896, S. N. 715, SAAA.

  46. Gandhi, An Autobiography, Part II, Chapter XXIV.

  5 TRAVELLING ACTIVIST

  1. NA, 5 June 1896, S. N. 1004, SAAA.

  2. See S. N. 1005, SAAA.

  3. See S. N. 1006, SAAA.

  4. Gandhi, An Autobiography, Part II, Chapter XXIV.

  5. ‘The Grievances of the British Indians in South Africa’, CWMG, II, pp. 2–50.

  6. Gandhi, An Autobiography, Part II, Chapters XXV and XXVI.

  7. ‘Out of pocket expenses in connection with the movement in India with regard to the grievances of the British Indian in South Africa’, S. N. 1310, SAAA; also in CWMG, II, pp. 104–15.

  8. Times of India, 2 September 1896, quoted in Burnett Britton, Gandhi Arrives in South Africa (Canton, Maine: Greenleaf Books, 1999), pp. 442–3.

  9. ‘Speech at Public Meeting’, Bombay, 26 September 1896, CWMG, II, pp. 50–60.

  10. See ‘The Elevation of the Depressed Classes’, in Speeches of Gopal Krishna Gokhale (2nd edn, Madras: G. A. Natesan, 1916), pp. 1055–6. This is Gokhale’s recollection of Ranade’s talk – an original text of which does not exist. Ranade was a precocious critic of caste hierarchies and caste exclusivism. Throughout the 1890s, in his annual addresses to the Indian Social Conference, he promoted inter-dining, intermarriage, the emancipation of women, and other such measures. See The Miscellaneous Writings of the Late Hon’ble Mr Justice M. G. Ranade (Bombay: The Manoranjan Press, 1915), passim.

  11. For a still valuable dual biography, see Stanley Wolpert’s Tilak and Gokhale: Revolution and Reform in the Making of Modern India (1961, reprint New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1989).

  12. Gandhi, An Autobiography, Part II, Chapter XXVIII.

  13. Gandhi to F. S. Taleyarkhan, 18 October 1896, CWMG, II, pp. 67–8.

  14. ‘Out of pocket expenses’, S. N. 1310, SAAA.

  15. Gandhi to G. K. Gokhale, 18 October 1896, CMWG, II, p. 66.

  16. Based on an analysis of the surnames in the notice, a copy of which is in the SAAA (S. N. 1213).

  17. ‘Speech at Meeting, Madras’, CWMG, II, pp. 71–2.

  18. Madras Mail, 27 October 1896.

  19. ‘Preface to the Second Edition of the Green Pamphlet’, CWMG, II, p. 93.

  20. Gandhi, An Autobiography, Part II, Chapter XXIX.

  21. Gopalkrishna Gandhi, ed., A Frank Friendship: Gandhi and Bengal (Calcutta: Seagull Books, 2007), p. 4.

  22. CWMG, II, p. 94; Gandhi, An Autobiography, Part III, Chapter I.

  23. See letters and clippings in File No. 138, CO 179/195, NAUK.

  24. NM, 19 September 1896.

  25. NM, 21 September 1896.

  26. Natal Witness, 6 January 1897, clipping in CO 179/197, NAUK.

  27. NA, 17 September 1896, S. N. 1112, SAAA.

  28. See J. T. Henderson, ed., Speeches of the Late Right Honourable Harry Escombe, P.C., M.L.A., Q.C., L.L.D (Maritzburg: Davis and Sons, 1904), p. 324.

  29. NM, 27 November 1896.

  30. NA, 7 December 1896, S. N. 1366, SAAA.

  31. See David Arnold, ‘Touching the Body: Perspectives on the Indian Plague, 1896–1900’, in Ranajit Guha, ed., Subaltern Studies V (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987).

  32. See Annie Besant, ed., How India Wrought for Freedom: The Story of the National Congress told from Official Records (Madras: Theosophical Publishing House, 1915), pp. 246, 236–7.

  33. Quoted in Britton, Gandhi Arrives in South Africa, pp. 513–14.

  34. NA, 30 December 1896, S. N. 1508, SAAA.

  35. See Britton, Gandhi Arrives in South Africa, pp. 526–7.

  36. NM, 30 December 1897.

  37. NM, 5 January 1897.

  38. Times of Natal, 6 January 1897, clipping in CO 179/197, NAUK; NA, 5 January 1897, quoted in Memorial, CWMG, II, p. 151.

  39. NM, 8 January 1897.

  40. See Memorial, Appendix Aa, CWMG, II, p. 198.

  41. See S. N. 3638, NGM.

  42. Natal Witness, 11 January 1897; NA, 11 and 12 January 1897, clippings in CO 179/197, NAUK.

  43. ‘Interview to “The Natal Advertiser”’, CWMG, II, pp. 118–26.

  44. Ian Morrison, Durban: A Pictorial History (Cape Town: C. Struik, 1987), pp. 76ff.

  45. Cf. correspondence in Natal Government House Documents, on microfilm, Reel 6, Accession no. 2179, NMML.

  46. Memorial, CWMG, II, pp. 159–60.

  47. See reports in NM, 14 January 1897.

  48. See Gandhi, An Autobiography, Part III, Chapter III.

  49. This account of the assault on Gandhi is largely based on the extensive reports – covering several pages of the newspaper – printed in NM, 14 January 1897. Cf. also ‘How Gandhi Got Away Disguised as a Servant’, Natal Witness, 16 January 1897, S. N. 1894, SAAA. When R. C. Alexander died, ten years later, an obituarist wrote that the police chief ‘had more influence over a mob, through the medium of his commanding personality, than the whole of the police force combined, and many are the instances on record where, by the display of surprising ingenuity, he hoodwinked the gatherings of angered men’. (NM, 21 October 1907). The writer here may perhaps have had Alexander’s ingenious hoodwinking of Gandhi’s persecutors foremost in mind.

  50. NM, 15 January 1897.

  51. NM, 16 January 1897.

  52. R. C. Alexander and Jane Alexander to M. K. Gandhi, both letters dated 22 January 1897, respectively S. N. 1938 and 1939, NGM. Ironically, in February 1896, before Gandhi left for India, he had clashed with the police superintendent in court, when Alexander insinuated that two Indian Christians the lawyer was defending had changed their faith merely to ingratiate them with the ruling race. See Charles DiSalvio, The Man Before the Mahatma: M. K. Gandhi, Attorney-at-Law (NOIDA, UP: Random House India, 2012), pp. 92–4. On behalf of the Indian community in Natal, a gold watch was presented to Alexander for being ‘instrumental in saving the life of one whom we delight to love’. In addition, £10 was sent ‘for distribution among those of your Force who assisted on the occasion’. See CWMG, II, pp. 229–30.

  53. I found this previously unknown essay in a file in the records of the old India Office, where it had been marked for attention by the reforming civil servant Sir Alfred Lyall. See ‘D. B.’, ‘East Indians in South Africa’, The Nation, 6 May 1897, clipping in File 2536, L/P&J/6/467, APAC/BL.

  54. Quoted in NM, 16 January 1897.<
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  55. NM, 18 February 1897, S. N. 2046, SAAA.

  56. Louis Fischer, The Life of Mahatma Gandhi (first published in 1951; reprint, Mumbai: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1998), pp. 50–51.

  6 LAWYER-LOYALIST

  1. David Dick, Who Was Who in Durban Street Names (Durban: Clerkington Publishing Co., 1998), pp. 62–3.

  2. J. T. Henderson, ed., Speeches of the Late Right Honourable Harry Escombe, P.C., M.L.A., Q.C., L.L.D (Maritzburg: Davis and Sons, 1904), pp. 154–5, 291–4.

  3. The text of these Acts is reproduced in CWMG, II, pp. 272–8.

  4. Speeches of Harry Escombe, p. 340.

  5. CWMG, II, p. 241.

  6. CWMG, II, pp. 246f.

  7. Petition dated 26 March 1897, CWMG, II, pp. 231–5.

  8. Petition dated 2 July 1897, CWMG, II, pp. 260–72.

  9. Letter written ‘before September 18, 1897’, in CWMG, II, pp. 284–7.

  10. Naoroji to Chamberlain, 11 October 1897, copy in S. N. 2568, NGM.

  11. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Queen_Victoria%27s_Proclamation

  12. Harry Escombe to M. K. Gandhi, 20 September 1897, S. N. 2549, SAAA.

  13. Paul Tichman, Gandhi Sites in Durban (Durban: Old Court House Museum, n.d.), p. 21.

  14. The editors of the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi did not have access to these files, for during the apartheid years it was forbidden for Indians to have any dealings with the Government or people of South Africa. The files were photocopied from the Pietermaritzburg Archives by the Gandhi scholar E. S. Reddy, who then generously made them available to me. This and the next two paragraphs are based on this material.

  15. Cf. S. N. 3856, SAAA.

  16. The logbook, running to thirty-one pages in all, is filed as S. N. 2711, SAAA.

  17. News clipping dated 27 February 1898, S. N. 2700, SAAA.

  18. Francis Younghusband, South Africa of To-day (London: Macmillan and Co., 1899), pp. 228–31.

  19. P. J. Mehta, M. K. Gandhi and the South African Indian Problem (Madras: G. A. Natesan and Co., 1912), p. 80. The title-page of this booklet wrongly spells the author’s name as ‘Metha’.

  20. Text of speech in Gujarati by Pranjivan Mehta, Durban, 17 October 1898, S. N. 2825, SAAA.