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MAHATMA GANDHI
By: Bidyut Chakrabarty
Publisher: Roli Books
Rs: 350
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When Gandhi reached Durban in May 1893 he was received by Abdulla, one of the wealthiest Indian merchants who had invited him to South Africa to settle a legal dispute. Gandhi was a natural choice given his training in the British jurisprudence in Middle Temple. It was a boon in disguise for him since he had not been able to make his mark as a lawyer in India. The experience in South Africa would prove momentous in preparing him for a bigger role in India’s freedom struggle.
Once in South Africa, Gandhi began confronting the racist Government. Within a week of his arrival, while he was traveling from Durban to Pretoria he was thrown out of a first-class railway compartment despite having a valid ticket. It was a very cold night and he had to suffer terribly in a non-European waiting room at Maritzburg station. In his words, ‘doubt took possession of my mind. Late at night, I came to the conclusion that to run back to India would be cowardly. I must accomplish what I had undertaken’.
His experience at Charlestown, a rail terminus was not very different either. He took a stagecoach for Standerton. Here too, the white officials forced him to sit on the footboard, instead of on the seat for which he had paid. His refusal to move out of his seat evoked anger and resulted in physical assault on Gandhi. He had borne the beating, but did not concede the demand. On arrival in Standerton, he narrated his experience to his Indian friends, but was disappointed by their responses. According to them what had happened to him was not very unusual for the Indians in the Transvaal.
The five days journey from Durban to Pretoria seemed to Gandhi as one of the most ‘creative experiences’ of his life. He saw racism in action. He would challenge the atrocious policies of the government simply because they did not fit into the ‘graceful’ British Empire. Racism had no legitimate place in the British Empire.
Gandhi was soon disillusioned with the South African Government that hardly changed its attitude vis-à-vis Indians. Meanwhile, he had become successful as a lawyer. He earned his fees by identifying loopholes in the laws for his merchant clients who always held Gandhi in high esteem.
Gandhi felt that lack of an organization for the Indians in South Africa was one of the major weaknesses. So, he launched the Natal Indian Congress in 1894.
On his return to Durban in December 1896 after a brief visit to India, Gandhi experienced another racist attack against him and those with him in the ship that was to anchor in Durban. A crowd of more than 3000 whites had congregated to prevent him and fellow Indian passengers from landing in the port. The crowd resolved to ‘burn Gandhi (since) he has vilified (white South Africans) in India and wants to flood Natal with Indians’. Gandhi was saved by the wife of R.C. Alexander, the ‘old’ and ‘popular’ superintendent of police of Durban. The scene was so inflammatory that Gandhi had ‘almost given up the hope of reaching home alive’. Finally with the support of Mrs Alexander, he escaped in the disguise of a constable.
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April 2007
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