Mahatma Gandhi, page 25
Witness: No.
Sir Walter Wragg: Then it is the position and not the colour?
The Chief Justice was severe in his strictures against the authorities. An innocent person of ‘superior status and blameless character whose identity was not in doubt’ to be treated thus was a behaviour ‘unjust, harsh, and tyrannical’. And he went on to add: ‘She suffered indignity, she suffered pain, and she suffered agony.’ That Mrs. Vinden should be called a ‘coolie’ was ‘as monstrous a misuse of the word as to call an Englishman a Frenchman’. And since a European in Maritzburg for the same sort of offence was awarded twenty pounds by the court, the judge thought Mrs. Vinden ‘could not complain if she was put on the same footing as white person’.
Thus ‘colour’ began to take on a new legal definition, which as the Natal Witness added, ‘will not pass unnoticed by Mr. Gandhi’.
The Africans now felt they too could challenge the authorities. ‘Superintendent Alexander,’ wrote Mr. Nyovgwanna in the Natal Witness, ‘and others will in the future learn that the fact of being a coloured person is not in itself sufficient cause for punishing a person. Justice Wragg in a previous case against a native had said, ‘a tiger cannot change his spots’. And now it looks as if His Lordship has changed his mind. If one could change Mrs. Vinden’s colour then surely he will admit there can be a law to change Mr. Lutuli’s colour?’ 24
Again, Gandhi loved the law. If he were faithful to the facts, the facts would be faithful to the law. The law never went wrong—if one judge misinterpreted the law another would correct the mistake, and if he in return misinterpreted his texts then there would always be someone, be it the public, that will set matters right. We should do our duty anyway, and the rest is not in our hands. In his public career, as in his professional activity, he took great pains to study the case, understand the legal points with honesty and precision and only then would he present his arguments. For example, there was, sometime earlier, that case before the Durban court about an intestate inheritance. The Chief Justice had asked Gandhiji to ‘frame a plea of distribution according to Mohammedan Laws’. Mohammedan Law differed in this matter, both from the common law and the Hindu Law. The point was, in Islam the gift to the poor had always had a very special legal status. Once this is misunderstood all division of property became difficult, if not impossible—the gift being a religious part of the whole, therefore the most important part. But it never is entitled ‘to any part of an intestate estate’. 25 This point did not come easily into the comprehension of the British judges; truly to say they often misunderstood it. But Gandhiji had not only thoroughly studied the Mohammedan Law—he had read the Koran as well to be sure of his position. And he also spoke to Muslim divines about certain interpretations of the doctrine and the law. The judge—and after all it is human to make a mistake—thought Gandhi’s point of view was erroneous; being a Hindu he could not know Muslim Law. ‘He is,’ said the judge, ‘as great a stranger to the Mohammedan Law as a Frenchman. For what he has stated he would have to go to a book as you would; of his own knowledge he knows nothing.’
Mr. Tatham pleaded for the successors.
Mr. Tatham: The question is whether we shall take Mr. Gandhi’s view or the priests’.
Sir Walter Wragg: The priests’.
It was according to Gandhi not merely a point of law but something that was to affect the whole of the Muslim population in terms of inheritance. Quoting the Koran, Gandhiji showed how inaccurate the judgement had been.
‘But the report says’, he wrote later to the Natal Witness, ‘that the priest and I differ. If you eliminate the ‘I’ and put ‘the law’ instead (for I simply said what the law was) I would venture to say the priest and the law should never differ, and if they do so it is the priest and not the law that goes to the wall.’
Gandhiji thus did not argue for himself. He argued for the law. Who was ever going to go wrong then?
‘It seems to be a fashion . . .’ wrote a commentator in the Natal Mercury, ‘to sit on Mr. Gandhi himself. I should like even at this late hour to raise my feeble protest against the rather ‘hoity-toity’ remarks indulged in by the judge in a recent case to the effect that Mr. Gandhi knew nothing of Mohammedan Law, that whatever knowledge he might have of it he would have obtained from books, and that of his own knowledge he knew nothing . . . I fancy if the learned judge were stripped of all knowledge, he had got from books he would appear legally and intellectually rather naked. Then why should not a Frenchman know Mohammedan Law, and why should not Mr. Gandhi and why should the learned Judge? Whence does he himself derive his knowledge of the law which is sufficient to enable him to deliver his ipse dixit upon a matter whereon he seems to think nobody but a Mohammedan can give an opinion. Is it from the derived source or does it spring from his ‘own knowledge’?’
Thus was Gandhiji defended by the press again and again. In due course the press got involved each time there was a conflict between the Indian community and the whites. A few shops would suddenly be burned down by an angry white mob or some angry European would take a shot at an unknown Indian, and Gandhiji was always there in defence of the victim. Scrupulous with his facts, and always erring on the side of kindness rather than of accusation, he received the sympathy of both the press and the public. For example, in a legal matter—a matter involving insolvency—Mr. Tatham was the adversary. Mr. Tatham lost the case and he laughed and made all the court laugh with the remark: ‘Gandhi is supreme . . . The triumph of black over white again!’
* * *
Now it was time to address the whole white community. He sat and wrote his famous ‘Open Letter’. It was addressed to the members of both the Legislative Council and the Legislative Assembly of Natal. The ‘Open Letter’ became perhaps the first manifesto of nationalist India. Indians were going to repeat it again and again for the next fifty years or more so that every school boy would know to say—of course we’re poor but we’re ancient, of course you may, you white people, rule us today but remember what you owe to us—in fact who we are. From Megasthenes and Strabo among the ancients to Goethe to Schopenhauer and Victor Hugo, we put our quotations on placards and we would walk through contemporary history shouting: Vande Mataram, Victory to the Mother. Don’t you please judge us by the coolie, Indians went on saying—of course he’s illiterate, of course he may not know how to read and write, but don’t you lift your finger at us, and pray, remember what were you yourself five-hundred years ago, a thousand years ago? But let us see what’s writ on our placard. The great (English) historian, Sir William Hunter hath said:
‘This nobler race (meaning the early Aryans) belonged to the Aryan or Indo-Germanic stock from which the Brahman, the Rajput, and the Englishman alike descended. Its earliest home visible to history was in Central Asia. From that camping ground certain branches of the race started to the East, others for the West. One of the Western offshoots founded the Persian Kingdom; and another built Athens and Lacedaemon, and became the Hellenic nation; a third went to Italy and reared the city on the seven hills which grew into Imperial Rome . . . And when we first catch a sight of ancient England we see an Aryan settlement, fishing in wattle canoes and working the tin mines of Cornwall.
‘The forefathers of the Greek and the Roman, of the Englishman and the Hindoo, dwelt together in Asia, spoke the same tongue, and worshipped the same gods.
‘The ancient religions of Europe and India had a similar origin.’
And Gandhi added to this the following remark:
‘If I then err, I err in good company. And the belief, whether mistaken or well-founded, serves as a basis of operation of those who are trying to unify the hearts of the two races which are legally and outwardly bound together under a common flag.’ 26
And Gandhiji goes on:
‘As to the Indian philosophy and religion, the learned author of the Indian Empire thus sums up: The Brahman solutions to the problems of practical religion were self-discipline, alms, sacrifice to and contemplation of the Deity. But, besides the practical questions of spiritual life, religion also has intellectual problems, such as the compatibility of evil with the goodness of God, and the unequal distribution of happiness and misery in this life. Brahman philosophy has exhausted the possible solutions of these difficulties, and most of the other great problems which have perplexed the Greek and Roman sage, medieval, and modern man of science (the italics are the author’s). The various hypothesis of creation, arrangement and development were each elaborated, and the views of physiologists at the present day are a return with new lights to the evolution theory of Kapila (the italics are again the author’s). The works on religion published in the native languages in India in 1877 numbered 1,192, besides 56 on mental and moral philosophy. In 1882 the totals had risen to 1,545 on religion and 153 on mental and moral philosophy.’ 27
And now, of course, Max Mueller’s famous statement has to be repeated: 28
‘If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions for some of them which well deserve the attention even of those who have studied Plato and Kant—I should point to India; and if I were to ask myself from what literature we here in Europe, we who have been nurtured exclusively on the thoughts of Greek and Romans, and of one Semitic race, the Jewish, may draw that corrective which is most wanted in order to make our life more perfect, more comprehensive, more universal, in fact more truly human—a life not for this life only, but a transfigured and eternal life—again I should point to India!’
Now look again at what the great German philosopher, Schopenhauer has to say about the grandeur of our philosophy, especially of the Upanishads:
‘From every sentence deep, original and sublime thoughts arise, and the whole is pervaded by a high and holy and earnest spirit. Indian air surrounds us . . . and original thoughts of kindred spirits. In the whole world there is no study, except that of the originals, so beneficial and so elevating as that of the Oupnekaat. 29 It has been the solace of my life; it will be the solace of my death.’
But let us go back to Sir William Hunter for a moment:
‘The science of language indeed had been reduced in India to fundamental principles at a time when the grammarians of the West still treated it on the basis of accidental resemblances, and modern philology dates from the study of Sanskrit by European scholars . . . The grammar of Panini stands supreme among the grammars of the world . . . It . . . stands forth as one of the most splendid achievements of human invention and industry.’
Besides Sir H.S. Maine, in his Rede Lectures, has lately declared:
‘India has given to the world Comparative Philology and Comparative Mythology . . . For India . . . includes a whole world of Aryan institutions, Aryan customs, Aryan laws, Aryan ideas, Aryan beliefs, in a far earlier stage and growth than any that survive beyond its borders.’
Says Sir William Hunter:
‘In certain points (of astronomy) the Brahmans advanced beyond Greek astronomy . . . Their fame spread throughout the West and found entrance into the Chronicon Paschale. In the eighth and ninth centuries the Arabs became their disciples . . .’
Further, Sir William Hunter goes on to speak of the way Indian medicine ‘had made progress’ before 350 BC:
‘Arabic medicine was founded on the translations from the Sanskrit treatises . . . European medicine down to the seventeenth century was based upon the Arabic . . . The Brahmans regarded not only medicine but also the arts of war, music and architecture as supplementary parts of their divinely inspired knowledge . . . The Sanskrit epics prove that strategy had attained to the position of a recognised science before the birth of Christ . . . The Indian art of music was destined to a wider influence . . . This notation passed from the Brahmans through the Persians to Arabia and thence introduced into European music by Guido d’Arezzo at the beginning of the eleventh century.’
And what about architecture and arts?
‘It seems not improbable that the churches of Europe owe their steeples to the Buddhist topes . . . Hindu art has left memorials which exhort admiration and astonishment of our age . . . English decorative art in our day has borrowed largely from Indian forms and patterns . . . Indian art works, when faithful to native designs, still obtain the highest honours at the international exhibitions of Europe.’
Coming to architecture, even Andrew Carnegie was dragged in to prove the greatness of India’s achievements.
‘There are some subjects too sacred for analysis, or even for words. And I now know there is a human structure so exquisitely fine or unearthly as to lift it into this holy domain . . . Till the day I die, amid mountain streams or moonlit strolls in the forest, wherever and whenever the mood comes when all that is most sacred and most elevated and most pure recur to shed their radiance upon the tranquil mind, there will be found among my treasures the memory of that lovely charm—the Taj.’
What about our literature, our drama? Who else but Goethe could have said of Shakuntala, our most famous play:
‘Wouldst thou the young year’s blossoms
and the fruits of its decline.
‘And all by which the soul is charmed, enraptured, feasted, fed, Wouldst thou the earth the heaven itself in one sole name combine.
I name thee, O Shakuntala! and all at once is said.’
But let us go back for a brief moment to Megasthenes and what he had to say about the Indian in terms of character and social life. (Once again from Sir William Hunter, and his Indian Empire.)
‘The Greek Ambassador (Megasthenes) observed with admiration the absence of slavery in India and the chastity of the women and the courage of the men. In valour they excelled all other Asiatics; they required no locks on their doors; above all, no Indian was ever known to tell a lie.’
But why talk only of the past. Sir George Birdwood says of contemporary India:
‘They are long-suffering and patient, hardy and enduring, frugal and industrious, law-abiding and peace-seeking . . . The educated and higher mercantile classes are honest and truthful and loyal and trustful toward the British Government, in the most absolute sense that I can use, and you understand the words. Moral truthfulness is as marked a characteristic of the Settia (upper) class of Bombay as of the Teutonic race itself. The people of India, in short, are in no intrinsic sense our inferiors, while in things measured by some of the false standards—false to ourselves—we pretend to believe in, they are our superiors.’
And let us not forget Bishop Heber either. Speaking of the people of India he says:
‘They are men of high and gallant courage, courteous, intelligent, and most eager after knowledge and improvement . . . They are sober, industrious, dutiful to their parents, and affectionate to their children; of tempers almost uniformly gentle and patient, and more easily affected by kindness and attention to their wants and feelings than any man whom I have met with.’
There’s always a Frenchman who’ll go ecstatic over some culture. Here’s certain Louis Jacolliot and his paean:
‘Soil of ancient India, cradle of humanity! Hail! Hail! venerable and efficient nurse, whom centuries of brutal invasions have not yet buried under the dust of oblivion. Hail, fatherland of faith, of love, of poetry, and of science. May we hail a revival of thy past in our Western future.’
Thus Gandhiji showed through documents to the Boer and the Briton India’s certificates of the past and the present. But one could rightly object, what about the Indians one sees in Natal, in South Africa, the coolie, the merchant? ‘If what you say is true, then the people whom you call Indians in the colony are not Indians. See how grossly untruthful they are!’ And here we reach what came to be one of the infallible tenets of Gandhism: To admit a fact when true. Never base success on a lie. For truth always wins—in its own good time.
‘To a limited extent,’ said Gandhiji, ‘I admit the charge . . . Much as I would wish them to be otherwise, I confess my utter inability to prove that they are more than human. They come to Natal on starvation wages (I mean here the indentured Indians). They find themselves placed in a strange position and amid uncongenial surroundings. The moment they leave India they remain throughout life, if they settle in the colony, without any moral education. Whether they are Hindus or Mohammedans, they are absolutely without any moral or religious instruction worthy of the name. They have not learnt enough to educate themselves. Placed thus they are apt to yield to the slightest temptation to lie. After some time lying becomes a habit and a disease. They would lie without any reason, without knowing what they are doing. They reach a stage in life when their moral faculties have completely collapsed owing to neglect . . . They cannot dare tell the truth, even for their wantonly ill-treated brother, for fear of receiving ill-treatment from their master. They are not philosophic enough to look with equanimity on the threatened reduction in their miserable rations and severe corporal punishment, did they dare to give evidence before their master. Are these men then more to be despised than pitied? Is there any class who would not do what they are doing under similar circumstances? 30
‘But,’ he continued:
‘I will be asked what can I have to say in defence of the traders who too are equally good liars. As to this I beg to submit that the charge against them is without foundation, and that they do not lie more than the other classes do for the purposes of trade or law. In fact the reason for such a conclusion is that very few Indian traders speak English, and thus the great causes of misunderstanding—adding colour to other differences and misunderstandings.’
And he asks:
‘Is their present treatment of the Indian in accordance with the best British traditions, or with the principles of justice and morality, or with the principles of Christianity?’
