Mahatma Gandhi, page 27
Africa could not do without the Indians. It could not do with them. The British could well do without the Boers. But where were the Boers to go? They were no more Dutch. They were Afrikaners. ‘Africa is my mother’s country. I do not know exactly how long my mother’s family has lived in Africa, but I do know that Africa was about and within her from the beginning.’ 38
The Indians however could always go back to India. A few thousand more or less (there were about 50,000 Indians in Natal at that time) would make no difference—they may, when back in their own country, even bring some spirit of reform, of adventure. Then why not go back? Now, if this is the argument, why don’t the British go back? They did not build South Africa. In fact, the Indian in the earlier days had done more for South Africa than had the Britisher. And in all this wrangle nobody thought of the Kaffirs. They were beneath any consideration; they belonged, like the forest and the rivers, to the country of Africa. Savage and sometimes even cannibals, just a little superior to the cattle, they would be looked after in their own territories with their own chiefs whom you could buy or sell or kill.
Thus between the Boer and the British there was no love lost. Between the Boer and the Indian there was no problem either—the Indian was inferior. So where was the problem? He, the Indian, will stay where he has to stay. We will see to that. Between the British and the Indian there was sympathy because of the Empire. Between the Dutch and the Boer too because they once were of the same stock. Between the Boers and Kaiser Wilhelm II because he did not have any share in the wrangle. The Germans also needed a place under the sun. So they became the unofficial protectors of the Boer.
Hence the British sometimes sided with the one sometimes with the other, according to circumstance or whims of the parties in power in London, Pretoria, Durban or Berlin. But somewhere deep down where the biggest fears were dormant, the Kaffir was the problem. When the giant would wake, what shall we do with him? Would he waken? And if the Indian did not go back, the Indian and the Kaffir will join together, the brown and the black, and throw the white into the sea. What then?
Gandhiji, still young and his ideas not distinctly formulated, did not think so. The Indian came from an ancient race—in fact, the same race as the Britisher. The Queen was our Queen Empress too. Proud of the Empire we will fight indeed in the name of the very principles of British justice, of British civilisation. We will not go back to India. And if we do, no Indian will ever step here again. So, choose!
* * *
The art of compromise is a legitimate, a noble species of human activity. Facts are never too noble—all situations a South Africa. The edge of fact is poetry, and the gentleman, the poet in action. Every Englishman is somewhere a poet, hence his willingness to compromise—the misunderstanding call it hypocrisy. However in the end the compromise ever seems to serve the British. That’s the paradox, the extraordinary aspect of the international drama. Is God, then, on the side of the English?
Lord Elgin, the Viceroy of India, was a noble person, a gentleman. He would feel it beneath his dignity, beneath his Englishness to be unfair to the Indians. He could not either be unfair to his countrymen in England. Nor for that matter to the English in South Africa. The situation in South Africa was quite serious. The English were on the edge of being thrown out. So were the Indians. He, the Viceroy, therefore agreed to a poll-tax. The Boers wanted to make every Indian pay twenty-five pounds for the right to stay in Natal. That would be too much. It was unkind, ungentlemanly towards a people who had brought so much prosperity to the whole of South Africa. Hence three pounds would do. (Three pounds were about four to six months wages of an Indian.) And if each Indian had a family of seven or eight adults—and which Indian did not have a large family?—you make it up in numbers. Thus facts remain the same, the perspective is different, and the whole solution honourable. What do the governments of Natal, of Transvaal, think? This way the Indian is at once free—and as British subject has all the rights, more or less—but he will thus be forced to go back to India as being the only economic solution. And each year the indentured labourer can always come into the African territories. Nothing changes except the way of looking at it all.
The Boer was a fiery, proud, puritanical creature. All these ‘arrangements’ seemed to him so much moral confusion. The Britisher always lives in a mess, the Boers had long ago decided. But facts are facts. The white man will rule South Africa. The brown man might serve him on the plantations. It’s such a pity the Kaffir will not work. Thus the only way now left for the white man is to get the coolies from India, and send them back to their God-forsaken country after the contract is finished or over. What is wrong with that anyway? Gandhi had become the obstacle. And not only Gandhi, but look at the British press. The Times in London sat on its imperial perch and seemed to dictate to the whole world how to behave. ‘It is to be feared,’ wrote the Times, ‘that the ordinary colonist, wherever settled, thinks much more of his immediate interests than those of the great Empire which protects him, and he has some difficulty in recognising a fellow subject in the Hindoo and the Parsee. The duty of the Colonial office is to enlighten him and to see that fair treatment is extended to British subjects of whatever colour.’ 39
This advice pinched the South African press on its most sensitive side, and quickly came the reply.
‘Frankly, whites do not recognise Hindoos as fellow subjects in the sense in which the Times uses that expression . . . Rather than see him swamping the white voter at the polling booth or sitting in the legislature, there are thousands of whites who would fight tomorrow, and the sooner Mr. Chamberlain thoroughly assimilates that unquestionable fact, the more successful is he likely to be in his dealings with South Africa.’ 40
Could not the Right Honourable gentleman, the Star went on to ask, find some other way of achieving ‘the same end by other means’ than by forbidding the disenfranchising of the Asiatic? One day the British will understand the truth about it all. ‘Perhaps in the presence of some common danger from outside something will come of the ideal which most of us cherish, of South African Union, and it is not too much to say that there will be considerable hesitation in admitting to the South African family any state which is cursed with a coolie vote.’
For, the press in South Africa argued, if the coolie were given the vote, ‘a Parnell or even a Tim Healy and the coolie will govern the country’. And you say they are British subjects. ‘They are in every respect as completely aliens in this country as Polish or Russian Jews are in England . . . The colonies have no interest in India, and except as a mere matter of sentiment, would care very little if it ceased to be an appendage of England.’ 41 Actually if you went on in this manner, the Natal Advertiser said, there will be a tragic-comic side to the story. Imagine, for example, by 1900 you will have a government composed somewhat in this wise:
Prime Minister: Ali Bangharee
Colonial Secretary: Dost Mahomed
Attorney-General: Treasurer: Said Mohomed Ramasamy
Secretary for Native Affairs: Dhurra Walla
What would the sacrosanct Times think of such a predicament?
By now Gandhiji’s presence was felt everywhere, not only in South Africa but in England and in India as well. He wrote letters to the Natal and the South African papers in general—always courteous, ever ready to accept a fact when true, and asking only for fair play, both from the Boers and the British. Nobody could find fault with his arguments—so disengagingly honest were they. His reputation had by now grown so vertically that nobody spoke of him but with respect—even the South African press.
‘There are Indians here like Mr. Gandhi, for instance,’ wrote the Natal Mercury, ‘who have come into the Colony to stay and who are more capable than many Englishmen of exercising their vote in an intelligent and patriotic manner. They are practically naturalised Natal colonists and there can be no more reason against their possessing franchise than there would be against the Frenchman and the Germans who form a portion of this community.’
What the South African press did not tell its readers was that the business community wanted the Indian trader out. But not the coolies. Thus one came back to the same dilemma. Chamberlain would not agree to the opinions of the Natal Government with regard to the disenfranchising of the Indians.
‘Your Ministers,’ he wrote, ‘will not be unprepared to learn that a measure of this sweeping nature is regarded as open to the very gravest objection. It draws no distinction between aliens and subjects of Her Majesty, or between the most ignorant and the most enlightened of the natives of India. Among the latter class there are to be found gentlemen whose position and attainments fully qualify them for all the duties and privileges of citizenship and within the last few years the electors of important constitutes in this country have considered Indian gentlemen worthy not merely to exercise the franchise but to represent them in the House of Commons . . .’ 42
The Franchise Bill, in its original form, had better be given up then. Her Majesty would never give her assent to such an iniquitous legislation. The Natal Indian Congress was going to win its first victory. But the young self-governing colony will suffer a historic defeat. It would, however, go on fighting for its rights, its own way.
The time had come, Gandhiji decided, to appeal to the whole civilised world. He sat and wrote the famous letter to all Englishmen. For, say what you will, the Home Government was on the Indian side. Besides, they feared and hated the Boer. They seem to have feared and hated the Boer more than they did the Indian.
The pamphlet was entitled: ‘An Appeal To Every Briton in South Africa.’ 43
Gentlemen, Gandhiji seemed to say, let us see point by point what your arguments be. I shall put forward your point of view—sometimes even better than you would. For that is my way. But let me expose before the wide world our point of view as well. And then let you and the world decide together whatever you must do. That is your problem not mine. Let us now see the various items of your argument:
Indians do not enjoy the franchise in India.
The Indians in South Africa represent the lowest class Indian; in fact, he is the scum of the earth.
The Indian does not understand what the franchise is.
The Indian should not get the franchise because the Native who is as much a British subject as the Indian has none.
The Indians should be disfranchised in the interest of the Native population.
The Colony shall be and remain a white man’s country and not a black man’s; and the Indian franchise will simply swamp the European vote, and give the Indian political supremacy.
‘I shall take the objections seriatim.’ 44
Your argument is, he continued, that unless you have the same franchise in the land of your origin, you cannot have them here.
‘If such a doctrine were to be of universal application it is easy to see that no one coming from England even could get the franchise in Natal, for the franchise law there is not the same as in Natal, much less could a man coming from Germany or Russia, where a more or less autocratic government prevails. The only test therefore is not whether the Indians have the franchise in India but whether they understand the principle of representative Government.’
The answer is simple:
‘But they (the Indians) have the franchise in India, extremely limited it is true; nevertheless it is there.’
The position of the Legislative Councils in India is not unlike that of the late Legislative Council of Natal. And the Indians are not debarred from entering these councils. They compete on the same terms with the Europeans. Actually the London Times says, talking even of the difficult Province of Bengal, the elective system ‘after a severe trial has proved a success’.
And now to your second point. What you say about the class of Indians in Natal is not entirely true. It is certainly not true of the trading classes and even among the indentured Indians there are some of the highest castes in India.
‘They are certainly all very poor. Some of them are even vagabonds in India. Many also belong to the lowest class. But I may be permitted to say without giving offence, that if the Indian community in Natal is not, nor is European community here, drawn from the highest class.’
And he now refers the reader to his other ‘open letter’ wherein he has quoted authorities to prove that the Indian ‘is as much civilised as a ‘model’ European . . . Loved and well treated he is capable of rising higher like any member of every other nationality. He cannot be said to be well treated as long as he is not even given those privileges which he enjoys or would enjoy in India under similar circumstances.’
Your third point that the Indian does not understand franchise is almost to beg the question. India is villages, and the villages are from time immemorial run by the Panchayat, and the Panchayat is elective. So, how could you say we do not understand the significance of franchise?
Your other point says if the Indian gets the franchise, the Natives should have it too. This is, if one may say, beside the point. For what we are stating is that the Indian has already the franchise, and you want to take it away. Further, the Indian has ‘his Charter of Liberty, the Proclamation of 1858’.
‘One of your points, gentlemen, is that the Indians corrupt the Native by selling the latter liquor. If you examine the point carefully you will see it is not founded on facts. The Indian trader, the one who has the franchise, belongs to a community who are not only teetotallers themselves but would like to see liquor banished altogether from the land.’
And now see what the Indian Immigration Commission (1885-87) has to say on this point.
‘We, however, doubt that they (the Indians) are more guilty in this matter than the white people who traffic in liquor . . . It has been shrewdly observed that the people who make the loudest complaints against the Indian immigrants for selling or disposing of liquor to the Natives are the very persons who themselves sell the liquor to the natives. Their trade is interfered with, and their profits are lessened by the competition of Indian liquor traffickers.’
And Superintendent Alexander giving his evidence explicitly says:
‘I find that people generally suspect coolies of doing everything wrong, stealing fowls, etc. but I find such is not the case. Out of the last nine cases of fowl-stealing, all of which were laid to my corporation night-soil coolies—I find that two natives and three white men have been convicted of stealing fowl.’
And again, Superintendent Alexander has said:
‘In the present condition of Natal, I do not think it is possible to substitute a white for an Indian population. I don’t think we can. I can deal with 3,000 Indians with the staff I have, but if there were 3,000 corresponding white British workmen, I could not . . .’
Gandhiji goes on giving further facts:
‘In 1893 while there were 28 convictions against Europeans in the borough for supplying liquor there were only three against Indians.’
The sixth point is that it shall be a white man’s country and so the Indian should never be given franchise. This is once again a fallacious argument. People in Natal forget that it’s not a country of ‘one man one vote’ but there is a property qualification for voting; an immovable property of £50 or a rented one of £10. And here Gandhiji analyses the electoral districts and the number of voters in each. Though the Indian and the European population is about the same in the Colony, whereas there were 9,309 white voters on the list, there were only 251 Indians as registered voters, that is one Indian vote to every thirty-eight European votes.
‘What the Indians do and would protest against is colour distinction-disqualification based upon racial difference. The Indian subjects of Her Majesty have been most solemnly assured over and over again that no disqualifications or restrictions will be placed upon them because of their nationality or religion. And this assurance was given and has been repeated upon no sentimental grounds but on proof of merit.’
The coolie, as any government report would tell you, and as in fact the Indian Immigrant’s Commission’s report would tell you, has only brought prosperity to the country.
‘Indian immigration,’ says Mr. Saunders, a member of the Honourable Legislative Council and one of the commissioners, ‘brought prosperity, prices rose, people were no longer content to grow or sell produce for a song, they could do better: war, high prices for work, sugar, etc. kept up prosperity and prices of local produce in which the Indians dealt . . . If we look to 1859 we shall find that the assured promise of Indians labour resulted in an immediate rise in revenues which increased four-fold within a few years.’ But the natural fear that the Indians would swamp the Colony brought rumours that immigration would be suspended. ‘Down went the revenues and wages. But later fresh promise of immigrants immediately sent wages and revenues up. Retrenchment was soon spoken of as a thing of the past. . . .’ Records like these ought to tell their own tale and silence childish race sentimentalities and mean jealousies.’
‘To separate the two communities,’ said Gandhiji ‘is easy enough, to unite them by the ‘silken cord of love’ is equally difficult. But then, everything that is worth having is also worth a great deal of trouble and anxiety.’
Let us work then for this cord of love uniting us all.
And this pamphlet went out into the large and difficult world. The Natal Mercury spoke praiseworthily of ‘its great merit of moderation’. And now the London Times was completely won over by the Gandhian argument. ‘We cannot afford,’ wrote the Times, ‘a war of races among our subjects. It would be as wrong for the Government of India to suddenly arrest the development of Natal by shutting off the supply of immigrants as it would be for Natal to deny the rights of citizenship to British Indian subjects who by years of thrift and good work in the Colony have raised themselves to the actual status of citizens. The Indian Government have on occasions found extreme measures the only way of dealing with certain foreign colonies. It is the duty of the Home Government to take care that the necessity shall not arise in regard to any Colony of British men . . .’
