Mahatma Gandhi, page 52
We had no time to think it all when they were already there, Yama’s henchmen with their nooses, and he would take away our Bapu again. To tell you the truth, we were so happy with marmalade and tea and felt all was well again when the whiteman’s magistrate came and stood by Bapu, for we all saw it. And they took him away quick as a corpse, but Bapu had told us, go on, go on, on this road and on, and after twist and rise and rise and twist again, you’ll come one morning to the Tolstoy Farm. But such Bapu’s wits, we’d hardly spat and shat and laid ourselves down, and had risen and started again on our march singing, singing loud across the vast spacious verberant grasslands, for they had no evil with us and we had no evil with them—did we?—then suddenly a cart came behind us rushing and we look, and we see Bapu in it, and with some Indian merchants as well. And up went our hearts with joy and we shouted, Ramachandra Maharaj ki jai, Bolo Ramachandra Maharaj ki jai, and it was sweet to shout it again. But he told us, his many Hanumans had been arrested too, Naidoo and Behari Maharaj, Ramanarayan Sinha and Raghu Narsu and Rahim Khan. And they would not be let out. Yet Bapu smiled and said: And this time, brothers and sisters, we’ll perhaps reach the Tolstoy Farm in peace. The government wants no war with us, and we’re only pilgrims. Holy our hearts seemed again, and we felt the round look of pilgrims on our faces. Why is it god seems to sit on our foreheads only when the pilgrimage be right remembered?
That night as we were fed again, and we would be going to our slumber, Bapu talked to us and said: Now brothers and sisters, Johannesburg will soon come. Only four days remain—we’ve come four stages of our God’s march and four more stages there be still to do. Smuts and Botha sit on their high seats, and are watching us. Let us never forget anything might happen to me, to you. If you’d thrown a stone at the white man that came to arrest me or spat at the policeman at the Volksrust spruit, I tell you, bullets would have poured on us. But Smuts knows, and so do you, that death does not have fear for us. Truth knows no death. And if you’re already dead, how can they kill you again? You don’t kill a dead mouse. Do you? The cat only runs after a live mouse. But if the mouse were to say, eat me, brother cat, what would the cat do? He may try to eat you once, twice, or thrice, and at the fourth trial he would say, nay, nay, this be not God’s law. And he would run towards the kitchen for butter or milk, will he not? So it would be if the lamb said to the lion: May I live with you, do you think the noble lion will fall upon a poor lamb? Suppose people who hunt lions suddenly find the lion that says: Kill me, brother, kill me if you will, and be happy in whatever you do. Do you then think the lion will be killed, no. No one kills a kind lion. Such God’s ways.
Now, brothers and sisters, let me tell you about God. And what Bapu told us of God. For when I say God, said our Bapu, remember it is not an idol in a temple, though the idol in a temple be also the shadow of God. The idol tells you I am not God, but if you think deeply of me, then will you go to God, and then there will be neither temple nor gong. God is not anywhere outside of you. He is your Atman, your being, your soul. For this, as the Gita says, and as the Koran says, and as the Christian Bible says, there is no death. How can soul have death? How can day know night? And finally what is it you and I want? We don’t want money. That comes and that goes. We don’t want palaces and palanquins, for kingdoms have come and gone, and great cities like Hastinapur are now in ruins. Men die and they are burnt and they are born again. This world of samsara, of birth and death and birth again, what sorrow be it that it goes on and on like a well’s pulley. The water is pulled, it creaks hard. The water is emptied, and the bucket goes down, it slips quick. But for the pulley itself there is no water. It rotates and rotates and that is all its life. Suppose all were water, and there was nothing but water—that is God. And you need no pulley to bring that water up. And that water our ancestors have called Brahman—the Truth. So we, today, going to the Tolstoy Farm, are satyagrahis—marchers to the City of Truth. March, march on, for there’s nothing you will lose. All is yours because Truth is yours.
And we sat down and we sang that bhajan again:
The Road to the City of Love is hard, brother,
Is hard,
Take care, take goodly care, as you walk along it.
Such has been our pilgrimage, my brother, my sister. Were we not going to Sri Rama’s coronation? The city of Ayodhya is all lit with brilliant arches of banana leaves, and mango-twigs, coconuts hang from bamboo poles, and Sri Rama’s name be drawn in ochre before every courtyard and the five-wicked lamp lit in the mid middle of rice-powder mandalas. Rama, Sri Rama, Lord of the Raghu Race. Your feet our safety, your compassion our warmth, Your presence our breath. We breathe because Sri Rama of Ayodhya is.
Rama is going to be crowned. Can you not feel it in the air? And as if to announce the coronation, Brother Polak himself comes to announce all is ready for the festival. But it will not be this way. Kaikeyi’s promise to another life has to be kept. Smuts’ promises to the Natal Government have to be kept. No, Smuts will not let us go to Tolstoy Farm, for he knows we have no hatred in our hearts, and his God is our God.
But, brother, Bapu had not known the stars of Smuts right. He must have a Saturn and Mercury facing each other somewhere. If not why would he, I ask of you, send another white man, and a big, big official, Mr. Chamney, and this one came in a Cape-cart and he said: ‘I arrest you.’ And we all saw this and heard this.
‘And what about our pilgrims?’
‘We shall see to that,’ said the big officer.
And Bapu turned to Polak, as to Brother Bharata, and said: And now you be in charge of the pilgrimage—and then did Bapu turn to us and say in Tamil, in Hindi. Be ye peaceful, my brothers, my sisters, for I go now where Smuts takes me. And the bold officer said to Bapu: You cannot talk, you are under arrest—and Bapu smiling said,—And the officer says I may not talk,—and the officer and the carriage pulled quickly away and so fast it went, we had hunger in our hearts, for where be they taking him to, where, O where, Brother Polak? And this time we had so much sorrow in our eyes, no tears would come. But the women unable to bear it all sang:
And when they led him to the forest edge
He turned, did Sri Rama, with Lakshmana his brother
And mother Sita,
And said: City may you be happy.
But the fishermen and the potters cried:
Lord, Lord, stay, for how will the fishes swim now or the pot turn?
And Sri Rama said: Truth feeds the fish and turns the pot.
The road of Truth is long brother,
Is very long,
But fresh winds blow.
Then, suddenly, we held our bellies, and we sobbed. And Brother Polak said, like Bharata, where can they take him away when all is His play? And now we marched behind Brother Polak. Be it the Lord’s play always, I ask you? Is this it then?
Bapu being taken away was like a slab of sun fallen or a mountain hollowed, nothing grew and nothing sang, and there was neither shine nor rain nor sound nor silence except the soft-touch steps of the pilgrims and the cracked whine of a child here or there, or a cur that had slipped itself amidst us on our roads that gave a moon-cry to the day, for there was so much misery you might have heard jackals moan or vultures grunt—yet there was peace in our hearts, Bharata walked in front of us, and wheresoever he took us, Sri Rama would be. And when we came to Greylingstad, and Kachhalia Seth from Johannesburg met us, it was as if the whole of Bapu’s family was there too, and we thought we’d have no fears for all the revolving time to come.
Whispers went from here to there among the learned volunteers, they seemed very grim, and would not say anything. ‘Eat well and sleep,’ is all they said, and there was a dull pain in our hearts. We knew all would not be well by morning, but soon we hoped we would be at the sanctuary, and Bharata looking after us, we should all settle into our huts and hearths and we would wait till Ravana come down his fortress and give battle to Sri Rama himself. But the dawn came too soon at Greylingstad, and we rose and we washed, we marched again and we rested amidst the rocks and shrubs, and we munched our sugar and bread, when suddenly from afar like monster-hosts of Ravana, they appeared from afar, and they were bunches and bunches of them, and as we came nearer the nearer came they, and before we could come too near, Bharata stopped us, and went forward and parleyed with the soldiers, and they said something to him and he said something to them that the winds did not carry, but soon we knew, we would not go straight along the pilgrim road, but left and into Balfour town. Why, why, we asked and people whispered. Well, we may all become guests of Ravana—who knows and they gave a wry, dry laugh. And we understood not and as we passed by the town, the padres still came to greet us and smile to us, and some even threw cakes and flowers from the churches at us, and we sent the flowers back, and a white here and white there smiled at us, but many that seemed sullen, and strong, and evil-looking. But nothing came to be. Through shop-laden streets and white, high houses we were huddled into the railway station yard and one train stood and two and three, and we asked of the volunteers. Brothers, my brothers, what may this be?—but they would neither look nor answer and our heart beat so big, big, some of us looked from door to gate and from gate to door, and we said to our women: Something is amiss here, and we may not be safe—but the white soldiers guarded the doors now and the women began a song of lament; they sang thus:
When the night was dark and the blue god was born,
Kamsa sat in his seat of satisfaction
And counted every child-cry of the night.
For he that would down him,
He be born too that night
Under the Rohini Star,
And fear ran through the street like hyena.
As if this would drive the trains away—thus we sang.
Then came a white officer—Chamney again was his name—they said, the same who had come to take Bapu away at Standerton, and this Chamney said: Get into the train, and it was translated into us by Kachhalia Seth or by a volunteer, while Bharata stood amidst the whites talking away. And we said, nay, nay, our Bapu is not here to tell us—and we were bent on the sanctuary near Johannesburg, the Tolstoy Farm, and we will walk and we will fight if need be, and we will get there. But an elder volunteer stood up and said: Bapu has told you to follow the leader whoever that may be, and be non-violent. You remember in the Ramayana too it is thus spoke: Follow Bharata, said Sri Rama, for he rules in my name, and by now Brother Polak himself came to us, and he spoke and said: Remember you are satyagrahis. You will never harm anyone. You will obey the truth. Bapu told you to obey your leader. We understood not his speech, but a volunteer told us what was said and Brother Polak nodded and nodded away as though he understood Tamil and Hindusthani and this was indeed what was told but, I tell you, the women would not let the men in. The women sat at the train doors and said: Until Bapu comes we shall not go.—And others, the men that were already in the train, they jumped over the women and came out on the platform and cried: Brothers, we will not go, and all the men then shouted, Sri Ramachandra ki jai, and the whiteman must have thought we were going to run, for he held his gun tighter, but such the noble heart of God, brother, neither the gun was shot nor did we run, for Kachhalia Seth and Polak Brother, they both stood up on a table and made more speeches. The children cried and the women were all a-chatter. But soon silence came, and Brother Bharata said: Obey Bapu. He said never to resist the police. And with hunger roaming our bellies, our turbans twisted in hand, the women wiping their tears, we entered the long awaiting trains. One after the other she whistled, did the wretch, and the guard gave a signal and in the first train travelled Brother Bharata himself. Where were we going, my brother, my sister? Were we going to the City of Lanka?
No, for at Volksrust station the police hurriedly came and took away Brother Polak, and as if to submerge our sorrow, the train whistled and entered tunnels and it was all dark, stomach-heaving, distressful, and suddenly we emerged on the other side of the mountain wherefrom through twists and roads that we could overlook, and that we’d walked but yesterday, we came down quickly and hungrily (for they gave us neither food nor water on the train)—till we reached Newcastle, where was again an army, and the army marched us, man, woman and babies in their mothers’ arms, and walking, limping, crawling into the mining compounds, and the chief of army said (through a volunteer): ‘The government has declared all of you prisoners. Stay in your compounds’, and we saw the thorny-wire all around us, and men with guns at the four corners, and when we had found our homes and had descended our heads on our pillows, the siren howled as never it had. And the next morning, we were driven, brother, like bullocks into the mines. We had to work, for the whites had decided so. We were coolies-on-contract; were we free?
* * *
Just then, O just then, when all was dun dark, like elephants, who, when the heats of summer have heavied, hobble squabble in puddles and mud-pools of the lower hills, where the waters are still a little wide, and there’s still a crop or grove to plunder, but when monsoon silences start, and the winds suddenly begin to howl through the forests and whistling through the valley, the elephants rise and move towards the summits for breath and bath, and trumpeting through the upper forests they rush, quelling the trees, and the rains coming dash and churn on their foreheads—like Vishnu’s discs the waters churn, quibble and pour down the long, silent trunks—and the elephants more higher and yet higher, washed and blue and reaching the cloud-heights, walk on the ridges one, two, three . . . a countable hundred, trumpeting and lifting the branches, and beating their backs with these, or rushing through the open as if in open combat with the little ones—Come let us play, they seem to say, and now that we’re fresh and free, let’s combat before the goddesses of the forests (for here and there on hill tops you can still see a temple spire, and somewhere even a bell is rung and the camphor burnt and all through the night you hear a verberant drone as if a mantra repeated day and night and night again ancient but alive)—and people looking from the plains say, there, there, the mountains move, the elephants have found their native clouds, and there will be such auspicious rains for the margashira crops—likewise the movement on the southern hills of Natal where coolie after coolie, heaving his breath ran towards the north, towards Newcastle—one thousand, four thousand, nine thousand, seventeen thousand, twenty-five and forty thousand, in all, and as the moving mountains they edged the hills, uncaring for policeman or planter—all they knew was in some prison lay their Sri Rama, and he should be freed now, now that the rains have auspiciously come. Holy and bright as the monsoon mornings seem the day, and all night one heard the rain patter on the tiles and by morning the procession of elephants will reach the summit—and see the white curled sea. But the volunteers said: Bapu has told the plantation men they were not to strike, the citymen, Bapu’s men, rushed to the southern mountains to tell them, No brothers, no, Bapu has only told the miners of Newcastle to strike, not you, not you, for there would be a war thus—but who would listen to whom when Sri Rama is not in the war-camp—the plantation coolies were angry and would strike back, thirty thousand of them, forty thousand of them, if the whiteman struck but one (and the whiteman with us, he took out his whips and he lashed and blood broke out from their veins, our men’s, but one rushed not at him)—and now it was we heard that on the estates of tea and sugar cane there were shootings—coolie after coolie, his turban on his head and his hand lifted in anger or prayer had died one, two, then ten. And it was then the news came that our Bapu was taken to Dundee (so the papers said) for having driven us into the march, and they gave him nine months hard-labour (that’s what the whiteman’s papers said, so spoke the volunteers), and afterward he was, was Bapu, taken again to Volksrust jail where he met his Hanuman and his Bharata, and it was as if the holy family had come together again (only Sita Devi was still in prison)—but the whiteman’s court could find nobody to bear witness to the evil deeds of Sri Rama or of Hanuman or of Bharata, so like a true Rama, our Sri Rama chose his accuser, and his accuser—disciple Polak—said: I saw Sri Rama, the Lord, say this to us and that, so that we would all march into Transvaal (for that was the evil our Sri Rama had done, to make us march into Transvaal) and yet when it came to Hanuman who was there to say what Hanuman had done, for he had done nothing, he had burnt no Lanka. So, laughing, Bapu said: I will bear witness and say: Hanuman, I saw you help the marchers to enter Transvaal, and the white judges gave him, Kallenbach, three months of prison too, and when it came to Brother Polak, not only had he done nothing, but he had helped the police to send us into the trains and then send us to the mines again, and pray what evil could he have done? But in Ravana’s kingdom, you know, all that which is white in Ayodhya is black in Lanka, the lotus smelleth the putrid humours of the backyard or inauspicious jackals cry during the day, and sleep at nightfall. Such Ravana’s kingdom. So Brother Bharata was given three months prison and lest there should be mischief between them, they were all taken to different districts of the kingdom, and then the police opened fire anywhere they liked, in the total vastitude of the land, and killed as many as they relished. For the trouble is, brother, the whites don’t have so many prisons. Yet when you kill, others will see a man killed and will see it’s like felling a tree—it just drops and falls and lies as if awake in sleep. That’s death. Then the coolies fell one after the other, a hundred of them, so people talked, and the killed were burned or buried according to scripture.
