Road To Freedom

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• For God and Country
• The Empire Builders
• Tribal Uprisings
• Sepoys on the Move
• British Authority Collapses
• The Empire Strikes Back
• Roll of Honour
• The Trial of the Last Emperor
• English Education
• The Blue Mutiny
• Perishing in Peace
• ‘Rani Ka Hookum’
• Barbarous Britannia
• Return to Swadeshi
• The Delhi Durbar
• Hunger Deaths
• The One-Man Army
• Mamool Raj
• The British Raj in Black and White
• Europeans Take To The Street!
• Pressing On !
• The Battle For A Free Press
• The Battle Lines are Drawn
• Women : Crossing the Threshold
• An Old Man's Dream
• Father of Indian Unrest
• The Monk Who Shook The Nation
• The Battle is Taken to the Legislature!
• Partition of Bengal
• The Great Divide
• The New Spirit of India
• Swadeshi Enterprise
• From Swadeshi to Swaraj
• Gandhi in South Africa
• Heroes and Martyrs
• Revolutionaries Outside India
• Carrot and Stick
• Gandhi in Champaran
• The Gentle Satyagrahi
• Massacre at Jallianwala Bagh
• Jallianwala — The Aftermath
• A People Reject Their Rulers
• The Himalayan Blunder
• Gandhiji Withdraws from Political Activities
• Bardoli
• Saga of Indian Revolutionaries
• A Pinch of Salt!
• Gandhi and Ambedkar
• Leave India to God… or to Anarchy
• Quit India
• The Last War of Independence
• Apostle of Peace
• India Wins Freedom
• The Light Has Gone Out
• Under One Flag

Gandhi in South Africa

Gandhi in South Africa

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was a young barrister practising in Saurashtra in Gujarat. He found it disgusting to pay commissions to those who brought him work and he found the atmosphere of intrigue in Saurashtra's legal circles, suffocating. Sympathising with his plight his elder brother advised a change of scene. A Porbander merchant Dada Abdulla who had a trading company in Durban was looking for an Indian lawyer willing to work in South Africa. The pay was good and when the job was offered to Gandhi he had no hesitation in accepting it. And so in May 1893 the 24-year-old barrister left his native shores to seek his fortune across the seas in distant South Africa. There he had many strange and unnerving experiences. Once while travelling from Durban to Pretoria by train, he was thrown out of the first class compartment because his fellow passenger, a white did not want to share the compartment with a coloured man. Gandhi spent the night in a dark, dank waiting room. He wrote : "It was winter… the cold was extremely bitter, my overcoat was in the luggage but I did not dare to ask for it lest I be insulted again, so I sat and shivered. There was no light in the room…" It was a time for introspection. He wondered if he should go back to India or stay and fight for his rights. He decided to stay back and fight the 'colour prejudice'. His decision was to change the course of history not only in South Africa but also in India. The first batch of indentured labourers from India had arrived at Natal in November 1860. They worked in sugarcane, tea and coffee plantations. When their five-year period of contract expired they continued their stay in Africa. The other class of Indians in South Africa were the traders, mostly Muslim merchants from Gujarat. Their businesses prospered and Indians contributed significantly to the economic growth of South Africa though they formed less than 3% of the population. Alarmed at the growing stature of Indian traders, the whites wanted to put an end to immigration of Indians and placed severe restrictions on their movements, property rights and business activities.

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In August 1906 the Transvaal government proposed a legislation to make it mandatory for every Indian man, woman and child of eight years and above to register his or her name with the Registrar of Asiatics and take out a certificate of registration. The Registrar would have to note down important marks of identification on the applicant's person and take the person's fingerprints.
The certificate would have to be produced on demand. Even a person walking on the street could be asked to produce his certificate. Police officers would have the right to enter private houses to inspect certificates.
Recalling his first impressions of the ordinance, Gandhi wrote: "I have never known legislation of this nature being directed against free men in any part of the world… I saw nothing in it except hatred of Indians… it seemed to me that if the ordinance was passed and the Indians meekly accepted it, it would spell absolute ruin for the Indians in South Africa. I clearly saw it was a question of life and death for them. I further saw that even in the case of memorials and representations proving fruitless, the community must not sit with folded hands. Better die than submit to such a law."
A meeting was held on September 11, 1906. The venue was the old Empire theatre owned by a Jew.
Sheth Haji Habib, one of the speakers, in the course of his speech declared in the name of God that he would never submit to such a law, and advised 'all present to do likewise'. Gandhi was startled when Sheth Haji Habib brought God into the picture. At first he was perplexed by the turn of events. Soon "perplexity gave place to enthusiasm." Gandhi explained to the audience the significance of the oath Haji Habib had suggested. "To pledge ourselves or to take an oath in the name of God is not something to be trifled with, if having taken such an oath we violate our pledge we are guilty before God and man."
Gandhi went on to caution them about the consequences of sticking to the oath; it might result in loss of property, imprisonment or even deportation. "Every one must search his heart, and if the inner voice assures him that he has requisite strength to carry him through, then only should he pledge himself and then only will his pledge bear fruit."
The meeting concluded with everybody taking the oath to defy the ordinance if it became law.
Thus was born a unique movement which Gandhi called Satyagraha (insistence on truth). Conceived and tested in South Africa it was transplanted to India where it would give new purpose and direction to the struggle for freedom.