Mahatma Gandhi has been labeled because of some selectively and meticulously researched phrases and terms he used or is purported to have used. Of course reading them today would infuriate us all.
But one wonders why the meticulous sifting of the information was done. Perhaps the following comments made in the Indian Opinion would give readers a different picture of Gandhiji. Like all human beings he too was not faultless but when injustice is so rampant about his life then one has to react and present the picture as well.
I have listed just some of the articles that appeared in the Indian Opinion so that you the reader can decide who Gandhiji really was. These are not from his autobiography or “hagiographies” but from his newspaper written while he was in South Africa and was still a young man.
- When an African named Magato was ejected from the first-class coach and a case was held, Indian Opinion dated 23.3.1912, devoted one and a half columns to the incident.
- The Indian Opinion in an article condemned the maltreatment of Chinese miners.
- In an article in the Indian Opinion attention was drawn to the discrimination against Japanese in British Colonies.
- The Indian Opinion gave publicity to a landmark judicial decision in the Transvaal recognizing the right of Africans to purchase land there. An editorial comment on the case was also made.
- An article was re-published in the Indian Opinion from Imvo Zabantzundu when white teachers in the Cape tried to exclude African and Coloured teachers from their teachers' association.
- Walter Rubusana’s election to the Cape Provincial Council in 1910, shortly after the four colonies became the Union of South Africa, received attention in the Indian Opinion and the newspaper commented that it was a great anomaly that blacks like Rubusana could not sit in the South African parliament.
- The inaugural meeting of Dr Abdurahman's African Political Organisation (APO) (founded in 1902) and its newspaper APO (founded in 1909) received front page coverage in Indian Opinion.
- Indian Opinion supported the resolution by Dr Abdurahman and the Cape Coloured people in February 1910 to observe the day of the visit of the Prince of Wales to South Africa as a day of mourning.
- Dr Abdurahman's deputation to the office of the Minister protesting against the harassment of coloured residents on the North Burghers Rights Settlement received wide publicity.
- His re-election as an independent candidate for Woodstock on the Cape Legislature on April 8th 1914 also received coverage.
- When Archdeacon Wergrian of Port Elizabeth wrote in the London Guardian that “The Zulus of Natal have a bitter hatred of the Indians and this hatred is shared by the Natives of other provinces in SA. If it were not for the Pax Britannica the Natives would drive out the Indian population … An increase of Indian immigration from Natal would ruin our scanty white population and possibly (I do not say probably) bring about a terrible conflict between our own Native people and the Indians whom they detest so cordially and whom they leave alone at present because of British law and order.” Editor's notes were “We question the writers knowledge of the “bitter hatred of the Zulus for Indians.
- There was also an article on the Brotherhood of the White Man. He wrote, “To the socialist of South Africa the brotherhood of man means brotherhood of the white man. In Pretoria the Baker's Union positively demanded that no black labour shall be employed in making bread.” The article went on to ridicule this whole concept of job reservation.
- There is also an article criticising the Labour Party of SA. which was asking for political rights but said nothing about the issues of industrial equality for black people.
- After the 1913 Land Act a systematic allocation of land to European farmers took place. The Indian Opinion covered the stories of the African families that were evicted from their land having to demolish their churches and their homes and not knowing where they could move to. The Indian Opinion was unable to establish whether the land was sold to the farmers by the government or whether it was given to them free.
- In 1911 an outbreak of Tuberculosis in Durban got attention in the Indian Opinion and the community was urged to help in the campaign against it.
- In the same year famine broke out in India, and an appeal was made to contribute towards this calamity.
- In 1912 an outbreak of smallpox also received attention and the community was urged to report cases and not conceal them.
- Another edition also had a particularly distressing story of the harsh and cruel treatment meted out to an indentured woman by her employer and a call was made to scrap the system.
- An extract from Rev. John Dube’s speech at the inaugural conference of the South African Native National Congress later known as the African National Congress (founded in 1912) was also printed in the newspaper.
- The resistance of the African women in the Orange Free State against the pass laws in 1913 received front-page coverage, with admiration for their bravery.
- The passage of the Land Act of 1913, which relegated only 7.1 percent of South Africa's land to Africans, was regarded as a serious “act of confiscation”
- African accomplishments were also commented on in Indian Opinion.
- When an indentured worker Soorzai was flogged by his employer Todd, the Indian Opinion covered the entire story and court case in it's consecutive editions until the case was finalized.
- The Indian Opinion also covered the story of intimidation and plan to assault Mr. West who was editing the paper at the time.
- The story of five Indians who were killed at the Hillhead and Blackburn Estates were also fully covered.
- The story of a priest Mahomed Seepye who visited the estate to perform a marriage ceremony and was caught walking on the Estate with Mahomed Yusuf and Mukdoon Khan and was severely whip lashed by William Gillespie Armstrong was also fully covered.
- The 25th anniversary of Father Maingot's appointment as priest at the St. Anthony’s Church was also reported.
- An application for an interdict by two Coloured men, Williams and Adendorff against conductors in Tramways restraining coloured passengers from boarding the Tramways received extensive coverage in several editions of the Indian Opinion.
- A meeting held by Coloured Women's Guild on the Passive Resistance in Jaggersfontein against pass laws received coverage.
- An article on missionary activities at Mariannhill (a Roman Catholic Monastery run by the Trappist order) near Pinetown was published in Indian Opinion. Here Africans were trained to become printers, blacksmiths, carpenters, saddlers and shoemakers. Mr Herman Kallenbach, a close friend and colleague of Gandhiji was sent to train in leather work at the Marianhill Monastery in order to return and teach the trade to others at the Tolstoy and Phoenix farms.
- Indian Opinion praised the ideals of Booker T.Washigton and John Dube, who was described as “our friend and neighbour”and was commended for his work at Ohlange. Later in India Gandhiji started the Rashtriya Shala- or national education institutions where a system of basic education was introduced based on similar lines called the Nai Talim.
- An article from Ilanga Lase Natal that sermonized about the value of manual labour, in particular cultivation of the land, was reprinted.
- The various Bills which impacted on the lives of the Indian community were published in full and explained.
These and many other articles reveal clearly that the sruggle was certainly not just about attaining rights for Indians but a much broader struggle even if separate. There was an empathy with the African cause, an empathy with the plight of the indentured workers and the poor.
So when a popular leader like Arundathi Roy redicules Gandhiji for writing an article on an ideal Bhangi, she refuses to acknowledge the real need for effective waste disposal systems but instead accuses Gandhiji of lecturing to the Bhangi caste. Of course she would not know that all of us who lived in the Ashram were encouraged to clean our toilets ourselves.
He wrote and I quote, “A square pit one foot and a half deep was sunk near the house to receive the night soil, which was fully covered with the excavated earth and which therefore did not give out any smell. There were no flies, and no one would imagine that night soil had been buried there. ... If night soil was properly utilized, we would get manure worth lakhs of rupees and also secure immunity from a number of diseases.
“By our bad habits we spoil our sacred river banks and furnish excellent breeding ground for flies with the result that the very flies which through criminal negligence settle upon uncovered night soil defile our bodies after we have bathed.” Roy and other activists need to heed these lines instead of ridiculing them. Waste management is a huge problem and we need to address it urgently.
Perhaps the world would be a happier place if people remember the biblical words, “Let any one who is without sin be the first to cast a stone.”
Or remember Gandhiji’s favourite hymn, Vaishnava Janato in which the poet, Narsimaha describes a perfect human being and in one of the verses he says, “a perfect human being is he who desists from finding faults in others”.
While no person is above criticism, we need to learn the difference between constructive criticism and malicious personality assassination.
Ela Gandhi is the granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi. She is also a peace activist.