Gandhi’s legacy, challenged by recent allegations of racial superiority, will be remembered on the anniversary of his assassination, writes ES Reddy.
The 69th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination in New Delhi on January 30, 1948, will be commemorated at a special event at the Kendra Hall in Sydenham Road (opposite the Greyville racecourse) at 6pm on Monday night.
Inter-faith prayers will be followed by addresses from the Premier of KwaZulu-Natal, Willies Mchunu, and the Consul-General of India.
In a number of publications last year, Gandhi’s views on race, the struggle against racial oppression and colonialism were questioned. He has been vilified as an admirer of the British empire and someone who believed that Indians were superior to Africans.
These views were based on statements made by the young Gandhi soon after he arrived in South Africa in 1893, long before he came to know Africans. The statements, plucked from The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi without any attempt at contextualising or annotating them, distort what his life represents.
It is important to remember that the early Gandhi had little contact with Africans and did not understand their sensitivities.
Gandhi said, “My life is my message” and his shows how an ordinary person with weaknesses can rise to great heights by shedding early prejudices and adhering to love and non-violence instead of hatred and greed.
Gandhi practised what he preached. He conquered fear and defied the racist regime in South Africa and imperialist Britain.
He went to prison five times in South Africa and nine times in India. He espoused the dignity of labour and the need to protect the environment. He became a symbol of peace and non-violence.
Writing to The Times of Natal on October 25, 1894, Gandhi said: “The Indians do not regret that capable natives can exercise the franchise. They would regret it if it were otherwise. They however assert that they too, if capable, should have the right.”
Addressing the white rulers of South Africa, he wrote: “You, in your wisdom, would not allow the Indian or the native this precious privilege under any circumstances, because they have a dark skin.”
In opposing the system of importing indentured labour from India, Gandhi pointed out that it was detrimental to the interests of Africans. In this way he helped bring about the change of policy which led to India prohibiting the export of labour to Natal in 1911.
In 1904, Gandhi set up an ashram at Phoenix, Durban, in the midst of Africans and close to the industrial school of John Langalibalele Dube – first president of the ANC.
Dube’s weekly newspaper, Ilanga lase Natal, was initially printed on the press of Indian Opinion, and people from Dube’s school (Ohlange) often visited Gandhi’s ashram.
During the military operations against Chief Bambatha and his followers in 1906 – because they refused to pay a new poll tax – Gandhi organised a small stretcher-bearer corps of about 20 Indians. This corps, which served for a month, was asked to take care of the wounded Africans who had been whipped, since no white would treat them. Seeing the brutality of the whites towards Africans was a traumatic and formative experience for Gandhi.
Soon after he returned to Johannesburg, the Transvaal government gazetted a humiliating ordinance against the Asiatics. Gandhi recognised that petitions and deputations to the racist rulers were of no avail unless there was force behind them. He decided to defy the law and mobilised the Indian community to court imprisonment.
He discovered non-violent resistance (satyagraha), which was, in essence, pitting people power against the power of weapons.
By 1914, more than 50000 Indian workers had gone on strike, 10000 had been jailed, more than a dozen had been killed and many more tortured or injured.
This non-violent resistance forced the racist white government of South Africa to concede the main demands of the struggle.
During the struggle for Indian rights, Gandhi widened his horizon and began to publicly support African rights. He declared in an address to the YMCA in 1908: “South Africa would probably be a howling wilderness without the Africans If we look into the future, is it not a heritage we have to leave to posterity that all the different races commingle and produce a civilisation that perhaps the world has not yet seen?”
Gandhi commended the efforts of John Tengo Jabavu to raise the enormous sum of £50000 from Africans for establishing a college for Africans. He wrote: “It is not to be wondered at that an awakening people, like the great native races of South Africa, are moved by something that has been described as being very much akin to religious fervour British Indians in South Africa have much to learn from this example of self-sacrifice. If the natives of South Africa, with all their financial disabilities and social disadvantages, are capable of putting forth this local effort, is it not incumbent upon the British Indian community to take the lesson to heart, and press forward the matter of educational facilities with far greater energy and enthusiasm than have been used hitherto?” (Indian Opinion, March 17, 1906).
Gandhi congratulated WB Rubusana on being elected to the Cape Provincial Council and commented: “That Dr Rubusana can sit in the Provincial Council but not in the Union Parliament is a glaring anomaly which must disappear if South Africans are to become a real nation in the near future.” (Indian Opinion, September 24, 1910).
In 1910, there were discussions on the formation of a national body to defend African rights. Pixley ka Isaka Seme, who initiated the proposal, visited Gandhi at the Tolstoy Farm, outside Johannesburg, for consultation.
The South African Native National Congress (later renamed the African National Congress) was formed in 1912 and was welcomed by Gandhi. He never sought to impose his leadership over the African people, but presented them with the example of satyagraha as a means of deliverance from oppression.
After returning to India, Gandhi kept up his interest in South Africa and often wrote about the oppression of the Africans. He said in a speech at Oxford on October 24,1931: “As there has been an awakening in India, even so there will be an awakening in South Africa with its vastly richer resources – natural, mineral and human. The mighty English look quite pygmies before the mighty races of Africa. They are noble savages after all, you will say. They are certainly noble, but no savages and in the course of a few years the Western nations may cease to find in Africa a dumping ground for their wares.”
In an interview with Reverend SS Tema – a member of the ANC – on January 1, 1939, he said: “The Indians are a microscopic minority. They can never be a ‘menace’ to the white population. You, on the other hand, are the sons of the soil who are being robbed of your inheritance. You are bound to resist that. Yours is a far bigger issue. It ought not to be mixed up with that of the Indian. This does not preclude the establishment of the friendliest relations between the two races. The Indians can co-operate with you in a number of ways. They can help you by always acting on the square towards you.”
He abandoned his hesitation over joint action when Africans, people of colour and whites, all went to prison to show their solidarity with the Indians during the Indian passive resistance in South Africa. In May 1947, he told Yusuf Dadoo and Monty Naicker, leaders of the resistance, “Political co-operation among all the exploited races in South Africa can only result in mutual goodwill.”
After his release from prison, Mandela made a number of statements about Gandhi worth recalling: “Gandhi’s political technique and elements of the non-violent philosophy developed during his stay in Johannesburg became the enduring legacy for the continuing struggle against racial discrimination in South Africa.” (At the unveiling of the statue of Gandhi in Johannesburg, 2003)
“His [Gandhi’s] philosophy contributed in no small measure in bringing about a peaceful transformation in South Africa and in healing the destructive human divisions that had been spawned by the abhorrent practice of apartheid.”
* Reddy is a former Assistant Secretary-General of the UN and director of the UN Centre against Apartheid. He helped to build the international campaign against apartheid.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.