"My aim is not to be consistent with my previous statements on a given question, but to be consistent with truth as it may present itself to me at a given moment... My words and deeds are dictated by prevailing conditions. There has been a gradual evolution in my environment and I react to it as a satyagrahi."
"I would like to say to the diligent reader of my writings and to others who are interested in them that I am not at all concerned with appearing to be consistent. In my search after Truth I have discarded many ideas and learnt many new things. Old as I am in age, I have no feeling that I have ceased to grow inwardly or that my growth will stop at the dissolution of the flesh. What I am concerned with is my readiness to obey the call of Truth, my God, from moment to moment and, therefore, when anybody finds any inconsistency between any two writings of mine, if he has still faith in my sanity, he would do well to choose the later of the two on the same subject."
Gandhiji often cautioned his readers not to look for consistency in his writings as they reflected truth as it appeared to him at a particular time. His thinking had evolved through his experience - his "experiments with truth" - while he kept his mind open to influences from varied sources. He had no hesitation to admit his errors and change his views. To quote his writings out of their context, ignoring the evolution of his thinking, would be most misleading.
The danger of drawing conclusions from isolated quotations is perhaps greatest in regard to his sojourn in South Africa as it was there that he developed his philosophy and became transformed from a barrister seeking gainful employment to a leader identifying himself with the poorest of the poor as he led the satyagraha which was to have a great impact on world history.
Unfortunately many critics of Gandhiji have ignored his caution. Nowhere is this more flagrant than in the description of his attitude toward the indigenous Africans of South Africa.
The criticisms originated largely from some Marxists who described him as an agent of Gujarati capitalists and berated him for leading a movement of Indians rather than promoting a joint struggle of Africans and Indians for freedom from racist domination. They represent the preconceptions of the critics rather than the facts.
Gandhiji arrived in South Africa in 1893 as an employee of a Gujarati merchant for a year. When he agreed to stay on in South Africa to serve the Indian community, he was provided retainers by Indian merchants to enable him to live in proper style as a barrister and entertain Europeans. He helped found the Natal Indian Congress which was an "elite" organisation like the Indian National Congress.
But Gandhiji soon developed contacts with the poorer sections of the Indian community, including indentured labourers. He served them as a volunteer in a hospital and provided free legal services. He moved to Johannesburg in 1902 and had a flourishing legal practice, but devoted most of his income for the community's interests. After the launching of the satyagraha, he gave up his legal practice and identified himself with the "coolies" in his way of life more than most Marxists have been able to. The workers played a heroic role in the satyagraha, while most merchants were equivocal. That would make him a strange representative or agent of the capitalists.
As for the criticism of Gandhiji for not promoting a joint struggle with the Africans, the critics ignore the fact that Gandhiji dedicated himself to the struggle for the dignity of the Indian community - that is, a struggle of a small community of aliens or recent settlers for their civil rights - and hoped to return to India to serve his motherland. He made no pretensions to lead the Africans - the sons and daughters of the soil - to liberation; that would have been quite improper.(2)
A modern national movement had developed earlier in India than in South Africa. The impact of that movement, together with the leadership of Gandhiji, enabled the Indian community to launch a mass struggle. Gandhiji always led in sacrifice and inspired a band of volunteers to flinch at no sacrifice. The African movement was still in its infancy and its leaders were not yet prepared to confront the racist regime. No united or joint struggle was feasible at that time. But Gandhiji supported the aspirations of the Africans and the Coloured people.
In the 1920s and 1930s, close colleagues of Gandhiji like Mrs. Sarojini Naidu, the Reverend C.F. Andrews and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru were outspoken in advocating that the Indians should identify themselves with the African majority. While appreciating that sentiment, Gandhiji was cautious about calls from India for a joint struggle in South Africa.
He had to respond to urgent appeals from the leaders of the Indian community for help in alleviating grievances and preventing new discriminatory laws. He was disappointed that they had forsaken the spirit of satyagraha but could not ask them to wait for the eventual liberation of the country.
Moreover, as the architect of a mighty united front in the struggle of Indians in South Africa, and later of the masses of people in India, Gandhiji was conscious of the prerequisites for a joint struggle.
When the matter came up in the 1930s, Dr. Dadoo and others who advocated a united front with Africans did not enjoy a clear majority support in the Indian community. The African National Congress was weak and the African leaders did not seek a united front with the Indians. It was only in 1950 that the leaders of the ANC were persuaded to go beyond African nationalism and build a multi-racial alliance for liberation.
Gandhiji was also concerned that any attempts by Indians to lead the Africans would be unwise and dangerous. Dr. Dadoo and Dr. Naicker made a great contribution by espousing joint action under African leadership. In the course of the struggle, Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu and other Africans emerged as great leaders. Dr. Dadoo and Dr. Naicker came to be recognised by the Africans as among the giants of the liberation struggle.
Meanwhile, Gandhiji, by his example, earned the respect of Africans and his thought has had a profound influence on the South African liberation movement. It has had an equally significant impact on the freedom movement of the African-Americans in the United States.
The Marxists, though ill-advised, deserve attention as they made a significant contribution to African-Indian unity and a united struggle since the 1940s at considerable sacrifice. Of a different character are those who have made no contribution to the liberation struggle but ventured to write articles and books criticising Gandhiji by quoting from his earliest writings alone. Maureen Swan's Gandhi: the South African Experience is an example of an armchair revolutionary trying to comment on how Gandhiji should have conducted the struggle and denigrate him. She wrote:
"In choosing not to attempt to ally with the articulate politicised elements in either the Coloured or African communities, Gandhi facilitated the implementation of the divisive segregationist policies which helped ease the task of white minority rule in South Africa."
I wonder why this self-styled radical espousing the interests of the "under-class" prefers an alliance only with the "articulate politicised elements".
She then attacks Gandhiji because in response to discrimination against Indians by the Europeans, he wrote in 1903: "We believe as much in the purity of race as we think they (Europeans) do."
The fact is that the Europeans used "purity of race" - their master race - as an excuse to confine the others to miserable ghettoes with hardly any services. Gandhiji, like many African leaders, held that their people too had feelings about their social life. They did not oppose segregation (which was a means) but condemned discrimination and repression.(3)
The European rulers enforced racial segregation and differential policies well before Gandhiji arrived in South Africa. They tried to incite Africans against the Indians and attempted to degrade the status of the Indians. Neither the racist authorities nor the oppressed people ever claimed that Gandhiji's efforts to avert such degradation and seek basic human rights for the Indian community helped the imposition of apartheid. That was left to Maureen Swan and other "experts".
It is unfortunate that there has been little serious study of the evolution of Gandhiji's attitudes toward the Africans and the Coloured people, or of the impact of his life and philosophy on the liberation struggle in South Africa.(4)
This paper is an attempt to deal with the subject, and I hope it will encourage further study.
EVOLUTION THROUGH EXPERIENCE
Gandhiji was influenced for several years after his arrival in South Africa by the racist prejudices prevalent in the European and Indian communities. He outgrew them only after he passed the stage of "petition politics", launched the satyagraha and widened his friendships.
In the early writings of Gandhiji, there are frequent references to "raw Kaffirs", describing them as lazy, uncivilised and even savage. He argued that Indians were civilised and should not be subjected to repressive legislation like Africans. (There was little knowledge of African history and civilisation at that time). It was only during the later years of his stay in South Africa, when an African national movement was emerging, and he came to know the Africans, that he avoided derogatory expressions and espoused African rights. His views advanced further after he returned to India. In an interview with the Reverend S. S. Tema in 1939, he said:
"They (the Indians) may not put themselves in opposition to your legitimate aspirations, or run you down as 'savages' while exalting themselves as cultured people in order to secure concessions for themselves at your expense."(5)
In July 1946, when white gangsters were brutally attacking Indian passive resisters in Durban, he declared that he would not shed a single tear if all Indian satyagrahis were wiped out, for they would point the way to the Africans.(6)
I would suggest that the evolution of the thinking of Gandhiji may be divided into three periods, and that the attitudes towards Africans might best be understood in that context.
From 1893 to 1906, he was engaged in "petition politics". His public service consisted mainly of drafting petitions and organising community support for them, and promoting improvement of the community by self-help. He was a lawyer and a public servant or adviser rather than the leader. The petitions were influenced by community sentiment and a legal (rather than political) approach. His commitment to non-violence was limited to personal behaviour.
The second period begins in August 1906, when he decided to defy the Asiatic Law Amendment Ordinance of the Transvaal which he considered humiliating. The passive resistance movement was launched in 1907.(7)
Gandhiji served his first term of imprisonment in January 1908. Soon after, he rejected "Western civilisation" and "discovered" satyagraha which became the guiding principle of his life. Non-violence was now extended to the resistance of people against injustice, though not to actions of the State.
The radical change in his outlook, the experience of simple living in the Phoenix Settlement in the midst of African communities, and perhaps his friendship with intellectuals like Olive Schreiner, led to a rejection of any feeling of racial superiority and to respect for the African people.
During both these periods, Gandhiji retained faith in the British Empire, and considered himself a "citizen of the Empire".
The third period began in 1920, after he returned to India, when he lost faith in Britain and became a "non-cooperator". His approach to issues was now that of a political leader, committed to ethical values, and was little influenced by his training as a lawyer. Non-violence became a creed of universal application. He developed an international outlook as his work in India attracted attention abroad and resulted in friendships with pacifists and others in several countries.
This evolution explains the inconsistencies in Gandhiji`s writings and speeches. For an understanding of these, it is also necessary to take into account certain aspects of the Indian struggle in South Africa during Gandhiji`s stay in that country.
It was not against apartheid nor a challenge to the legitimacy of European rule in South Africa. Nor was it to secure a special status for Indians and set up a caste system in South Africa, though that could have been the response of the authorities.(8)
It was a struggle by members of the small Indian community for the rights they had been solemnly promised by imperial Britain and enjoyed, to an extent, until the local European settlers gained self-government and began a process of degradation of the Indians. The community, under the advice of Gandhiji, soon abandoned its claim even for limited franchise rights, so that there was no question of aspiring to join Europeans in the oppression of the indigenous people.
What was at stake was not only the rights of Indians - or, rather, the mere right not to be harassed or humiliated - but the security and survival of the entire community. The danger was real as the mass deportation of Chinese labourers in 1906-7 showed.
Many of the Indians in South Africa - especially the traders and their staff - were alien settlers with families and property in India.(9) Their position was very different from that of the African people. The status of the Indians was not, as is assumed, higher than that of Africans in all respects.(10) The Indians were very vulnerable.
Any indication of an attempt by Indians to incite the Africans to confront the authorities in struggle for emancipation would have led to such a hysteria among the whites as to endanger the entire community. That is why perhaps there appears to be a deliberate omission in the writings of Gandhiji of his discussions with African leaders.
Moreover, for Gandhiji in particular, the Indian struggle was, above all, for the honour of the "Motherland", India. It was an extension of India`s national movement for freedom.
Gandhiji often stressed that the satyagraha struggle was not to gain individual rights but to ensure "national" dignity. It was limited to demands for the repeal of legislation which constituted "national" insult.
If it was precipitated by the racist animosity of the rulers in South Africa, it was inspired and encouraged by the resurgence of the national movement in India after the partition of Bengal. The dramatic burning of the registration certificates in Johannesburg in 1908 was perhaps inspired by the burning of foreign cloth in the Swadeshi movement in India.
EARLY YEARS IN NATAL, 1893-1901
Gandhiji went to South Africa as a young man of 23. Though unsuccessful in India in his profession as a barrister, he was proficient in drafting memorials. He was also an admirer of the British Empire, and loyal to the British Constitution and the Crown. He believed that British rule was beneficial to India. But, though not active in politics, he was influenced by Indian nationalism and pride in Indian civilisation and culture.
Within two weeks of his arrival in South Africa, travelling from Durban to Pretoria, he was ordered to remove his turban in the Durban Magistrate`s Court, thrown off a train at Pietermaritzburg, assaulted by a coachman on the way from Charleston to Standerton for refusing to sit on the footboard, and denied a room in a hotel in Johannesburg. Later in Pretoria, he was thrown off a sidewalk by a policeman and was obliged to obtain an exemption from the curfew.
He heard of the humiliations faced by the Indians, and was told by Abdul Gani, a prominent Indian in Johannesburg: "Only we can live in a land like this, because, for making money, we do
1. Revision of paper presented to a seminar of the Southern Africa Research Program at Yale University, March 31, 1993
2.After his return to India, Gandhiji declined many invitations to visit the United States and other countries, and explained that he wished to devote his energies to his task in India. He made no pretensions to spread a gospel around the world and said repeatedly that his life and work were his message.
3.It may be recalled that it was not until 1954 that the "separate and equal" doctrine was rejected by the Supreme Court in the United States.
4. An article by Dr. James D. Hunt on "Gandhi and the Black People of South Africa" in Gandhi Marg, New Delhi, April-June 1989, is perhaps the only worthwhile study of the subject. Dr. Hunt, however, does not trace the evolution of Gandhiji's thinking after he left South Africa in 1914.
5.Harijan, February 13, 1939; Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Volume 68, pages 272-74
6. Harijan, July 21, 1946; Collected Works, Volume 84, pages 422-23
7.Gandhiji rejected the term "passive resistance" and coined the word "satyagraha". But the term "passive resistance" is often used in this paper as it is more commonly known.
8.Gandhiji`s own thinking was that non-Europeans would gain equality during a long process in which they advanced to European standards and European public opinion was educated. He was opposed to "class legislation" - different provisions for different communities in law, as distinct from administrative discrimination - as that was humiliating and would inhibit this evolution.
9.Gandhiji frequently referred to Indians as "settlers" even in the 1930s.
10.The three pound tax was levied only on Indians who had completed indenture and their families. Restriction of inter-provincial movement applied only to Indians. Indians alone were prohibited from the Orange Free State. Indians became the targets of European hostility as they competed with European traders and skilled labour. Many of the laws and municipal regulations were designed to harass them. They alone had to face attempts to force them out of the country.