Gandhi Before India (35 page)

When war broke out Smuts went at once to the front. Put in charge of a unit of commandos, he led them in a series of marches, attacks and retreats. He gave his troops a sense of discipline and direction, thereby
acquiring the rank of General. When hostilities ceased he played a key role in the Treaty of Vereeniging. His command of English, his education in England, his love of American poetry and his knowledge of European philosophy all made Smuts – in the eyes of his erstwhile enemies – an exception. An English friend wrote to him that ‘you are the
only
Afrikander … who has the power of expressing on paper the sentiments, moral and political, of your people.’ Smuts stood out, as ‘for the most part the Afrikander people are still dumb, only able to express themselves in deeds.’
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Smuts’ cosmopolitanism, however, did not cross the boundaries of race. The treaty as drafted by Lord Milner had a clause that read: ‘The Franchise will not be given to Natives until after the introduction of self-government.’ Smuts had this changed to: ‘The question of granting the Franchise to Natives will not be decided until after the introduction of self-government.’ The British hoped to delay the granting of citizenship rights to those who were not white; Smuts and company wanted to deny those rights for ever.

After the war Smuts built a successful practice at the Bar, and raised a brood of children. Then he re-entered politics, helping his neighbour and former Commander-in-Chief, Louis Botha, to form a party, known as Het Volk, representing the Afrikaner interest. When their party won the first elections by a whites-only franchise, Botha asked Smuts to serve as Colonial Secretary.

Like Botha, Smuts realized that Boer and Briton had to mend fences to keep out the (coloured) hordes. In August 1902, he wrote to a prominent British politician in the Cape that the ‘only hope for the future is that the two parts of the [white] population will be sensible enough to work together on a common basis and leave alone the old rivalries and feuds’. At the end of the year, when Joseph Chamberlain came out to South Africa, Smuts wrote to him on behalf of the Transvaal Afrikaners that the new political arrangements must ‘make it plain to the Natives that the war altered the relations between the two white races but not between the white and coloured population of the country’. A memorandum of September 1903, also written by Smuts, opposed the entry of Asians into the Transvaal. The Government, still run by British administrators, was warned of the example of Natal, where ‘the Coolie and the Kaffir are gradually encroaching on ground which formerly belonged
to whites, and in many of the towns and villages the Coolies are becoming a permanent, if not predominant factor.’ It would ‘be disastrous to the interests of the white population of South Africa,’ said Smuts, if Transvaal were to follow ‘the desperate and ruinous example of Natal’.
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Now, with the passing of the Asiatic acts, Smuts came face to face with his fellow lawyer, fellow family man and fellow belletrist Mohandas K. Gandhi. On Thursday 4 April, 1907, Gandhi, along with five others (including Abdul Gani and H. O. Ally) set off from Johannesburg to Pretoria to meet Smuts. They boarded the 8.35 a.m. express train, normally reserved for whites, but here allowed to carry a few Indians courtesy of a one-time exemption granted by the General Manager of the South African Railways. At the meeting,

Mr Gandhi narrated all the facts to Mr Smuts. He reminded Mr Smuts that the Indian community had itself registered several times. He … showed in other ways also that the Indians were trustworthy. It was with the help of the Indian community that officials of the Asiatic Office who took bribes had been arrested. Taking all this into consideration, Mr Gandhi said, the Government should, on this occasion, agree to the proposal of voluntary registration.

The others spoke in support of Gandhi’s proposal. Smuts listened patiently, and after the Indians had been at it for close to an hour, said he had heard several things for the first time, and would make enquiries and send them a written reply. This, when it came some days later, was deeply disappointing. Smuts said that compulsory registration was required because of the ‘strong evidence’ of ‘unlawful infiltration’ of Asiatics into the Transvaal. He hoped the Indians ‘would co-operate with the Government in every way by registering themselves lawfully, gracefully and expeditiously’. The BIA replied to Smuts, pointing out again ‘that the new law gravely offends against [the community’s] feelings’, and urging once more that ‘the Indian proposal be given a trial before the law is enforced.’
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This exchange of letters with Jan Smuts on questions of public policy was immediately followed by another exchange on family matters. In early April, Gandhi’s brother Laxmidas had written to him with a long list of complaints. The letter is unavailable, but from Mohandas’s reply
one gets a clear sense of its contents. The brother in South Africa began by outlining the roots of their growing estrangement: ‘I am afraid our outlooks differ widely and I see no possibility, for the present, of their being reconciled. You seek peace and happiness through money. I don’t depend on money for my peace …’

Fifteen years after the palace break-in at Porbandar had destroyed his chances of preferment, Laxmidas remained a bitter and frustrated man. His desire for wealth and fame remained unfulfilled. Now, he chastised his younger brother for not caring enough about the family. Mohandas answered:

I fail to understand what you mean by the word “family”. To me, the family includes not only the two brothers but the sister as well. It also includes our cousins. Indeed, if I could say so without arrogance, I would say that my family comprises all living beings: the only difference being that those who are more dependent on me, because of blood relationship or other circumstances, get more help from me.

He then came to the question of money.

As for your demand for a hundred rupees a month, I must say that I see neither the means at present nor the need of meeting it. I run the Phoenix Press with borrowed money. Moreover, I may have to go to gaol in the struggle against the new Ordinance. In that case I may become poorer still … If, however, the condition here improves during the next few months and I am free from trouble, I shall try to send you the money you have asked for by money order with the sole intention of pleasing you.

Gandhi accepted that, as brothers, ‘you and Karsandas have [a right to] a share in my earnings’. He admitted that, by raising the money for him to study in London, Laxmidas had placed him in his debt. However, he pointed out that, while his legal education had cost Rs 13,000, he had since sent his brothers more than Rs 60,000 from South Africa (equivalent to perhaps £320,000 today). ‘I do not consider that I have obliged [you] by doing this,’ he remarked. ‘Even if nothing was done for me, whatever I have to do for my blood-brother I would do as a matter of duty.’ Then he censoriously added, ‘I must say with deep sorrow that, on account of your extravagant and thoughtless way of life, you have squandered a lot of money on pleasures and on pomp and show. You kept a horse and carriage, gave parties, and spent money on selfish
friends; and some money was spent in what I consider immoral ways’ (presumably on prostitutes or on a mistress).
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The Gandhi brothers had once been very close – it was Laxmidas who had stood with Mohandas against their parochial fellow Banias when he wished to go to England, and who then raised the money for his fees and living expenses. But over the years they had drifted apart. Proximity to hedonistic princes in Kathiawar had made Laxmidas less inclined to follow the austere ways of his forebears. His brother, meanwhile, had taken Bania austerity to ever greater extremes in South Africa – simplifying his diet, working with his hands, placing himself in the service of his fellows. Hence the harsh, even savage, letter, in which a once deferential younger brother chastises his elder for his wastefulness and sinfulness.

The brother put in his place, Gandhi returned to the struggle in the Transvaal. With the local and Imperial governments unyielding, the pledge first made in the Empire Theatre in September 1906 would be honoured. To recall Gandhi’s words in that meeting, the time had come for ‘a heroic step to be taken’.

As a lawyer in Natal, Gandhi had sometimes saved clients – rebellious indentured labourers or Indians out at night without a pass – from a prison sentence. He was the son and grandson of diwans, among whose responsibilities had been the management of prisons and prisoners. His forefathers had sent people to jail, whereas as a lawyer he worked to keep them out. The voluntary courting of arrest was foreign to his class and profession, as it was to the class and profession of the people he now hoped to mobilize. Gandhi knew that merchants, whether Gujarati or otherwise, were not the likeliest of volunteers for jail terms. Back in September 1906, carried along by the popular mood in the Empire Theatre, the traders had pledged to court arrest; now, several months later, were they really prepared to abandon their shops, their homes, their families, their businesses?

In an article for
Indian Opinion
, Gandhi clarified the future course of action. Anyone charged or arrested for not taking out a permit would be defended by him free of charge. In court, he would say that the client had acted on his advice, in which case it was likely that ‘Mr Gandhi will be arrested and his client let off.’ Even if protesters were prosecuted and sent to jail, ‘the chances are that they will soon be released and the law
amended suitably.’ The wife and children of anyone in jail would be maintained by public subscription. ‘There is no disgrace attached to going to gaol on this occasion,’ said Gandhi. ‘On the contrary, it will positively add to one’s prestige.’
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Indian Opinion
’s leader for 11 May 1907 was headlined ‘To the Gaol!’ Now that the Asiatic Act had been sent for royal sanction, ‘the goal for British Indians in Transvaal is the Transvaal gaol.’ The previous September, they had pledged to court imprisonment if the ordinance became law, with their resolution ‘flashed across the cable to the world. In the sight of God as well as man, they now stand pledged to the resolve, and by their deed they shall be judged by ever after.’
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This editorial, though unsigned, was probably written by Henry Polak. Through May and June, Gandhi published a series of articles under his own name, aimed at strengthening the resolve of the Indians. He quoted a poem by Narmadashanker on the achievements of Columbus, Napoleon, Martin Luther and Alexander. ‘With such examples before them,’ commented Gandhi, ‘how can the Transvaal Indians lose heart even in the smallest degree?’ Another essay invoked the Prophet Mohammed, who was in a cave with two disciples when a hostile army came by. The disciples were overcome by fear and terror, until the Prophet told them: ‘We are not three. God, Who is a match for all, is also with us.’ In the end the army passed the cave without even looking in. A third essay referred the reader to the ongoing protests in the Punjab against oppressive land policies. The leader of the movement, Lala Lajpat Rai, was an uncompromising opponent of Western colonialism. Gandhi admired the method without endorsing the end. The Transvaal Indians should ‘show the same courage ourselves, but instead of desiring the end of British rule, let us aspire to be as able and spirited as the Colonists are, and demand and secure the rights we want’. A fourth essay rehearsed the struggles and sacrifices of Cromwell, Mazzini and George Washington, which showed ‘that one must pass through suffering before tasting happiness. For [the] public good, men have to suffer hardships even to the point of death.’
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The exhortations had their effect. In late May, it was reported that Indians in the Transvaal ‘are quietly and persistently making all arrangements for carrying out the historic gaol resolution’.
Indian Opinion
began printing the names of those who had pledged to court arrest. They included Hindus and Muslims, Tamils and Gujaratis.
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On 1 June, Gandhi wrote to the Prime Minister, General Botha, seeking an interview. The request was declined. The General and his Government were in no mood to compromise. They had received a reassuring letter from Lord Elgin, which said that since the bill represented ‘the general will of the Colony, clearly expressed by its first elected representatives’, he would advise the King not to disallow its passing.
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Later that month the Royal Assent was received. The Act would come into force from 1 July, when Permit Offices would open in various towns, to allow Indians to register. In his ‘Johannesburg Letter’ of 29 June, Gandhi observed that ‘The
Government Gazette
announces that Mr Chamney has been appointed Registrar under the new law. I hope the Indian community will see that he only sits and yawns. This correspondent’s name will never be arrested in the register. It is my constant prayer to God that the same may be true of every Indian.’
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His overtures to the Government spurned, Gandhi was now in a combative mood. In a letter to the white-owned
Rand Daily Mail
he adopted an unusual, or at any rate untypical, tone of sarcasm. The Secretary of State had apparently stated that thumb and finger impressions were all the same; and that their intent was not to offend or degrade the Indians. ‘Lord Elgin may certainly, sitting in his cushioned chair,’ remarked Gandhi,

see no distinction between making a mark with the thumb instead of a pen, but I know that he belongs to that nation which would rise in rebellion from end to end to resent an attack on personal liberty, and that he would be the first person to cry out against even a forcible tracing of his signature. It is the compulsion that stings, not the digit-impression … That in the mind of the Government there is no desire to degrade is true only on the assumption that my countrymen are already sufficiently degraded [not] to feel any further degradation in this land of freedom for people other than Asiatics.
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