Gandhi Before India (48 page)

That conditions markedly improved after the interventions of Polak
and Pollock is confirmed by Gandhi’s own account. The prison director now allowed him the use of a notebook and pencil, and substituted the stitching and mending of clothes for the scrubbing of floors. As a gesture of goodwill, General Smuts also sent him two books on religion.
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Gandhi answered in kind, asking the boys at Phoenix to make his adversary what the General’s son described as a ‘stout pair of leather sandals’.
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Smuts’ gesture, and the more lenient treatment Gandhi was now getting in jail, may have been influenced by the fact that he had recently been issued with a glowing testimonial in the House of Lords. Speaking on 24 March, a former Governor of Madras, Lord Ampthill, drew the attention of his fellow peers to the plight of Indians in the Transvaal. A previous speaker had spoken of Gandhi as a mere ‘agitator’ and of the protests as ‘simply sentimental’. Ampthill vigorously disagreed. The laws the Indians had opposed were, he said, ‘humiliating and offensive and unnecessary’. Their leader, ‘the son of an Indian gentleman of good birth and high position’, and a London-trained barrister himself, had undergone three terms of imprisonment with hard labour ‘for the sake of his opinions and because he is defending what he regards as the honour of his community’. Despite his privileged birth and professional qualifications, Gandhi

devotes all his means and most of his time and energy to public service and to the purest philanthrophy … This is the man who is leading this movement, and with him there are several hundreds of others who, I can assure your Lordships from the knowledge I possess, will protest to the bitter end, whatever be the extremity of ruin or misery it brings upon them. In these circumstances it is simply fatuous to say that they have no good reason for undergoing sufferings of this kind.
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This was an impressive speech; even more impressive, perhaps, was a private letter that Smuts received from his Cambridge friend H. J. Wolstenholme, a don at Christ’s College described (by Smuts’ biographer) as ‘a lapsed Christian who retained his Christian conscience’.
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The two had been close from their days at university – exchanging notes on works of philosophy and literature, and commenting on each other’s manuscripts. Now, reading about the protests by, and the arrests of, Indians in the Transvaal, Wolstenholme reminded Smuts that those he had jailed

belong to a race, or complex of races, with an ancient civilization behind them, and a mental capacity not inferior to that of the highest Western people, who are developing rapidly a feeling of nationality and a capacity for the more active and practical life of the more materialized West … [The] Indians with whom you have to deal may have little share in this civilization of their race, through lack of education, and this through national poverty, but they are championed by leaders who identify themselves with them, and resent keenly what they regard as unjust and insulting treatment of their people, the more keenly because it is directed against them as a race, a race marked out as ‘inferior’, like the ‘niggers’ of America and the ‘heathen Chinese’, as coloured.

The Cambridge scholar saw an ‘epoch-making’ change taking place in relations between East and West, whereby the Japanese, the Chinese and the Indians would no longer accept exclusion and disability on the grounds of race. It was increasingly clear that those whom Europeans had dismissed as ‘inferior peoples’ were not inferior in capacity; they claimed, demanded, and deserved equal rights. Wolstenholme told Smuts that ‘it would surely be wise statesmanship, as well as good human fellowship, to concede in time and with a good grace what is sure eventually to be won by struggle.’
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These were radical ideas, even by the standards of the Cambridge of the 1900s. In the Transvaal of the day they were completely heretical. Smuts’ answer to this letter is unavailable; perhaps he had none.

In the last months of 1908, as a steady stream of satyagrahis entered prison,
Indian Opinion
began carrying poems written in Gujarati paying tribute to them. A prolific writer of these salutary verses was Sheikh Mehtab, Gandhi’s former schoolfriend and housemate. A poem of January 1909 said Parsee Rustomjee was as brave as (the sixth-century) Arab poet Hatem and (the eleventh-century) Hindu monarch Raja Bhoja. M. C. Anglia and Sorabji Shapoorji were also praised, while Thambi Naidoo was described as ‘the lamp of India, the real fighter!’. ‘If you remain united like this,’ Mehtab urged the satyagrahis, ‘you will see Smuts’ resignation.’

In another poem, he said ‘we lost India [to the British] due to disunity and quarrels’. He recalled an older and more hallowed epoch, when, ‘with unity Ram and Laxman got Sita back’. In yet another, he wrote,

If the whole community is brave
Eid and Diwali can be celebrated
Otherwise [the] Union Jack will tear us apart
And fire will be ablaze.

Here the Muslim poet invoked a Hindu idiom; meanwhile, from the other side, a versifier named Jayshanker Govindji saluted the heroism of the trader A. M. Cachalia, who had seen his business tumble by going to jail. Cachalia was ‘the light of his family’, ‘a true gem of India’. His sacrifice had ‘drenched [him] in many colours’.
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Gandhi’s own stoicism in jail is manifest in the monthly letter he was permitted to write. In the last week of March he wrote to his son Manilal enquiring about Kasturba’s health. ‘Does she now walk about freely?’ he asked: ‘I hope she and all of you would continue to take sago and milk in the morning.’

A Hindu swami, Shankeranand, was then touring Natal. The swami was from the Arya Samaj, a brand of militant, adversarial Hinduism which was at odds with Gandhi’s more plural and accommodating faith. When he first heard of Shankeranand’s militant proselytizing, Gandhi wrote to Maganlal, ‘it is very regrettable. It is because of such results that the venerable Kavi [Raychand] used to say that in modern times we should beware of religious teachers.’
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The
Natal Mercury
thought that Shankeranand was ‘flattening out Mr Gandhi’ in the colony, winning the lawyer’s followers over to his side. The
African Chronicle
disagreed: ‘The responsible section of the Tamil and Hindoostani people,’ it insisted, ‘stand by Mr Gandhi to one man despite what Swami Shankeranand may say.’
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The Swami now decided to carry the battle into the enemy camp. Visiting Phoenix while Gandhi was in jail, he told Manilal that, as a boy of high caste, he should wear a sacred thread. Gandhi wrote to his son that he ‘respectfully disagree[d] with the Swamiji in his propaganda … As it is, we have too much of the false division between the
shudras
[lower castes] and others. The sacred thread is therefore today rather a hindrance than a help.’
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The next month it was Polak’s turn to receive the one sanctioned letter. Gandhi was worried about their financial situation: ‘I hate the idea
about Phoenix being in debt,’ he wrote. He suggested the debt be cleared by selling jewellery and their law books. Turning to the education of the children at Phoenix, he advised them to read Tolstoy’s
Life and Confessions
and the works of Raychandbhai. ‘The more I consider his life and his writings, the more I consider him to be the best Indian of his times,’ remarked Gandhi of his late mentor. ‘Indeed, I put him much higher than Tolstoy in religious perception.’ Then, turning to personal matters, he asked: ‘Is Chanchi cheerful? Or does she brood over her separation from Harilal? Does Mrs. G now take part in household work?’
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In February 1909, when Gandhi was in between prison terms, his secretary Sonja Schlesin had articled herself as a clerk in his office. Miss Schlesin’s application was witnessed by Gandhi, Polak and her father. Normally, after three years as a clerk one could qualify for the Bar. This Miss Schlesin was very keen to do – she wished to become the first woman lawyer in South Africa, just as her employer had been the first coloured lawyer. She was extremely intelligent and well read, and after five years in Gandhi’s office had become closely acquainted with the law, especially as it applied to Indians.

Meeting Gandhi’s wide range of clients, and observing lawyers and judges at work, had turned the once-shy girl into an assured (and occasionally combative) young woman. Miss Schlesin, wrote her employer, ‘would not hesitate even to the point of insulting a man and telling him to his face what she thought of him. Her impetuosity often landed me in difficulties, but her open and guileless temperament removed them as soon as they were created.’ Gandhi indulged Miss Schlesin’s idiosyncrasies because of her competence and her commitment. ‘Colour prejudice was foreign to her,’ he recalled, adding, ‘I have often signed without revision letters typed by her, as I considered her English to be better than mine, and had fullest confidence in her loyalty’.
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The woman who contributed most to Gandhi’s work and career was his wife Kasturba. Next, albeit by some distance, was his secretary Sonja Schlesin. She had a natural sympathy with the Indians and great respect for their leader. Yet despite her admiration for Gandhi, Miss Schlesin was keen to do more than draft and type letters. Her intelligence and passion needed more challenging outlets, which qualifying for the Bar
could provide her with. In preparation for her change in profession, Miss Schlesin cut her hair short and began wearing a shirt and tie. In April 1909, the Transvaal Law Society wrote back rejecting her application. ‘The articling of women,’ they said, ‘is entirely without precedent in South Africa and was never contemplated by the Law.’ Miss Schlesin suppressed her disappointment and returned to her regular duties in Gandhi’s office.
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Gandhi was released from Pretoria Prison on 24 May 1909. The authorities set him free early in the morning, in the hope ‘of preventing a demonstration’. However, when he came out at 7.30 a.m. several hundred Indians were waiting at the prison gate, with bouquets and garlands. They conveyed him to the home of G. P. Vyas (a prominent local resister), where he had breakfast.
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Gandhi proceeded to the Indian mosque in Pretoria, where he made a plea for donations. ‘While in gaol, I learnt from Mr Polak’s letter that the British Indian Association has become bankrupt … Therefore, those who have been carrying on their business [while others have been in jail] must lighten their pockets.’ He carried on to Johannesburg, where he was received at Park Station by a large crowd – mostly Indians, with a few Chinese and European friends such as Joseph Doke. He was garlanded and taken in a procession to the Hamidia Mosque. Gandhi expressed his displeasure at being called the ‘King of Hindus and Muslims’ by the crowd. He was merely a servant of the community. Urging more people to volunteer for the movement, he said that ‘a task that needs a thousand men cannot be accomplished by ten, as it were. The struggle is being prolonged because not enough men join it.’
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Two weeks after coming out of prison, Gandhi spoke on ‘The Ethics of Passive Resistance’ to the Germiston Literary and Debating Society. The Society was run for and by liberal-minded whites. Here, the practitioner-turned-theorist of satyagraha argued that his method of protesting injustice, based on ‘soul-force’, was superior to rival methods based on physical force; not least because it ‘never caused suffering to others’. Therefore, argued Gandhi, the colonists should not take exception to Indians ‘making use of this [soul] force in order to obtain a redress of their grievances. Nor could such a weapon, if used by the Natives, do the slightest harm. On the contrary, if the Natives could rise
so high as to understand and utilize this force, there would probably be no native question left to be solved.’
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On 16 June 1909, a meeting of about 1,500 Indians was held outside the Fordsburg Mosque. It resolved to send a deputation to London to present their views to the Imperial Government. There was a heated discussion on the composition of the delegation. Some argued that a knowledge of English was essential. Others insisted that those who had not been to jail be excluded.

The British Indian Association nominated five men: its chairman, Ahmed Mahommed Cachalia; V. A. Chettiar, chairman of the Tamil Benefit Society; the English- and Gujarati-speaking lawyer, Gandhi; the Parsi, Nadeshir Cama, who had left his job as a postmaster to court arrest; and the Pretoria merchant Hajee Habib, who had previously stayed away from the movement but now declared himself a ‘passive resister’. Cachalia, Chettiar and Cama were all in prison, so only Gandhi and Habib were free to go. The meeting also decided that Henry Polak would travel to India to drum up support for their cause.
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Before leaving for London, Gandhi spoke to a journalist in Johannesburg, who sent a report on to the
Daily Republican
, published out of Springfield, Massachussets. The article described the sufferings of the Indians, and their satyagrahas against harsh laws, in sympathetic terms. Of Gandhi – whom he had met ‘a number of times’ – the journalist wrote:

The struggle has reduced him to poverty, but this he does not regret, nor is he discouraged. Ultimate success he regards as sure. Passive resistance he considers more potent than the exercise of any physical force. Its strength is spiritual and must prevail. ‘I am absolutely convinced,’ he says, ‘of the invincibility of passive resistance. It will be the deliverance of Indians in South Africa and India as well.’
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In 1909, as in 1906, Gandhi had as his companion to London a representative of the merchant community. The two men left Johannesburg for Cape Town on 21 June. On the train, Gandhi scribbled a series of letters to Henry Polak. The plan was to send Polak to India, to lobby the Government and to raise funds. The letters provided specific instructions on what to say in the press and whom to contact for support.
Articles written by Polak ‘should be translated in all the principal languages and widely circulated in India’. Polak was at Phoenix; he was advised that ‘unless you find complete encouragement from the people [in Durban] do not go to India.’ In an intriguing postscript, Gandhi asked him, in case he did go to India, to come back with a copy of a book on
Saddarshan Samuccaya
, the six schools of Indian philosophy.
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