Gandhi Before India (79 page)

The meeting was followed by a dinner, the invitation for which has survived. It was advertised as a farewell to ‘Mr and Mrs. M. K. Gandhi and Mr H. Kallenbach’. The union of brown and white was symbolized
by a portrait of a handshake. The chairman’s name was also printed: he was the Hon. H. A. Wyndham, M.L.A. The other side of the card contained the menu, this divided into hors d’oeuvres (‘various’), soups (milk and celery, tomato), main dishes (seven in all, including mashed potatoes, aubergine cutlets, macaroni with cheese, stuffed tomatoes, asparagus à la vinaigrette) and sweets (among them apple pie and custard, blancmange, plum tart and pastries). In deference to the chief guests, no alcohol was served (the drinks on offer being coffee and mineral water), and the food was wholly vegetarian. Still, the spread was substantial, and one wonders whether Gandhi and Kallenbach did anything other than pick at what was put in front of them. Perhaps, as was their custom, they feasted chiefly on two items also printed on the menu, namely, ‘fruits’ and ‘nuts’.
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The next day, the 15th, Gandhi attended four meetings in Johannesburg. In the morning, he unveiled tablets at Bramfontein Cemetery in memory of Nagappen, who had died in 1909 and Valiamma, the young woman resister who had died in February 1914. Gandhi recalled the harsh conditions in which they perished, in jail, with ‘no feather mattress … simply the wooden floor’. He moved next to a meeting of the Transvaal Indian Women’s Association, where he asked for the blessings of his sisters for his work in India. A third meeting was of Tamils, whom Gandhi praised for having ‘borne the brunt of the struggle’. The majority of the deportees, passive resisters and women in jail were Tamil. The Tamils, said their grateful leader, ‘had shown so much pluck, so much faith, so much devotion to duty and such noble simplicity, and yet had been so self-effacing’. Gandhi turned to the terms of the settlement, stressing that ‘the £3 tax was now a matter of the past’, and that ‘all those dear sisters who had gone to gaol could now be called the wives of their husbands, whilst but yesterday they might have been called so out of courtesy by a friend but were not so in the eyes of the law.’ Despite his debts to the Tamils, Gandhi still had some advice for them. For ‘he had known something of Madras, and how sharp caste distinctions were there. He felt that they would have come to South Africa in vain if they were to carry those caste prejudices with them … They should remember that they were not high caste or low caste, but all Indians, all Tamils.’

The most important meeting attended by Gandhi on this day, 15 July 1914, was held at that once familiar venue, the Hamidia Hall. Here, he
heard a long harangue from his one-time comrade Essop Mia, who had worked shoulder-to-shoulder with him during their first satyagrahas, who had been with him when he was nearly beaten to death in 1908, and then suffered an assassination attempt himself. Now, six years later, Mia charged Gandhi with having obtained only one-and-a-half of the four points they had asked for. He had now ‘left them with the battle to be fought all over again’. Replying to these criticisms, Gandhi said the settlement had abolished the £3 tax, recognized wives and children, and clarified the Cape and Free State questions. Then he added, tellingly:

The merchants had gained everything that the community had gained, and had gained probably most of all. The Indian community had raised its status in the estimation of Europeans throughout South Africa. They could no longer be classed as coolies by General Botha and others. The term had been removed as a term of reproach, silently but effectively. If they had not fought for the past eight years, no trace would have been left here of Indians as a self-respecting community.

The ‘half’ point Essop Mia mentioned related to the absence of the explicit recognition of polygamy, a practice sacred to Islam. Another speaker, H. O. Ally – he who had accompanied the lawyer to London in 1906 – said he had told Gandhi ‘not to bind the Mussulmans with regard to one man one wife’, since ‘it was impossible for Mussulmans to break one syllable out of their holy
Koran
.’ Gandhi answered that the settlement had legalized monogamous marriages, and ‘all he expected the South African Government to do was to become tolerant of polygamy, but not to legalise it.’
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The meetings with the Tamils and the Gujaratis were a study in contrast, one marked by a mutual respect and affection between the speaker and his audience, the other by mutual reserve, and even antagonism. The Gandhi of 1906 was supported morally and financially by Gujarati merchants; the Gandhi of 1914 was a leader largely of working-class Tamils. The contrast, implied and implicit, was made manifest in his last engagement in Johannesburg. Speaking to a group mostly of Gujarati Hindus on the 16th, he observed that ‘my Gujarati brethren have done a great deal for me and Mrs. Gandhi but they did not, I must say, render as much service in the cause of the struggle as the Tamil community did. I wish the Gujaratis to learn a lesson from the Tamils. Though I do not know their language, they have given me the greatest help in the fight.’
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On 16 July, Gandhi made a hurried trip to Pretoria, where the merchant Hajee Habib – who had accompanied Gandhi to London in 1909 – organized a party for him. In attendance was Montford Chamney, the long-time Protector-cum-Persecutor of the Indians. Gandhi recalled that

he had certainly stood up against Mr Chamney and the management of his office, but there had been no personal ill-will on the speaker’s part, and he had always received the utmost courtesy at Mr Chamney’s hands. He appreciated the compliment Mr Chamney paid him by coming out to arrest him with only one man to assist, when the speaker was at the head of 2,000 men and women. It showed the confidence Mr Chamney had in him as a passive resister.
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The same night, Gandhi, Kasturba and Kallenbach took a train to Cape Town. They arrived on the morning of the 18th, to be met at Monument Station by friends with garlands, who took them in carriages into the city. The procession was headed by a band playing music, marching under a banner wishing ‘Bon voyage to the great Indian patriot, M. K. Gandhi, and family, also Mr Kallenbach. God be with you until we meet again.’

The Gandhis spent their last night in South Africa at the home of a Jewish couple who were friends of Hermann Kallenbach. Morris Alexander was a liberal lawyer and MP; his wife Ruth was a fiery radical from a family of learned rabbis.
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Gandhi ‘spoke long and earnestly of his mission for his fellow men, and begged that his small band of supporters [in South Africa] should continue to defend their interests’. What struck Morris Alexander was his guest’s simplicity – refusing the use of the master bedroom, he slept instead on the floor. His wife Ruth was moved by Gandhi’s patience with his hosts, by ‘how uncondemning’ he was of things (such as the ostentatious furniture) of which he must have disapproved. The Indian, she concluded, was one of the ‘three great souls’ she had known (the others being her father and Olive Schreiner).
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The next day, the Gandhis and Kallenbach proceeded to the docks. Here addresses were presented to Gandhi on behalf of, among others, the Tamils of Cape Town and Port Elizabeth. He was also presented with a gold watch, while Kallenbach was given a pair of binoculars, presents that Gandhi politely yet publicly rejected as ‘inconsistent with his life here and with the life he had marked out for himself in India’.
He disavowed the gifts but not the praise, here offered by Dr Gool on behalf of the Indian community, and Dr Abdurahman on behalf of the Coloured people of the Cape. In his own speech, Gandhi articulated the hope that with the settlement in place, the ‘Europeans of South Africa [would] take a humanitarian and Imperial view of the Indian question’. He was optimistic, for Cape Town itself had produced such people as the liberal MPs W. P. Schreiner and J. X. Merriman, and the great writer Olive Schreiner. Striking a personal note, he ‘expressed warm gratitude for what had been done for him by the Europeans of South Africa, and, turning to Mr Kallenbach, placed his hand on the latter’s shoulder and said that South Africa had done this for him – it had given him a brother.’

After the speeches, the Gandhis and Kallenbach boarded the SS
Kinfaus Castle
, bound for London. A crowd of friends and admirers walked with them up to the ship, before – as a journalist on the spot reported – ‘coming down the gangway wiping the tears from their eyes’.
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One person was conspicuously missing from that round of farewells for Mohandas and Kasturba Gandhi – their old friend and one-time house-mate Henry Polak. Polak had gone to England to spend time with his family. He sailed back to South Africa in July, and on board wrote an emotional letter to Gandhi, saying he was feeeling ‘miserable’ because of

the probability that I shall not see you again for some years at least … There must be some peculiar bond between us that keeps us near each other in spite of these prolonged absences … I suppose that your Indian relation of elder and younger brother most nearly approaches it, and possibly I realise it more intimately because of my Oriental trend of thought. It is strange, this persistent turning to the East with me, and Millie’s equally persistent turning to the West. I suppose that it is this union of East and West that makes for the best of all human understandings.

In case he returned after Gandhi had left, he asked him to spend an evening at their house and have ‘a heart to heart talk with Millie, so that she may know, and I may know, what you hope for, and what you propose to do’.
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The letter was written on 14 July; since the Gandhis left four days later, they didn’t get to see it. They, and Kallenbach, were booked third class on the
Kinfaus Castle
. Gandhi himself had travelled in the lowest class often on trains, but never before on a ship. They mostly ate fruits
and boiled peanuts, a diet to which Gandhi attributed his lack of sea-sickness.
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Following the Gandhis
from South Africa were a torrent of telegrams, sent from different people representing different interests in different parts of South Africa. These 132 telegrams of farewell lie in the National Archives of India. They came from Natal, Transvaal and the Cape, from Hindus, Muslims and Parsis. Sorabjee Rustomjee of Durban, son of the brave and generous Parsee Rustomjee, said ‘we younger Indians who are colonial born look to your self sacrificing life as an inspiration to work in a similar spirit for the sake of motherland may almighty shower richest blessings upon your labours and grant long life health and strength to continue labour love for beloved motherland goodbye’. Sorabjee spoke for a particular generation (the young); others offered their wishes and admiration on behalf of groups such as the Catholic Indians, the Natal Zoroastrian Anjuman, the Anjuman-i-Islam, the Tamil Benefit Society of Johannesburg, the Gujarati Hindus of the same city and the Kathiawar Arya Mandal of Durban. From outside
the community, there was a wire from a certain ‘Mulder’, secretary of the African Political Organization, who wrote that ‘members of Doornfontein branch wish you a hearty farewell and bon voyage to your motherland.’

Among the wires sent by and on behalf of individuals were several sent by Muslims. ‘May Allah take you and Mrs. Gandhi’, said Abdurawoof Thangay of Vereeniging – a Tamil Muslim from the sound of his name – ‘to our holy fatherland and wishing you every success in future please express my thanks to Kallenbach goodbye’. Abdul Gaffar Fajandar from Johannesburg wrote that ‘your departure from this country has been a great grief to the Indian community who will never cease to remember your trojan like heroic and [
sic
] self sacrifice your personality will be ever idolised’. Other wires were sent by lovers of the Hindu epics. The Ramayan Sabha of Lugenberthy wired: ‘Our loss our mothers gain her care of us our comfort.’

Perhaps the most emotional message came from Bughwan from Durban, who ‘was exited station could not therefore wish goodbye as my heart desired forgive our weaknesses pray for us’. The most evocative came from the ‘Farewell Committee’ of the same city, which observed that

the light of their communal existence disappears with your departure their consolation being that it may be a lighthouse to them from the heights of Mount Everest shining near and far may god in his plenitude bestow the spirit to burn for the good of humanity to you and your compatriots.
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These wishes and felicitations provide a conspectus of the social and geographical range of Gandhi’s influence in the large, complex and conflicted land that, for two decades, was his home.

It may be apposite, however, to juxtapose to these endorsements a comment on Gandhi’s departure from someone who was not sorry to see him go. This was General Jan Christian Smuts. In May 1914 Smuts received a letter from Emily Hobhouse, who was now back in London. This conveyed news about mutual friends, and went on to discuss a man whom the Quaker now considered a friend but whom the Afrikaner still could not. ‘I have been reading Gandhi’s
Home Rule for India – Hind Swaraj
,’ wrote Hobhouse to Smuts. ‘Have you read it? I like it
very much
, all about India and the harm English Civilization is doing there … It is a book you would have enjoyed at one period of your life.’
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Smuts’ reply is unrecorded. Whatever he might have thought of the English on the battlefield, after the war ended he had been first in the ranks of those seeking to unite the white people against the coloured. Hobhouse’s endorsement of Gandhi’s attack on Western civilization could scarcely have pleased him. In recent years he had read and seen too much of the man in any case. His feelings are contained in a letter he wrote to Sir Benjamin Robertson, where he said that after the Viceroy’s representative had returned to India, ‘Gandhi approached me on a number of small administrative points, some of which I could meet him on, and as a result, the saint has left our shores – I sincerely hope for ever.’
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