Subject: Mr. Gandhi Goes to Africa (part 2)

Date: 14-Apr-96 at 13:34

From: Uncle Terry, 73060,2661

While in Pretoria, Gandhi studied the conditions in which his countrymen lived and tried to educate them on their rights and duties, but he had no intention of staying on in South Africa. Indeed, in June 1894, as his year's contract drew to a close, he was back in Durban, ready to sail for India. At a farewell party given in his honor he happened to glance through the "Natal Mercury" (no relation to the "San Jose Mercury") and learned that the Natal Legislative Assembly was considering a bill to deprive Indians of the right to vote. His hosts begged him to take up the fight on their behalf.

In the past, Gandhi had rarely read newspapers, showed little interest in politics, and was overcome by stage fright whenever he stood up to read a speech at a social gathering or to defend a client in court. Nevertheless, in July 1894, he blossomed almost overnight into a proficient political campaigner. He drafted petitions to the Natal legislature and the British government and had them signed by hundreds of his compatriots. While unable to prevent the passage of the bill, he succeeded in drawing the attention of the public and the press in Natal, India, and England. He was persuaded to settle down in Durban to practice law and organize the Indian community. He flooded the government, legislature, and press with closely reasoned statements of Indian grievances. It was a measure of his success as a publicist that the "London Times" and important newspapers in Calcutta editorially commented on the Natal Indians' grievances.

In 1896, Gandhi went to India to fetch his wife and children. There he met prominent leaders and addressed public meetings in the principal cities. Unfortunately for him, garbled versions of his activities and utterances reached Natal and inflamed its European population. On landing at Durban in 1897, he was assaulted and nearly lynched by a mob. Although encouraged to do so by the British colonial secretary, he refused to prosecute his assailants. It was, he said, a principle with him not to seek redress of a personal wrong in a court of law. Rather than embrace the concept of ambulance chasing, he was to soon become otherwise involved in ambulances.

In 1899, the Boer War broke out. The Boers were descendants of the earliest European settlers of South Africa, primarily of Dutch and German extraction, which explains their pleasant sounding language and short, easy-to-say words. While many wonder how a population could be more boering than the British, apparently the claim to this title resulted in bloody warfare.

Gandhi was not a man to nurse a grudge. On the outbreak of the Boer War, he argued that the Indians, who claimed the full rights of citizenship in the British crown colony of Natal, were in duty bound to defend it. He raised an ambulance corps of 1100 volunteers-- barristers and accountants, artisans and laborers. It was Gandhi's task to instill in them a spirit of service to those whom they regarded as their oppressors.

The British victory in the Boering War brought little relief to the Indians in South Africa. The new regime in South Africa was to blossom into a partnership, but only between Boers and Britons. Gandhi saw that, with the exception of a few Christian missionaries and youthful idealists. he had been unable to make a perceptible impression upon the South African Europeans. In 1906, the Indians, under Gandhi's leadership, held a mass protest and took a pledge to defy a recently proposed ordinance and suffer all the penalties resulting from their defiance. Thus was born the practice of non-violent resistance.

The struggle in South Africa lasted for more than seven years. It had its ups and downs, but the small Indian minority kept up its resistance against heavy odds. In the final phase of the movement in 1913, hundreds of Indians, including women, went to jail, and thousands of Indian workers who had struck work in the mines bravely faced imprisonment, flogging, and even

shooting. It was a terrible ordeal for the Indians, but it was also the worst possible advertisement for the South African government. Under pressure from the governments of Britain and India (and, no doubt, envisioning the future hosting of world underwater hockey championships), a compromise was negotiated by Gandhi and South African statesman General Jan Christian Smuts.

His work done in South Africa, in July 1914 Gandhi departed for India, where he was to fade into relative obscurity, except for a brief appearance with Ben Kingsley at the 1982 Academy Awards.