The Essential Gandhi (19 page)

The strength of the army was about five thousand. I had not the
money to pay the railway fare for such a large number.… And if they were taken by rail, I would be without the means of putting their morale to the test.… We decided that those who were disabled in their limbs should be sent by rail, and all able-bodied persons announced their readiness to go … on foot.…
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 … My co-workers and I never hesitated to do sweeping, scavenging and similar work, with the result that others also took it up enthusiastically. In the absence of such sensible procedure, it is no good issuing orders to others. All would assume leadership and dictate to others, and there would be nothing done in the end. But where the leader himself becomes a servant, there are no rival claimants for leadership.
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 … I wrote to the Government that we did not propose to enter the Transvaal with a view to domicile, but as an effective protest [against its anti-Indian laws] and as a pure demonstration of our distress at the loss of our self-respect.… The pilgrim band was composed of two thousand and thirty-seven men, one hundred and twenty-seven women and fifty-seven children.

[We] commenced the march at the appointed stroke of the hour [6:30
A.M
. on November 6, 1913, two weeks and three days after the arrests of the sisters].

I was arrested thrice in four days.
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[When] the pilgrims reached Balfour, where three special [Government] trains were drawn up at the station to … deport them to Natal, [the strikers] asked for me to be called, and promised to be arrested and to board the trains [without resisting] if I advised them to.… This was a wrong attitude.… It would ill become soldiers to claim to elect their commanders or to insist upon their obeying only one of them.… The pilgrims were brought round [by other march leaders] and all entrained peacefully.
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The pilgrims were taken on … the special trains not for a picnic, but for baptism through fire. On the way, the Government did not care to … even feed them, and … they were prosecuted and sent to jail.… We expected, and even desired, as much.…

[News] of the strike and the arrests spread everywhere at lightning speed, and thousands of laborers unexpectedly and spontaneously came out.…

The Government now adopted a policy of blood and iron.… Mounted military policemen chased the strikers, and brought them back to their work. The slightest disturbance on the part of the laborers was answered by rifle fire.… But the laborers refused to be cowed down.…

I observed in this struggle that its end drew nearer as the distress of the fighters became more intense, and as the innocence of the distressed grew clearer.…
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 … The Union Government had not the power to keep thousands of innocent men in jail. The Viceroy [of India] would not tolerate it, and all the world was waiting to see what General Smuts would do.… He had lost the power of doing justice, as he had given the Europeans in South Africa to understand that he would not … carry out any … reform. And now he felt compelled to … undertake … remedial legislation. States amenable to public opinion get out of such awkward positions by appointing a commission, which conducts only a nominal inquiry.… It is a general practice that the recommendations of such a commission … be accepted.…
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Within a short time of the issue of the report, the Government published in the official Gazette of the Union the Indians Relief Bill.… One part of it … validated in South Africa the marriages … held legal in India.… The second part abolished the annual license of three pounds.…
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[The rest of the settlement included the Government’s agreement to stop indentured labor from India by 1920. Indians would not be allowed to move freely from one province to another, but Indians born in South Africa might enter Cape Colony.]

 … The rope dancer, balancing himself upon a rope suspended at a height of twenty feet, must concentrate his attention upon the rope, and the least little error … means death for him. [A] Satyagrahi
has to be, if possible, even more single-minded.… Seeing that the [restrictive] Immigration Act was [still] included [in South Africa’s laws], some Indians ignorant of the principles of Satyagraha insisted upon the whole mass of the anti-Indian legislation … being [swept away]. I distinctly said that it would be dishonest now, having seen the opportunity, to take up a position which was not in view when Satyagraha was started. No matter how strong we were, the present struggle must close when the demands … were accepted. [If] we had not adhered to this principle, instead of winning, we would not only have lost all along the line, but also forfeited the sympathy which had been enlisted in our favor.…
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 … In my humble opinion, [the settlement] is the Magna Charta of our liberty in this land … not because it gives us rights which we have never enjoyed … but because it has come to us after eight years’ strenuous suffering that has involved the loss of material possessions and of precious lives. I call it our Magna Charta because it marks a change in the policy of the Government towards us, and establishes our right not only to be consulted in matters affecting us, but to have our reasonable wishes respected.… Above all, the settlement may well be called our Magna Charta because it has vindicated Passive Resistance as a lawful, clean weapon, and has given in Passive Resistance a new strength to the community, and I consider it an infinitely superior force to that of the vote, which history shows has often been turned against the voters themselves.
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 … Experience in South Africa shows that Indians will neither deserve nor gain the respect of their European neighbors until they give unmistakable signs of their own capacity for self-respect.…
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When one considers the painful contrast between the happy ending of the Satyagraha struggle and the present condition of the Indians in South Africa, one feels for a moment as if all this suffering had gone for nothing, or is inclined to question the efficacy of Satyagraha as a solvent of the problems of mankind.… There is a law of nature that a thing can be retained by the same means by
which it has been acquired.… The Indians in South Africa, therefore, can ensure their safety today if they can wield the weapon of Satyagraha. There are no such miraculous properties in Satyagraha that a thing acquired by Truth could be retained even when Truth was given up. It would not be desirable even if it was possible. If, therefore, the position of Indians in South Africa has now suffered deterioration, that argues the absence of Satyagrahis among them.… Individuals or bodies of individuals cannot borrow from others qualities which they themselves do not possess.…
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[Having won the battle, Gandhi, accompanied by Mrs. Gandhi, left South Africa forever on July 18, 1914. Both were forty-five. Just before sailing, Gandhi sent General Smuts a gift—a pair of sandals Gandhi had made in prison. Smuts wore them every summer at his own farm near Pretoria, and returned them to Gandhi as a gesture of friendship on Gandhi’s seventieth birthday, in 1939. Speaking of Gandhi’s present, Smuts remarked, “I have worn these sandals for many a summer … even though I may feel that I am not worthy to stand in the shoes of so great a man. It was my fate to be the antagonist of a man for whom even then I had the highest respect.… He never forgot the human background of the situation, never lost his temper or succumbed to hate, and preserved his gentle humor even in the most trying situations. His manner and spirit even then, as well as later, contrasted markedly with the ruthless and brutal forcefulness which is the vogue in our day.…
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While visiting British leaders in London, in 1931 Gandhi saw Smuts, who told him apropos South Africa, “I did not give you such a bad time as you gave me.”]

I did not know that [Gandhi replied].
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