Gandhi Before India (92 page)

18.
Quoted in
IO
, 22 September 1906.

19.
This account of the 11 September meeting is based on reports in
IO
, 15 and 22 September 1906; in
CWMG
, V, pp. 419–23, 439–43; and in
NM
, 12 September 1906.

20.
Charles DiSalvio has pointed out that the first time Gandhi advocated the courting of arrest was in fact in January 1904, when, in an editorial in
Indian Opinion
, he wrote that merchants seeking permanent licences ‘must make respectful representations to the Government’, but if these failed, should trade without a licence, refuse to pay a fine for doing so, and go to jail. (See Charles DiSalvio,
The Man Before the Mahatma: M. K. Gandhi, Attorney-at-Law
(NOIDA, UP: Random House India, 2012), pp. 195–6.) That early suggestion was then set aside for more than two years, in which time many respectful representations were made to Government. The proposal hesitantly offered in print in January 1904 was now, in September 1906, ringingly endorsed in a mass meeeting of several thousand Indians.

21.
James D. Hunt,
Gandhi and the Non-Conformists: Encounters in South Africa
(New Delhi: Promilla and Co., 1986),
Chapters 3
and
4
.

22.
Cf. J. G. James, ‘The Ethics of Passive Resistance’,
International Journal of Ethics
, 14:3 (1904).

23.
IO
, 6 October 1906,
CWMG
, V, p. 461.

24.
See Howard Spodek, ‘On the Origins of Gandhi’s Political Methodology: The Heritage of Kathiawad and Gujarat’,
Journal of Asian Studies
, 30:2 (1971). It was not merely in Kathiawar that these methods of protest were used. In the early nineteenth century, when the British took over the holy city of Banaras, they imposed a new house tax on its residents. This led to a popular outcry, with petitions being sent to Government urging that
there were too many taxes already, and that with the stagnation in trade the residents of Benares could not bear another one. A magistrate reported that ‘the people are extremely clamorous; they have shut up their shops, abandoned their usual occupations, and assemble in multitudes with a view to extort from me an immediate compliance with their demands, and to prevail with me to direct the Collector to withdraw the assessors.’

The resisters in Banaras called a mass assembly, sending emissaries to hamlets and localities for volunteers. In the event, some 20,000 people sat on protest, demanding that the tax be withdrawn. ‘At present open violence does not seem their aim,’ wrote the Collector of Benares to his superior, ‘they seem rather to vaunt their security in being unarmed in that a military force would not use deadly weapons against such inoffensive foes. And in this confidence they collect and increase, knowing that the civil power can not disperse them, and thinking that the military will not.’ See Dharampal,
Civil Disobedience and Indian Tradition: With Some Early Nineteenth Century Documents
(Varanasi: Sarva Seva Sangh Prakashan, 1971). Other pre-modern forms of customary rebellion that in some ways anticipate Gandhian satyagraha are also discussed in Ramachandra Guha,
The Unquiet Woods: Ecological Change and Peasant Resistance in the Himalaya
(first published in 1989; 3rd edn, Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2010),
Chapter IV
.

25.
Chinese Consul-General to Governor of the Transvaal, 13 September 1906, in Natal Government Records (on microfilm), Reel 3, Accession No. 2176, NMML.

26.
Letter of 17 September 1906, copy in Natal Government Records (on microfilm), Reel 2, Accession No. 2175, NMML.

1.
‘Hajee Ojeer Ally’,
IO
, 6 October 1906, in
CWMG
, V, pp. 459–60.

2.
H. S. L. Polak, ‘Passive Resistance Movement in South Africa’, typescript composed
c.
1908–12, Mss. Afr. R. 125, Rhodes House Library, Oxford, pp. 221–4.

3.
CWMG
, VI, pp. 1–3.

4.
Letter of 26 October 1906, in
CWMG
, VI, pp. 17–20.

5.
Letter of 26 October 1906, in
CWMG
, VI, pp. 21–2.

6.
Cf. James D. Hunt,
Gandhi in London
(revised edn, New Delhi: Promilla and Co, 1993), p. 62.

7.
Letter of 21 September 1906, in Natal Government Records (on microfilm), Reel 3, Accession No. 2176, NMML.

8.
‘Petition of British
Subjects, Natives of India, resident in the Transvaal and elsewhere’, in Natal Government Records (on microfilm), Reel 3, Accession No. 2176, NMML.

9.
Letter in the
Rand Daily Mail
, 28 March 1904, reproduced in
Correspondence Relating to the Position of British Indians in the Transvaal (in Continuation of Cd. 1684)
(London: HMSO, 1904).

10.
See correspondence in File 15/12/1906, vol. 951, GOV, NASA.

11.
See correspondence in File GEN 1031/06, vol. 203, GOV, NASA.

12.
Telegram dated 21 November 1906, in
Correspondence Relating to Legislation Affecting Asiatics in the Transvaal (Cd. 3308 – in Continuation of Cd.
3251) (London: HMSO, 1907).

13.
See ‘Lost Hospitals of London: Lady Margaret Hospital’,
http://ezitis.myzen.co.uk/ladymargaret.xhtml
(accessed 12 October 2011).

14.
Letters to Dr J. Oldfield, 26 and 27 October 1906; letters to H. O. Ally, 26 and 27 October 1906, in
CWMG
, VI, pp. 23, 26, 32–3, 33–4.

15.
See Indulal Yajnik,
Shyamaji Krishnavarma: Life and Times of an Indian Revolutionary
(Bombay: Lakshmi Publications, 1950); Harald Fischer-Tine, ‘Indian Nationalism and the “World Forces”: Transnational and Diasporic Dimensions of the Indian Freedom Movement on the Eve of the First World War’,
Journal of Global History
, 2:3 (2007).

16.
Letter to J. H. L. Polak, 30 October 1906,
CWMG
, VI, pp. 40–41.

17.
IO
, 1 December 1906,
CWMG
, VI, pp. 83–4.

18.
Letter of 3 November 1906,
CWMG
, VI, pp. 78–80.

19.
Sir Lepel may have been influenced by M. M. Bhownaggree’s view (as expressed in the House of Commons in June 1905) that ‘the real opposition’ to Indians in South Africa ‘did not proceed from British colonists from the better class, but was mainly led by a low class of aliens, Polish Jews and such like, who were permitted rights and liberties denied to the Indian subjects of the Crown’. In quoting this speech, John Mcleod (in his forthcoming book
Indian Tory
) notes that the Parsee politician saw world history as a great struggle between Aryans (among whom he included Indians) and Semites (especially Jews), hence this interpretation, certainly a mistaken one, with no credence in fact or in any materials Gandhi might have sent Bhownaggree from South Africa.

20.
The proceedings of the meeting, from which this account draws, are reproduced in
CWMG
, VI, pp. 113–26.

21.
Letter of 9 November 1906,
CWMG
, VI, p. 133.

22.
Secretary of State for the Colonies to the Governor of the Transvaal, 29 November 1906, in
Correspondence Relating to Legislation Affecting Asiatics
.

23.
The Times
, 10 November 1906.

24.
Letter of 16 November 1906, in
CWMG
, VI, pp. 168–9.

25.
George Birdwood to M. K. Gandhi, 3 November 1906, S. N. 449, SAAA.

26.
See File 827, L/P&J/6/752, APAC/BL.

27.
CWMG
, VI, pp. 224–6.

28.
As reported in
IO
, 29 December 1906,
CWMG
, VI, pp. 257–60.

29.
Letter of
27 November 1906,
CWMG
, VI, p. 237.

30.
See report of meeting in
IO
, 29 December 1906.

31.
CWMG
, VI, pp. 244–6.

32.
Letter dated 3 December 1906, A Progs No. 4, May 1907, in Department of Commerce and Industry (Emigration), NAI.

33.
Governor of Transvaal to Secretary of State for the Colonies, 14 January 1907, in
Correspondence Relating to Legislation Affecting Asiatics
.

34.
See L. E. Neame,
The Asiatic Danger to the Colonies
(London: George Routledge and Sons, 1907), pp. 4–6, 31–3, 53–4, 89–90, etc. Neame’s book drew on a series of articles previously published by him in the
Rand Daily Mail
, here revised and rewritten for a British audience.

35.
‘A Book – and its Misnomer: A Review’,
IO
, 11, 18, 25 May and 1 June 1907.

1.
IO
, 29 December 1906.

2.
IO
, 5 January 1907.

3.
See A Proceedings, no. 14, December 1907, in Department of Commerce and Industry (Emigration), NAI;
CWMG
, VI, pp. 253f.

4.
Memorandum by Ministers of the Natal Government, dated 19 February 1907, in Natal Government Records (on microfilm), Reel 1, Accession No. 2174, NMML.

5.
See File 2726, L/P&J/883, APAC/BL; Vishnu Padayachee and Robert Morrell, ‘Indian Merchants and Dukawallahs in the Natal Economy,
c.
1875–1914’,
Journal of Southern African Studies
, 17:1 (1991).

6.
Cape Times
, 6 November 1907, File 4238, L/P&J/6/839, APAC/BL.

7.
Report of the Select Committee on Asiatic Grievances
(Cape Town: Government Printers, 1908), in File 4490, L/P&J/6/907, APAC/BL.

8.
IO
, issues of 26 January and 2 February 1907,
CWMG
, VI, pp. 291–5, 308–9.

9.
Letter of 28 January 1907,
CWMG
, VI, pp. 301–2.

10.
CWMG
, VI, pp. 320–21.

11.
Gandhi to Chhaganlal, 24 April 1907, copy in Gandhi–Polak Papers, vol. I, Manuscript Section, NAI.

12.
Harold Spender,
General Botha: The Career and the Man
(London: Constable and Company, 1916), pp. 22, 166–7, 178–80, etc.

13.
Letter of 1 April, in
Further Correspondence Relating to Legislation Affecting Asiatics in the Transvaal (Cd. 3887 – in continuation of Cd. 3308)
(London: HMSO, 1908).

14.
CWMG
, VI, pp. 381–2, 394–408.

15.
IO
, 20 April 1907. Cf. also Karen L. Harris, ‘Gandhi, the Chinese and Passive Resistance’, in Judith M. Brown and Martin Prozesky, eds,
Gandhi and South Africa
(Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press, 1996).

16.
See File 2659, L/P&J/6/823, APAC/BL.

17.
See petitions to Colonial Office and India Office by Joseph Royeppen, 24 April 1907, in File 1338/L/P&J/6/809, APAC/BL.

18.
The paragraphs that follow draw largely on the standard (and still unsurpassed) biography by W. K. Hancock:
Smuts
, I:
The Sanguine Years, 1870–1919
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962).

19.
Emily Hobhouse to Smuts, 29 May 1904, in W. K. Hancock and Jean van der Poel, eds,
Selections from the Smuts Papers
, II:
June 1902
–
May 1910
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966), p. 253 (emphasis in original).

20.
See ibid., pp. 25–6, 64–5, 116, 125–6.

21.
CWMG
, VI, pp. 416–17, 423–7.

22.
Letter written ‘about April 20, 1907’,
CWMG
, VI, pp. 423–7.

23.
IO
, 27 April 1907,
CWMG
, pp. 439–43.

24.
IO
, 11 May 1907.

25.
CWMG
, VI, pp. 480–81, 486; VII, pp. 6–7, 121–3.

26.
See
IO
, issues of 18 and 25 May, 1 June 1907.

27.
Letter of 5 May 1907, in
Further Correspondence Relating to Legislation Affecting Asiatics
.

28.
CWMG
, VII, p. 56.

29.
Rand Daily Mail
, 2 July 1907,
CWMG
, VII, p. 67.

30.
Rand Daily Mail
, 9 July 1907,
CWMG
, VII, p. 87.

31.
Rand Daily Mail
, quoted in
IO
, 6 July 1907.

32.
IO
, 6 July 1907.

33.
CWMG
, VII, pp. 89, 97, 98, 117.

34.
‘A Serio-Comedy’,
IO
, 20 July 1907.

35.
CWMG
, VII, pp. 113–44.

36.
IO
, 27 July 1907,
CWMG
, VII, pp. 128f.

37.
IO
, 3 August 1907,
CWMG
, VII, pp. 134–6.

38.
IO
, 27 July 1907,
CWMG
, pp. 123–4.

39.
Reports in
IO
, 3 and 10 August 1907.

40.
Cf. correspondence in
CWMG
, VII, pp. 147–9, 162.

41.
Reports from the
Star
and the
Rand Daily Mail
in
IO
, 17 September 1907.

42.
CWMG
, VII, pp. 152, 154, 164.

43.
Quoted in
IO
, 24 August 1907.

44.
CWMG
, VII, pp. 170–71, 180–84, 492–6.

45.
See
IO
, 8 June 1906.

46.
‘Johannesburg Jottings’,
IO
, 17 August 1908.

47.
IO
, 7 and 21 September 1907.

48.
I am grateful to the Gandhi scholar Anil Nauriya for working out the origins of this penname. If Polak’s initials, ‘HSL’, are said very fast, they sound like ‘A. Chessell’, while ‘
piquet
’ is French for ‘pole’.

49.
IO
, 24 September 1907.

50.
CWMG
, pp. 211, 217–18, 228–30.

51.
Polak to
P. Kodanda Rao, 9 April 1948, in Kodanda Rao Papers, NMML.

52.
John Cordes to M. K. Gandhi, 3 June 1907, KP.

53.
This description of Phoenix,
c.
1906–7, draws on Millie Graham Polak,
Mr Gandhi: The Man
(London: George Allen and Unwin, 1931), pp. 47–50, 56–7; and Prabhudas Gandhi,
My Childhood with Gandhiji
(Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 1957), pp. 37–9.

54.
Cordes to Gandhi, 9 July 1907, KP.

55.
Gandhi to Cordes, 12 July 1907, KP.

56.
Gandhi to Cordes, letters of 12 and 13 July 1907, KP. None of the Gandhi letters quoted in this section are in
CWMG
.

57.
Gandhi to Cordes, letters of 17 July and 16 August 1907, KP.

58.
Gandhi to Cordes, 12 October 1907, KP.

59.
Polak to Cordes, 20 November 1907, KP. Ibsen was of course the great Norwegian playwright. I am unable to trace who Dr Staubman was.

1.
‘Pickets’s Duty’,
IO
,
CWMG
, VII, pp. 255, 258.

2.
IO
, 12 October 1907,
CWMG
, VII, p. 285.

3.
IO
, 19 October 1907,
CWMG
, VII, pp. 295–6, 316.

4.
See
CWMG
, VII, pp. 320–21.

5.
IO
, 9 November 1907.

6.
Cf. Monica Barlow, ‘The Clouded Face of Truth: A Review of the South African Newspaper Press Approaching Union’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis (Department of History, Bristol University, 1988), p. 172.

7.
See Indulal Yajnik,
Shyamaji Krishnavarma: Life and Times of an Indian Revolutionary
(Bombay: Lakshmi Publications, 1950), pp. 241f.

8.
Essop Mia (M. K. Gandhi) to Rash Behari Ghosh, 4 November 1907,
CWMG
, VII, pp. 332–4.

9.
This account of the Ram Sundar Pundit case is based on newspaper clippings in Natal Government Records (on microfilm), Reel 4, Accession No. 2177, NMML;
CWMG
, VII, pp. 33–6, 365–8, 380–81.

10.
Letter of 22 November,
CWMG
, VII, p. 376.

11.
Letter of 11 November 1907, in
Further Correspondence Relating to Legislation Affecting Asiatics in the Transvaal (Cd. 3887 – in continuation of Cd. 3308)
(London: HMSO, 1908).

12.
See
CWMG
, VII, pp. 409–11, 422, 446.

13.
CWMG
, VII, pp. 416–18.

14.
Selborne to Smuts, 30 November 1907; Smuts to Selborne, 6 December 1907, in Box 62, Selborne Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford.

15.
Smuts to
J. X. Merriman, 8 January 1908, in W. K. Hancock and Jean van der Poel, eds,
Selections from the Smuts Papers
, II:
June 1902
–
May 1910
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966), p. 373.

16.
Report in
NM
, 3 December 1907.

17.
Gandhi to Cordes, 3 December 1907, KP. (This letter is not in
CWMG
.)

18.
The Friend
, excerpted in
IO
, 23 November 1907.

19.
See
IO
, 7 December 1907.

20.
CWMG
, VII, pp. 429–30, 439–40, 443.

21.
CWMG
, VII, p. 449.

22.
News reports in
CWMG
, VII, pp. 463–8.