Gandhi Before India (95 page)

83.
Gandhi to Polak, dated ‘Monday’ and ‘Tuesday’ (i.e. 21 and 22 June 1909), in Mss Eur. B. 272, APAC/BL. These handwritten letters, which lie in the British Library, are not in
CWMG
; this writer may be the first to have read them since Polak himself.

84.
CWMG
, IX, pp. 267–8.

85.
CWMG
, IX, pp. 270, 286–7.

86.
See ‘A Suggestive Letter’,
IO
, 10 July 1909.

1.
Letter to Olive Doke dated 5 July 1909 (not in
CWMG
), Doke Papers, UNISA.

2.
CWMG
, IX, pp. 269–74, 276–9, 281–3.

3.
CWMG
, IX, pp. 284–8.

4.
Memorandum dated Brixton Prison, 22 July 1909, by S. R. Dyer, Medical Officer, in CRIM/1/113/5, NAUK.

5.
Statement by Madan Lal Dhingra dated 10 July 1909, ibid.

6.
David Garnett, quoted in Lesley Chamberlain, ‘Bloomsbury’s Teenage Terrorist’,
Standpoint
, July/August 2011.

7.
Cf. V. N. Datta,
Madan Lal Dhingra and the Revolutionary Movement
(New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1978), pp. 38–41. The references to Rama, Krishna and Mother India do not appear in the archival record of the trial.

8.
Cited in James D. Hunt,
Gandhi in London
(revised edn, New Delhi: Promilla and Co, 1993), pp. 106–7.

9.
IO
, 14 August 1909,
CWMG
, IX, pp. 302–3.

10.
Gandhi to Polak, letters of 20 August, 26 August, 2 September and 29 September 1909,
CWMG
, IX, pp. 363, 368–9, 382–3, 438–40.

11.
Letter of 8 September,
CWMG
, IX, p. 395.

12.
Gandhi to Kallenbach, letters of 21 June, 3 July, 20 August, 30 August and 10 September 1909,
CWMG
, XCVI, pp. 9–10, 13, 23, 25. In one letter, Gandhi wrote that he had kept a bottle of Vaseline on his mantelpiece in London to remind him of Kallenbach. This prompted a speculative paragraph by Joseph Lelyveld on what the Vaseline was for (
Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi’s Struggle with India
, New York: Alfred Knopf, Jr., 2008, p. 89). He concluded that it was mostly likely for enemas. One of his reviewers, however, felt that ‘there could be less generous explanations’, meaning that it was to remind Gandhi of the (homo)sexual intercourse he was presumed (by the reviewer) to practise with Kallenbach. (Andrew Roberts, ‘Among the Hagiographers’,
Wall Street Journal
, 26 March 2011.) In fact, Lelyveld had missed a reference in the letter to Gandhi suffering from corns. That was what the Vaseline was for; to treat the blisters under his feet caused by long walks in London. The walks that Gandhi undertook in Johannesburg were often in the company of Kallenbach; hence the reference to corns and Vaseline.

13.
Gandhi to Olive Doke, 18 August 1909 (not in
CWMG
), C. M. Doke Papers, UNISA.

14.
See
www.oxforddnb.com/view/printable/35874
(accessed 17 February 2012).

15.
See Ampthill to L. W. Ritch, 28 July 1909, S. N. 4964, SAAA.

16.
CWMG
, IX, pp. 318–21, 576–8.

17.
Gandhi to Merriman, letters of 15 and 16 July 1909, copies in E. S. Reddy Papers, New York. (These letters were sourced by Mr Reddy from the Merriman papers in Cape Town and are not in
CWMG
.)

18.
General Smuts to Lord Crewe, 26 August 1909, in
Further Correspondence Relating to Legislation Affecting Asiatics in the Transvaal
(
Cd. 5363 – in continuation of Cd. 4854
; London: HMSO, 1910).

19.
Ampthill to Smuts, 10 August 1909; Ampthill to Gandhi, 31 August 1909,
CWMG
, IX, pp. 583–4, 587–8.

20.
Doke to Kallenbach, 12 August 1909, in KP.

21.
IO
, 21 August 1909,
CWMG
, IX, p. 313.

22.
Cf. Florence Winterbottom to M. K. Gandhi, 16 August 1909, S. N. 4945, NGM.

23.
CWMG
, IX, pp. 368–9, 502.

24.
See ‘Gandhi, Tolstoy, and the Tolstoyans’, in James D. Hunt,
An American Looks at Gandhi: Essays in Satyagraha, Civil Rights and Peace
(New Delhi: Promilla and Co., 2005).

25.
On Tolstoy’s correspondence with Indians other than Gandhi, see Alexander Shifman,
Tolstoy and India
, trans. A. V. Esualov (2nd edn, New Delhi: Sahtiya Akademi, 1978); D. V. Gundappa,
Tolstoy and India
(Bangalore: The Swadeshi Library, 1909). On Taraknath Das, see Tapan K. Mukherjee,
Taraknath Das: Life and Letters of a Revolutionary in Exile
(Calcutta: National Council of Education, 1997).

26.
CWMG
, XI, pp. 444–6, 448–50.

27.
The ‘Letter to a Hindu’ and Gandhi’s introduction to it are available at
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7176
(accessed 14 February 2010).

28.
Joseph J. Doke,
M. K. Gandhi: An Indian Patriot in South Africa
(London: The London Indian Chronicle, 1909), pp. 7, 8, 23, 84, 92–3, etc.

29.
In a letter written at about the same time to the Madras editor G. A. Natesan, Gandhi said the forthcoming meeting of the Indian National Congress should concentrate its attention on the South African struggle, for it might then ‘per-chance find out that for the many ills we suffer from in India it is an infallible panacea’. He was ‘sure it will be found that it is the only weapon suited to the genius of our people and our land’. See
CWMG
, IX, pp. 506–7.

To the Indian patriot, Gandhi wrote that passive resistance would solve their country’s problems; to the great Russian writer, he argued that the method was actually of universal significance.

30.
This discussion of the correspondence between Tolstoy and Gandhi is based on
CWMG
, IX, pp. 444–6, 448–50, 483, 528–9, 593.

31.
Mehta to Gandhi, 29 September 1909, S. N. 5101, SAAA.

32.
Mehta to Gandhi, 27 September 1909, S. N. 5097, SAAA.

33.
CWMG
, IX, pp. 406–11.

34.
Polak to Gandhi, letters of 14 and 21 August 1909, S. N. 5011 and 5021, SAAA.

35.
Polak to Gandhi, 9 September 1909, S. N. 5061, SAAA. Lord Curzon had been a controversial Viceroy, whose decision to partition Bengal had provoked widespread popular protest.

36.
See reports and clippings in File No. 242, Part I, G. K. Gokhale Papers, NAI; and in L/P&J/6/1000, APAC/BL.

37.
Polak to Gandhi, 19 October 1909, S. N. 5138, SAAA.

38.
See reports in File 184, L/P&J/6/917, APAC/BL.

39.
Gandhi to Polak, 14 October 1909,
CWMG
, IX, p. 478.

40.
Polak to Gandhi, letters of 7 and 14 October 1909, S. N. 5116 and 5126, SAAA.

41.
H. S. L. Polak,
The Indians of South Africa: Helots Within the Empire and How They Are Treated
(Madras: G. A. Natesan and Co., 1909), Part I, pp. 4, 21, 70ff; Part II, pp. 16–17, 22–3, 41, 43–4.

42.
See
Report of the Protector of Indian Immigrants for the Year ending 31 December, 1909
, in Natal Government Records (on microfilm), Reel No. 6., Accession No. 2179, NMML.

43.
Anon.,
M. K. Gandhi: A Sketch of His Life and Work
(Madras: G. A. Natesan and Co., 1910).

44.
See
CWMG
, IX, pp. 436–7.

45.
Polak to Gandhi, 7 October 1909, S. N. 5116, SAAA.

46.
Letter of 23 September, 1909,
CWMG
, IX, pp. 429f.

47.
Polak to Gandhi, 7 October 1909, S. N. 5116, SAAA.

48.
‘Mr Polak’s Visit to Rangoon’,
IO
, 22 January 1910.

49.
Pranjivan Mehta to G. K. Gokhale, dated Rangoon, 8 November 1909, File No. 4, Servants of India Society Papers, NMML.

50.
Cf. the names appended to the notice of the meeting in the Town Hall, Calcutta, 3 December 1909, copy in E. S. Reddy Papers, NMML.

51.
H. S. L. Polak to G. K. Gokhale, 10 January 1910, File No. 242, Part I, Gokhale Papers, NAI; report on Banaras meeting in
IO
, 12 February 1910.

52.
First published in
Bande Matram
, 11 to 23 April 1907, reprinted in Sri Aurobindo,
Bande Matram: Early Political Writings
(Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1972; fourth impression 1995), pp. 90–123.

53.
‘The Transvaal Indians’, first published in
Karmayogin
, 11 December 1909, reprinted in Sri Aurobindo,
Karmayogin: Political Writings and Speeches, 1909–1910
(Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, 1997), pp. 347–9. I am grateful to Peter Heehs for this reference.

54.
See Peter Heehs,
The Lives of Sri Aurobindo
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2009).

55.
Reports in
IO
, 10 July and 25 September 1909.

56.
Editorial in
IO
, 20 November 1909.

57.
See
IO
, 6 and 13 November 1909.

58.
IO
, 9 September 1909.

59.
IO
, 3 April 1909.

60.
C. K. T. Naidoo to Gandhi, 4 October 1909, S. N. 5107, SAAA.

61.
CWMG
, IX, p. 499; Dhananjay Keer,
Veer Savarkar
(1950; 3rd edn, Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1988), pp. 62–4.

62.
Asaf Ali, ‘Gandhiji: 1909–1920’, in Chandrashanker Shukla, ed.,
Reminiscences of Gandhiji
(Bombay: Vora and Co., 1951), p. 17.

63.
Letter of 30 October 1909,
CWMG
, IX, pp. 508–9.

64.
CWMG
, IX, pp. 450–51.

65.
CWMG
, IX, pp. 531–2.

66.
CWMG
, IX, pp. 352–3, 417, 435–6, 495.

67.
Gandhi to Ramdas, 27 November 1909,
CWMG
, XI, pp. 81–2.

68.
Francis Hopwood, Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, to M. K. Gandhi, 3 November 1909, in
Further Correspondence Relating to Legislation Affecting Asiatics (Cd. 5363)
.

69.
CWMG
, IX, pp. 514–17, 527.

70.
S. N. 5156, SAAA.

71.
‘Notes of a meeting held at the Westminster Palace Hotel on November 12th 1909 to bid farewell to the Transvaal British Indian Association’, in File No. 242, Part I, Gokhale Papers, NAI.

72.
See
CWMG
, IX, pp. 539–43.

73.
Ritch to Polak, 19 November 1909, in File No. 242, Part I, Gokhale Papers, NAI.

74.
CWMG
, IX, pp. 533–4.

75.
H. S. L. Polak, ‘Early Years (1869–1914)’, in H. S. L. Polak, H. N. Brailsford and Lord Pethick-Lawrence,
Mahatma Gandhi
(London: Oldhams Press Limited, 1949), p. 17.

76.
Gandhi to Polak, 15 November 1909,
CWMG
, XCVI (Supplementary Volume – Six), pp. 34–6.

77.
Gandhi to Millie Polak, 14 November 1909,
CWMG
, XCVI (Supplementary Volume – Six), pp. 32–3.

78.
Millie Graham Polak,
Mr Gandhi: The Man
(London: George Allen and Unwin, 1931), pp. 124–5.

79.
Ampthill to Curzon, 14 November 1909, Mss Eur. F 112/79, APAC/BL.

1.
M. K. Gandhi,
Hind Swaraj and Other Writings
, ed. Anthony Parel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), editor’s introduction, p. xiv.

2.
In writing about
Hind Swaraj
, it is hard to keep out of one’s mind the continuing debates about what the book means to us now. But this is a biography, not a work of political or literary criticism. In what follows, I write about the book in terms of what it meant to Gandhi and his readers,
at the time it was published and circulated
. For recent writings on or around
Hind Swaraj
, see Varsha Das, ed.,
Gandhiji on
Hind Swaraj
and Select Views of Others
(New Delhi: National Gandhi Museum, 2009); M. K. Gandhi,
Indian Home Rule
(Hind Swaraj), a centenary edition introduced by S. R. Mehrotra (New Delhi: Rajendra Prasad Academy, 2010); Suresh Sharma and Tridip Suhrud, eds and trans,
M. K. Gandhi’s
Hind Swaraj:
A Critical Edition
(Hyderabad: Orient BlackSwan, 2010). The journal
Aryan Path
, in its issue of September 1938, published a fascinating and still readable symposium on
Hind Swaraj
, with contributions from (among others) the Nobel prize-winning-chemist Frederick Soddy, the economist G. D. H. Cole and the critic John Middleton Murry.

3.
G. K. Chesterton, ‘Our Notebook’,
Illustrated London News
, 18 September 1909.

4.
IO
, 8 January 1910,
CWMG
, IX, p. 425 (the article was written by Gandhi in the last week of October 1909).

5.
CWMG
, IX, pp. 457–60.

6.
CWMG
, IX, pp. 475–6.

7.
CWMG
, IX, pp. 477–82.

8.
The case that Pranjivan Mehta was the ‘Reader’ of
Hind Swaraj
has been convincingly made by S. R. Mehrotra. See his
Gandhiji ké Aajivan Ananya Mitra
[Gandhi’s Intimate Lifelong Friend] (Allahabad: Etawah Hindi Seva Nidhi, 2008); and his introduction to the centenary edition of
Indian Home Rule
.

9.
Gandhi,
Hind Swaraj
(ed. Parel) pp. 14–16, 17, 31, 38, 47, 52, 58, 61, 63–4, 71, 89–90, 93–5, 105–6, 112–19, etc.

10.
Cf. the eyewitness accounts of the Surat Congress reproduced in Govind Talwalkar,
Gopal Krishna Gokhale: His Life and Times
(New Delhi: Rupa and Co., 2006), pp. 381–6.