The Essential Gandhi (15 page)

 … Indians have been forbidden the use of the public park.… This matter should not be allowed to rest. [Indians] have as much right to use the park as the [City] Council itself. We hope [the Indians] will ask the question: Is there a law prohibiting Asiatics from using the park?—and pin the Council to a definite statement. If the reply is unsatisfactory, they should test the question, for we cannot conceive that in a British town, a body of ratepayers [taxpayers] can be deprived of their inherent right to use what is, after all, their own property in common with the rest of the community. This is not a question of sentiment but one of a deliberate deprivation of rights which have been paid for.…
²²

We are glad to see that the “Colored People” of Durban have protested against the decision to close all Government schools to colored children with the exception of those specially set apart for them.… We sincerely wish that Mr. Mudie [an official] could become a colored man for a time (while retaining his gentle courtesy and excellence of disposition) and be subject to the treatment accorded to colored people in this enlightened Colony.… Mr. Mudie seems to be unaware that colored parents have the same
affection for their children as European parents, and the same dislike to have any slight put upon them.…
²³

 … It is a law of nature that the skin of races living near the equator should be black. And if we believe that there must be beauty in everything fashioned by nature, we would … steer clear of all narrow and one-sided conceptions of beauty.…
²⁴

 … In my opinion, there is no place on earth and no race, which is not capable of producing the finest types of humanity, given suitable opportunities and education.…
²⁵

 … So long as we have this contempt on the part of white races for the colored man, so long shall we have trouble. It is specially noticeable in those born here in South Africa. They are brought up to consider the native as so much dirt beneath their feet.

A lady once related to me in tones of horror and disgust her experience in a draper’s shop. At the same counter a native was being served. This was too much for her dignity, and she asked the shopman if he actually served natives at the same counter with white people. The man of business frankly admitted that he did. Needless to say, this shop was avoided afterwards by one customer at least.

To answer a native’s salute by anything more appreciative than a grunt is quite unnecessary, and if a “boy” does not hold out two hands to receive the “tickey” he has rightly earned, you are fully entitled to kick him for his insolence. A house boy who speaks English is considered “cheeky,” but if the same boy fails to understand orders, spoken in English, then he is a stupid fool.

The native has been likened to a child, and the comparison is reasonable enough. But the average treatment of natives is not what a parent would mete out to a child. No, the native, like the child, should be taught with patience. Many a testimony I have heard, from those who have treated their native servants as intelligent beings, of the faithfulness and integrity of the trained natives, who in times of stress, have proved themselves worthy of the trust placed in them.

Any form of government of the natives, if it is to be successful, must recognize that he is not made of wood, and is capable of progress. And if we grant that he is intelligent, he has every right to have a voice in the government of his own race.
²⁶

[The performance and victory of the Japanese in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 greatly impressed Gandhi.]

 … If the progress of Japan has been unique, [its] universal self-sacrifice … was also unparalleled.… Herein is a practical lesson for any nation or individual. The measure of a nation’s or an individual’s self-sacrifice must ever be the measure of their growth. When, therefore, the prophets of the world preached that there was no remission of sin without shedding of blood, they uttered what was a law of nature. We, who are prone to self-indulgence, often basely misrepresent the law, giving it a coarse meaning beyond which we are incapable of looking, and fancy the text has no bearing whatsoever on self-effacement, but … the text we have quoted can bear only one meaning if it is also to bear fruit, namely, that the shedding of blood means shedding of our own blood, sacrificing our own little selves for the common good of all. In short, it means a realization of the unity of life.… From the unity of national life to the unity of all life is but a question of degree, but … that must be the goal of us all.…
²⁷

In spite of all the glory and the halo surrounding [the] unique siege [of Port Arthur by the Japanese], does it not suggest some very sad reflections? What could justify such bloodshed? Was not so much valor worthy of a better cause? Is man divine or brutish, when, for the sake of a strip of land, he makes himself responsible for the loss of precious lives? Is it real civilization, this awful butchery at the bidding, apparently, of two men who are called Emperors? Will this never end? These are questions more easily asked than answered.…

There is a moral for our countrymen to be drawn from this stupendous struggle and this beginning, let us hope, of the end. The Japanese, by sheer force of character, have brought themselves into the forefront of the nations of the world. They have shown unity, self-sacrifice, fixity of purpose, nobility of character, steel courage
and generosity to the enemy.… Whether here, in South Africa, or in India, we have to copy our neighbors.… It is right that we should insist on our rights being granted, but it is very essential that we should remove all within us that may be a hindrance to the granting thereof.
²⁸

 … The rise of Japan has shewn the world that if the “white man” is to retain his supremacy, he must deserve it. Methods of oppression and repression are out of date.
²⁹

 … We believe the influence of the East over the West will be due to economic and ethical causes. Who lives by the sword must perish by the sword, and if the Asiatic peoples take up the sword, they in their turn will succumb to a more powerful adversary …
³⁰

 … I have always been loath to hide … the weak points of the community, or to press for its rights without having purged it of its blemishes.…
³¹

[Accordingly, Gandhi made the following appeal in
Indian Opinion
.]

 … We have a homely saying in India that it were better for a man to lose millions than that he should lose a good name. It follows as a corollary from the saying that once a man has acquired a bad name it is difficult for him to undo the effect and to rehabilitate himself in the popular regard. What is true of individuals is equally true of communities. The French have a name for the artistic, the English for personal bravery, the Germans for hardheadedness, the Russians for frugality, the Colonies in South Africa for gold hunger; similarly, the Indians in South Africa have rightly or wrongly got the evil reputation of being insanitary.… The result is that the individual members against whom such a charge could not be proved to the slightest extent, are often obliged to undergo hardships merely because they belong to the Indian community.… This has been very forcibly exemplified owing to the outbreak of
plague.… Restrictions for which there would not be any warrant if they were examined calmly and fairly, have been imposed on the liberty of the Indians throughout South Africa.…

Such regulations, harsh as they undoubtedly are, ought not to make us angry. But we should so order our conduct as to prevent a repetition of them.… [We] should set about putting our houses in order … literally as figuratively. The meanest of us should know the value of sanitation and hygiene. Over-crowding should be stamped out from our midst. We should freely let in sunshine and air. In short, we should ingrain into our hearts the English saying, that cleanliness is next to godliness.

And what then? We do not promise that we shall at once be freed from the yoke of prejudice. A name once lost is not to be so easily regained. The loss of a name is like a disease—it overtakes us in no time, but it costs us much to remove. But why need we think of reward in the shape of subsidence of prejudice? Is not cleanliness its own reward? Would it not be an inestimable boon to ward off another attack of the plague? [When] we have asserted our position as a people regarding sanitation and hygiene as part of our being, and not merely of lip profession, the prejudice, insofar as it is based on that charge, will go.… It is well for us to protest against exaggerated charges. It is our duty to strain every nerve to prevent legislative measures based on them. But we hold it to be equally our duty to examine those charges critically, admit the partial truth in them, and strive to correct the evil that may be in us.…
³²

[The] result of this agitation was that the Indian community learnt to recognize more or less the necessity for keeping their houses and environments clean. I gained the esteem of the authorities. They saw that, although I had made it my business to ventilate grievances and press for rights, I was no less keen and insistent upon self-purification.
³³

Courage and patience are qualities … one needs very badly when … placed in difficult circumstances.…

But above all else, what is most needed in a community which
considers itself to be ill-treated at the hands of others, is the virtue of love and charity.… We as a people are devoted to … doctrines of nonresistance and of returning good for evil.… We then hold it to be our paramount duty not to think evil of those who we may consider are dealing unjustly by us. There is hardly any virtue in the ability to do a good turn to those who have done similarly by us. That even criminals do. But it would be some credit if a good turn could be done to an opponent.…
³⁴

 … An infallible test of civilization is that a man claiming to be civilized should be an intelligent toiler, that he should understand the dignity of labor, and that his work should be such as to advance the interests of the community to which he belongs.…
³⁵

 … Hitherto there has been among us a complete divorce between education and manual labor. In trying to realize the false dignity of a false education, we have forgotten the true dignity of manual labor.…
³⁶

 … It remains for those who are endowed with more than the ordinary measure of intellect to copy the millions consciously, and use their intellect for uplifting their fellow-laborers. No longer will it then be possible for the intellectuals in their conceit to look down upon the “hewers of wood and drawers of water.” For of such is the world made.
³⁷

 … Let us hope that we who are learning bitter lessons in South Africa will be chastened by them and know that no creatures of God may be considered low or mean by us. We who resent the Pariah treatment in South Africa will have to wash our hands clean of this treatment of our own kith and kin in India, whom we impertinently describe as “outcasts.”
³⁸

[Education] is one of those departments in which, while we always have a right to look to the Government to give the lead, it is possible to help ourselves. Nor is it a matter merely of money. The first thing needful is a sufficient number of self-sacrificing young men who would devote themselves to educational work as a labor
of love. That [is] an indispensable condition.… Burmese children receive, according to the Burmese notions, a full education, because the teachers are volunteers. The same rule was followed in ancient India, and even today the village schoolmaster is a poor man.…

 … The duty, therefore, before young Indians in South Africa is simple and clear. The work before them is not work of a day or a few months, but … work of years, nor is it work which can be done without strenuous labor. They have not only to be content with poverty, but they have to train themselves for the vocation.… Even if one young man took it into his head to devote his lifetime to the uplifting of Indian children, he could do it.… [Teaching] is a department of work in which one teacher alone can be a host in himself. None need, therefore, wait for others to take up the work. And there is no calling so sacred.…
³⁹