Gandhi, South Africa and the global nonviolent awakening for human rights and individual liberty.

Reproduced below  is the text of the  lecture delivered by me at Witwatersrand University, 

Johannesburg in South Africa on 27 February 2015 on the topic

Gandhi, South Africa and the global nonviolent awakening for  human rights and individual liberty.

 At a time when both in India and South Africa Gandhi’s 21 years of initiatives and struggles for  justice and human rights and his leadership since the 100 years of his return to India  from South Africa are debated, remembered and celebrated with considerable public interest, Dr.Mandela’s views assume significance:

“ India is Gandhi’s country of birth; South Africa his country of adoption. He was both an Indian and a South African citizen. Both countries contributed to his intellectual and moral genius, and he shaped the liberatory movements in both colonial theaters…He is the archetypal anti-colonial revolutionary. His strategy of noncooperation, his assertion that we can be dominated only if we cooperate with our dominators, and his nonviolent resistance inspired anti-colonial and anti-racist movements internationally in our century”(December 27,1999/ Web posting by Nelson Mandela).

            Similarly Dr Nelson Mandela’s address at the unveiling of Gandhi Memorial at Pietermaritzburg on 6 June, 1993 is a penetrating analysis of the gradual evolution of Gandhi and his legacy to humanity and how  particularly South Africa shaped his Thought and Action:

“Gandhiji influenced the activities of liberation movements, civil rights movements and religious organizations in all five continents of the world. He impacted on men and women who have achieved significant historical changes in their countries not least amongst whom are Martin Luther King. Mahatma Gandhi came to this country 100 years ago, to assist Indians brought to this country as indentured labourers and those who came to set up trading posts. He came here to assist them to retain their right to be on a common voters roll.

     The Mahatma is an integral part of our history because it is here that he first experimented with truth; here that he demonstrated his characteristic firmness in pursuit of justice; here that he developed Satyagraha as a philosophy and a method of struggle.”

            These observations of Dr. Mandela, is a clear rebuttal of the prevailing notion in many circles that Gandhi’s influence was limited to the Indian segment in South Africa and Gandhi’s work did not generate any popular interest among the local population in South Africa. It also effectively nails the lie, orchestrated and perpetrated by the vestiges of the very forces Gandhi fought all his life , both in South Africa and India.

            What Rev.Joseph J Doke, a  contemporary of Gandhi in Johannesburg  wrote about Gandhi 79 years before Dr Mandela made the above  observation would  perhaps give a historical perspective of the prevailing situation in South Africa when Gandhi was  described

“in this country, even by responsible persons, as an ordinary agitator, his acts have been misrepresented as mere vulgar defiance of the law, there have not even been wanting, suggestions, that his motives  are those of self interest  and pecuniary profit”.

            To illustrate this point further let me quote Dr Mandela again:

”The Indian Congresses which have their origin in this period were fashioned by Gandhi as instruments with the assistance of people like ThambiNaidoo, Parsi Rustomji, E I Asvat and others to achieve Hindu-Muslim unity in a just cause...Today as we strive to achieve a date for the first democratic elections in this country, the legacy of Gandhiji has an immediate relevance. He negotiated in good faith and without bitterness. But when the oppressor reneged he returned to mass resistance. He combined negotiation and mass action and illustrated that the end result through either means was effective.

Gandhi is most revered for his commitment to non-violence and the Congress Movement was strongly influenced by this Gandhian philosophy, it was a philosophy that achieved the mobilisation of millions of South Africans during the 1952 defiance campaign, which established the ANC as a mass based organisation. The ANC and its congress alliance partners worked jointly to protest the pass laws and the racist ideologies of the white political parties…

The enemies that Gandhi fought—ignorance, disease, unemployment, poverty and violence are today common place in a country that had the potential to lead and uplift Africa. Today we are faced with the formidable task of reconstructing our country anew. Now more than ever is the time when we have to pay heed to the lessons of Mahatma Gandhi”.

Gandhi emerges the voice of the voiceless and fighter for justice and human rights

            The very first lesson the young barrister Gandhi who was just 24 years old learned soon  after he reached South Africa was to face the realities of life and stay and suffer if need be in the realization of one’s goal.

            The humiliation he suffered at the Pietermaritzburg Railway station on 7th June 1893 was converted by him into an opportunity to reflect on the potential of every human being to become an agent of change. Gandhi later  wrote in his autobiography:

“I was afraid for my very life. I entered the dark waiting room.There was a white man in the room. I was afraid of him.What was my duty?I asked myself. Should I go back to India,or should I go forward with God as my helper,and face whatever was in store for me? I decided to stay and suffer My active nonviolence began from that date”.

            While the  Pietermaritzburg railway station experience offered him a foretaste of what was in store for him, the five days journey from Durban to Pretoria proved to be one of the most ‘creative experiences’ of his life. He saw racism  ‘face to face’ and ‘in action’ revealing all its fangs. He was surprised to learn how the Indian merchants  and others had been silently and with resignation probably swallowing such humiliation without  a even a murmour or protest.  He realized that he  had to tighten his girdle and marshall all his resources besides developing new methods and strategies to counter the most illogical racism  which had no legitimate place in the British Empire.             

            Except a steely determination and adhrence to truth which Gandhi had kept as his constant companion  and inspiration since  his England  days, Gandhi had no model or source  or support to draw from or rely upon when decided to take head on  racism and challenge the powerful racist perpetrators and violators of human dignity and  human rights.

           It may be noted at this point that young Gandhi arrived in South Africa as an attorney to assist a  South African firm in a law suit.He had no political interest nor did he visualise any other role and was preparing to go back to his home country as soon as the law suit was settled.

            It is worth remembering at this point that Gandhi did not begin his work as a campaigner or a social or political activist or agitator. A sensitive human being moved by the pitiable conditions under which fellow human being were losing their identity gradually threw him in the vortex of stormy and harsh realities .The harsh realities the  South African  Indians  were subject to prompted him to play the role of a deliverer they were awaiting for. 

            Once determined to throw his lot with the suffering humanity the first step Gandhi adopted was to familiarize himself with the conditions of the Indians and others in the colony. This was followed by a subtle process of educating the Indians on the need to  shed  fear, and  sloth, Develop cleanliness, Foster unity, Abhor personal & social evils, Be compassionate to others Cultivate personal integrity and develop a vision for tomorrow. Develop a community consciousness and self esteem.        

            As he started challenging the racist  regime attacks on Gandhi  also became  stronger  and this did not deter the young activist’s  resolve to fight against the racist regime. When in 1906, the colonial government sought to impose the Transvaal Asiatic Law Amendment Ordinance, which required all Indians to register themselves again, Gandhi immediately resorted to action the kind of which no country had ever witnessed. The Passive resistance/ the satyagraha as it was known was a novel method of public protest hitherto unheard of. It gave a jolt to the racist South African government.  Several demands were conceded by the authorities. Notable among them were abolition of the requirement for the Indians to register and carry passes. The shelving of tax of $ 3, the system of indenture also was discontinued and Indian marriages were recognized. Though quite a few other demands were not conceded at one stroke it appeared ‘protestor’ and ‘brief less barrister Gandhi had catapulted on to the mainstream of South African Indian life.

            Well, the later developments and the courage and foresight displayed by the youngster who emerged from the ill-lit (dark?) waiting room of the Pietermaritzburg Railway station proved that he was no longer the timid and frightened foreigner who was forced out of the train. The night of eviction led to an inner awakening to stand up and fight against the denial of justice and human rights. The mortifying experience gave him a rare courage and fresh insights and determination to fight out nonviolently the prevailing inhumanity and cruelty and to live for others, notwithstanding the hurdles that lay before him.

            Very soon Gandhi found that in Natal, a charge was made against the Indians that they were slovenly in their habits and did not keep houses and surroundings clean. It is here Gandhi began his work, he tried to educate them. He played an active role when plague was reported in Durban. He realized that just as untouchables were relegated to remote quarters of a town or a village in India, Indians in South Africa were given coolie locations or ghettoes. There was a criminal negligence of the municipality. Plague broke out in one of the gold mines and not in the coolie locations. Gandhi plunged in the relief work. Later, municipality wanted to evict Indians and burn the ghettoes. Gandhi fought legal cases and got the municipality to pay compensations. Thus, he fought for ‘untouchables’, both Indians and other blacks in Africa. 

What did South Africa give Gandhi?

            The twenty-one years Gandhi spent in South Africa offered valuable insights to Gandhi in familiarizing himself with the in human and highly deplorable situations that existed outside, as well as helped him develop appropriate concepts and techniques of nonviolent defense.

His decision to defy the most humiliating Asiatic Ordinance with nonviolent strategies included suffering and readiness to atone the mistakes committed by others.

Like a master craftsman he developed the various instruments of nonviolent resistance to evil.

The struggle initiated by Gandhi for human dignity and freedom had not only lasting impact on South Africa and India but it also left its imprints on human psyche and influenced freedom fighters and human rights activists all over the world.

            The Gandhian initiative for human rights and dignity stands out for the fresh set of strategies and attitudes which Gandhi brought in. Many could not initially understand what he meant when he asserted:

“A clear victory of satyagraha is impossible so long as there is ill will. But those who believe themselves every morning in it have to make the following resolve for the day:

I shall not fear anyone on earth. I shall fear God only: I shall not bear ill will towards any one on earth.
I shall fear no injustice from anyone. I shall conquer untruth by truth  and in resisting untruth I shall put up with all suffering.” 

Freedom from fear

            Gandhi brought in a new era of nonviolent defense based on the ability of each human being to free himself/herself from fear. He believed that fearlessness becomes a major pillar on which to build together with love and the capacity to resist when necessary.

It is interesting to see that Gandhi conceives fearlessness as a condition for love. He who is weak cannot love, probably because he or she is not free enough, does not have the surplus of warmth and energy from which love can come forth.

     “My mission is to teach by example and precept under severe restraint the use of the matchless weapon of satyagraha, which is a direct corollary of nonviolence and truth. I am anxious, indeed I am impatient  to demonstrate that there is no remedy for many ills of life save that of nonviolence. When I have become incapable of evil and when nothing harsh or naughty occupies, be it momentarily, my thought world, then, and not till own, my nonviolence will move all the nearest of the world. I have placed before me and the reader no impossible ideal or ordeal. It is mans prerogative and birthright.”

            Nobel Laureate Tagore was among the first world leaders who appreciated the Gandhian strivings for human rights. He explained movingly how Gandhi identified himself with the poorest of the poor. He wrote,

“He stopped at threshold of the huts of the thousands of dispossessed, dressed like one of their own. He spoke to them in their own language. Here was living truth at last, and not only quotation from books. For this reason the Mahatma, the name given to him by the people of India, is his real name, who have felt like him that all Indians are his own flesh and blood..When love came to the door of India that door was opened wide. At Gandhiji’s call India blossomed forth to new greatness, just as once, before, in earlier times; when the Buddha proclaimed the truth of fellow-feeling and compassion among all living creatures.” 

Humanism in Practice

            Gandhi advanced his perspective  that the good of one and the good of all and vice versa through his vision of  Sarvodaya  (welfare of all)  is in essence the spirit of humanism recast and remodeled along the Indian saying: Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (global human family). It also echoes Ruskin’s Unto This Last from which Gandhi drew the humanistic spirit of Sarvodaya:

1.      That the good of the individual is contained in the good of all.

2.      That a lawyer’s work has the same value as the barber’s in as much as all have the same right          of earning livelihood from their work

3.      That the life of labour, i.e., the life of the tiller of the soil and the handicraftsman is the life           worth living. 

Soul-force against brute-force of violence

            Gandhi demonstrated all aspects of both individual and collective initiatives for the liberation of people from colonial rule through emphasis on the soul-force as against the brute force of violence. The eternal warfare between truth and untruth, between good and evil in individuals, groups, communities and among nations is what Gandhiji’s life-long struggle symbolized.

            Freedom to Gandhiji was a process of continuing quest rather than a final consumption. Similarly independence to him was not an end but a means to freedom and self-rule. His concept of swaraj went far beyond mere political independence.

In his struggle against colonial rule, Gandhi marshaled the allegiance of the hapless indentured and fear-stricken laborers in South Africa and the common people of India to a common cause: it was Swaraj, which meant “not the acquisition of authority by a few, but the acquisition of the capacity in the many to regulate authority when abused.” 

Gandhi, an embodiment of democracy in action 

Gandhiji was thus a living embodiment of democracy in action. He knew more than anyone else living then or now, that political democracy is indivisible from economic and social democracy. Thus followed the logical corollaries to his approach to the struggle for the emancipation of the masses from the grind of hunger ,unemployment and the tyrannies of castes and religions which made bond slave of the oppressors and the oppressed alike.

He also revolted against the pattern of technology that enslaved man and made him helpless robots.

He crusaded against all forms of segregation whether it is the racial or color bar in South Africa or the abominable untouchability as practiced in India because both epitomized the cancer that ate into the social and political life of India and South Africa.

Gandhi’s influence on Universal Declaration of Human Rights
 

            One can see considerable influence of Gandhi in the various articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In its 30 Articles, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights defines that those principles are intended to offer a common standard of achievement for all peoples’ and all nations.

The first three articles proclaim that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights, are endowed with reason and conscience, should act toward one another in a spirit of brotherhood, and are entitled to all rights and freedoms without any kind of distinction. Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Article 4 to 21 spell out various civil and political rights, including those to freedom from slavery; from torture to cruel, in human or degrading treatment or punishment; the right to recognition as person before the law and to equal protection by the law against abuse of rights to freedom from arbitrary arrest, detention, or exile; die right to fair public hearing before an independent impartial tribunal and the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty. Other civil rights include freedom from arbitrary interference with privacy, family, or correspondence; freedom of movement and residence; the right to nationality and asylum; die right to marry and found a family; to own property; to freedom of thought, conscience, religion, opinion and expression; the right to peaceful assembly and association but equally that of not belonging to an association; and me right to take part in the government of one’s country and of equal access to its public service- Finally, “the will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of Government”, which shall be expressed in periodic elections by universal suffrage and secret of free voting procedures.

             The concluding articles (28 to 30) proclaim that everyone is entitled to social and international order in which the declarations and rights and freedoms may be fully realized. Conversely, since everyone has duties to the community, the exercise of such rights and freedoms shall be limited only to laws designed solely to secure recognition and respect of the rights of others and to meet requirements of public order and the general welfare in a democratic society. No state, group or individual may claim the right to destroy any right contained in the Declaration. 

Gandhi’s stress on human dignity
 

            It could be seen thus that Mahatma Gandhi opened up a new chapter in human history by offering a new set of thoughts and strategies steeped in human dignity. He also taught that any attempt to violate human rights is abominable and against natural justice, hence should be fought tooth and nail. His life and work in South Africa for twenty-one years and thirty years in India championing the cause of the down-trodden and oppressed who were segregated and ill-treated in the name of the dreaded apartheid inspired millions of freedom-loving citizens all over the world including the poet and social reformer, Tolstoy. Gandhi demonstrated the world  through his novel methods that what the weak and the suppressed need is courage of conviction to stand up and fight any unjust system. He clarified with telling effect that the weapon of the weak in this noble fight for social justice and equal rights is not any material weapon but soul-force which is more powerful than even the atom bomb, and which in turn, will arm a nation or a person with the requisite courage to fight the forces which deny fellow human beings their right to live in dignity. 

Gandhi inspires civil right movements and freedom fighters across the world

            In his fifty years of public life in three continents, Gandhi demonstrated the efficacy of the Buddhist teachings of respect for all living beings and human dignity which is impossible without compassion. Gandhi emerged as the voice of the voiceless, and inspired social reformers, political thinkers and fighters for individual liberty all over the world.

From Martin Luther King and Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan to Julius Neyrere, Hochi Min, Bishop Desmond Tutu, Petra Kelley and Nelson Mandela, there is a galaxy of men and women in different parts of the world who took a leaf from Gandhi to fashion their initiative for ensuring justice and fought discrimination in the name of colour and race.

 And with Gandhi the fight against Human Rights took a new turn. From violent methods the movement turned to nonviolent tactics which Gandhi believed would be the weapon of the strong and not that of the weak.

The Alchemy of Forgiveness 

The Gandhian Satyagraha proved to be a very dangerous weapon in the hands of the nonviolent fighters of justice and human rights. It meant many things to many. While it was both spiritual and moral to some it was a strategy and method to few others. To Gandhi the originator of this novel and dangerous weapon it was a creed, vow of allegiance to truth.

 As Fisher, one of Gandhi’s biographers said, ‘this vow meant not only loyalty to truth from a subjective viewpoint- that is, that he himself would never lie: it meant also an insistence, an objective insistence, upon the application of truth to the problems of daily life’. “If a principle is worth anything, it’s worth living,” says Gandhi.

Living the Truth

            The later initiatives of Gandhi in South Africa where he established the Phoenix Settlement and the Tolstoy Farm, the commencement of the newspaper Indian Opinion revealed Gandhi’s strenuous adherence to  ‘living the truth’  This  passion for living the truth gradually paved the way for many changes in Gandhi’s personal life both in South Africa and India.

There are critics and historians who hold the view that Gandhi did not achieve much in South Africa . There is no doubt that the South African experience made Gandhi confident and perhaps prepared him for a protracted struggle against the British rule in India. He might not have achieved what he strove, but he ‘returned home with a new method of action and a long-mediated programme for India’s regeneration’.

Satyagraha was new mode of protest that Gandhi had crafted and tested in his struggle against racism in South Africa. The strength of satyagraha lies in human suffering. As Gandhi himself elaborated, ‘even before satyagraha was started, the satyagrahis knew that they would have to suffer even unto death, and they were ready to undergo such suffering.

Since the spirit of revenge being alien to a satyagraha, it was best for a satyagrahi to hold his peace when he encountered extraordinary difficulties in proving the fact of his suffering.

The second significant achievement was his success in mobilizing the disparate Indians in South Africa who were divided on various ethnic counts. The Indian Ambulance Corps that was founded during the 1899 Boer War was illustrative of his effort in bringing the deeply divided Indians together. Given its multi-cultural character, the corps was characterized as ‘a microcosm of all classes and creeds. …..Hindus, Muslims, Christians and Sikhs, Madrasis and up countrymen (sic), free Indians as well indentured labourers’.

This tradition was firmly established in the Phoenix Settlement in Natal and later Tolstoy Farm in Johannesburg. However, Gandhi’s focus on the Indian cause ‘prevented him from involving the non-Indian Africans as potential political allies’.

 In defense, one can argue that Gandhi was concerned with the Indians who were subject to racist discrimination and hence he concentrated on them. Moreover, because he attributed racism to mere colour prejudice, he believed that this was something ‘quite contrary to the British tradition and only temporary and local’. He perhaps missed out the serious structural implications of racism for South African society.

Thirdly, the South African experience also helped Gandhi conceptualize the nature of Western industrial civilization. In his Satyagraha in South Africa, he developed his critique of Western civilization that he expanded in a sophisticated form in Hind Swaraj. He did not approve of the ‘philosophical substance’ of arguments, made by ‘highest character among the European’ in defense of the superiority of Western machine civilization. There were, however, two arguments that need attention: first, as the arguments in favour of Western civilization runs, it was neither vulgar racism nor brute trade jealousy that justified draconian governmental feat; what was at stake was the preservation of the distinctive character of the Western civilization that would be diluted if cross-cultural communication was allowed.

Hence the aim was ‘on of preserving one’s own civilization, that is of enjoying the supreme right of self-preservation and discharging the corresponding duty’. Secondly, in order to gratify this desire, the Western nations had adopted various measures to avoid ‘distortions’ in Western civilization. Gandhi challenged the major arguments defending racist exploitation by the South African government. In his opinion, no civilization would ever lose its dynamics simply because of contact with others; in fact, cross-cultural borrowing would enrich its contents. He was critical of the idea that ‘nations which do not increase their material wants are doomed to destruction’. This remained at the root of the Western nations’ expansionist strategy. It was in pursuance of this strategy that ‘Western nations have settled in South Africa and subdued the numerically overwhelmingly superior races of South Africa’.
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