GANDHI AND AFRICANS

E. S. Reddy1
The agitation at the University of Legon in Ghana against the Gandhi statue was provoked by a
few quotations from statements by Gandhi soon after he arrived in South Africa in 1893 and
before he came to know the Africans. These were taken out of context from Collected Works of
Mahatma Gandhi published by the Indian Government without any attempt at censorship. They
totally distort what his life represents.
Gandhi has said: "My life is message." His life shows how an ordinary human being. with many
weaknesses, can rise to great heights, shedding early prejudices, by adherence to love and nonviolence instead of hate and greed. That should be an encouragement to youth.
Gandhi practised what he preached. He conquered fear and defied the racist regime in South
Africa and imperialist Britain. He went to prison five times in South Africa and nine times in
India in the struggle against racism and colonialism. He as incorruptible and eschewed
consumerism which became a menace to progress. He espoused dignity of labour and the need
to protect the environment. He became a symbol of peace and nonviolence. His appeal is
universal.
As Mandela said in February 2007:
"In a world driven by violence and strife, Gandhi's message of peace and non-violence
holds the key to human survival in the 21st century. He rightly believed in the efficacy of
pitting the soul force of the satyagraha against the brute force of the oppressor and in
effect converting the oppressor to the right and moral point."
Gandhi, an immature settler in Natal
In 1893, 23-year-old M.K. Gandhi arrived in Durban. He had been enrolled as a barrister n
London, but failed in his profession in India. He only excelled at drafting petitions and
memoranda. A merchant in Durban offered him a one-year job to assist his lawyer in a litigation.
It consisted mainly of translating accounts in Gujarati into English. Gandhi accepted the offer,
though the salary was a mere 100 pounds a year, in the hope of finding better opportunities in
South Africa.

1 E.S. Reddy, former Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations and director of Un Centre against Apartheid,
helped to build the international campaign against apartheid in consultation with the liberation movement of South
Africa. He was also director of UN scholarship programme for southern Africans. The South African Government
presented him a national award in 2012 in recognition of his work.
He was a member of a United Nations delegation which visited Accra in 1977 to pay tribute to Ghana's contribution
to the struggle against apartheid.

Gandhi said in a speech 1937:

"At school the teachers did not consider me a very bright boy. They knew that I was a
good boy, but not a bright boy. I never knew first class and second class. I barely passed.
I was a dull boy. I could not even speak properly. Even when I went to South Africa I
went only as a clerk."
After the year was over, Gandhi managed to get an assignment from the merchants in Durban to advise and assist them in dealing with actions by the Natal Government and local authorities
against them. They offered 300 pounds a year in retainers. The immediate issue was the proposal
to remove the voting rights a few rich Indians had.
The class and colour prejudices Gandhi carried from India were reinforced by those of the
merchants and the white officers he dealt with. In countering the arguments of the white racists,
he tried to show that Indians, unlike the Africans, had an ancient civilization. He used the
language of the whites which was offensive to Africans and referred to Africans as "kaffirs."
The term "kaffir" was not considered at the time in South Africa as offensive as it was in later
years. It was widely used - e.g. Kaffir express for the train and Kaffir corn for the grain. The
educated Christian Africans, known as "kholwa" sometimes called the illiterate Africans
"kaffirs." Yet it is surprising that Gandhi used that term. He must have known how the term
"kaffir" - meaning "infidel" - was used by Muslims against Hindus in India.
Gandhi had little contact with Africans then and did not understand their sensitivities. From
today's perspective, some of his statements in the first two years of his employment are
unpardonable and very un-Gandhian.
But Gandhi had no malice. He was aware that the race prejudice of the whites was against
Indians and Africans and all other non-white people. He wrote to the Times of Natal on 25
October 1894:
"The Indians do not regret that capable Natives can exercise the franchise. They would
regret if it were otherwise. They, however, assert that they too, if capable, should have the
right. You, in your wisdom, would not allow the Indian or the Native the precious
privilege under any circumstances, because they have a dark skin."
In opposing the system of import of indentured labour from India, Gandhi pointed out that it was
detrimental to the interests of the Africans. India prohibited export of labour to Natal in 1911.
During his stay in Natal from 1893 to 1901, Gandhi considered himself a temporary settler. He
left for India in October 1901 but returned after the end of the Anglo-Boer War next year, at the
request of the Indian community, to lead deputations to the British Secretary of State for
Colonies in Natal and the Transvaal.

Awakening of Gandhi
Gandhi settled in the Transvaal as an attorney and developed a flourishing practice, earning as
much as 5,000 pounds a year. He founded the weekly Indian Opinion in 1903. He set up an
Ashram in 1904 at Phoenix, near Durban, in the midst of Africans and close to the industrial
school of John Langalibalele Dube, the first President of the African National Congress. Dube's
weekly, Ilange lase Natal, was initially printed in the press of Indian Opinion and people from
his school often visited the Ashram.
But his own concern was to serve the Indian community in South Africa. He felt that the Indians
would be respected if they showed that they were loyal subjects of the British Empire. He had
led an Indian ambulance corps of about a thousand volunteers for about six weeks during the
Anglo-Boer War. In 1906 he committed a blunder which proved to be a blessing. He organized a
small stretcher-bearer corps of twenty Indians during the military operations of Natal militia
against Chief Bambata and his followers who refused to pay a new poll tax. Gandhi did not
understand the nature or scope of the rebellion. The Corps, which served for a little over a
month, was asked to take care of the wounded and whipped Africans, as no white would treat
them. Seeing the brutality of the whites against the Africans was a traumatic experience for
Gandhi.
Nelson Mandela wrote in an article in Time Magazine on 31 December 1999:
"His awakening came on the hilly terrain of the so-called Bambata Rebellion... British
brutality against the Zulus roused his soul against violence as nothing had done before.
He determined, on that battlefield to wrest himself of all material attachments and devote
himself completely and totally to eliminating violence and serving humanity."
He took a vow of celibacy and wrote to his brother that he had no interest in worldly possessions.
Soon after he returned to Johannesburg, the Transvaal government gazetted a humiliating
ordinance against "Asiatics." Gandhi recognized that petitions and deputations to the racist rulers
were of no avail, unless there was force behind them. He decided to defy the law and mobilized
the Indian community to court imprisonment. He discovered non-violent resistance (Satyagraha)
which was, in essence, pitting power of the people against guns. By 1914, more than 50,000
Indian workers had gone on strike, ten thousand Indians had been jailed, more than a dozen
Indians were killed and many more tortured or injured. This non-violent resistance forced the
racist white government of South Africa to concede the main demands of the struggle.
During the course of the struggle Gandhi widened his horizon and publicly supported African
rights. He declared in an address to YMCA in 1908:
"South Africa would probably be a howling wilderness without the Africans...

If we look into the future, is it not a heritage we have to leave to posterity that all the
different races commingle and produce a civilisation that perhaps the world has not yet
seen.
He said in October 1910:
"The whites... have occupied the country forcibly and appropriated it to themselves. That,
of course, does not prove their right to it. A large number even from among them believe
that they will have to fight again to defend their occupation. But we shall say no more
about this. One will reap as one sows." (Indian Opinion, 22 October 1910)
He praised African leaders. Reporting a speech made by Dube in Indian Opinion of 2 September
1905, he said that Dube was an African "of whom one should know."
He commended the efforts of Tengo Jabavu to raise the enormous sum of 50,000 pounds from
Africans to establish a college for Africans. He wrote:
... it is not to be wondered at that an awakening people, like the great Native races of
South Africa, are moved by something that has been described as being very much akin
to religious fervour... British Indians in South Africa have much to learn from this
example of self-sacrifice. If the Natives of South Africa, with all their financial
disabilities and social disadvantages, are capable of putting forth this local effort, is it not
incumbent upon the British Indian community to take the lesson to heart, and press
forward the matter of educational facilities with far greater energy and enthusiasm than
have been used hitherto?" (Indian Opinion, 17 March 1906)
He congratulated Dr. W.B. Rubusana on his election to the Cape Provincial Council, and
commented:
"That Mr. Rubusana can sit in the Provincial Council but not in the Union Parliament is a
glaring anomaly which must disappear if South Africans are to become a real nation in
the near future." (Indian Opinion, 24 September 1910)
These statements were published in the Gujarati section of Indian Opinion to educate Indians to
respect Africans.
Hermann Kallenbach, an associate of Gandhi, spoke of their identification with Africans in an
interview in June 1937:
"A black man may not use tramcars. So we walked together for miles! A black man
may not use a hotel lift and bathroom. So both of us gladly left the use of both! A black
man may not eat in the common dining room. I said I would not go there myself and we
had our food in our rooms." (Harijan, 12 June 1937)

Gandhi came know many educated Africans. They were impressed by the organization and
struggle of the Indians led by him. In 1910, they were discussing the formation of a national
body to defend African rights. Pixley ka Isaka Seme, who initiated the proposal, visited Gandhi
at the Tolstoy Farm for consultation. The South African Native National Congress (later renamed
the African National Congress) was formed in 1912 and Gandhi welcomed it.
Gandhi never sought to impose his leadership over the African people, the sons of the soil, but
presented them the example of satyagraha as the means for deliverance from oppression.
India's Freedom must lead to Africa's Freedom
Gandhi was moved by the courage and determination of women in the last stage of satyagraha in
1913. The heroism of the working men and women led Gandhi to declare in 1914:
"These men and women are the salt of India; on them will be built the Indian nation that
is to be."
Returning to India, Gandhi built perhaps the largest mass movement in history for the freedom
of India - rallying people of all classes and encouraging women to participate in the struggle.
He kept up his interest in South Africa and wrote often about the oppression of the Africans.
He said in a speech at Oxford on 24 October 1931:
"... as there has been an awakening in India, even so there will be an awakening in South
Africa with its vastly richer resources - natural, mineral and human. The mighty English
look quite pygmies before the mighty races of Africa. They are noble savages after all,
you will say. They are certainly noble, but no savages and in the course of a few years
the Western nations may cease to find in Africa a dumping ground for their wares."
He declared in Cambridge on 1 November 1931, referring to "South African races":
Our deliverance must mean their deliverance."
He said in an interview to the Reverend S.S. Tema, a member of ANC, on 1 January 1939:
"The Indians are a microscopic minority. They can never be a menace to the white
population. You, on the other hand, are the sons of the soil who are being robbed of your
inheritance. You are bound to resist that. Yours is a far bigger issue. It ought not to be
mixed up with that of the Indian. This does not preclude the establishment of the
friendliest relations between the two races. The Indians can co-operate with you in a
number of ways. They can help you by always acting on the square towards you."
In an interview to a South African Indian delegation in April 1946, he said:

"Their slogan today is no longer merely 'Asia for the Asiatics' or 'Africa for the Africans'
but the unity of all the exploited races of the earth. On India rests the burden of pointing
the way to all the exploited races."
He abandoned his hesitation over joint action next year when Africans, Coloured people and
whites went to prison in solidarity with Indians during the Indian passive resistance in South
Africa. He told Dr. Y.M. Dadoo and Dr. G.M. Naicker, the leaders of the resistance, in May
1947:
"Political co-operation among all the exploited races in South Africa can only result in
mutual goodwill, if it is wisely directed and based on truth and non-violence."
Gandhi's declaration that India's freedom must lead to freedom of other oppressed peoples
formed the basis of the foreign policy of India after independence. Under the leadership of Pandit
Nehru, India espoused the cause of freedom in the United Nations and the Commonwealth, in
sports bodies and other forums. India imposed sanctions against South Africa in 1946 at great
sacrifice and earned the hostility of Western Powers.

Mandela on Gandhi
Leaders of South Africa have often praised Gandhi's contribution to their liberation from
apartheid and the "miracle" of peaceful transition.
In a letter to India smuggled from prison in 1980, Nelson Mandela said:
"... in 21 years of his stay in South Africa we were to witness the birth of ideas and
methods of struggle that have exerted an incalculable influence on the history of the
peoples of India and South Africa."
The following are some of his statements after his release from prison.
"Gandhi's political technique and elements of the non-violent philosophy developed
during his stay in Johannesburg, became the enduring legacy for the continuing struggle
against racial discrimination in South Africa." (Speech unveiling the statue of Gandhi in
Johannesburg, October 2003)
"The values of tolerance, mutual respect and unity for which he stood and acted had a
profound influence on our liberation movement, and on my own thinking. They inspire us
today in our efforts of reconciliation and nation-building." (Speech in Pietermaritzburg,
25 April 1997)
"His (Gandhi's) philosophy contributed in no small measure in bringing about a peceful
transformation in South Africa and in healing the destructive human divisions that had
been spawned by the abhorrent practice of apartheid...

"He is the archetypal anti-colonial revolutionary. His strategy of non-cooperation, his

assertion that we can be dominated only if we cooperate with our dominators, and his
nonviolent resistance inspired anti-colonial and antiracist movements internationally."
(Message to a conference in Delhi on the centenary of satyagraha, January 2007)
"The Mahatma is an integral part of our history." (Speech in Pietermaritzburg on 6 June
1993)
"India is Gandhi's country of birth; South Africa his country of adoption. He was both an
Indian and a South African citizen." (Article in Time, 31 December 1999). He had
referred to Gandhi earlier, in a speech in New Delhi on 15 October 1990, as the hero of
both India and South Africa.
Mandela was well aware of the racist statements of young Gandhi. He wrote in an article in
1995:
"Gandhi must be forgiven those prejudices and judged in the context of the time and
circumstances. We are looking here at the young Gandhi, still to become Mahatma, when
he was without any human prejudice save that in favour of truth and justice."
Many other African and African-American leaders, as well as leaders of other movements for
freedom and peace, acknowledged that they derived inspiration from Gandhi. None of them was
distracted or disturbed by the quotes from young Gandhi.

India Honours leaders of freedom movements

Honouring of leaders of movements for freedom and peace in other countries, and publicising
their lives, is an important contribution to human solidarity. The United Nations General
Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution on 24 January 1979 recommending that leaders of
struggles against apartheid, racial discrimination and colonialism and for peace and international
cooperation should be honoured by the international community and that their contributions
should be made widely known for the education of world public opinion, especially of youth.
[Resolution 33/163C].
In New Delhi, the capital of India, there is an Africa Avenue and streets named after Nelson
Mandela, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Kwame Nkrumah. There are
similar honours in other cities. The Government of India gave its highest honour, Bharata Ratna,
to Nelson Mandela; and the International Gandhi Peace Prize to Julius Nyerere, Nelson Mandela
and the Rev. Desmond Tutu.
The statue of Gandhi was presented to Ghana by the President of India as a token of friendship
between the two countries. The recent events at the University of Legon should not be allowed to
undermine that friendship. Let it be remembered that J.B. Danquah and Kwame Nkrumah,
leaders of the freedom movement in Ghana, both acknowledged the inspiration of Gandhi. It was

India which enabled Ghana (then Gold Coast) to attend the Asian African Conference in
Bandung in 1955, even before it was independent, while excluding the racist regimes of South
Africa and Rhodesia. India and Ghana have been partners in the struggle against apartheid and
colonialism at the United Nations and other international fora. The statue in Ghana and the
Nkrumah Marg (road) in New Delhi should symbolize their continued partnership in protecting
human dignity and promoting human welfare.