M.K. Gandhi, Attorney at Law
Page 37
When Gandhi first stood before the court in South Africa to plead guilty and accept his punishment, defendant Gandhi abandoned lawyer Gandhi, declaring instead his faith in the world—and the law—as they should be. He would go to prison twice in 1908, once in 1909, once again in 1913, and then, taking what he had learned in South Africa with him, several more times during the struggle for independence in India. On every occasion that he was prosecuted, he bowed to the penalty imposed by the court. By his willing acceptance of punishment, he demonstrated to the world that individuals could rise above their own immediate interests for the good of the community of which they were a part. By his resolute refusal to raise defenses for himself, he kept the focus squarely on the ideal of equal justice. And by his civil disobedience, he became a beacon of hope.
So it was that Gandhi’s experiences in the law helped transform one man’s life—and free, a continent away, the lives of three hundred million others.
MOHANDAS K. GANDHI CHRONOLOGY
An asterisk marks events about whose dates the sources differ.
1869 Gandhi born, Porbandar, India
1882 Marries Kasturba*
1885 Father, Karamchand, passes away*
1888 Son, Harilal, born
Sails for London to start law studies, leaving Kasturba in India
1889–1891 Reads The Song Celestial
Reads the New Testament, including the Sermon on the Mount
Encounters theosophy, vegetarianism
1891 Called to the bar; returns to India
Attempts to establish practice
1892 Son Manilal born
1893 Accepts offer to work in South Africa; leaves family in India
Refuses to remove turban, ejected from Durban courtroom
Train incident in Pietermaritzburg en route to Pretoria
1894 Reads Tolstoy’s The Kingdom of God Is Within You
Natal Legislature considers disenfranchising Indians
Decides to remain in South Africa to fight disenfranchisement
Natal Indian Congress established
Partners with Coakes
Admitted to the Natal bar
1896 Travels to India; publishes The Grievances of the British Indians in South Africa: An Appeal to the Indian Public (the “Green Pamphlet”); returns with his family
1897 Assaulted in Durban
Son Ramdas born
Takes up the fight against the Dealers’ Licenses Act and other anti-Indian legislation in Natal
1899 Organizes Indian Ambulance Corps to serve in Boer War
1900 Petitions against segregated Durban rickshaws
Son Devdas born
1901 Departs South Africa for India
1902 Establishes practice first in Rajkot, then in Mumbai
Called back to South Africa
1903 Admitted to the Transvaal bar
Establishes practice in Johannesburg
Indian Opinion publishes first issue
1904 Suggests civil disobedience in Indian Opinion
Reads Ruskin’s Unto This Last
Establishes Phoenix Settlement in Natal
Kasturba and sons join Gandhi in South Africa
1906 Organizes civil disobedience to set up tram car test cases
Serves in Indian Ambulance Corps in Zulu Rebellion
Embraces celibacy
Empire Theatre speech
Sails to London as part of Indian deputation
1907 Represents Ramsundar Pundit, Indian disobedient
Arrested, tried, and convicted for refusing to register with the Transvaal government
1908 Adopts term “satyagraha” in place of “passive resistance”
Jailed in January; reaches settlement with Smuts and is released
Attacked by Mir Alam
Settlement with Smuts collapses
Burning of registration papers
Arrested and jailed
Released
1909 Arrested and jailed
Released
On diplomatic mission to London
Begins correspondence with Leo Tolstoy
Writes Hind Swaraj
1910 Establishes Tolstoy Farm
1911 Abandons the practice of law
1913 March across Transvaal border; mass arrests
Arrested and jailed
Released
1914 Settlement with Smuts
Permanently departs South Africa; sails for England
1915 Arrives in India from England
Establishes Kochrab Ashram in Ahmedabad, predecessor of Sabarmati Ashram
1917 Assists indigo workers in Champaran
Founds Sabarmati Ashram
1918 Kaira campaign
Mill workers’ campaign in Ahmedabad
1919 Satyagraha campaign against Rowlatt Bills
Arrested and shortly thereafter released
Amritsar/Jallianwala Bagh massacre
1920 Noncooperation campaign
1921 Mass civil disobedience
1922 Chauri Chaura incident; suspends campaign
Arrested, tried, sentenced, and imprisoned for sedition
1924 Released
1925 Begins writing his autobiography
1928 Publishes Satyagraha in South Africa
Bardoli tax satyagraha
1929 Indian National Congress declares complete independence as its goal
1930 Leaves Sabarmati Ashram and begins Salt Campaign
Arrested and jailed
1931 Released
Gandhi-Irwin Pact
Attends London Round Table Conference
1932 Civil disobedience resumes
Arrested, tried, convicted, imprisoned
1933 Released; individual civil disobedience begins
Arrested and jailed
Released
1934 Indian National Congress abandons civil disobedience
1936 Moves to Sevagram from Wardha to continue village work
1940 Begins campaign of individual civil disobedience
1941 Ends individual civil disobedience campaign
1942 Mounts Quit India campaign
Arrested; jailed at Aga Khan Palace
1944 Kasturba passes away in prison
Released from incarceration
Negotiations with Jinnah fail
1946 Communal violence
1947 Walking tour for communal peace
Indian independence, with Pakistan a separate country
Fasts in Calcutta against communal violence
1948 Fasts in New Delhi against communal violence
Assassinated, New Delhi
ABBREVIATIONS
Autobiography Mohandas K. Gandhi, An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth
BSP British Sessional Papers, Papers Relating to the Grievances of Her Majesty’s Indian Subjects in the South African Republic
CWMG The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (The Collected Works consists of one hundred volumes published over a long period of time with some volumes having gone through more than one edition. Accordingly, there is no one publication date for the CWMG; rather, each edition of each volume of the CWMG has its own publication date. To specify the edition of each volume cited, this work provides each volume’s year of publication at that volume’s first citation.)
IO Indian Opinion
JS Johannesburg Star
NA Natal Advertiser
NLR Natal Law Reports
NM Natal Mercury
NW Natal Witness
RDM Rand Daily Mail
Satyagraha Mohandas K. Gandhi, Satyagraha in South Africa
SN Gandhi Smarak Sangrahalaya, Sabarmati Ashram, Ahmedabad, and the documents housed there by serial number
TL Transvaal Leader
TP The Press
TSCR Transvaal Supreme Court Reports
NOTES
The following notes reflect only a portion of the research undertaken to support this book. A full set of endnotes can be found at disalvo.law.
wvu.edu. The interested reader may also find other materials at that site, including a description of resistance cases litigated by Gandhi in 1907.
INTRODUCTION
Epigraph, page xi: King, The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Vol. 5, Threshold of a New Decade (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 126.
1. “Our goal . . . is not primarily to have an effect. It is . . . to be faithful.” Resister Greg Boertje-Obed, quoted in Nepstad, Religion and War Resistance in the Plowshares Movement (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 65.
2. Brown et al. v. Louisiana, 383 U.S. 131 (1965).
3. See Stanton, Anthony, and Gage (eds.), The History of Woman Suffrage (New York: National American Woman Suffrage Association, 1881), 2:691.
4. Stanley Wolpert addresses suffering in Gandhi’s life in Gandhi’s Passion (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001).
5. Branch, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–1963 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988).
6. “The social view of power sees rulers and other command systems, despite appearances, to be dependent on the population’s . . . support. . . . Power always depends for its strength and existence upon a replenishment of its sources by the cooperation of numerous institutions and people—cooperation that does not have to continue.” Sharp, Waging Nonviolent Struggle: 20th Century Practice and 21st Century Potential (Boston: Porter Sargent, 2005), 28.
7. Kirkpatrick and Sanger, “A Tunisian-Egyptian Link That Shook Arab History,” New York Times, February 13, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/14/world/middleeast/14egypt-tunisia-protests.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.
8. When first created, these universities did not offer courses. Rather, they set courses of study at affiliated institutions and examined their students.
9. Seal, The Emergence of Indian Nationalism: Competition and Collaboration in the Later Nineteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), 148, quoted in Copland, India, 1885–1947: The Unmaking of an Empire (Harlow, UK: Longman, 2001).
10. Satyagraha, 109.
11. As Thomas Weber has shown, the tax had long concerned Gandhi and his mentor Gopal Krishna Gokhale. Weber, On the Salt March: The Historiography of Mahatma Gandhi’s March to Dandi (New Delhi: Rupa & Co., 2009) is the definitive work on the Salt March.
12. Brown, Gandhi and Civil Disobedience: The Mahatma in Indian Politics, 1928–1934 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 94.
13. Thomas Weber, having traversed the route himself, provides this number in On the Salt March, 548.
14. Ibid., 531.
15. Brown, Gandhi: Prisoner of Hope (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 339.
16. King, Papers, 5:136.
17. See Chenoweth and Stephan, Why Civil Resistance Works (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011).
18. Kirkpatrick and Sanger, “A Tunisian-Egyptian Link.”
CHAPTER ONE
Epigraph, page 1: Ball, The Student’s Guide to the Bar (London: Macmillan, 1879), 7.
1. James Hunt demonstrates in Gandhi in London (New Delhi: Promilla, 1978), 8, that most Gandhi biographers get the time and place of arrival wrong. He makes a compelling case for September 29 and Tilbury Station.
2. An earlier pregnancy ended with the death of the child very soon after its birth. Tendulkar, Mahatma: Life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (New Delhi: Government of India, 1951), 1:27.
3. For Gandhi’s family tree, see Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi—The Early Phase (Ahmedabad, India: Navijivan, 1965), 184.
4. “Interview with The Vegetarian,” CWMG 1 (1969 edition): 42.
5. Pearce, A History of the Inns of Court and Chancery (London: Bentley, 1848), 50.
6. “It was only the call to the bar of the Inn which could confer” the right “to plead in court.” Holdsworth, A History of the English Law (London: Methuen & Co., 1923), 506. At the time of Gandhi’s enrollment, women were excluded from the bar. Ringrose, The Inns of Court (London: Paul Musson, 1909), 142.
7. Quoted in Barton, Benham and Watt, The Story of the Inns of Court (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1924), 58. For a less cynical view, see W. C. Richardson, A History of the Inns of Court (Baton Rouge: Claitor, 1975).
8. Benchers were members of the bar governing the Inn. Ball, Student’s Guide, 11.
9. Alexander, The Temple of the Nineties (London: Hodge & Co., 1938), 29.
10. It appears that shortly after Gandhi’s time, the practice of attending lectures may have changed somewhat. CWMG 1:66.
11. Ball, Student’s Guide, 23, 24.
12. Ibid., 25. Gandhi, having worked without a university education, intimates that more time be spent. CWMG 1:66.
13. Napier and Stephenson, A Practical Guide to the Bar (London: H. Cox, 1888), 35.
14. Ibid., 37, 35.
15. Ball, Student’s Guide, 42.
16. Gandhi paid costs exceeding £40 in November 1888 to the Inner Temple. SN 7910. He paid an additional £100 deposit to the Inner Temple that December. SN 7908.
17. Gandhi would have been mistaken. The Middle Temple hosted the most Indians. Napier and Stephenson, Practical Guide, 19.
18. See Hunt, Gandhi in London, 16. Another theory is age-based. Gandhi arrived in London at eighteen. Napier and Stephenson state that “there is . . . no limit of age at the Inner Temple, which, in this respect, differs from all the other Inns.” Napier and Stephenson, Practical Guide, 22.
19. Abel, The Legal Profession in England and Wales (London: Basil Blackwell, 1988), 47. Gandhi left Samaldas College after one year.
20. Autobiography, 53.
21. Ibid., 54.
22. Ibid., 55.
23. James Hunt theorizes that a “lack of seriousness in getting down to his legal studies” or Gandhi’s “weakness in Latin” might also explain the delay. Hunt, Gandhi in London, 18.
24. Gandhi’s study of Roman law “was not without its value later on in South Africa, where Roman Dutch is the common law.” Autobiography, 80.
25. Ibid.
26. Ibid.
27. I am indebted to James Hunt for the full titles of these works. Hunt, Gandhi in London, 19.
28. Autobiography, 80. Although Gandhi is to be given credit for reading books while others used notes, it must be noted that he did not read all the texts recommended, a feat undoubtedly accomplished by very few.
29. Gandhi’s recollection of the difficulty of the examinations is off base. “The percentage of passes in the Roman law examination used to be 95 to 99 and of those in the final examination 75 or even more. They could not be felt as a difficulty.” Autobiography, 79. The actual percentages were lower: 86.9% passed the Roman law examination while only 70.6 passed the English law examination.
30. Napier and Stephenson, Practical Guide, 51.
31. “When we go [to England] . . . , we ought to do there everything that would make of us good Barristers and not indulge in luxuries or pleasures.” CWMG 1:102.
32. Autobiography, 50. See also Fischer, The Life of Mahatma Gandhi (New York: Harper and Row, 1983), 24, quoting correspondence with a Gandhi contemporary during his London student years, who points out that the Inner Temple was thought by Indians to be “the most aristocratic.”
33. A more immediate motivation should also be noted. After Gandhi embarrassed a friend by exhibiting his vegetarianism at a posh restaurant where meat was de rigueur, Gandhi resolved to try to become “an English gentleman.” Autobiography, 50.
34. Farquhar, Modern Religious Movements in India (Norwood, MA: J. S. Cushing Co., 1915), 211. Blavatsky’s character is discussed in Braden, These Also Believe: A Study of Modern American Cults and Religious Movements (New York: Macmillan, 1953), 222.
35. Besant, The Ancient Wisdom (London: Theosophical Publishing, 1897), 2, 3. Besant was a prominent theosophical figure toward the end of the nineteenth century.
36. According to Pyarelal, theosophy’s appeal for brotherhood attracted Gandhi, whereas he had no use for communication with spirits through mediums.
See Pyarelal, Gandhi—The Early Phase, 259, quoting Gandhi in Young India, September 12, 1929. Another theosophical theme, truth, would later be echoed by Gandhi. In her 1888 book, The Secret Doctrine, Blavatsky begins and ends with the declaration “There is no religion higher than truth.”
37. Farquhar, Modern Religious Movements, 267. Besant published numerous books on theosophy and eventually served as president of the Theosophical Society. She also served as president of the INC in 1917.
38. “Message on Annie Besant’s Birthday,” October 1, 1919, CWMG 16:201.
39. Autobiography, 68. There is some evidence that Gandhi actually joined the Theosophical Society, but it is unpersuasive. Gandhi indicates he declined at least one invitation to join. Ibid., 68.
40. Ibid., 42.
41. Ibid., 46.
42. Ibid., 47.
43. Ibid., 48.
44. Ibid.
45. CWMG 1:120.
46. Hunt, Gandhi in London, 27.
47. Autobiography, 58.
CHAPTER TWO
Epigraph, page 17: Autobiography, 92.
1. This expectation was actually ingrained in traditional Indian law: “The earnings of a professional man, educated at joint family expense, were joint family property.” Gledhill, The Republic of India: The Development of Its Law and Constitution (Westport: Stevens and Sons, 1964), 265.
2. Autobiography, 90.
3. Ibid., 90, 81.
4. A native practitioner with less training and prestige than an English-schooled barrister. For a description of the profession’s evolution, see Schmitthener, “A Sketch of the Development of the Legal Profession in India,” 3 Law and Society Review 339 (1968–1969), 350, n. 87. See also Dutt-Majumdar, Conduct of Advocates and Legal Profession (Kolkata, India: Eastern Law House, 1974), 21.