23. “Bitter-Enders: Mass Meeting of Indians,” RDM, December 28, 1907. Indian Opinion estimated that there were “at least 1,000 people present.” “A Meeting at Vreedorp,” IO, January 4, 1908.
24. CWMG 7:449. See also “A Johannesburg Demonstration,” TL, December 28, 1907.
25. The Johannesburg Star’s afternoon headline was “Asiatic Question: Ringleaders in Court—48 Hours Notice to Leave—New Phase of the Struggle.”
26. Karwa’s full name is not available. Three Chinese defendants also testified. The cases of Nawab Khan and Sumander Khan were postponed until January 3 to arrange for the presence of translators; neither spoke English.
27. “The Registration Law: Simultaneous Arrests in Johannesburg Pretoria and Pietersburg—Mr. Gandhi Ordered to Leave the Transvaal—Within 48 Hours,” IO, January 4, 1908.
28. “Asiatic Question: Ringleaders in Court—48 Hours Notice to Leave—New Phase of the Struggle,” JS, December 28, 1907; “The Asiatic Question: Leaders before the Court—Ordered to Leave Colony,” TL, December 30, 1907; “The Asiatics: Law Enforced—Leaders in Court—Ordered to Leave the Colony,” RDM, December 30, 1907; “The Registration Law: Simultaneous Arrests in Johannesburg Pretoria and Pietersburg—Mr. Gandhi Ordered to Leave the Transvaal—Within 48 Hours,” IO, January 4, 1908.
29. “Meeting on the Square: Ringleaders Refuse to Leave,” JS, December 28, 1907.
30. “Speech in Government Square,” IO, January 1, 1908.
31. “Method of Deportation,” JS, December 30, 1907.
32. “Every religion taught that if a man did anything that degraded his manhood, there was no religion in him.” CWMG 7:471.
33. “Strong Speaking,” RDM, December 31, 1907. See also “At the Mosque,” JS, December 31, 1907, and “At the Mosque: Shaking Empire’s Foundations,” TL, December 31, 1907.
34. “The Passive Resisters: To-Day’s Developments,” JS, December 31, 1907; “Meeting This Morning: The Police Intervene,” JS, December 31, 1907; untitled entry, IO, January 4, 1908. Indian Opinion estimated the crowd to number at least one thousand.
35. “Another Prosecution,” RDM, January 4, 1908.
36. “The Asiatics: Cases in the Courts,” TL, January 4, 1908.
37. “Another Prosecution,” RDM, January 4, 1908.
38. “The Asiatics: Cases in the Courts,” TL, January 4, 1908.
39. “Another Prosecution,” RDM, January 4, 1908.
40. Gandhi’s campaign might be said to have begun with his letter to the Johannesburg Star of January 4. “The Religious Aspect: A Reply from Mr. Gandhi,” JS, January 4, 1908. There Gandhi makes an unpersuasive case for the religious basis of the resistance. One comes away feeling he painted himself into a corner on this issue and never managed to find a way out.
41. “Asiatic Question,” JS, January 6, 1908.
42. “Mr. Gandhi Interviewed: Reply to General Smuts,” TL, January 7, 1908.
43. “Interview to Reuter [sic],” January 8, 1908, CWMG 8 (1962 edition): 19.
44. CWMG 8: 22. For more on Schlesin, see Weber, Going Native: Gandhi’s Relationship with Western Women (New Delhi: Lotus, 2011).
45. CWMG 8:33.
46. “Asiatic Question: Ringleaders, Sentenced—Mr. Gandhi’s Valediction, Appeal to His Followers,” JS, January 10, 1908.
47. They would not appear until the 4:45 P.M. edition.
48. “Asiatic Question: Ringleaders, Sentenced—Mr. Gandhi’s Valediction, Appeal to His Followers,” JS, January 10, 1908.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Epigraph, page 216: CWMG 8:319.
1. It was not a complete vacation. He addressed office work during Polak’s visits. CWMG 8:158.
2. CWMG 8:113.
3. In February and March, Gandhi stated that the letter was drafted by Cartwright. CWMG 8:113; CWMG, Supplementary Vol. 1, p. 67. In 1928, Gandhi stated that the letter was “drafted or approved of by General Smuts.” Satyagraha, 154.
4. Gandhi would later claim that his amendment made it clear that repeal was intended. Satyagraha, 155. An examination of the document simply does not support this characterization. Indeed, this was not Gandhi’s position in February, when he wrote that the letters between himself and Smuts “do not say categorically that the new law would be repealed.” “Johannesburg Letter,” IO, February 8, 1908.
5. The letter was poorly drafted. It failed to unequivocally make repeal a condition of the settlement.
6. CWMG 8:65.
7. Smuts and the colony’s whites were also concerned with the demonstration effect of the Indians’ resistance on natives. “The Asiatic Deadlock,” JS, January 27, 1908.
8. “Letter of Selborne to Smuts,” November 30, 1907, quoted in Hancock, Smuts: The Sanguine Years, 1870–1919 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962).
9. “Johannesburg Letter,” IO, February 8, 1908.
10. Gandhi would claim that Smuts pledged to repeal the Act at this, and at a subsequent, meeting. “Asiatic Question,” JS, June 26, 1908.
11. CWMG 8:65.
12. CWMG 8:49. On January 31 Smuts stated that repealing the Act was “a preposterous proposal, and now the Indians have dropped it.” “Mr. Smuts Interviewed,” JS, January 31, 1908. Either Gandhi did not read this—an unlikely occurrence—or he ignored it.
13. CWMG 8:65.
14. CWMG 8:283.
15. CWMG 8:65.
16. “A Dialogue on the Compromise,” IO, February 15, 1908.
17. See, for example, “A Fresh Development,” TL, January 29, 1908.
18. CWMG 8:44.
19. “Asiatic Question: Mr. Gandhi Injured,” JS, February 10, 1908. Gandhi’s one-time Pathan supporters also participated in a Durban mass meeting, where some started a disturbance to protest Gandhi. A shot was fired, missing Gandhi. “Indians at Durban,” JS, March 6, 1908.
20. Satyagraha, 170.
21. CWMG 8:75. Gandhi also wrote to the attorney general, indicating he did not want his assailants prosecuted. Satyagraha, 168. Two were nonetheless prosecuted. “Assault on Mr. Gandhi,” JS, February 20, 1908. As Swan shows, Gandhi, with a change of conditions, had altered his views somewhat by May when he urged Smuts to deport “the most violent member of the Pathan community . . . who ha[d] been an active agent” in having the assaults against Gandhi and others committed. Swan, South African Experience, 163; CWMG 8:253.
22. CWMG 8:182. According to the Transvaal Leader of April 10, 1908, Polak was admitted to the bar on April 6 and took the requisite oaths on April 8.
23. Autobiography, 305.
24. Polak would put his own impression on representing disobedients by defending them on the basis of their “conscientious objection” to the law. See, for example, “The Florida Case,” TL, July 31, 1908; and “Hawkers Sentenced,” TL, August 1, 1908. Gandhi adopted this theme. See “Letters to the Editor,” TL, August 10, 1908.
25. “The Asiatic Situation,” RDM, June 25, 1908; “Asiatic Agitation,” JS, July 8, 1908.
26. “Asiatic Question,” JS, May 29, 1908.
27. Gandhi states that he “had too great faith in the statesmanship of . . . Smuts, in his honesty, and in his integrity.” CWMG 8:319. In describing his January 30 meeting with Smuts, Gandhi recalled him saying, “You know I too am a barrister.” Satyagraha, 156.
28. CWMG 8:231.
29. Gandhi may also have thought a court would not entertain a lawsuit without this request having first been made.
30. CWMG 8:277.
31. “[Ward] had a thorough knowledge of English case law.” Nathan, Not Heaven Itself: An Autobiography (1944), 218–219, quoted in Kahn, Law, Life and Laughter, 335. Gandhi had attempted to retain Leonard, who was preoccupied. Gandhi described Ward as a “very able barrister, though not of the same calibre as . . . Leonard.” CWMG 8:297.
32. CWMG 8:297.
33. CWMG 8:308.
34. CWMG 8:306.
35. It is likely that Gandhi wrote this unclear petition “after consulting Barrister Ward.” CWMG 8:311,
n. 2.
36. Solomon reasoned that the application was like “a letter written by one person to another,” with ownership passing to the recipient. Aswat v. Registrar of Asiatics, 1908 TSCR 568 (July 2, 1908).
37. “Letter from Mr. Gandhi,” RDM, July 3, 1908.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Epigraph, page 227: CWMG 8:55.
1. “Mr. Smuts at Richmond,” JS, February 6, 1908.
2. Weber, On the Salt March; Brown, Gandhi and Civil Disobedience. The Gandhi-led 1913 South African workers’ strike and march (see Swan, South African Experience, 245–256) and the 1895 railway workers strikes in Natal (see chapter 6) provide other, though somewhat less clear, examples.
3. “Letter to the Editor,” JS, December 31, 1907.
4. “Meeting of Chinese: Mr. Gandhi’s Exhortation,” JS, December 31, 1907.
5. CWMG 8:399.
6. “When I talk of equality of treatment in the eye of the law the idea is jeered at. . . . To my mind, it is the only thing that binds the Empire together.” CWMG 9:30.
7. CWMG 8:347.
8. CWMG 8:329.
9. “The Asiatics: Mr. Gandhi on the Position—Determined to Hold Out,” TL, July 24, 1908.
10. “The Asiatic Question,” JS, July 17, 1908; “Mr. Gandhi Again Explains,” JS, August 13, 1908. Gandhi and the Indians also wanted the government to honor the right to return of Indians who had formerly lawfully lived in the Transvaal.
11. “The Asiatic Problem,” JS, August 14, 1908.
12. The leadership had thirteen hundred certificates in hand. Two hundred were surrendered during the event. “The Asiatic Question: Prominent Indians Charged,” TL, August 18, 1908.
13. CWMG 8:456. (The paragraphing here has been slightly changed for clarity.) In reporting on the rally, the Rand Daily Mail stated that Gandhi “seemed to be suffering from mental stress.” “Gaol Before Indignity: Asiatics Burn Certificates,” RDM, August 17, 1908.
14. “Educated Indians,” TL, August 14, 1908.
15. CWMG 8:487.
16. In 1908 there was often little time between arrest and trial.
17. “Law and Police: Law and Asiatics—The Registration Problem—Test Case From Charlestown,” JS, July 9, 1908.
18. CWMG 8:352.
19. Gandhi argued that the case should be dismissed because the defendant was previously acquitted. The magistrate overruled Gandhi.
20. “Law and Police: Parsee and Permit—Shapurjee Again Charged—Ordered to Leave This Time,” TL, July 11 1908; “Rand Police Courts: Ordered to Leave—Indian Immigration Case—Government Defied,” RDM, July 11, 1908; CWMG 8:357.
21. “A Dilemma,” TL, July 18, 1908.
22. “A Test Case,” RDM, July 6, 1908. See also “The Sorabji Case,” JS, July 15, 1908; “The Asiatic Question” JS, July 17, 1908.
23. CWMG 8:367, 8:387, 8:398.
24. CWMG 8:378.
25. This front had actually opened five days earlier, when BIA chair Essop Mia announced that the BIA leadership would hawk—without licenses. “The Asiatic Question” (letter to the editor from Essop Mia, Chair, British Indian Association), JS, July 17, 1908.
26. By August 15 approximately one hundred Indians had gone to jail. “The Asiatics,” TL, August 15, 1908. Many were petty hawkers to whom Gandhi turned when merchant support declined. Swan, South African Experience, 167.
27. Some differences existed in whether the courts gave hard labor sentences (see “The Asiatics: Government and the Hawkers,” TL, July 31, 1908), but these differences are explained by geography. Johannesburg judges imposed hard labor, while judges in outlying areas were more forgiving.
28. Gandhi was not ignorant of this civil disobedience function: “The self- suffering which the community has undergone . . . has been undertaken . . . to draw public attention to a grievance.” “Indian Passive Resisters,” RDM, August 6, 1910.
29. “Hawkers Go to Gaol: Mr. Gandhi and Exemptions,” TL, July 28, 1908; “Hawkers Fined,” RDM, July 28, 1908.
30. Identified elsewhere as T. H. Jefferson and Thomas H. Jefferson. See, for example, “Law and Police: Asiatics Sentenced—Leaders in the Dock—A New Feature,” TL, July 23, 1908; “Hawkers Fined,” RDM, July 28, 1908.
31. “Hawkers Go to Gaol: Mr. Gandhi and Exemptions,” TL, July 28, 1908.
32. Ibid.
33. Gandhi also raised a procedural defense in Rex v. V. M. Bagas and Others. In that case the magistrate overruled Gandhi on a critical point, after which Gandhi refrained from calling witnesses. The defendants received fines of 5 shillings or three days’ imprisonment with hard labor. “Trial of V. M. Bagas and Others,” IO, September 15, 1908.
34. Rex v. Ghila, Deva, and Bhachar, a prosecution for hawking without licenses. The defendants pled guilty, Gandhi indicated that the defendants would not tender evidence, and the magistrate promptly pronounced a sentence of £1 or seven days’ imprisonment with hard labor. “Stubborn Asiatics,” RDM, July 31, 1908.
35. “The Asiatics: ‘Hawkers’ Go To Prison—Young Gandhi Sentenced—Naidoo’s Third Conviction,” TL, July 29, 1908.
36. One engaged in satyagraha.
37. CWMG 8:432.
38. “The Asiatics: Harilal Gandhi Arrested,” TL, July 28, 1908.
39. “Satyagraha always calls for sacrifice of self.” CWMG 8:335. “Those who wish to serve India must give up all thought of serving their own interests.” CWMG 8:429.
40. CWMG 8:432.
41. Ibid.
42. Ibid.
43. CWMG 8:380–381.
44. CWMG 8:1.
45. As many as 120 resisters were engaged in this practice as of October. “A Heavy Sentence,” JS, October 13, 1908.
46. “The Indian Agitation,” JS, August 10, 1908.
47. “The Indian Struggle in the Transvaal: Harilal Gandhi Gets a Month,” IO, August 22, 1908.
48. When the magistrate ordered Gandhi’s client out of the colony within seven days, Gandhi announced that this “sort of thing would go on until the struggle was over.” “The Asiatic Agitation,” JS, August 4, 1908; CWMG 8:421; “Asiatics Again,” RDM, August 5, 1908; “Indian Question,” TL, August 5, 1908.
49. CWMG 8:479; “The Asiatic Problem: Another Phase,” JS, August 26, 1908.
50. Godfrey also represented some defendants. See, for example, “Heavy Sentences,” JS, October 13, 1908.
51. “Indian Problem: Volksrust Sentences,” JS, September 9, 1908. The Times of London did give some attention to Indian disobedience. See, for example, “Indians in the Transvaal: Active Resistance to the Law,” September 11, 1908; “Indians in the Transvaal,” October 5, 1908; and “Indians in the Transvaal,” October 15, 1908.
52. Thomas Weber addresses the Gandhian approach to conflict resolution (including its emphasis on self-suffering) in “Gandhian Philosophy, Conflict Resolution Theory and Practical Approaches to Negotiation,” Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 38, No. 4 (July 2001): 493–513. Weber correctly points out that there is some debate as to whether the dynamic I describe universally applies. The understanding I offer of the relationship among civil disobedience, self-suffering, and change is, in fact, not the only understanding of the dynamic. For an exploration of the relationship, including alternative views, see Pelton, The Psychology of Nonviolence (Elmsford, NY: Pergamon Press, 1974).
53. “The Asiatics: Volksrust Trials—Indians in the Dock; ‘Prepared to Suffer,’” TL, August 19, 1908.
54. CWMG 8:384.
55. Dawjee Amod had entered the colony without having registered. Gandhi pled Amod not guilty to being a prohibited immigrant, argued that he did not violate the immigration act, and cross-examined the government’s witness. Amod was found guilty.
Next, a group of nine was accused of the same crime as Amod. It appears Gandhi pled them all not guilty. He again argued that they were not in the colony unlawfully and conducted a second, identical cross-examination of the government’s witness. He added, perhaps by way of extenuation, that the accused had been advised
by him to enter the colony. All were found guilty.
Four Indians were then brought forward to also face charges of being prohibited immigrants. Gandhi pled them, too, not guilty and argued that they were qualified to enter as educated immigrants or as prewar residents. Gandhi himself testified that he had advised these defendants to enter the Transvaal and had assisted them in doing so. All were found guilty. “Cost of Defying the Law,” RDM, October 15, 1908; “Indian Problem,” JS, October 14, 1908; “Trial of Dawjee Amod and Others,” IO, October 17, 1908.
56. Gandhi had been admitted to practice as a barrister and was known as such during his brief practice periods in India. In Natal, his formal title was advocate and in the Transvaal, solicitor.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Epigraph, page 249: CWMG 10:70.
1. CWMG 10:229.
2. CWMG 9:107.
3. Gandhi made the case for suffering repeatedly during this period. For example, in July 1909, he says that he “can think of no course so wonderfully effective as voluntary suffering. . . . Suffering is bound to bring redress.” CWMG 9:312. Later, he states: “Every white who hears of our gaol-going is struck with admiration. Voluntary submission to suffering cannot but have a powerful effect.” CWMG 9:317.
4. Gandhi echoed this argument a short time later. See CWMG 9:188.
5. At about this same time, Gandhi was advising people to consult lawyers to vindicate their rights. CWMG 9:139.
6. “The Asiatic Side: Mr. Gandhi Interviewed,” RDM, January 22, 1909. Gandhi less than convincingly denied any attempt at coercion. See “Letter from Mr. Gandhi,” RDM, January 23, 1909.
7. “Passive Resistance?” RDM, January 22, 1909.
8. “The Asiatic Question,” JS, January 23, 1909.
9. “Indians and Their Licenses,” JS, January 26, 1909; “Law Reports,” RDM, January 27, 1909.
10. One other merchant proclaimed that he intended to follow Cachalia’s example (see “Indian Agitation,” JS, January 23, 1909; CWMG 9:166, 176), and there was talk of others. See “Indian Merchants: Forty to Surrender Their Estates,” RDM, January 26, 1909. There is no clear evidence, however, that anyone followed Cachalia’s example. (Gandhi later refers in Indian Opinion to “Mr. Rustomjee and Mr. Cachalia” as having “lost their all.” CWMG 10:175. It appears, however, that Rustomjee sacrificed his assets in a different form of resistance.)
M.K. Gandhi, Attorney at Law Page 41