by Robert Payne
Abdul Karim Jhaveri had offered him a first-class passage, but when he reached Bombay he learned that the ship was filled to capacity. At the last minute the Governor General of Mozambique and his entourage had booked passage, and there were no cabins available. Gandhi was in despair. He boarded the ship and talked with the chief officer, a genial man who liked company. He offered to let Gandhi share his cabin. The offer was accepted gratefully, the agent of Dada Abdulla Co. in Bombay was informed, passage money was sent to the chief officer, and Gandhi set out for South Africa in the unaccustomed comfort of a chief officer’s cabin.
The chief officer enjoyed playing chess, but being a novice he preferred to play with inexperienced players. Gandhi knew nothing about chess, and therefore admirably suited his purpose. Taught the moves, he succeeded in losing all the games, a fact that endeared him all the more to the chief officer, who rewarded him when they reached Zanzibar with an invitation to go ashore and see the town. The reward consisted of a visit to a brothel. Gandhi knew perfectly well where they were going, because they were being led down the dark and narrow streets of the Negro quarter by a tout Suddenly Gandhi found himself alone in a room with a Negro woman and recoiled in horror, standing by the door, refusing to advance an inch further, ashamed of himself. He waited in the prostitute’s room until he was rescued by the chief officer. What especially distressed him was that even when he knew he was entering a brothel, he lacked the courage to flee.
The ship remained in harbor for a week, and so he took rooms in Zanzibar, spent a good deal of time with the Indians and wandered through the town, admiring the enormous trees and the fruit, which were as large as melons. When they reached Durban, Dada Abdulla was on the quay waiting for him. Gandhi came down the gangway wearing an immaculate frock coat, a black turban, a black tie, starched shirt, and patent leather shoes. Under his shirt he wore a Vaishnava necklace of sacred tulasi beads, a gift from his mother and therefore the most precious of all his possessions.
Dada Abdulla, the merchant prince from Porbandar, was a heavy-set man with bright eyes and a thick beard. He had made many fortunes, owned many ships, and was engaged in business in the Transvaal as well as Natal. The Transvaal was a Boer republic, Natal was a British Crown Colony, but his agents were continually going back and forth. He was illiterate, down-to-earth, mild mannered, and a devout Muslim. He knew no Arabic, and spoke only Gujarati.
As Gandhi half expected, Dada Abdulla did not know what to do with him. Gandhi presented his documents, but they only showed that the people in Porbandar had acted on impulse without knowing what the real situation was; nor was Dada Abdulla impressed by the young lawyer’s immaculate frock coat and European airs. There was no work for him in Durban. The court case concerning his dispute with a distant relative would take place in Pretoria in the Transvaal, not in Durban, and what was the use of sending a young, untried lawyer so far away without proper supervision? It was a complicated case revolving around promissory notes; Gandhi would have to learn all the details, and no doubt this would take a long time; meanwhile Dada Abdulla already had his own lawyer in Pretoria, and in Durban his principal legal adviser was no less a person than the attorney general of the Crown Colony. Dada Abdulla asked himself what he was going to do with this white elephant.
He made some inquiries, talked with the young man, pondered whether he might be given some lowly position in his office, and on the second or third day, when he was attending court, he decided to take Gandhi along with him. In court he introduced Gandhi to some of his friends and took his place next to his attorney at the horseshoe, with Gandhi wearing his heavy black turban. The magistrate kept staring at Gandhi and finally ordered him to remove the turban. Since there were other Indians in the courtroom still wearing their headgear, Gandhi felt that he was being singled out unfairly. He answered that he had not the least intention of removing his turban and walked out of the courtroom.
Since he knew nothing about the customs in South African courtrooms, his defiance was dangerous and might have had serious consequences. In fact, it immediately brought him to the attention of the Indians in Durban, for he wrote a letter to the local newspaper explaining why he had acted in this manner. During the following days he learned from Dada Abdulla that the Indians in South Africa were divided into various classes, with the Muslim merchants at the top, the Parsi clerks immediately after them, and then came the Hindu clerks. Below these clerks were the undifferentiated masses of Hindu laborers, coolies, sweepers, and hawkers. They were known as samis, because so many of them were Tamils whose names ended in sami. As Gandhi realized ruefully, sami was derived from the Sanskrit swami, which means “master.”
Gandhi’s letter to the newspaper led to some heated correspondence, and in this way he learned that he was “an unwelcome visitor.” He had a serious discussion with Dada Abdulla about the advisability of abandoning his turban. Dada Abdulla said it looked well on his head, and he might just as well leave it there. Gandhi had been quite prepared to compromise by wearing a European hat.
Luck was with him from the first. He was attracting attention, Dada Abdulla was beginning to find some merit in him while still regarding him as a white elephant, and he was coming in contact with an increasingly large circle of Indian Christians. Suddenly Dada Abdulla was summoned to Pretoria to give evidence in the case. Since it was impossible for him to abandon his business interests in Durban, he decided to send Gandhi instead. Gandhi sensibly refused to go until he had mastered all the intricate details, concerning the promissory notes and learned something about accounting and book-keeping. In a few days, with the help of the clerks, he had a fair idea about the case and was ready to make the journey to Pretoria. Dada Abdulla had agents in most of the towns along the way, and they were ordered to give the young lawyer, now an important representative of Dada Abdulla’s interests, every possible assistance. He would be given first-class tickets and receive the protection of a powerful business organization.
In those days there was no direct railroad link between Durban and Pretoria. The train went to Charlestown near the Transvaal border, and it was then necessary to make a long journey by coach to Johannesburg before taking another train to Pretoria. Dada Abdulla came with him to the station. He explained that when the train reached Pietermaritzburg, the capital of Natal, seventy miles away, he would pay five shillings and receive his bedding. Gandhi said he did not need any bedding because he was bringing his own. “Don’t stint yourself,” Dada Abdulla said. The company could well afford the five shillings, and there was therefore no need for Gandhi to carry his own bedding. Gandhi liked to save money, his own and other people’s, and he paid no further attention to the problem of bedding.
At Pietermaritzburg a railroad servant entered the compartment and asked whether he wanted any bedding. Gandhi said he was already well-provided with rugs, and the servant went away. Then a European entered, looked him up and down, saw that he was dark-skinned, and went in search of the railroad officials who dealt with such cases. A few minutes later a man in uniform was ordering Gandhi into the van compartment. Gandhi explained that he had a first-class ticket.
“That doesn’t matter,” the official said. “You must go to the van compartment.”
Gandhi insisted on staying, the official insisted that he should leave at once, or else the police would be summoned. Gandhi said: “I refuse to get out voluntarily.”
The policeman came, took him by the hand, and pushed him out of the compartment. His luggage was tossed onto the station platform, but he was holding a small handbag which contained the documents in the case coming up for trial in Pretoria. He left the luggage on the platform and made his way to the dark, unlit waiting room. The train left, someone took charge of his heavy luggage, and he remained alone in the waiting room all night except for a solitary passenger who entered about midnight and probably wanted to talk. Gandhi was not in a talking mood. It was bitterly cold, and his coat was in his luggage.
He had never suffered such indig
nities before and he was determined never to suffer them again. He spent the night shivering in a comer and pondering the strange incident. He thought of going in search of his coat, but was afraid he would be insulted again. He thought of returning to Durban and abandoning South Africa for ever. But this would be a sign of weakness; he had duties to perform for Dada Abdulla; he also had another and more imperious duty—to root out the deep disease of color prejudice, if he could. In later years he would say that his political mission in life began on that night when he shivered in the waiting room at Pietermaritzburg.
When the morning came he sent a long, sharply worded telegram to the general manager of the railroad and another to Dada Abdulla, who ran to the general manager’s office and demanded an explanation. A telegram was sent from Durban to the Indian merchants in Pietermaritzburg begging them to assist Gandhi in every way. They came to the station and told him that there was nothing unusual in the indignities he had suffered; all Indians were subject to them. But Dada Abdulla had his own way of doing things, and when the night train arrived there was a special compartment reserved for Gandhi, who now decided to spend five shillings on his bed-ding.
Without any further discomfort Gandhi arrived in Charlestown.
Here the appalling tragicomedy began all over again. Dark-skinned passengers were not permitted inside the coach; they must sit outside on the coachbox. Gandhi did not protest, because he knew that if he did the coach would simply go on without him. At about three o’clock in the afternoon they reached the small town of Pardekop, where the heavy-set Dutchman in charge of the passengers decided to sit on the coachbox and enjoy the air. Throwing some dirty sackcloth on the footboard, he said: “Sammy, you sit on this. I want to sit near the driver.” Gandhi had suffered enough indignities. He was not prepared to sit at the feet of the Dutchman, and said so. The Dutchman boxed his ears, gripped him by the arm, and tried to push him down on the floorboard, cursing him and beating him unmercifully. The coach passengers were shouting: “Leave him alone!” The Dutchman went on cursing, but finally decided that there was nothing to be gained by forcing Gandhi down on the floorboard. There were three seats on the coachbox, and they had been occupied by Gandhi, the driver, and a wretched Hottentot servant. The Dutchman let go of Gandhi and ordered the Hottentot to sit on the sackcloth. The whistle blew, the passengers reentered the coach, and they drove off. From time to time the Dutchman would turn to Gandhi and say: “Wait till we reach Standerton, I’ll show you—”
Happily there were Indians at Standerton, and they had received a telegram from Dada Abdulla. He was well cared for, and spent the night with them. The next morning a larger coach took him to Johannesburg, he was allowed to sit inside with the other passengers, and the Dutchman had vanished.
At Johannesburg arrangements had been made to meet him, but for some reason Gandhi failed to recognize the man he was supposed to meet, and after waiting he took a cab and drove to the Grand National Hotel, where he was politely informed that the hotel was full. Then he drove to one of Dada Abdulla’s agents and was welcomed with open arms.
He was in a hurry to reach Pretoria, for too much time had already been wasted. He learned that first- and second-class tickets were never issued to Indians in the Transvaal, and he should therefore accept the fact that he would have to travel third class. Gandhi had by this time accumulated some experience of the South African railroads and was determined to travel first class, or make the thirty-seven-mile journey by cab. He took the precaution of sending a message to the station master and had no trouble getting a first-class ticket. He did have trouble on the train when a guard came into the compartment at Germiston and ordered him into third class. Gandhi showed his ticket. “That doesn’t matter,” the guard said. “Go to the third class.” A friendly Englishman intervened and Gandhi was left alone for the rest of the journey. At eight o’clock in the evening the train steamed into Pretoria Station. It was a Sunday, the streets were quiet, and there was no one to meet him.
A Negro helped him to find lodgings at Johnston’s Family Hotel, where no one disputed his right to sit down in the common dining-room, and the next morning he went in search of Dada Abdulla’s lawyer.
Mr. A. W. Baker, the lawyer, was one of those rich and hearty Christians who never for a moment doubted that he had been saved by the redeeming blood of Jesus. With his own money he had built a church in Pretoria where he preached regularly on Sundays and held prayer meetings every afternoon. At their first meeting he concluded that Gandhi was a likely convert to his own faith. As for the lawsuit, he explained that the best counsel had already been secured and Gandhi must consider himself merely a source of information. He was clearly more interested in Gandhi as a potential convert than as a lawyer.
Gandhi was inclined to regard Mr. Baker with some amusement. Mr. Baker was so very sure that God heard his prayers and was responsive to his needs. He was blessed and all Hindus were damned; and his attitude toward Gandhi was therefore one of pity mingled with the hope that he might one day find salvation. Several elderly spinsters and a Quaker, Michael Coates, together with some Plymouth Brethren, were introduced by Mr. Baker to Gandhi, who for the first time found himself among contending factions of Christians, all proclaiming that they had found true salvation. Michael Coates was especially persistent in attempting to convert Gandhi, who kept a religious diary in which he recorded his impressions of Christianity and his perplexities concerning the behavior of Christians. Once a week he would give the diary to Michael Coates, who read it carefully and returned it with his comments. They went for long walks together and were bound together in a common search for religious experience. The elderly spinsters, Miss Gabb and Miss Harris, entertained him with four o’clock tea every Sunday.
Michael Coates was young and opinionated, and believed that a man should abandon superstition as his first step toward God. His attention was directed toward the sacred tulasi beads which Gandhi wore round his neck. It was painful to him that his new-found friend should wear a necklace testifying to his Hindu faith.
“This superstition does not become you,” he said. “Come, let me break the necklace.”
“No, you will not. It is a sacred gift from my mother.”
“But do you believe in it?”
“I do not know its mysterious significance. I do not think I should come to harm if I did not wear it. But I cannot, without sufficient reason, give up a necklace that she put round my neck out of love and in the conviction that it would be conducive to my welfare.”
Gandhi was adamant; so was Michael Coates; and the victory went to the man with the stronger will-power. Gandhi promised however that when the necklace wore away with age, he would not replace it. In later years he would himself demand that his followers sacrifice something precious to them as a sign that they had renounced the pleasures of this world and were determined to devote themselves to the service of their fellow men.
Service, duty, God—these words were never far from Gandhi’s lips. He had ample leisure to pursue his inquiries, and with the help of Michael Coates he began to accumulate a small library of religious books which would help him to discover the true meaning of those words. He read about eighty books during that year, all of them concerned with religion. There was Sale’s translation of the Koran, various books by Edward Maitland and Anna Kingsford, and Tolstoy’s The Kingdom of God Is Within You, which profoundly moved him, so that he would say that all the other books which Michael Coates lent or gave to him paled into insignificance compared with this one. He also read Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zara-thustra, which appears to have left him unmoved.
But all these efforts to understand the Christian religion, the prayer meetings at Mr. Baker’s church, the interminable evening walks with Michael Coates, and the Sunday tea parties with Miss Gabb and Miss Harris, left him in a mood of disenchantment. What he searched for in Christianity was not there. In his doubt and perplexity he wrote a long letter to Shrimad Rajchandra, appealing to him for the answers to twent
y-seven questions, some concerned with Hinduism, others with Christianity. What is God? What is the soul? What is salvation? What is duty? Who wrote the Vedas and the Bhagavad Gita? What will finally happen to the world? Who were Brahma, Vishnu and Siva? Is there any merit to be gained by sacrificing animals to the gods? Can we obtain salvation through faith in Rama and Krishna? Can a man be reborn as an animal, a tree, a stone? Were all the Old Testament prophecies fulfilled in Christ, and was He an incarnation of God? If a snake were about to bite me, should I allow myself to be bitten or should I kill it?
The last question had a special significance to Gandhi, for they had already debated it at length. The truly perfect sunyasi must be devoid of fear, in total self-command of his own emotions. He must pass through life’s most dangerous passages in the certain belief that he is under God’s direct protection. It followed that if he encountered a lion in the forest, he would simply walk up to it, and if a snake attacked him he would pay no more attention than if a moth had lightly touched his hand. Shrimad Rajchandra replied sensibly: “The question is not what I would wish you to do, but what you would wish your choice to be. That choice will depend on the degree of your illumination and enlightenment.”
He was not so sensible when it came to answering the other questions. No doubt salvation could be obtained by the worship of Rama and Krishna, and no doubt the prophecies were fulfilled in Christ, but the prophecies and miracles recorded in the New Testament were insignificant when compared with the miraculous presence of God, who was pure intelligence and perfect power, capable of accomplishing whatever He wished. Since the universe was eternal, there was no merit in the question: “What will finally happen to the world?” Gandhi was in desperate need of certainties, and Shrimad Rajchandra’s replies, though evidently well in-tentioned and carefully thought out, did little to comfort him. Though he still believed that Shrimad Rajchandra was the closest of all his friends to being perfect, it was clear that he had not attained the absolute perfection that was necessary for salvation. Gandhi was left without any real answers to his questions.