by Robert Payne
Gandhi immediately guessed what had happened. He knocked at the door, but there was no reply. Then he began knocking so loudly that it seemed as though the walls must fall down. Finally the door was opened, and he saw the prostitute inside. He commanded her to leave the house at once and never return. Then he addressed himself to Sheikh Mehtab, saying: “From this moment I cease to have anything to do with you!” Sheikh Mehtab decided to bluster his way out of a difficult situation, and threatened to expose Gandhi, who turned to Vincent Lawrence and said: “Tell the police superintendent, with my compliments, that a person living in my house has misbehaved himself.” Sheikh Mehtab was a powerful man and threw himself on Vincent Lawrence. With difficulty Gandhi succeeded in separating them, and then Sheikh Mehtab said he was sorry and begged for forgiveness. Gandhi was not in a forgiving mood—the thought that prostitutes had been regularly coming to the house reduced him to fury—and he refused to forgive him. The cook turned on Gandhi and said: “I cannot stay in your house. You are too easily misled.” In this way Gandhi lost his cook and his oldest friend in a single day.
He decided later that he had lost very little, for the cook had little to commend him and Sheikh Mehtab had been an unwholesome influence on him from the beginning. But the bonds forged when they were schoolboys were not completely broken. From time to time Gandhi made inquiries about Sheikh Mehtab, who was employed by one of the Indian merchants. He learned that the young man was doing well and was even writing poetry in Urdu. Later he learned that Sheikh Mehtab had married, settled down to domesticity, and fathered a daughter. Later still he became a devoted Satyagrahi, and his wife and daughter were also Satyagrahis. By this time all his sins had been forgiven him.
Sins weighed heavily on Gandhi—the sins of the Europeans, the sins of the Indians—and sometimes he would sigh for some quiet community where everyone lived in austere innocence. One day in the spring of 1895 he found such a place in a Trappist settlement sixteen miles from Durban, and was so deeply impressed that when he founded his own community he consciously imitated it.
The Trappist settlement on Mariann Hill near Pine Town consisted of about one hundred and twenty brothers, sixty nuns, and about twelve hundred Zulus, including women and children. There were schools for the teaching of English and Zulu, and the Zulu boys were trained to be blacksmiths, tinsmiths, carpenters, shoemakers and tanners, while the girls were taught sewing, knitting and straw-hat making. They had a printing press and a flour mill worked by a waterfall. Nearly all the Trappists were Germans, but the few who were permitted to speak spoke English and did not attempt to teach German to their pupils, a fact which Gandhi regarded sympathetically, since it showed that the German brothers were not in the least nationalistic. He was impressed, too, by the strength of their devotional life. They rose at two o’clock in the morning, devoted four hours to prayer and contemplation, breakfasted at six on bread and coffee, dined at noon on soup, bread, and fruits, and supped at six in the evening. By seven or eight o’clock they were in bed. Gandhi, who wrote a long account of his visit to Mariann Hill for The Vegetarian, learned with pleasure that none of the brothers ate fish, fowl, or meat, and did not so much as boil a single egg, but he was distressed to learn that the nuns had meat four days a week, “because,’’ they said, “the sisters were more delicate than the brothers.” He was also disturbed because they drank milk.
But these were small errors, and he forgave them when he contemplated the massive achievement of an entire community of about fourteen hundred souls living in idyllic joy. No one drank alcohol, no one kept money for private use, no one left the community except to do business on the orders of the prior, no one read newspapers, and no one frowned. Everyone was smiling, and visitors were greeted with humble bows. There were no class distinctions. The Zulus ate the same food as the brothers, and they slept in the same kind of large halls. There were no tablecloths, the crockery was the cheapest available, and they drank from enamel mugs. Gandhi could not decide which he liked more—the spartan simplicity or the silence of the place.
He asked the prior why they kept the vow of silence and was told: “We are frail human beings. We do not know very often what we say. If we want to listen to the still small voice that is always speaking within us, it will not be heard if we continually speak.” All this pleased him and left him with a strange feeling of dissatisfaction with his own life, which was neither silent nor particularly spartan, for the house on the seafront had been well-furnished by Dada Abdulla and there were altogether five bedrooms, while the lounge resembled the lounge of any middle-class Victorian house with its heavy leather armchairs and comfortable sofa. He spent only a single day at Mariann Hill, but the brief visit left an ineradicable impression. In his own time, and in his own way, he would found a similar community.
In the spring of 1896 he decided to take a well-earned leave of absence. He had spent three years in South Africa, and the time had come to discover whether he still had roots in India and to arrange for his wife and children to join him in Durban. There was one other matter which was close to his heart: the battle for the Indians in South Africa needed the active support of Indians in India, and he wanted to sound out the opinions of the leaders of the Indian National Congress.
He sailed on June 5 on the S.S. Pongola, bound for Calcutta. It was an uneventful journey, though once more he found himself playing chess with the chief officer. He disputed theology with the captain, a member of the sect of Plymouth Brethren, to no great advantage, for the captain believed that he was free to sin, since he had been redeemed by Christ, a belief which Gandhi found untenable. In the intervals of playing chess and arguing with the captain, Gandhi found time to write a tract for the times. The title was The Grievances of the British Indians in South Africa, An Appeal to the Indian Public. Because it was published in a green cover, and because the title was so long, it came to be known as “the green book.”
He had no particular desire to go to Calcutta, where he knew no one; it was simply that the S.S. Pongola was the first available ship to India. So he took the train to Bombay, hoping to reach Rajkot, where his wife and two sons were living, as soon as possible. There were delays on the way, for he missed the train at Allahabad, and finding that he had a whole day to spare, he called on the editor of The Pioneer, an English-language newspaper. The meeting with the editor was a brief and exhilarating one—Gandhi spoke about his work in South Africa and the projected publication of his tract, and the editor offered to notice anything he wrote in the columns of the newspaper—but it was to have unfortunate consequences, for when in August the tract was finally published, The Pioneer gave it a brief notice, and on the basis of this short article Reuters cabled a three-line summary: “A pamphlet published in India declares that the Indians in Natal are robbed and assaulted, and treated like beasts, and are unable to obtain redress.” In fact “the green book” was a calm and reasoned statement of the Indian position, covering much the same ground covered in his Open Letter to the Legislative Assembly, and often using the same words. Gandhi finished writing “the green book” in Rajkot, and ten thousand copies were run off on a local press and distributed with help from schoolchildren, who wrapped and posted hundreds of copies. For their work they were rewarded with used stamps from Gandhi’s impressive collection; stamp-collecting had become a craze among the Rajkot schoolchildren.
It was a busy time, for Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee was about to take place, and as the only resident in Rajkot who knew all the words of God Save the Queen, he was busily employed in coaching the schoolchildren through the anthem. He was also in charge of tree planting to commemorate the Jubilee, and when plague broke out, he became a member of the plague committee which inspected houses and made every effort to improve the latrines. He discovered, as he half suspected, that the poorer houses had cleaner latrines than the rich ones.
There were flying visits to see important Indians who might be helpful to the cause of the Indians in South Africa. In Bombay he met Si
r Pherozeshah Mehta, a lawyer of great boldness and originality, revered by the Indians because he was dedicated to the nationalist cause. An abrupt, kindly, determined man, he liked to have everything well-prepared beforehand and detested half-measures. He offered to preside over a meeting in Bombay to be addressed by Gandhi. It was a princely offer, for his presence ensured that the hall would be filled to capacity and that Gandhi would immediately be regarded with sympathy by the audience. On the day before the meeting Gandhi called at his chambers.
“Is your speech ready, Gandhi?”
“No, sir. I am thinking of speaking extempore.”
“That will not do in Bombay. Reporting here is bad, and if we would benefit by this meeting, you should write out your speech, and it should be printed before daybreak tomorrow.”
It was a lesson Gandhi took to heart, though from time to time he continued to deliver extempore speeches, sometimes with disastrous results. The speech was ready by seven o’clock that evening. But when the time came to deliver it, he suffered from an overwhelming nervousness, which only increased when Sir Pherozeshah Mehta called upon him to speak louder. His voice dropped to a whisper. Someone took the pages out of his hands and read the remainder of the speech. This was his first important public speech in India, and though it was a success, for it was greeted with applause and Sir Pherozeshah Mehta pronounced that it was brilliantly composed, Gandhi’s nervousness in public very nearly brought about a disaster. In South Africa he was among intellectual inferiors. In Bombay he was among intellectual giants, and he was only too well aware that he had much to learn from them.
With Sir Pherozeshah’s assistance all the doors of India were now open to him. He went to Poona to see Bal Gangadhar Tilak, the Mahratta reformer, jurist and mathematician, and determined exponent of “direct action.” Tilak was a revolutionary, whose cry “Swaraj is my birthright, and I shall have it,” was heard all over India. He wore a red turban and habitually carried a rolled umbrella, and looked meek and gentle with his round mouth, small eyes and stubby nose. In fact, he was as hard as iron, and would be arrested a few months later for sedition. Gandhi fell under his spell, but he was even more attracted to Gopal Krishna Gokhale, a quieter and more ponderous scholar, less violent than Tilak, believing that freedom could be obtained by constitutional means, and like Gandhi a champion of Hindu-Muslim friendship. Gandhi regarded Sir Pherozeshah as the Himalayas, beyond one’s reach; Tilak was the ocean, vast and unmeasurable; Gokhale was the Ganges, familiar and dear to all Hindus, and one had only to set out in a boat to discover it, and it was not even necessary to find a boat, for one could walk into it.
Gokhale examined him like a schoolmaster eager to discover the extent of a schoolboy’s learning. He was charming and affable, anxious to put his pupil at ease, but there was the glint of steel. Finally he gave Gandhi his blessing, and Gandhi in turn gave Gokhale his undying loyalty. Of all the Indians he encountered, Gokhale had the greatest influence on him, not so much because of his intellectual eminence—there were Indians with far greater intellectual attainments—but because he possessed the wealth of experience which led Gandhi to compare him with the Ganges.
Gandhi went on to Madras and Calcutta, giving speeches and meeting Indian leaders. He was in Calcutta when he received a telegram from Dada Abdulla: “Parliament opens January. Return soon.” It was then the middle of November, and clearly if he was to be in South Africa by the beginning of January, he would have to make arrangements at once. A speech he was to deliver in Calcutta was abandoned, and he set out for Rajkot to collect his family, while Dada Abdulla made a reservation for him on the S.S. Courland, the newest ship in his fleet, which left Bombay on November 30, 1896, bound for Durban.
Since Kasturbai was about to become the mistress of the house at Beach Grove Villas, Gandhi came to the conclusion that she should be properly dressed. Obviously she could not wear European clothes, and just as obviously, since she was a Hindu, she could not wear the Muslim dress. He decided that she should wear the Parsi sari, while his two sons wore the Parsi coat and trousers. Parsis were then regarded as the most civilized people among the Indians, and their dress, being formal, well-cut and very distinctive, was regarded by the Europeans with admiration. The Hindu dhoti is always an untidy affair, while trousers at least possess a certain elegance. Forced into trousers, shoes and stockings, the two boys rebelled—the stockings soon stank, the shoes hurt their feet, and the trousers cramped their movements—but Gandhi never permitted rebellion in his own family. His authority over them was complete, and they boarded the ship in their new clothes, pretending to be comfortable. Kasturbai, who looked well in her Parsi sari, soon abandoned it, and in time the boys were permitted to go barefoot.
It should have been an uneventful voyage, but the S.S. Courland, 760 tons, with a cargo of general merchandise and 255 Indian passengers, was too small and ungainly a ship to be comfortable during the monsoon gales. When the storms struck, it bobbed about like a cork and reduced everyone except Gandhi to misery. He was always a good sailor, and he enjoyed storms at sea. Since he was the representative of the shipowner, he moved freely about the ship, ministering to the cabin-class passengers and the deck passengers alike. There were times when the ship seemed to be about to break apart, and at such moments the passengers would deliver themselves up to prayer and weeping, and only Gandhi and the ship’s captain seemed to believe that they would arrive safely in Durban.
But when they reached Durban, another storm awaited them. The Reuter’s telegram had offended the Europeans. Some hotheads under the command of Captain Harry Sparks, a butcher with a commission in the cavalry, had learned that Gandhi was on the ship, and they were determined to prevent Gandhi and the Indian passengers from landing. The Colonial Patriotic Union had been founded in November with a program based on expelling the Indians from Natal. By an unhappy coincidence another ship under charter to Dada Abdulla, the S.S. Naderi, steamed into Durban on the same day. According to Captain Harry Sparks the two ships carried eight hundred Indian passengers, all of them destined to invade the Durban labor market, and in addition there was a printing plant on board with fifty trained printers to carry out a sustained program of propaganda on behalf of Indian immigration. Captain Sparks offered to command a volunteer force which would prevent the Indians from landing.
There was no printing plant on board, and there were no printers; the total number of passengers on the two ships was less than five hundred, and by Gandhi’s count only sixty-two of them were able-bodied men who wanted to take up occupations in Natal, for the rest were women and children and men bound for other ports of call. But Captain Sparks was not concerned with the facts of the case, and he had useful allies. Even more troubling to the Indians was the knowledge that Bombay had been declared a plague port, and the Durban authorities could demand that the two ships stay out at sea until every last detail of the complex quarantine procedures had been complied with. The Natal government was sympathetic to the Colonial Patriotic Union, and Harry Escombe, who was Minister of Defense as well as attorney general, was no longer Gandhi’s friend.
At first five days’ quarantine was imposed, and when the port medical officer was about to give the ships a clean bill of health, he was suspended, a new medical officer took charge, and a further eleven days of quarantine were imposed. All old clothes had to be burned, all other clothes had to be washed and dipped in carbolic acid, and all the passengers had to bathe in weak solutions of the acid; all the holds and passenger quarters were fumigated and whitewashed. Water and provisions were running out, but signals to shore requesting them were unanswered. On December 28, ten days after they had dropped anchor in the outer harbor, water was put on board, and once more the ships were thoroughly fumigated with burning sulfur. All bedding, mats, and baskets, and everything else that might propagate disease, were thrown into the ships’ furnaces. So the days passed, and it was not until January 11 that the medical officer announced that all the provisions of the quarantine regulations
had been complied with. On the same day the captain of the Courland received a letter from Harry Sparks saying that any attempt to land the passengers would result in a dangerous conflict and it was therefore advisable that he should return at once to India, taking his passengers with him. It was his understanding that the Natal government was prepared to pay the expense.
There were more frustrating delays. On the afternoon of January 13, Harry Escombe and the port captain came on board to announce that the passengers were free to leave the ships under the protection of the Natal government. Harry Escombe was then rowed ashore. A vast crowd, summoned by Harry Sparks, was gathered along the wharf. The attorney general addressed them, saying that everything that could be done to prevent the Indians from landing had already been done, and nothing further could be done except by appropriate government action. He then pointed out that it was illegal to prevent the passengers from landing, and commanded them in the name of the Queen to disperse. Soon the crowd melted away, and the passengers began to disembark in small batches from ferryboats.
There remained the problem of bringing Gandhi to shore. It was suggested that he should leave the ship at night, stealthily, in disguise. He was in no mood for stealth. Mr. F. A. Laughton, one of Dada Abdulla’s legal advisers, offered to accompany him, and he accepted the offer. It was about five o’clock in the evening, and still bright. Gandhi landed without incident, but a few moments later, when Mr. Laughton was engaged in obtaining a ricksha, some boys recognized him and started shouting: “Gandhi, Gandhi!” A small crowd assembled. The ricksha boy took to his heels. Gandhi, who detested rickshas and had not wanted to ride in one, was secretly relieved. With Mr. Laughton he set out for the center of the town in the hope of reaching his office. Kasturbai and the two boys had already been spirited ashore, and they were on their way to the residence of Parsi Rustomji, a rich merchant and close friend of Gandhi.